One lunchtime meal in Atlanta -- where?

[MaeveH]

Hello All!

First off: Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrggggggh!

Sigh.

We missed our original flight to Atlanta, so by the time we got rerouted there it was too late in the day to go and explore all the wonderful possibilities that you had all so helpfully mentioned. But I will go there soon! All your suggestions made me think that your fair city would be a fun place for a short trip. So I will definitely make my way there and eat heartily.

But, in lieu of lipsmaking tales of my Atlanta meal, I offer tales of Peru (which I was going to anyway).

My husband and I ate well. Potatoes, of course, with the famed hauncaina sauce which is a mild, tangy cheese sauce. Every now and then we'd get toasted corn kernels for nibblies with drinks (pisco sours -- lime, pisco (a grape brandy), sugar syrup and frothy egg white -- or algarobinas -- no lime, carob syrup instead, for "damas" we were told). We tried llama and alpaca (slightly gamey) and guinea pig (fatty little beast, the meat is similar to rabbit). Quinoa is now our favourite grain (we had a quinoa "risotto", as well as thin porridge, and a stacked quinoa/roast veggie patty).

In Lima we ate tons of ceviche, in places low and high. It tends to be served with bits of pale, fat kernelled corn, in a lightly spicy lime bath. We did have a great version at Costernera 700 (where politicos and novelists eat) that was gingery and soyed. There we also ate fabulous salt-baked chita (a largish white fish, possibly grunt), some mediocre chinese-inspired seafood dumplings, and baby octopus.

My favourite discovery in Lima was a dish prepared with chunks of octopus and covered with a black olive and olive oil sauce (looked creamy purple). Mmmm. I'll definitely try to remake that at home.

we went on a trek, in which we were fed like royalty by a couple of cooks working magic with two gas burners in a tent. Lamb stew, fresh lake trout with a ground cherry (type) sauce, sweet potato chips, different types of potatoes, fresh popcorn for tea time, mulled wine... Great soups, involving lots of vegetables. Often the meat we had would be covered in a sauce consisting of lots of pureed veggies (achieved by pushing through seive), which we were assured was "typical".

coffee was almost always Nescafe. Had some splendid jams (particularly a papaya-pineapple one, spiced with clove) and lovely fresh juice (papaya, strawberry, pineapple, orange). There was an odd fruit called lucuma, which on my last day there I realized I hadn't yet tried, so I ate lucuma ice cream, and a lucuma fruit I picked up a grocery store. It's an odd thing, with kind of a dry zucchini texture, like foam. I unfortunately can't think of it without feeling a bit queasy, as something that very last fruity meal made me sick. Drag, although if I'm going to get the stomach wobblies, the timing was good.

so that's the basics, and we feel most dorky for not getting to Atlanta... But soon, compadres, soon!

Maeve

[tryska]

glad you had a great trip anyway maeve! and welcome home

[therese]

Sounds like a great trip, Maeve. Thanks for the feedback, and let us know next time you're headed our way.