Home is Where the Hearth Is

Dammmmmn.

Lima's culinary scene is just booming along, and if I just reduced the amount of money I spend going out here in Los Angeles, I could fly back and forth more often and eat at events such as these:

http://www.livinginperu.com/news-12494-lima-chef-from-noma-worlds-top-restaurant-cook-with-chefs-peru

(Basically Soren West is coming to a cooking event in Lima. It benefits Valle Sagrado farmers whose land the flood devastated, and goddess knows I would have been there in my alternative life.
"Mom! All my friends are going! Why can't I?"
"Because you have to teach.")

I'm dying a little bit for ceviche - not Mexican ceviche, but real, Peruvian ceviche. That's ok - I can make it.

But I want my lúcuma yogurt and I want to eat it with my friends.

Peruvian ceviche with a sweet tuber, yuca, which tastes like a cold sweet potato. 

Drinkable lúcuma yogurt. 

Why are we so norteamericanos slow to catch on to drinkable yogurt? 

I pay a pretty penny to keep drinkable yogurt in my US fridge, but it's in every Peruvian (Latin American, I think) household, all the time.

Nobu Matsuhisa, of the sushi empire, began his career in Lima upon leaving his native Japan. 

Among many other things, he popularized the eating of eel in this hemisphere. 

He would buy it at the Peruvian fish markets, and the fishermen would ask what he was doing with the taboo fish. 

He responded that he was feeding it to his dog. 

Little did they know ... 

An Edible Eden

I should do garden work right now, I should. These monster weeds - I can't remember their name - which actually bloom a pretty violet, but which take over the world, need to go. I used to love the scent of natural jasmine, but my landlady appears to be using ours as protection against burglars or something. It's devouring our front gate to the point that you can't enter unless you duck down Limbo style. But right now I'm doing something else food-related, not just blogging. I'm using the crops that my nutritious dirt, together with water, has provided me.

I've broken out my food dehydrator. YES! Right now, I'm drying apricots (not from my garden), and apples, also not from my garden. They're local, though, so I don't feel too badly. I'm going to dip half of the apricots in Mexican chocolate.

The back yard now yields an abundance of peaches - too many to eat before the gross worms attack. I'm not a real big fan of pesticides, so the peaches are catch-as-catch-can. As soon as I can pluck a good one or two, I'll dry them too.

TB turned me on to a nearby restaurant called Forage (cute) that uses local gardeners' excess produce in organic, but not just vegetarian, dishes. They also provide classes, and, for a select few, mini grants to support home-based LA County microgardening endeavors. SO COOL! Here's the link: http://www.foragela.com/?view=forage

I'd also like to refer you to this article; I found it rather empowering: http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/la/outdoor/homegrown-la-on-starting-an-edible-garden-118643

Another wonderful thing about Los Angeles and food growing is the guerrilla food movement, whereupon people illegally plant edibles on vacant public lands. If you read my penultimate blog entry, you'll know that I really like secret stuff that feels right, not wrong. Somehow planting food crops on vacant lots feels right. It feeds homeless people. It has historicity. No one is using the land. I don't want to go to jail so you won't catch me participating (note, "catch"), but here's a cool link to an old story on the topic: http://articles.latimes.com/2008/may/29/home/hm-guerrilla29

Maybe I live in a healthy version of Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. If only I had an Oompa Loompa ... Well, the gardener's coming soon. I just hope he doesn't squash the squash again. He annihilated my butternut last time. But he's absolutely better than an Oompa Loompa. He's taught me soooo much. Sure could use some help with the kudzu-esqu purple flower thing.