Peruvian recipe 3: Alfahores (cookies)

Abuelita's Alfajores - Cristina Bravo de Rueda's signature recipe

1 can of sweetened condensed milk (simmered for two hours on medium heat, then chilled)
1 lb. saffola margarine (4 cubes, softened)
3 1/2 cup of flour
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/8 tsp. (pinch of salt)
2 tsp. anise seed or ground anise
3/4 cup granulated sugar
Powdered sugar to garnish

Mix margarine and sugar until creamy and fluffy. Sift dry ingredients together in separate bowl, then add to margarine mixture little by little until mixed well.

Knead mixture to form a ball. Chill in refrigerator for 30 minutes.

Roll out dough to about 1/8 inch thickness. Cut into small circles and arrange on cookie sheet. Prick each cookie twice with a fork.

Bake at 325 degrees for about 10-12 minutes. Do not let them brown.

Flip cookies at about 7 minutes. Let cool, then assemble manjar blanco between two cookies, roll in powered sugar.

Enjoy!

Peruvian recipe 2: Mom's or Grandma's Chicken

Mom's (Grandma's) Chicken

Three medium white onions
One package of chicken thighs (based on 10 lbs. recipe, amount depends on party)
One bottle of ketchup (44 oz)
Oregano
Laurel (3 leaves)
Pimenta gorda (Allspice, five balls)
Garlic


Step 1: Chop 3 medium onions, cut into strips.
Take skin and fat off chicken thighs.

Step 2: In a large heated pot, add onion and two tablespoons of olive oil.

Stir around and move to medium heat. Keep lowering heat as you stir.

Add a teaspoon of salt and a palm full of dried or fresh oregano. Crush in hand if dried. Pour in 3/4 a bottle of ketchup. Add another palm full of oregano.

Singe the edges of the laurel leaves with stove top burner to release flavor. Add to pot along with five pimentas. Add tablespoon of garlic powder and stir well. Take off heat.

Step 3: Add chicken, stir and put on high heat for 10-15 minutes and cover. Monitor heat.

Put on medium low for five minutes.

Poke chicken with wooden stick or fork. Chicken is ready when juices run clear.

Vinaigrette salad dressing

1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup of red wine vinegar
Dash of salt
Dash of garlic
Palm full of oregano

Stir well and serve with mixed green salad.

Peruvian recipe 1: Arroz al Horno

Promised my cousins I would document the steps to three Peruvian dishes I learned this weekend. Here's the first...

Arroz Al Horno
(Rice from the oven)

5 cups of long grain white rice, uncooked
1.5 lbs. carne molida (ground meat)
1 medium red onion, diced
1 medium carrot
1/2 cup corn kernel
1/2 cup peas
7 oz. raisins
garlic powder
pepper
salt
oregano (dried or fresh)
Four eggs
1/2 cup sliced kalamata olives
spaghetti sauce
sesame seeds
Six pimentas gordas (Allspice balls)

Step one: Make Grandma Delia's rice

In rice cooker, add 5 cups of long grain white rice (unwashed). Add a palm full of salt or 1/2 tablespoon. Add a tablespoon of garlic. Add six pimentas gordas. *Use rice cooker instructions to learn water rice ratio. Leave to cook.

Step two: Boil two eggs in small pot to cook while performing step three.

Step three: Add ground meat to hot, large frying pan on high heat. Add 1/2 tablespoon of salt to meat. Use large spoon (wooden if possible) and stir meat. The goal is to remove the fat so do not thoroughly cook the meat. Do not use oil!

Drain fat into container and throw it away.

Take meat off burner. Add diced onion, palm full of oregano (crush in hand if dried). Put frying pan on burner. Add one tablespoon of olive oil. Stir well for several minutes.

Take off heat. Goal is to caramelize onions.

Once caramelized, put frying plan on heat again. Add one cup of spaghetti sauce. Stir well. Add peas and carrots. Stir and lower to medium heat.

Taste for salt. Add as needed (typically half a tablespoon.

Add raisins and a tablespoon of black pepper. Stir and put on low heat. Add olives.

Step four: Coat 13 by 9 inch pan with olive oil. Add a thick layer of cooked rice to pan. With wooden spoon, add layer of meat mixture. Dice hard-boiled egg and sprinkle of top of meat layer.

Taste for salt, add if needed to meat layer.

Add final layer of rice. Sprinkle with salt.

Step five: Beat two egg whites until fluffy. Then add egg yolks and beat again until mixed.

Step six: With spatula, coat top of rice with egg
mixture. Sprinkle thin layer of sesame seeds on top.

Preheat oven to 390 degrees and cook dish for 30 minutes. Remember everything has been pre-cooked so oven doesn't need to be very hot and baking time is minimal.

Valle de Bravo — Wow, other people have heard of it!

Found this cool NYT article on Valle de Bravo yesterday.

http://travel.nytimes.com/2011/02/20/travel/20overnighter-valle-de-bravo.html

Also, I've met this woman pictured in the photo gallery link below! Her name is Carmen and she owns this tiny bar downtown near Said's aunt's house. Carmen is always grumpy but serves a really good Paloma — tequila and grapefruit drink. If you're lucky, her 10-year-old daughter will take your order and bring you some chicharrón (fried pork rinds shaped like wagon wheels) to snack on. I always let Said and his cousins eat those. lol.

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2011/02/20/travel/20110220-OVERNIGHTER-2.html

How do I know about Valle? Said's mom Josefina owns and operates a small gift shop in this gorgeous vacation town outside Mexico City. Picture cobblestone streets, open air markets, lots of tiny shops ranging from ritzy to affordable traditional, and of course, some of the best taverns and street food.

Of course, the writer in this article doesn't recommend any of the street food but I say go there. Try the pambazo! It's like a torta (Mexican sandwich) but deep-fried and made with a special bread.

Here's a picture of one although it's the kind from Temas — a neighboring town where Said's parents live. In Temas, they cover the pambazos with mole. Either way, it's all good and so not in line with any diet. That's why you justify this indulgence by walking everywhere.



The writer also doesn't mention the paragliding, which is weird because the Valle/Temas area is one of the five most popular places in the world for the sport. Paragliding takes place year-round because of the amazing weather so go check out the equally amazing views like a bad ass. See that rock SPRAWL? You can climb it. The area is called El Peñón.



Here's me risking my life paragliding and enjoying every minute of it. Make no mistake I was freaking out until I took some Dramamine.



So once you find the paragliders you've also tapped into Valle's tourist scene. And I'm not talking about your typical big-sunglasses-Corona-drinking-donde-esta-el-baño tourists. I'm talking about people who come from all over the world just to experience Valle's rich culture, speak their best Spanish and really live like a local.

We found our first tourist friend — Don from Atlanta — when we picked him up as he was hitchhiking between Valle and Temas. Don lives in Valle for many months out of the year, renting a house from an old woman in town. Let's just say I'm super jealous of Don because his day job (flipping properties back in the states) allows him to work remotely. I hope to see him when I'm back next month. He owes us a party at his house.



Overall it's a really good article on Valle. Visit me and I'll introduce you to the rest of the action. Oh, and we'll go say hi to Carmen and eat wagon wheels.

Peruvian secrets — food and otherwise

If you're like me, well, you appreciate a good story. It's one of the reasons I visit my Grandma Delia at her home in Seattle. Everything leads to a great story when I sit down with her. My only regret is that I haven't recorded our conversations. Until now.

On Sunday we spent the afternoon around the kitchen table chatting and procrastinating on the Peruvian dishes she had agreed to teach me. They included two of my favorites: Arroz al Horno (literally means Rice from the Oven) and Mom's Chicken — a dish my grandma invented in the 50s when she first arrived from Peru. Sure, we had no less than 10 hungry guests arriving two hours but there is always time for a story.

Actually, her story of the day had nothing to do with the rice or chicken but more of her role as an Ama de Casa — housewife or homemaker. In her day, she was allowed to plan the family meals but not allowed to save or manage her own hard-earned money as a seamstress. That was the husband's job. Typical you may say but a little strange for my grandma — a woman who at an early age started her own sewing business to support her mother and younger cousin. She may have been born in a different time but she grew up with responsibilities many people don't have to take on until they have their own spouse and children.

So when my grandma finally moved to Seattle to join my grandfather they maintained the same rules when it came to money. He would give her a daily allowance and she would use that to buy everything she needed for the house and kids. That lasted until the 70s when my grandma says she finally saw "the light" and opened her own bank account. However, before that happened, she managed to secretly save a quarter from her 85 cent an hour job as a seamstress. To do this she'd sew the coins into her apron from work. When she had four quarters, she would go to the bank and exchange them for a dollar. When she had 10 one dollar bills she would exchange them for a ten. Then she'd have a friend help her wire the money to her mother in Peru. She did that for years. I think it's amazing and a vivid sign of the times.

To be fair, my grandfather was an amazing, hardworking person as well. I'm sure if he was still with us, well, he'd feel awful about these strange things my grandma had to do to have her own money. And let's get real, back then, having choices was a luxury if you weren't the husband. Society was watching. That's why women like my grandma — who were self-sufficient before they were married — had to be patient and wait for the right time to speak up. Today my grandma is the most assertive and outgoing woman I know.

So, yeah, it's really easy to react to this story with, "I can't believe that! OMG, your poor grandmother! I would die!" (which actually was my kneejerk response). Now, I just feel fortunate that I am able to learn these dishes and listen to these Ama de Casa tips not because it's expected of me but because I need to eat and I'm pretty sure Mexico City doesn't have a Whole Foods hot food bar.

OK, back to the Peruvian dishes...

Visas. Just another thing that's totally out of my control.

Said applies for his visa to visit the States tomorrow morning. And of course, it's not as easy as it sounds.

Three weeks ago he requested an appointment for an embassy representative to meet with him. In preparation for this appointment, I've filled out a government form saying that basically if he runs amuck here I am financially responsible for it. So, yeah, SAID, no loud parties, trashing hotels or mooning people while you visit my beloved Seattle. Or else they'll raid my bank account.

Said has it a little tougher than I do. Today he's waiting for a lawyer to write him a letter — which I think he may get notarized — saying that he's an upstanding citizen with a law degree and an established business in the city. He'll then present these to forms tomorrow to his embassy rep.

The reason for all these forms and declarations? Well, from what I've heard and learned from Said, just because you apply for a visa doesn't mean you will get one. On the other hand, I can enter Mexico visa-less and pretty much whenever I want. It's not fair, and yes I know there are reasons for this, but still, it sucks when the person applying for a U.S. visa honestly has no plans to overstay their welcome.

Me: "Yes, we actually want to go back to Mexico."
Everyone else: "Really?"
Me: "Yes."

Anyway, if all goes well Said will visit for a few weeks and we will fly back to el D.F. together. I'm planning an awesome Seattle tour for him, which includes the Needle (hell, maybe we should just do the Ride the Ducks tour), The Crab Pot, a Cataldo show at the Sunset Tavern, wine tasting in Woodinville, dim sum in Chinatown and whatever else comes to mind. Oh yeah, Pike Place Market. Gotta go there and see the gum wall.

Now that I think about it my friend Antonio and my brother Roberto give the best tours of Seattle. They visit the off-the-beaten-path stuff so maybe I should just ask them for help. My tour should be non-generic.

So back to whatever I was doing. Wish us luck for tomorrow.

Mel

Gringas, Chilangas, journals — what does it all mean?

A few weeks ago I visited my storage unit here in Redmond to start clearing out the junk I never use but pay $60 a month to store. It was great to throw away crap — old buttons, receipts, fashion risks, and photos I thought I'd someday use for scrapbooks (yeah right).

Then I came across a bunch of my old journals, some written as early as second grade. No trips down memory lane, I told myself. But when you're alone in a Public Storage facility what else are you going to do? So I started reading and laughing and wanting to give 11-year-old Melissa a hug for taking such good notes. (I wanted to give 15-year-old Melissa a slap in the face for being such a whiny brat but that's for another time).

I realized the younger I was while writing the entries, the more I talked about what actually happened during the day — down to the seating arrangements and departure times during our family bus trip from Houston to Mexico City in 1992.

"It was about 12:00 and our bus would leave at 2:00 so we had to hours to do nothing. When we boarded the bus we sat down it was like a Grey Hound bus so it was very fancy. The bus driver said we would arive in Mexico City tomorrow at four. I sat by my Aunt Rose and my brothers sat together. That was a big mistake so my dad sat by brother Daniel and Roberto sat by my Grandma."

Hahaha. Talk about a boring nutgraf. Anyway, I seriously can't remember who forced me to journal at that time but it's one of my first diaries. It was probably a family member trying to distract me from that way-too-long-for-kids bus ride or maybe a teacher who asked me to do extra credit in the form of a journal. I remember we missed a lot of school during that trip.

Anyway that young writer inspired as well as challenged me. Can I write a journal that doesn't center on feelings nobody (especially me) will care about in 2o years? Can I actually talk about what I did, what I'm doing and who was along for the ride? I really hope so. It also helps that I have something to write about.

In March I will be a Gringa (American woman) living in Mexico City (AKA the Districto Federal or D.F.). The people who were born and live in or around the city are called Chilangos. I think it's an awesome word Chilango but it really depends on who you ask and what Wiki tells you. I've read that those in the other 31 states find it annoying that the Mexico City residents embraced the questionable term and now the Chilangos use it all the time. Guess I'll keep asking around to see what's the deal once and for all.

Anyway, so I leave in a just a few weeks for Mexico. The reason? For love. I reconnected with a good childhood friend Said, fell in love during a vacation to the D.F. last September and (we seriously are insane in the membrane) got engaged during my trip out in December. I couldn't be happier.

So that brings me back to journaling and being an unofficial Chilanga for the foresable future, and well, a Gringa for the rest of my life because only a miracle will get rid of this heavy American accent when I speak Spanish.

I hope to be interesting, entertaining and most of all, I hope to load these pages full of videos, pictures and whatever else comes to mind.

Talk soon friends and fam.