Searching for the best sandwiches

Peruvian cuisine, particularly in Lima, has reached global fame. And rightly so. The high-end "fusion" of native crops, fish, seafood, exotic fruits/vegetables with the influences of African, Asian, Andean, and Amazonian result in fabulous dishes and meals.
But there's also something to be said for the more run-of-the-mill stuff, the everyday foods that are more affordable and more likely to make up the standard fare of your average Peruvian. There is the typical "Criolla" food, which features lots of rice, potatoes, beans, and meat.
And then there's the "sanguche" or sandwich.
The sandwich shows up in two major groups:
1. for breakfast. Forget danishes, baguette au beurre, or bagels. The standard breakfast here is a sandwich composed of white sliced bread, with the crusts cut off, filled with any number of savory or sweet fillings, generally featuring some degree of mayonnaise. It is either cut in half or fourths, along the diagonal for a triangular effect.
2. for lunch or dinner. This is a more serious offering, served on a big bun, often with french fries or sweetpotato chips. It involves some kind of meat, generally cooked on a wood fire grill with a tender, smokey flavor. Options generally include chicken, pork, or turkey. Or you can get the "chicharron" version which is fried (pork).  It is then served up with red onion, maybe a slice of sweetpotato, and some kind of sauce.

So, along with eating our way through the best that Lima has to offer in the way of gourmet food fare, we've also taken up the quest for the best sandwiches in the city. Luckily, there are lots of contenders.

There's El Peruanito. This is really your basic sandwich place, on the edge of Miraflores along a big avenue (Angamos). It is always busy and a welcome beacon even late at night after partying and dancing:

Then there's La Lucha, in Miraflores by Parque Kennedy. There's nearly always a long line, but well worth the wait. The chicken is especially juicy and the fries are fat and irresistable.

If you want the traditional pork chicharron sandwich, then Sarita's is the place to go. Though if you go on a sunny day, you won't be alone. It's in a beachside community, along the Panamericana Sur (km 43, Punta Hermosa). The fried fish and seafood are also great.

And then there's one of our all-around favorite restaurants, "73" in Barranco. This place rates high on our list for the quality to price ratio - in other words you get great food at a reasonable price. The fish and pasta dishes are particularly great - and the fresh tuna salad is one of Valerie's favorties. The french fries are big and cut square to bring out the most of the potato flavor. And the sandwich isn't bad either.

November trips

Work has taken us to various parts of the world this month.

First, Britt had a workshop in Mumbai:

Followed by meetings in Istanbul:

and then by a trip to Brasilia, Brazil for Valerie:

Jumping off a cliff in Lomos de Lucumo

Little known and underappreciated, Lomos de Lucumo is a real gem of a spot.

Located just south of Lima in the Lurin Valley, it includes a series of surprisingly green hills situated in the midst of the coastal desert. While most of the hills around Lima remain devoid of vegetation all year, resembling something you might see on the moon, the hills of Lomos de Lucumo are situated in such a way as to capture the moisture from the sea fog. The result is that they support low lying brush, which remains green or in bloom during the Lima winter (June-November).

There are two main hiking trails, a shorter 3-hour route and one that takes another hour or so. You can go with a guide or on your own.

We recently spent several hours hiking the trails on our own. We were lucky to catch the vegetation before it turns brown from the summer heat and sun. The hills were still quite green and full of birds and butterflies. They say you can also spot foxes and small rodents, though we didn't see any.

We did run into a group of military reservists doing their weekend training. This day, they were working on mountain rescue, which included rappelling down a cliff, among other things. They were looking for volunteers. So, being the wild Gwinners that we are, when they invited us to jump off a cliff with them, we naturally said, "yes."

 

Lots of vegetation and still plenty of green and flowers

 From the top you can see the Pacific and the Lurin River Valley

 It was more sunny than we expected, so we were glad to have brought along sunglasses and hats, but sorry to have forgotten the sunblock.

 This photo was taken by a very friendly couple, both communications and marketing students. As their final project they are working on building up the visibility and use of the Lomos de Lucumo as a destination for nature lovers, hikers, school students, and other lovers of the outdoors.

 The rescue squad was looking for volunteers to jump off the cliff. Here, Britt is getting set up with a rope harness.

 A few quick instructions on rappelling down

 This is the point where Britt realized the cliff was steeper than expected.

 Valerie got to wear the Hello Kitty helmet and white gloves. A nice feminine touch to the adventure.

 They don't seem to get many female volunteers. So they guys all joined in for the photo with Valerie when she reached the bottom of the cliff.

 The rescue brigade practicing on a sunny Sunday afternoon.

 Britt made pals with the volunteers, a very friendly bunch of guys, indeed.

 Later, as we continued the hike, we came across this young shepherd, who showed us some petroglyphs.

 Looking at the petroglyphs.

 At the end of the hike, the village.

And the the midst of it all, a peacock!

Halloween 2011

Well, it's been a very busy month, with work trips for Britt and a US trip for Addison and Valerie to visit colleges.
Plus, October is a busy season for social and cultural activities.
One of the bright spots each year is the annual Anglo-expat Halloween Party. It is a fundraisor for two good causes. Each year, the same family volunteers their (very large) garden for the party. And it is decked out with the traditional "tolda" (big party tent that is a requisite for any party here), along with an amazing assortment of Halloween decorations. There is a whole team of volunteers who pull this thing together, including one friend who had actually moved out of the country, but came back especially for this. The dancing and good company are always a treat. But the best part is seeing what kind of costumes people devise. There are lots of very creative and crazy solutions. Last night we had lots of batman/batwoman and one lovely catwoman. There were pirates, vampires, and witches of course, but also characters from Pride and Prejudice, Oliver Twist, and a guy in a "Borat" swimsuit (I kid you not) who took a plunge in the pool for full effect. There were lots of wigs, which is where we like to start, too.
This year we went for the retro hippie, Sargent Pepper look:

 With friends Rob and Martine. Rob won a prize for his

costume, which he created in collaboration with a local

seamstress.

more on food

Talk to anyone who's gone to or lived in Lima for any amount of time, and you'll inevitably hear about food. It's a major topic, point of pride, and one of the best things to enjoy here.
So, you'll have to bear with us if it seems this whole month's worth of blogs has been focused on topics having to do with food.

As noted in a previous update, September is the month for the annual Mistura food festival. It features food stands from gourmet restaurants, eateries with favorite local specialties, and a big food market. The market generally has one big featured product, but also has plenty of other famous Peruvian foods for sale from all the different regions of the country. This year's featured food was "fruits", so there were plenty of exotic ones from which to chose. Last year's featured food was the native potato, and since Valerie works in that area, her organization was very involved and got lots of play around that. This year, even though it wasn't the star food, the native potato was still very much present - along with a variety of lesser-known but equally interesting Native Andean roots and tubers, with names like maca, olluco, and mashua.

Many of the farmer groups who came to present their native potatoes or other roots/tubers work with Valerie's colleagues on any number of projects. So she can see some familiar names, and even faces, in the Mistura market crowd.

But the connection did not end with the close of the food festival. Some of the farmer groups that work with Valerie's organization had bags of products for sale leftover after Mistura. So, we joined with others in her organization to unload several bags of their wares. We were told that because these potatoes grow at altitudes of more than 4,000 meters, they acquire a particularly delicious taste. They certainly come in lovely colors and shapes and sizes.

Here is what they looked like when purchased:

 Both bags here have a mix of different varieties. The ones on the left are minis.

 Here is what the larger ones look like cleaned. You start to get a sense of the different colors.

 Inside, you also get a beautiful variety of colors and effects. These are the mini ones, shown with a fork to give you a sense of scale.  Cleaning them takes forever, but aren't they lovely?

Here is a pot full of minis.

If you talk to people who live in the mountains and have been raised on native potatoes, they will describe the flavors and differences between varieties much like a wine expert will describe different grapes and wines. They will talk about sweetness, softness, nutty taste, and delicate differences in texture. What's more, if you ask which they prefer, they'll show one or two and say something like, "well, of course, this one has such a better flavor, there's no comparison".

We are trying to develop a more sophisticated potato palate.
But for now,  the most we can report is that they all taste delicious.

Mistura 2011

Lima holds an annual food festival called Mistura.
It lasts for about 10 days and draws tens of thousands of people.
There are representatives from gourmet restaurants all over Peru, along with specialty food stands, and a big market place filled with foods from the different regions of the country.
The crowd is thick, but also a lot of fun. You see all kinds of people, old and young, fashion slaves and people in traditional costumes. It's a great celebration of food, of Peru, and of what brings many Peruvians (and we non-Peruvians) together.
Today, the sun came out and we headed into the thick of it to join in the celebration.