how do i buy peas?

tonight i'm planning to have my buenos aires girl friends over. the plan is to drink some wine and make some gourmet empanadas together. i bought all the ingredients, they'll bring the wine and we'll figure out how to make empanadas together .

it seems like every restaurant in B.A. has the same ol' empanadas, so i sought out some unique recipes such as: Chicken & apple, Mango and black bean, Vegetable Curry and Crab

I made the grocery list and it was much much harder than I thought it would be. i merged all four recipe ingredients into 2 lists (grocery and produce stand). I also did a couple translations (what is 'creme fraiches' in spanish) and then did all the conversions before i went to the store. i'm in a world where pounds, cups, ounces don't exist.

not a big deal right? wrong. so do i calculate the 2 cups of cream i need into centiliters or milliliters? for the 2 cups of frozen peas i need, do i calculate them into grams, kilos, pea count?

late last night i went to the grocery store. i found that peas were sold in grams, didn't find 'creme fraiches' but just bought cream??? i'm hoping it's the same.

I got to the check out line around 10:30pm. since i had quite a bit of food i asked for delivery.

the cashier separated my food into piles (freezer, frig, other) He filled out a slip with my name, phone number, address. Then he wrote the number of the crate where he put my food and the number of the crate with the freezer stuff. he gave me the receipt for the food and the delivery order. he said the next day it would be delivered between 10-12.

11:30 this morning my food was delivered. the delivery guy even came in and put my food on the elevator.

then i had to head back out to find black beans, crab, cheddar cheese, a mango, and cilantro (not common things here). No black beans...nada. so I bought 'refried beans' which are on the international shelf and a little pricey. found a mango (4 other produce places didn't have any), no blocks of cheddar cheese, but i found something that resembled velveeta and had cheddar taste written on it and nobody had cilantro. I'll go back out later and find some dried cilantro.

So, after 3 grocery stores, 5 produce stands and one fish market (for some pricey crab) I think I have everything I need.

By the way....

professional tip #12
blame it on the client:
i was suppose to have a conference call simulation with my student today. he told me he would call me at 11:05am, because he would just be finishing up class with my boss. 11:30 rolls around and no call. i text my boss: "will the student be calling me? i have an appointment at 1pm". she calls back and says that he needs to cancel because he needs to catch a flight. I tell her, "I wish you would have called me, I've been waiting". She ignored the comment so I rephrased it to which she replied "talk to *Javier about it" (*not his real name)... he was sitting next to her! (she didn't pass the phone to him, rather she just passed the blame to him). if i were her manager i would give her a development plan where some accountability training would be first priority with organization skills in a near second place.