Weekend Adventures I

I've been having so much fun during the weekends here at home during the summer.  I have been doing a lot of doing events with my parents, it helps that they have money dinero than I...

The first fun event was a TAPAS wine event.  It has not much to do with tapas food, but rather with tapas drink.  TAPAS stands for something like the Tempranillo something something something.  An association of California Winemakers who make Iberian wines.  We sipped our way around tons of tempranillo, some ports, verdejos, albariños and some others.  The event was held at Fort Mason in SF and drew a HUGE crowd.  There were mostly young people, but there were also middle aged people and quite a few senior citizens.  One particularly zealous lady kept pushing in with her walker/seat and having wine poured into her special aerating device.

The wines were, on a whole, not that great.  The verdejos were watery, the tempranillos rough, and the albariños lacked the characteristic light lift. It was also annoying that a lot of the wineries didn't have the actual wine makers there, so you couldn't ask them about their wine.  Some of the volunteers didn't even know what exactly they were serving. :(  It was fun people watching and cool to see how many wineries there are in CA say they make tempranillo.

Self shot with the Iphone...

Perhaps one of the best parts of the day was heading outside after the event.  It was a gorgeous day with sun and clear views across the bay.  Fort Mason has an exhibit of chairs made from random old boat stuff and a moveable sea pillar!!!

Sea pillars!

You press a button and one of the pillars rises up from the bay!  and then there are signs on the fence that tell you what you can see at each level of the pillar from the deepest to the part that gets covered and uncovered by the tide.  It was really cool and informative!  It stays up long enough so that you actually have time to see and examine and learn about it....I wonder if its bad for the sea life that is on there....

Food shock!!

Over the past month that I have been home, I have eaten Peruvian, Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, tons of Mexican food, Thai, Vegan, California Fresh, Italian, seafood, Spanish, Indian, Chicago pizza and Middle Eastern.

I love the variety of food I can get here in the Bay Area.  The ability to either go eat good, authentic food from such a variety of cultures, OR being able to buy the ingredients to make these different food items is amazing.  I've returned to my usual problem of having too many options.  When my Mom asks me where I want to eat and she starts listing off tons of places, there are just too many, so I usually let her decide.  As much as I really like Peruvian food, the usual options for eating were Peruvian, Peruvian Chinese, or sandwiches and salads.  All tasty, but not the same as being home.

Apart from getting over the wealth of food options, another thing I'm trying to figure out is bread.  There is so much bread here.  In my family especially.  We grew up with bread and I'd forgotten how much I love it.  I could eat different varieties of bread all day long without anything else.  In Peru, bread was bought for sandwiches for Carlos, and for making aji de gallina.  We would eat it at his mom's house for tea, but not much more than that.  Arriving home to find biscuits and muffins and quick breads and cookies (I consider this like bread), and SOURDOUGH bread (my personal fav), and thick wheat bread, and garlic bread, and cheese bread and, the list just goes on and on, is kinda killer.  I guess maybe instead of being too breaded out, its being too carb'd out.

I hate to admit it, but I am too carb'd out here.  I never thought I would be shocked by things found at my house.  Its time to ease back into the bread.  Gotta work out more to eat more carbs.  YUM

Another food shocker, is the variety of fresh stuff I can get here. I know that this is rather particular to California and the west coast..but its part of why we're the best coast! :-D

The stone fruit season is opening and thinking about the last time I had a stone fruit (fresh), I cannot remember.  I think it was for Carlos' birthday in 2010.  and now,  I just had one in 2012!!  I cannot believe I went for two years without eating a fresh stone fruit.  On the other hand.  The tropical fruit selection is disastrous.  I have tried getting mangos (they come from Mexico) and they are not yummy!  And I will not be having fresh passionfruit juice until....I go back to Peru, or take a trip to Hawaii :(  Why can't there be a place that has ALL of this wondrous fruit available???  and have it be good?

Its a double edged sword, having all this freshness around.  The last weekend when I went to the farmer's market, I was quite overwhelmed by all the options, but maybe by all the people as well.  All the people going for all the fresh food.

I guess for someone who likes food as much as I do, it shouldn't be a shocker that the change in edibles is shocking.  I always expect to find food  interesting when I go into foreign countries, I always forget that living away from home for a while makes me susceptible to reverse culture shock, including food.  I think the cure is just to keep eating.

This weekend, we went to "the bitch"

Real life photo of our weekend at the bitch

Sorry, making fun of how almost every Spanish speaking person refers to the "beach".  It is a hard word to say, but the difference is very important...anyway, the point is, we went to the beach!!

We didn't just drive an hour to get to this beach like you go to get to Punta Hermosa, we took 1hour 20 min plane ride and a 3 hour taxi ride to get to it.  We went to Mancora!  Which is a beach on the northern coast of Peru about an hour or so from the Ecuadorian border.

We treated it as a postponed honeymoon, and it was amazing.   We paid for plane tickets and were lucky enough to stay in Carlos' uncle's beach house which is right on the beach.  Those chairs you see above are what is right in front of the house.  Tropical beach paradise.

Advertising and free welcome drink!

When we arrived to Piura, a city that is cheaper to get to than the actual closer city to the beach, they greet you at the airport with a free mini drink, Algarrobina (made from algarroba, or what is similar to carob) and free advertising to keep you cool in the form of a fan.  Awesome.  The drink was the best of its sort that I have had here, probably because most of the algarroba in Peru comes from Piura...

The airport is the size of a house, and you can see the front from the back.  As soon as you exit the airport you have taxi drivers hounding you for your business.  We had some follow us all the way across the (short) parking lot and out onto the street trying to get up to pay 250 soles for the trip to Mancora.  We finally managed to get two other kids who were also going to Mancora to split a taxi with us which brought the cost down a lot.  We ended up with probably one of the worst drivers.  He didn't work the accelorater well, would veer into the other lane, and attacked the curves at full speed only to lurch to a snails pace as soon as he realized it was a curve.  It also took him 3 hours to make a 150km trip, on a highway where you can average about 100km.

When we arrived to Mancora, Mancora, we had to switch from the nicely paved New Highway to the old Highway which is the equivalent of  a dirt road.  I hope that this old highway didn't run unpaved all the way down to Lima...even in a new car it felt you you were riding in a wagon on a well rutted road. We finally arrived at the house and got to stretch out our bums and the caretaker of the house met us and showed us around.  If i had a beach house, I would want it to look similar.  It had huge windows the looked out onto the ocean and wood and tiled floors and white cloth sofas.  It was beautiful.  We hit the sac and work up the next day on the shores of the pacific.

We spent 2.5 days eating seafood, hanging out on the beach, playing in the pool, and watching tv.  Amazing.  The beach that we at is called Pocitas, which literally means, Little Wells.  This is because in between low and high tides, the rocks cause the water to collect in little pools that you can sit and play in.  The temperature of the water is probably around 80 normally and in the pools it probably reaches about 85 with the sun.  The beach also has loads of marine life.  We saw tons of fish, pelicans, birds, crabs, and mollusks around.  Because we had technically entered down season, most of the beach was deserted and Carlos said it felt like we were on a deserted island.

the lower deck from the upper deck

the pool and the view to the upper deck

hanging out by the pool

riding a mototaxi!  great for towns, horrible for cities

ahhh the view......

getting ready to eat a pacay, or ice cream bean

playing ball with the pacay and...some other fruit

ta-daaaa alien fruit! bean thing

You eat the white stuff on the outside and throw out the bean.  It feels like wet cotton and is just sweet

later in the day these bits of water will fill more an become little pools

the beach...probably around 4km of beach like this

before we got sunburned

Sunday funday

Entrance to the Real Felipe 

Two Sundays ago Carlos and I went to the Real Felipe.  It's ALL the way across town and technically in a different department all together.   We went from the department of Lima to the department of Callao.  The Real Felipe was an old Spanish fort on the coast.  It's really quite huge and it is said that it is the largest complex/building that the Spanish constructed outside of Spain.  Its in the shape of a pentagon and hag hugely thick walls and crazy maze-like towers.  The Real Felipe was built to protect the Spanish from invasions, but what it is famous for is Peruvian Independence from the Spanish.  Yup, the Peruvians used the Spaniards own fortress to take over Lima and win Peru back.

Google Image of the Real Felipe's shape

It was cool to see the fortress and they had several rooms with old uniforms and maps and things documenting the war for independence.  You got to put a face and a place to all the names of the streets that you hear in Peru as most of them come from the Independence.  It is interesting that all of the people who fought for Peru, probably came from Spanish stock, and all of them were caucasian.

Outside there is a "tank park" and a "cannon park"  where they had old tanks and cannons that you could look at and not touch.  In one of the rooms that we were taken to on the tour, Carlos took me to a certain case where all of the Army's highest decorations were held and said that his grandfather won all of them.   Every single one.  The awards are at his mom's house along with the swords that Carlos and his brother played with as little boys.  Carlos was so excited at seeing something in a museum that he has in his house.  That would be pretty cool.

Gun Park

The actual tour was kinda funny because the guide in a soldier, who has no public speaking/people herding skills and only speaks Spanish.  There was a group of American exchange students (the highly talkative, and annoying kind) and 2 groups of French speakers, who I don't think understood a single thing.  Too bad they make you pay for a tour you cannot understand.  Good thing it is cheap. Only 12 soles, but I go in under the "Peruvian" price of 6 soles.  yay.

We were dying of heat and hunger by the time we left the Real Felipe so we headed back towards home and stopped at a FOOD FAIR!!  I had seen them setting up when we drove out to the Real Felipe, and convinced Carlos to stop on the way back for lunch.  Really, if there is food involved, he doesn't need much convincing.  The fair was in a part of town that I had never been to before (San Miguel) and was set up kinda on an island in the middle of a major street.  Yay Peru.  They had all of the usual foods plus ribs and food from the jungle.  The ladies making the jungle food had little cups full of suri, fat worms that they eat in the jungle. We decided against trying them, or rather I did.  I was not in the mood for trying very traditional foods.  We chose ribs with Peruvian style lima beans and causa with a huge avocado on the side.  It was most certainly a Sunday Funday.

Food fair!!

"and its happy to see you!"

Nut as difficult as you think

Honey Roasted Almonds!

This is outside of my usual vein of posting.  Although I make a lot of things, I don't usually post the results, but I was very impressed with myself with this one and today was a day that I feel like I needed to document this creativity.

When I was home in January, my parents gave me a lot of raw almond that we saved from my grandmother's place.  I have had bad luck in the past with trying to roast and salt them, and I have a lot of honey that I bought at the farmer's market in Miraflores.  I have to use it up before I return to the states for good.

I have recently come to enjoy honey roasted nuts.  Back when Southwest gave you them, I hated them, but I guess my tastes have...matured?  So, I had a hankering for the sweet/salty taste of honey roasted nuts.  I Googled a recipe and came up with this little video on how simple it is to make them.  I can't tell when this video was created, but its pretty simple and straight forward.  I crossed checked with a few other recipes, but found that this woman's recipe was the simplest out there.  All you need is:

2 cups of almonds (raw or roasted)

2T honey

2T water

2t oil

1/4C sugar

1/2t salt (I added a little more, and I actually think that you could add closer to 1t to balance out the sweet).

If your almonds are raw then you should roast them on a tray.  

Heat the honey, water, and oil in a pan and bring it to a boil.  Add the roasted almonds and stir to coat.  Keep the fire on and continue to mix the nuts until most of the honey mixture has been absorbed.  They say absorbed, but since the almonds have skins on them, I feel like most of the moisture evaporates...but whatever.

Mix the sugar and salt in a large bowl and when the honey mixture has been absorbed (or evaporated), pour the almonds into the bowl and mix to coat them with the sugar and salt.  Spread the nuts out onto a flat surface to cool.  Check them periodically to make sure they are not sticking together in a big clump.  The whole process took about half an hour with the roasting of the almonds included.

Let cool and enjoy!

The Cremolada

YUM!  Too bad I always ate mine too fast to take a picture

As soon as the sun started coming out I started noticing a lot of signs for "cremoladas".  I always thought that they have something to do with cream, and "aloda" of it.  I continually asked Carlos about what they were and I was always so confused.  It has nothing to do with cream, and is instead like frozen fruit.

Is it like ice cream?  I asked?  No.  Is is like sorbet?  No.  Is it like a juice?  Maybe.  SO helpful, right?

I had never had a good occasion to try this summer enigma because I always saw the signs for them while we were between places.  That is, until my parents came down for the wedding.  The apartment the rented was right across the street from this place called "Curich" and as far as I could tell, they only sold the mysterious icy treat.

After we recovered from the first few hectic days, we ventured across the street to try the cremoladas.  I was very pleasantly surprised at the taste.  Its like an all fruit Icee.  But with better ice.  Its not like sorbet, or like a shave ice, or like an ice cream.  Its like a frozen juice box.  But with more fruit flavor.  In a word, its like the perfect summer treat.

Curich has like a billion flavors of all sorts of tropical fruits as well as chocolate, vanilla, and pisco sour.  There are pictures next to the name of the fruit flavor, but because I am unfamiliar with the range of tropical fruits the pictures don't help much in the terms of choosing new flavors.

I think that for the second part of our trip we went at least once a day.  But on the last day  of my parent's trip, we went twice.   Once after our morning walk and then once after out lunchtime walk.  Needless to say we were big fans.  We even passed up a few other places that offer cremoladas to hit up the place on the way home.

Now I just need to learn how to make them at home!  Then I won't have to trek half way across the city to get a frozen treat.

Korean food in Lima!!

This past weekend Carlos and I went to a Korean Food restaurant.  I found it because it is along my old taxi between jobs route.  I say old, because I no longer take the taxi unless I am in a horrendous rush.  The first time I saw it, I was a super tourist and pulled my notebook out and jotted it down.  It took me a while to pin the place down to its actual location and then a while to convince Carlos to try it.  He is usually down for trying lots of different kinds of food, but we had a kinda bad experience the last time I made him try Korean, which was in Madrid.  Sorry Madrid, but Asian food and you just doesn't work.  Too expensive and not good enough.

Anyway, this weekend we finally went after work on Saturday.  When you pull up there are little pictures of a Korean boy and girl on the front and when we walked in there was a Korean lady that stared and us and then called for, her daughter?  Who was definitely a Korean-Peruvian.  Each eating party, be it two people or 6 people, is put into a separate room and you have a little bell thing that you ring to call for service.  Carlos was enamored with this little bell.  The little place mats were quite cute:

The menu had some helpful pictures, but not helpful descriptions and I have to guess on some things, but I went with the old standby for ordering.  ie, ordering what I do when I don't go with my Korean friend: Friend Mandu, bulgogi, and spicey tofu soup.  I asked if the meat came with the special appetizer dish things and the girl said yes, along with white rice.  Hurray!!  It also came with wheat water, thing.  It ended up being way too strong for either me or Carlos, and we opted for cokes.

When the food arrived, it occupied 2/3 of a 6 person table.  YUMMM.  Aside from the dubious looking tofu soup, which was amazing, everything quite normal looking.  We STUFFED ourselves.  It was so good to have food that was different from Peruvian and didn´t seem to be in anyway influenced by it.  Ok, there were some kimchee hotdogs, but I didn´t try those.  Carlos liked all of the different foods, except for the kimchee, but I actually liked it for once.

When the bill came it was a little high, especially since eating out usually means eating chifa, which is 10 soles each, but I would say this was very worth it.  I think I would order a different meat dish next time because their bulgogi was a little...strange, more soupy that I am used to.  To top things off, we found a Korean store next door!  They have all sorts of random Korean Ingredients, and random house stuff you always find in Asian Grocery Stores like shower caps and knives and scrubbers and stuff.  The old woman saw me take out my phone and she was like " no foto".  Boo.  But I managed to buy some fish sauce, where the old man asked me if we knew what it was for. Haha, yes.

Hurrah for exploring!  I will be back...hopefully

Korean Restaurant Nodaji
Av. Aviacion 3257
San Borja, Lima Peru