cultural commentary from the desk of Don Shewey
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Lima is for the most part a dirty, stinky pit of a city where it’s always overcast but it never rains. Still, I found the neighborhood of San Miguel, where I stayed at the charming Hostal Mami Panchita, to be fascinating, funky, and colorful.
WRITING
I am an unashamed dinosaur; I still seek out a plot-driven narrative with a beginning, a middle and an end — the last reached after a steadily accelerating cadence. As to research, I eschew virtually all online fact searching because so much is either rubbish or inadequate. The old ways still work best. I seek out the expert steeped in knowledge of his subject and ask for an hour of his time. I usually secure everything I need and probably several extraordinary anecdotes that would never be on the Internet. The same applies to places — even hellholes like Mogadishu. It is a slog to haul the old bones across the world, but I could never have described Somalia from 6,000 miles away. The obsession with accuracy, deriving from my years in journalism, pays off. The readers seem to like it.
— Frederick Forsyth
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First, Javier and Katya took us to the Indian market to do some shopping (a fashion show was going on at the same time) and then to the gayest establishment in Peru, possibly in all of South America, the Fallen Angel restaurant and hotel.
It’s the Food Issue, with terrific in-depth stories on Greek yoghurt by Rebecca Mead, Adam Gopnik baking bread with his mother, the question of animals we love to much to eat by Dana Goodyear, and Italian superstar chef Massimo Bottura by Jane Kramer. Plus a few short takes, including one by Zadie Smith that I liked very much. And a short story by Thomas McGuane full of surprising and emotionally charged sentences called “Weight Watchers.”
another eye opens 