Getting to Know Lima, Peru: Lima

On this trip I will only have two nights in Lima, one on each end. For the first time ever for me, we stayed in a neighborhood other than Miraflores. The hotel is fine, just what we need to an overnight stop on our way to Arequipa. It is just a few blocks from the Magic Fountain Park that I will write about later, as well as the new stadium. The trip to the airport was the usual length.

Last night my flight arrived about a half hour late due to a minor maintenance issue. We thought it was going to be longer because as soon as we pushed back from the gate in Miami the plane turned off. The lights went off, the engines shut down. We learned at the end of this 10 minute delay that something was overheated from the first delay combined with time spent idling in the Miami heat. This initiated an automatic shutdown.

Thankfully immigration was very fast. (The lady officer told me she liked my hair now better than my passport photo! This should not be a big surprise, my passport photo was taken after I battled through a rain and wind storm with no time for retakes in order to get my renewal back before my passport expired). Baggage claim and customs were nearly as good. But by the time we made it to the hotel I was exhausted. The room could have been the size of a closet with a rock hard mattress and I would have slept just fine. Sleep I did.

Early in the morning, before dawn I was awakened by a sound outside. I couldn't place it at first, then I realized it was a rooster. Keeping chickens is becoming popular in the United States again and it always has been in Lima. Two things struck me about my early, early, wake-up call: 1) roosters really do go "cock-a-doodle-doo!!!" and 2) they do not just crow once at dawn like in the corn flake commercials. That rooster went on for a good hour, sometimes waiting as long as a couple minutes, giving me just enough time to start to fall back to sleep.

I think it is great that these animals give families access to fresh eggs and poultry, it's just that I have now added another must to my house hunting list for Lima: a no chicken neighborhood!

Day 2: Sky Kitchen

Several years ago I edited a family cookbook, including recipes dating back several centuries. I wrote in the introduction that cooking old family recipes allows us to not just learn about our ancestors but to experience something with them though we are separated by time. We taste that they tasted and smell the aromas that filled their kitchens.

In a similar way I have a desire to grow closer to Peru and experience the cuisine, not simpy to eat it but to learn to prepare it. I want to be able to cook what those I love think of as home cooking. Saturday I had a wonderful afternoon doing just that at Sky Kitchen in Miraflores. These small cooking classes are held in an open air kitchen on the roof deck of Chef Yurac Romero. Two thirds of it is covered in fabric, offering shade from the intense Lima sun, from the open end of the deck there are beautiful views of the surrounding neighborhood. I highly recommend this cultural experience for anyone traveling in Lima.

Along with two other American women who are traveling through Peru on a tour, I learned to make Papa a la Huancaina, Cebiche and Aji de Gallina. Chef Yurac speaks German and Spanish mainly, so his partner Christian Trübswetter translates as he demonstrates for us. We all follow suit. As each dish is prepared we sit at a beautifully decorated table filled with gorgeous imported (from Ikea!) orchids and enjoy our creations. I cannot get past the fact that cebiche is raw fish in lime juice, so I pretty much steered clear of that one.

Papa is the Peruvian word for potato. Huancaina refers to the women of Huancayo. Papa a la Huancaina is a dish of cold, peeled and thickly sliced potatoes covered in an aji amarillo pepper and cheese sauce. It is served with an olive and quarter of a hardboiled egg on top. Many dishes are garnished in this fashion.

Next came the cebiche. Chef Yurac buys the fish fresh just before class each time. It is a quickly prepared dish and is particularly popular on the hottest days. I learned that originally this was a dish of the people as fish was an inexpensive protein. In recent years fish has increasingly been exported and the prices have risen significantly. As a result this is now more of a treat for most people. Chicken has become the protein of choice at the average dinner table.

Finally we prepared Aji de Gallina. Aji is the favorite local pepper used in many dishes and served as a paste condiment at every table, alongside ketchup and mayonnaise. A single chicken breast is stretched to serve at least four. It is cooked and finely shredded and mixed with the aji sauce of onions garlic, pureed bread, stock, pecans and parmesan cheese. Like the others it was served with potatoes. This dish also had dried roasted maize and fresh maize. I am told it is often garnished with a quarter of a hardboiled egg and one olive. The corn here has the most amazing, huge kernels. I loved this dish and it was a wonderful way to end the class.

Within a couple hours of returning to the hotel I received an email with all the recipes. I look forward to preparing these again. For additional information about SkyKitchen please visit www.wix.com/skykitchen/peru. They offer classes in English, Spanish and German, both lunch and dinner menus.