Fodder

Hello! I havnt written on this for what feels like ages. We worked out today that we´ve been in Arequipa for nearly a month now. Can´t believe it´s been so long!! We hadn´t done any of the tourist things in the city until today, when we went to a very good archeology museum and saw a 500year old ´íce princess´- a 12 year old girl who was sacrificed on top of a nearby volcano as an offering to calm the mountain gods who were v.upset and causing lots of volcanic erruptions at the time.

Last weekend we went to a very tasty gastronomy fair that was held just outside town, (where we met these little fellas, who´s fate is unlikely to be better than the ice princess´s) and got inspiderd to blog a bit about Peruvian food - which is SO good! a bit too good infact, as I seem to have got myself a few foody friends in my stomach from all the streetfood munching ive been doing...but thats another story. Nice.

So where to begin? Maybe with the avocado tree we have in the garden of our apartment. Not sure how fast avos grow, but hopefully theyll be ready before we move on in a few months, as we can pick them from our bathroom window. We are both tremendously excited about it.

It´s been fab having our own kitchen since we got here, although when we moved in there was just a gas hob for cooking, and I´d got myself all excitied about baking when we were apartmen´-hunting...so Steve splashed out a bit and bout us a mini oven which is amazing! its sooo mini- and it bakes cakes perfectly. And it cost about 35 quid which seems like a lot of money nowadays, but not for whole oven with bags of baking potential!!!

The fruit and veg here is amazing- I´ll get some market photos posted when I´ve got the patience (it´s running a bit thin now as this computer is a silly speed of slow), but we have been gorging on tropical frit salad for breakfast since we arrived in peru. Heres one of the funkier looking one´s we´ve come across... Peruvians seem to be psyched on making grains puff up, and sometimes they go as far as dying them shocking colours of artificiality. These ones reminded me of fruit polos, and got me round to wondering if they still make them...?

I´m just about to run out of patience entirely, but before I go I HAVE to talk about the most incredible fish stew we ate last weekend. I can´t describe how incredible the stock was- Ive never even dremed of such good fish stock. We live a block away from the best fish restaurant Ive ever been to- and this stew (as well of being of the best stock EVER), had lots of big chunks of fish, octopus, calamares, and other unidentifiable but really tasty seafoody things. Oh, and to top it off, it was served in a washing up bowl-sized bowl. Might have to go back for more tomorrow- maybe it can become a sunday lunch ritual. Heaven.

Shame I´m such a messy eater though!