Thanksgiving a la Criolla

Hello friends and loved ones! I meant to post this on Thursday so I could wish you all a happy Thanksgiving, but by the time we finished cooking, our guests were sitting at our table; by the time we finished eating, it was well after midnight and I was, as they say here, full. Yesterday I spent the day in Ventanilla for a conference call with some Romanians and THEN a surprise party with all of the workshop participants from Jovenes de Buena Voluntad! They are so great.

So, I send you Thanksgiving love a few days late. I hope your turkeys/turduckens/tofurkens/pasta salads were delicious. I love

you all. AND special Thanksgiving love goes to Leah, Jeff, and their baby boy!!! I don't actually know if they read this blog, but I am excited for them nonetheless. Now I'm waiting for news from Jessica and Todd... Hillson/Krause/Hanley family, let me know!

So Rachel and I decided that it would be a good idea to plan and cook a Thanksgiving meal for a bunch of our Peruvian friends. The only challenge: we've never actually made a turkey, or cooked a whole holiday meal on our own, and also there are no cranberries in Peru as far as we can tell. In light of such challenges, we decided to throw THANKSGIVING A LA CRIOLLA, taking all of the flavors of Thanksgiving and approximating them with Peruvian foods.

Our menu?

• "Pavo" a la brasa (good thing there's a rotisserie turkey place on our block)
• Relleno de pastel de choclo, vegetables, and aji amarillo (corn bread and hot pepper stuffing)
• Mango/Limon Chutney and Mango Salsa-- we were aiming for sweet&tart like cranberries. It kind of worked.
• Pure de papas nativas (mashed potatoes) & vegetarian gravy
• Ensalada de espinaca
• Guacamole de puta madre (a staple at all parties) ("de puta madre" is slang for crazygood, but one shouldn't say it to the older ladies at Spanish mass)
• Pie de camote y coco-- definitely the star of the show. Our friends Leidy and Betty made this sweet potato and coconut pie; it came out tasting like pumpkin pie, but better. Much, much better. Full disclosure: we stole the recipe from the Times, and you can make it, too.

Pictures below...

Here is my mango/limon chutney... really easy to make; just combine a cup of sugar and a cup of white vinegar and bring to boil, then add mango, golden raisins, garlic, lime zest, and lime juice and let simmer for about 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. WHAM.

Betty and Leidy, working on the Pie de Camote

Rach, with her stuffing made of pastel de choclo (pretty much corn bread), veggies, a chicken heart or two that we may have bought for about 68 cents, and aji amarillo.

Mmmmm... pie de camote in the center of the table

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Back in the U.S.S.A.

Hello, world! GA is back from her journeys, SIM card full to bursting.

Today I'll post some pictures from the trip to California for Erin's graduation; sometime this weekend, I'll add some from Lauren and Emily's visit and our subsequent trip to Cuzco and Machu Picchu.

But first, congratulations to my little sister! Erin has officially become a Bachelor of Arts in Neuroscience. Way to go, buddy. Congrats, too, to Litza, Peter, Shruti, Mallory, Leslie, and the Moose, who reminded me several nights in a row what it means to party like a college student. Good job, guys. (Now go get a job. May I suggest a career in oil spill clean up?)

So. I spent the days in Claremont trying to eat as much American food as possible, specifically coffee from the Motley's new brew bar and burritos at Patty's. (Also pizza and curry. Yum.) That was delightful. Then Erin and I combed through the detritus left by outgoing Scripps students, collecting enough food to last us for a week. If we'd had more room in the car, we could have taken enough to last the whole summer, no problem. I even found a half-full bottle of Jack Daniel's in the recycling bin. Did I drink it, you ask? Is my name Megan Hanley?, I answer.

Then we hit the road in our mumus for the most good-looking Road Trip you can imagine, with stops in no less than THREE national parks in one week:

Sequoia,

Yosemite,

and Redwood National Park, where there be elk, which are dangerous, so you should not stop on the side of the road to photograph them.

It was all really, really good-looking.

But watch out, all ye Great American Campers-- these parks are full of OSOS (bears... shhh, say it quietly, so Erin doesn't hear, freak out, and start wrestling the furriest thing in sight):

Consider yourself warned.

The bear-free part of the road trip was great, too. We ran into some wonderful buddies in Fish Camp and Oakland and Tillamook; I nearly froze to death, first in Yosemite and then in a

swamp; and we had a couple of great meals and a few epic fails.

Finally we met up with our parents and a Stanford Alumnae convention for two beautiful days on the Oregon Coast, and then I hopped on a couple of planes and jetted back to Lima...

This One Goes Out to All the Catholics Out There

I know that some of you dutifully spent Sunday Mass tearing your tiny little strips of palm leaves into even tinier strips and making a series of identical crosses. To you I say: Your palm-leaf creations are WEAK. Check it:


Yes, folks, it's Semana Santa in Peru, which means that the museums are free, the churches are open to the public, and las Gringas Altas shift into high Religious Touristry mode. I bought my own palm leaf art work from a nice lady outside the local church, which features a gold Barroque altar, and she let me take a picture of her work.

On Friday, Rachel's parents arrive, and we all hop in a bus and take an overnight ride to Ayacucho, where they have the biggest Semana Santa celebration in the country. It promises to be both claustrophic and exciting. The Saturday Night Vigil is supposed to be an all-night party, complete with fireworks at midnight. Take heed, all ye North American churches: if you blow things up, they will come.