More Seafood

On the way back to Lima from San Bartolo we stopped at a roadside joint, the Restaurante "El Silencio", near the entrance to Señoritas beach. This brought back memories because Señoritas was a beach that we used to frequent during the summer of 1988 when Liz and I were living in Lima.

We used crowd into Willy's Wolkswagen bug, one on top of the other, for the 45 minute drive. There we'd spend the day in the water, coming out every 45 minutes or so to get something to drink or eat some choritos a la chalaca (mussels in the style of the port of Callao) at the beach stands.

Choritos a la chalaca

As it happens, a complimentary plate of choritos a la chalaca was one of the dishes we had the restaurant this weekend. The dish consists of boiled mussels, covered with a mixture of onion, rocoto peppers, corn kernels, and parsley, bathed in lime juice. It's sort of like a mini cebiche.

Jalea mixta

Among the other dishes we enjoyed were jalea mixta, which is a fried mixture of seafood with an onion, ají, and lime juice topping. In this case it was served with pieces of fried yuca.

Picante de mariscos

Juancho ordered a picante de mariscos, which is a mix of shellfish and seafood cooked in a spicy sauce. The word picante can mean "spicy" or can refer to spicy dishes with an ají-flavoured sauce or gravy. This was tasty, but could have used more heat.

Corvina a lo macho

I ordered corvina a lo macho, which is fillet of corvina (Sciaena gilberti) smothered in a spicy creamy seafood sauce. It was quite good, but again, the dish would have benefitted from more peppers.

Of course, we washed it down with the Incas' favorite:




Hostal Restaurant El Silencio
Antigua Panamericana Sur Km.43
Punta Hermosa - Perú
Telf. 2307136

San Bartolo

On Saturday night, after dinner, we headed off toward San Bartolo. Mercifully, my mom and Toya had offered to wash the dishes if I took care of getting the food put away.

San Bartolo is a small fishing town and summer vacation community about an hour south of Lima. For a while a couple of years back it was also the hot night club spot for Lima's affluent youth. That distinction has now been lost to Asia, a very exclusive and expensive resort a bit further south, that has been surrounded by controversy due to discriminatory practices and having basically appropriated a beach, which by law are public.

San Bartolo is fairly quiet at this time of year, as it is midwinter and not exactly beach weather. Many of the houses will stand empty and restaurants closed until October, November, or even December, the austral spring.

My uncle Willy and aunt Betty found a great house there fairly cheaply several years ago, which came fully furnished, to boot! The family takes occasional trips there to spend the weekend at the beach or sometimes, like now, just to get out of Lima for a bit.

San Bartolo church

San Bartolo was where my nieces Pali and Rafaela were baptized, and the reception was held at the house. In the course of it, while playing on the roof, one of the children knocked loose the pipe to the water tank, sending streams of water into the house and knocking out the house's water supply. That meant, unfortunately, that the dozens of guests engaged in night-long eating and drinking could not flush the toilets. By morning it was pretty rank between the spilled beer and non-flushed toilets. Those of us who stayed there had to endure it, with no hope of a shower, teetbrushing, or even washing one's face or hands in the morning, only to find that those cousins who had stayed with Betty's brother down the street awoke to warm showers, hot food, and fresh papaya juice!

This weekend, we arrived around nine o'clock and settled in for the night, as you can see below:

Susana teaching the boys to play poker

The next morning my cousins Diego and Juancho, and I went for bread and eggs, and Diego fixed breakfast -more like lunch, actually.

Diego fixing breakfast

Nico and my cousin Guillermo ("Mito").
And, yes, that is a Hello Kitty beanie.

Later, we went down to give Nico a chance to get his fishing fix -one of the purposes of the trip, actually- before heading back to Lima.

The setting

The bait

The catch

Saturday Supper

I had invited the family to supper on Saturday, so my cousin Diego and I went to Minka on Saturday morning. Minka is a huge market with amazing produce and foodstuffs, and many other things besides. And of course one of my favorite parts is the seafood pavillion - yes, pavillion, there's that much of it.

I loaded up on groceries and got cooking rather too late, I'm afraid (we got a late start due to having been out until 4:30 am the night before), and only finished in time because my mom helped prep and my aunt Marina helped me finish up.

Almost everyone came, and we had a good time and we ate rather well, even if I do say so myself!

Here's what I fixed:

Scallops baked with parmesan cheese

Fettucine with shrimp and clam sauce

Causa stuffed with crab salad, acompanied by whole cracked crabs

Causa is a dish made by mashing boiled potatoes with lime juice, salt, and puréed yellow hot peppers.
In this case the potatoes used were Peruvian yellow potatoes (papa amarilla), and the potato mixture
served with a layer of crab, onion, and mayonnaise salad.

A sudado of pejesapo with dow see, vegetables, and scallops

A sudado is a cooking technique in which seafood is half braised and half steamed in a
liquid, usually a broth - in this case mussel broth. A pejesapo is a type of very ugly native
rock fish. It resembles a toad, hence its name which means "toadfish."

Mussel broth

I also fixed a pisco sour mousse recipe that I got from PescadoLimón, which I did not photograph, and my mom bought a chocolate and lúcuma cake, over which we sang "Happy Birthday" (well, actually, "Felíz cumpleaños") to my mom, Nicolás, and me.

Unfortunately, after I got the food served, I got so busy attending to everyone that I forgot to pull the camera back out until after nearly everyone had left.

Orlando, Toya's husband, and granduncle Aníbal

Willy, in a very familiar spot and post-meal activity

Museo de la Nación

On Friday afternoon Susana and I took a trip to the Museo de la Nación, the National Museum. It is housed in what used to be the headquarters of the National Bank (Banco de la Nación) on Ave. Javier Prado, and displays pieces illustrating Peruvian peoples from the paleolithic period up through the Incas.

Moche (Northen Peru coast, 100 CE - 800 CE)

Silver headdresses

Wari (central and southern Peru, 700 CE - 1000 CE)

This piece, and its two companions, very much remind me of three pieces that my family and I were shown by Walter Wong, the director of the Instituto Nacional de Cultura's Ayacucho office, in the museum that he was preparing in Ayacucho in 1981. Walter was killed, presumably by the Shining Path, in 1982 and the museum never came about. I wonder if this piece was one of Walter's.

Chimú (Moche Valley, 900 CE - 1470 CE)

Funerary mask

Nazca (Nazca region, 300 BCE - 800 CE)

Trophy heads

Inca (All of coastal and mountain Peru, 1400s - 1533)

Stone mace heads

Distinctive Inca vessel called an arybalus

Stone incense or ointment holders shaped like llamas

Ears of corn carved from stone

* * * *

Among the museum's permanent displays are some exquisite full-scale replicas of archaeological sites, including this reconstruction of cliff face with ancient rock paintings (saddly, I neglected to note what culture created them or their location):



and this copy of the royal tomb of the Lord of Sipán (the originals are at the Sipán museum in Lambayeque):

Kindergarten Parade

Near our building there is a small state-run preschool and kindergarten. Dan, Cristy, Sara, and I all attended it. It was abit smaller then, but since they grabbed up a public play space and sitting area (that round thing at the end) in 1991 they have been able to add a few more classrooms.

The building creeps Susana out because it has electrified wire running along the top to keep out thieves, and at night, when it is quieter, one can hear the wire making popping sounds as the electricity passes through it. I can understand the need for it for the building's roof would be very easy to get onto - I know, I used to climb it as a child.

Friday was the last day of school here before winter break, and as Independence Day is coming up on July 28th, the kindergarten had a parade, complete with a brass band.

Inside the school itself, after the parade, there was an opportunity to view projects that the students had colored for the occasion:


This image depicts José de San Martín, an Argentine general who crossed the Andes at the head of a liberation army, after helping free Argentina from Spanish colonial rule. After fighting in Chile, he moved the army north to Peru. Legend has it that while resting near the bay of Paracas, he saw a flock of flamingoes overhead and was given inspiration for the colors of the Peruvian flag by the birds' coloration.

San Martín proclaiming Peru's independece in the town of Huaura, on November 17th, 1820.

A second, more definitive, proclamation would late be made in Lima on July 28th, 1821.

Birthday Bash

In celebration of my birthday we went to an Argentine steak house in San Isidro, "Corrientes 348." The place is named after a famous tango and, naturally, specializes in beef, which is brought to the table in sizzling platters above charcoal braziers. There were about thirty of us, which made for a lively evening. The food and wine were great and the company even better, and I think we all ate way too much.

My nieces, Rafaela and Pali, and Rafa's cousin

Willy and Toti, my dad's brothers