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 . . .