Quinoa . . .

Let's talk about Quinoa for a bit. Some of you may have seen the recent nytimes article on the yummy grain that included a basic recipe for how to cook it. I only discovered quinoa at trader joe's about a year ago, but recently, on the streets of Lima I found out that it's much, much more than a side dish.

I've started getting a morning cup of quinoa right outside the hospital on my way into work every morning. After my hour-long commute, it is a sweet, hot, fragrant way to restart my brain before getting pimped (that's medical for "socratic method questioning") in spanish, which I admit still exhausts me. A cup of the stuff costs me 60 centimos (20 US cents) and if i get a pancito (small sandwich with filling choices such as salted avocado - yum!, fresh cheese, or omelet), that's an extra 70 centimos, for a whopping total of S/1.30 (about 40 cents). It's no wonder I was told that if I didn't gain weight in Peru, I wasn't doing it right.

Pictured is my local quinoa stand - right in front of the park outside Hospital Nacional Dos de Mayo. Bad part of town, lovely park. Those brown jugs are full of quinoa. Right next to this stand are other food vendors, shoe shiners, a place to get weighed for 20 centimos, and stands that sell toilet paper, crackers, pajamas, and whatever else you might need for ailing relatives. Especially in better parts of town, people tend to have full-on carts with shelves and burners and stuff, but the goods are the same everywhere. They include soya (homemade soy milk), emoliente (some sort of green herbal drink, haven't had the courage to try it yet), and those aforementioned yummy sandwiches. N.B. for you germ freaks out there, they don't actually touch the bread with their hands.

If you get these hot drinks "to go" then they pour it into a small plastic bag and tie it shut. You are supposed to bite a little hole into the bag and drink it. I learned the hard way on the Amazon trip that it's a little hard to maneuver and really HOT if it spills all over your lap.

So today, I asked the guy how exactly you make quinoa (the drink), because my google searches to that effect failed miserably. He turned to his mom, and asked her. Told her I was trying to steal her secrets. Mom didn't seem to fazed, probably figured that it would be tough for me to replicate even with the secret recipe. So, from what I understand, here's the recipe:

Quinoa:
Bring a small amount of quinoa (not more than 3 handfuls) to a boil in water with sugar and cinnamon. Wait until quinoa is ready (little white strings showing). Add fresh apples and pinneaple, add peach juice (mystery proportions), continue to heat until hot. There was some word I didn't understand used to describe the apples and pinneaple, I think it meant something like macerated. The end result should have a quinoa floating in the drink as a minority member, and the drink should taste spiced / mulled, with a distinct apple/peach kick. If you want to be really peruvian about it, you can add some condensed milk (the sweet kind) as you serve it, to really sweeten it up.

If you have improvements to this recipe, or if you know a better version, please let me know! If you want a more scientific recipe (boring!), check out "lemon-scented quinoa" , "buttternut squash, turnip, and green-beean quinoa"and other yummy recipes from Gourmet. Or better yet, come visit and a morning cup of quinoa is on me . . .

Peru hockey

Finally acting on the suggestion of my Minutemen teammates, about a month ago I googled field hockey in Peru and found a club team. Luckily for me, the team I found, Lima Cricket, is not only the best in the league but was also in need of a player. How great is that?!?

So I started playing indoor hockey last weekend and so far we've won both our games, and I'm improving as I adapt to indoor rules and have mostly stopped hitting the ball (only in outdoors allowed to hit it, in indoor we push very hard). Even managed to score a goal yesterday.

When I got to the game yesterday, my team was all abuzz. Seems that the Panamerican championships are coming up in a couple of weeks in Argentina. Not only are the other 5 girls on my team on the Peruvian National Team, but they are all on the front page of the national paper, El Comercio! And there was a giant spread on the hockey teams in the weekly newsmagazine, Somos, that El Comercio puts out (the rightmost 4 girls on the bottom row are on my team; the middle row, leftmost blonde is our goalie). And a video on their site with the newspaper article.

Seems that the government hasn't disbursed the promised funds to the hockey federation, so they may not be able to go. Their case (men's team too) made the paper and they are trying to boost fundraising also by having a big party at Sargento Pimienta on Wednesday (yes, that does mean Sargeant Pepper's - it's a big nightclub a few blocks from our place). And their picture in the paper says they are selling kisses . . . well they are damn cute so hopefully they will get to go!

And Robie, another american-working-for-Bob, tells me that if i get my paperwork straight I may be able to play for the Peruvian team for the next tourney, if I am selected. He just travelled south america for the Rubgy team. Now I've just got to practice . . .

Photo: the Peruvian women's hockey team, at Colegio Markham, where most of our indoor matches are held.

As an aside, there was apparently an earthquake just as I arrived at Colegio Markham for the match on Saturday, and it apparently was not that mild. I only noticed the doorbell clicker wiggling. The guards were all excited as they let me in, and went to tour the grounds to make sure there was no damage (none). I must be impervious, because Doug ran downstairs to get out of the apartment and Colin's noticed a bunch of earthquakes. What's wrong with me?




This last one is a match with my Lima Cricket teammates in green. In the foreground is Jimena and in the background her sister, Claudia.

Halloweeeeeen?

The peruvians seemed to have adopted Halloween, but something has been lost in translation.

I was walking around Av. Larco in Miraflores, a busy, commercial part of Lima. Lots of families were out, with most kids under the age of 7 or so in costume. All of the costumes were commercial, none homemade. Most of the kids who were in costume were actually under the age of 2. The kids would go into shops (like shoe shops, clothing shops) and ask for candy. Except that instead of "trick or treeeat" they said "halloweeeeen" in the same plaintive voice. rather amusing, actually.

Later on we went to a combination birthday/ Halloween party at Gringo House. Which comically enough our friends Ximena and Mariana assumed was our apartment but is actually the apartment run by Prisma where most of Bob's US employees seem to live in for some period of time.

The gringos tended towards witty costumes and the peruvians towards traditional characters. Perhaps this is a reflection of Hollywood Halloweens, where nurses, pirates, and fairies are the norm over actual American grown-up Halloween, which trends towards witty. There were a variety of peruvian-themed costumes from the gringos. I was a cobradora (the guy on the bus who collects fares). Peruvians didn't get it till I repeated their monotone sayings "Pasajes, pasajes . . . baja, baja" which are immediately recognizable to all who have taken carros here. I found the company of two other cobradoras at the party, as well. Rathika was Doña Pepa, a character from a popular sweet here.

It was a good night, all in all, though I heard there was a rather American frat-style cleanup to be done the next day.