Things That Made Me Less Cranky: July 2024 Edition
Still giggling over that hinted at ménage à trois at the Olympics Opening Ceremony
Welcome to my monthly list of recommendations. It is made up of completely random things/events/moments that made me less of a raging, bitter, hag despite the dumpster fire that is our world. It also includes food-centric suggestions. Enjoy!
Idiosyncratic List of What Made Me Less Cranky
Family weddings in colorful dresses
Pueblo Libre, one of the most historic and less touristed districts in Lima
Cacao ceremonies where you pick out an oracle card and it correctly identifies your mood for the past two months or so, and you freak out
A guy asking for his girlfriend’s hand in marriage, in the middle of a concert, while a dancing headless rotisserie chicken cheers him on at a chicken festival
Catching up with high school friends over wine or piscos
The Olympics Opening Ceremony just leaning into the Frenchness of it all, unapologetically. The masked parkour bandit! A beheaded Marie Antoinette! Clowns embarking on some polyamorous nonsense! It was frenetic! Horny! Tacky!
Alonso Correa, the sea captain of our Peruvian hearts
The five days of sunshine we had this month in Lima. It’s rare, ok?
Poetry workshop. Fellow prose writers, take one! It does so much for your writing.
Retablo de Fiestas Patrias, an annual celebration of Peruvian independence through dances. It’s parent-friendly, hehe
My aunt bringing us fresh media lunas from Buenos Aires bakery Dos Escudos
Restaurant of the Month: El Rocoto
The Andean city of Arequipa boasts one of Peru’s great regional cuisines. My mom boasts one of Peru’s great cravings for crayfish soup, one of Arequipa’s star dishes. This is how we found ourselves on a weekday afternoon at El Rocoto, a Lima restaurant that specializes in Arequipean (is that the right term??????) food. This is another item in my Abuelito Lima Recommendations list, in the sense that it’s a restaurant that abides by old school decor, service and menus, and is located in the very non-trendy and non-descript neighborhood of San Borja. But abuelitos also don’t want any watered down version of whatever they hold dear in their memories and this place delivers. The crayfish soup was a messy, bubbling, herbed feast. Ocopa, a peanut and black mint sauce which can sometimes come off as too heavy and earthy had just the hint of sweetness it needs to balance it out.
Bar of the Month: El Bolivariano
Again, I am in my Señora Era! Maybe Peru’s patrotic fever took over my body, but July was definitely the month where I turned my back on Nuveau Lima Cool and went to decades-long standbys. El Bolivariano has been around for so long that my dad partied there when he was in colllege and then I partied there during my Peruvian college years, before I transferred to a Canadian university, and from the looks of the crowd on Friday night, current college kids are still partying there. But the great thing about El Bolivariano is that it is NOT a college bar. It is part of the great Lima tavern tradition, where down-on-their-luck intellectuals and retirees argue over politics during the day, tías celebrating birthdays gather in the evening, and a multigenerational amalgamation of revelers take up the long wooden tables in the back to dance to cumbia, salsa, música criolla, chicha and other genres of yore.
Best Thing I Ate: My mom’s lomo saltado
My death-row meal. Its memory kept me alive during my two-week stint at the hospital. A dish so mythical, my first food byline was literally all about it. I wish I could tell you its secrets, but the woman refuses to let anyone lurk in the kitchen while she is conjuring up demons or something to make this.
Best Thing I Drank: Moscatel de Alejandria white wine from Raíces Negras
There was a time when Peruvian wine was foul. Just straight up sweetened grape juice. Usually made from the leftover Pisco grapes, there was no real finesse to its production. In the past two decades, that’s changed. I went to the Salón de Vino, Peru’s annual Peruvian wine expo, with some trepidation and a lot of curiousity. Thankfully, my worst fears failed to come to fruition. My country is producing some pretty solid wines. Yes, I’ll still stay away from ANY bottle made from negra criolla grapes which works great in pisco but becomes cloying in wine. And I think there’s something to say about the Peruvian palate, which tends to lean towards sweet in a way that my tart, sour-liking ass cannot understand. However, there were some great wines in there like Eleven’s roble blend, Viñas del Marqués’ Barbero (the only winemaker using this grape in Peru), Ocucaje’s Grand Cru Cabernet Sauvignon and Intipalka’s Chardonnay
But my favorite was the Moscatel de Alejandría from Raíces Negras, a new line of wine from Viña D’ Los Campos, a smaller producer in Cañete. Refreshing, lots of pucker-up citrus notes, hints of passion fruit and pineapple, no freaking floral bullshit in sight. It’s the kind of wine you open up at a beach house, after you’ve taken a shower and before you make a casual pasta dinner. It has that chill elegance about it.
The Month in Newsletters
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Proposal Template for the Busy and Unbothered
Also August’s Cranky Guide Writing “Hour” (it’s really more like 35ish minutes) will be on Mondays at 9 am ET/8 am CT. This is open to paid subscribers. I’ll send out an email with the link in the coming days. Hope you can join us!
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