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!

Produce Bragging Rights

I purchased this incredible bounty for less than $7 USD.

The mango was out of season and could have been sweeter, but then again,

you can't have everything.

Two Things I Love, One Thing I Hate

Helloooooo friends. Things here are busy-- I'm working on a few performance projects and on a reproductive rights workshop series with teenagers. I'm also gearing up for the next month, which is going to be pretty kick-ass: two weeks of backpacking in Arequipa and Puno with Sophie, one week training intensively with Yuyachkani, and one week in Colombia for Rebecca's wedding. What a life I have.

So, short and sweet updates are in order. Here I give you:

TWO THINGS I LOVE ABOUT LIFE HERE IN LIMA, AND ONE THING I HATE

One thing I love about life here in Lima: grocery shopping.

Rach and I take turns going to our local market, where the World Cup is usually blasting from several stalls (can't believe I'm rooting for Espana) and where my favorite fruit stand lady gives me free samples of everything, which is probably not good for my digestive system, but it is oh so delicious. If you are in North America right now and feeling pretty smug about your summer fruits, I pity you. Your fruit is weak and limited in scope. Here I can choose between at least nine varieties of banana! Here I can eat grenadilla (grenadine, maybe? I don't even know if it exists up north) or granada (pomegranate) or maracuya (passion fruit)! Oh, it is so succulent!

Then I go to the vegetable stand guy, who fills my enormous canvas bag to the brim with vegetables and charges me a seemingly-arbitrary price that usually is less that $5 USD. From him I buy cilantro and tomatoes and onions and carrots and beets and peppers and squash and, best of all, potatoes:

One thing I hate about life here in Lima: telephone norms.

We don't have an answering machine on our home phone here. So, you know, if someone calls the house and no one picks up, the phone can keep ringing indefinitely. Unfortunately, everyone in Peru seems to interpret "no one's picking up the phone" not as "eh, guess they aren't home," but as "they're just too lazy to come to the phone," and so they hang up and call again. And again. And again.

... Of course, since I am actually just too lazy to come to the phone, and since the call is almost always for one of my roommates who isn't home, and since no one ever seems to want to leave a message but instead just says, "Oh, well, if he's not home, I guess I'll just call his cell phone," this makes me crazy.

Another thing I love about life here in Lima: Camote.

Camote is Malato's roommate and is staying with us while their owner is travelling. He is, if possible, even more unfortunate than Malato: he has a chronic skin disease (possibly cancer) that causes him to bleed, constantly. Yesterday I caught him rolling around on my pajamas, on my bed, bleeding profusely. (My bedroom door will henceforth remain closed.)

But. He is so precious, and I love him.