Watch: Shopping and Cooking in New York's Little Argentina

Leonard Lopate's annual food series, Lopate and Locavores, returned to The Greene Space at WNYC this fall with an eye on international cuisine, inviting renowned experts to share authentic dishes from their home countries live on our stage. 

But one of the best ways to learn someone's native cuisine is to actually step into their kitchen. So for this Locavores web extra, we teamed up with The League of Kitchens, a New York City-based, cross-cultural cooking school taught in the home kitchens of immigrant cooks.

Mirta Rinaldi is one of those instructors. Born to an Argentinian mother and Italian father in Mendoza, Argentina, she learned about food and the importance of sharing it with good company from her grandmother — a cook for a local family-owned hotel. She moved to New York in 1975, bringing her love of Argentinian cooking and folk art with her. Now she regularly holds classes in her Queens kitchen, sharing authentic recipes and cooking tips with her students. (Hint: If you like your steak rare, cook until its tenderness replicates the soft part of your own cheek.)

Rinaldi gave us a shopping tour in Queens' "Little Argentina" and shared her recipe for authentic Argentinian short ribs and chimichurri sauce.