Food So Treacherous

“You won’t like that” insisted the fifty-ish woman in a heavy Chinese accent just after I had ordered the Tiger Skin Peppers.  

“Why won’t I like it?  What is it?”

“Green peppers fried with many vinegars.  You won’t like it.  Perhaps you like the Tofu with Mixed Vegetables.”

Like a little boy I found myself getting stubborn.  “No.  I want the Tiger Skin Peppers.”

The Senses of the Street

Cusco, Perú

July 2003

Yesterday was a day of errands.  But errands with a sensuality that is at once new and old.  It is not that of home and has not yet become so omnipresent as to pass into the background, uncommented and unnoticed.