I’ve only recently discovered the brilliant adjoined stores Puro Chile and Puro Wine in New York’s Soho. While Puro Wine focuses on selling premium Chilean wines, Puro Chile sells an array of high quality Chilean products – olive oils, wool sweaters, photo books, and handicrafts. Combined they are a powerful tool for promotion. Last night they held “A Taste of Chile,” which was put on by Wines of Chile. A number of wines, served by bartenders in miner outfits, were available from four different regions: the Casablanca Valley, Elqui & Limari Valleys, Maipo Valley, and Colchagua Valley. Their were several wines I had yet to try so I pleased to have the opportunity for so much Chile in one place.

In Indonesian-Latino Comes to Jackson Heights, Edible Queens World’s Fare blogger Joe DiStefano describes his visit to a new Indonesian-Latino restaurant, Tropika Grill n’ Cafe, in Jackson Heights, Queens. Say what? Indonesian-Latino?

Unlike in neighboring Ecuador, Peruvian cocoa beans have not found a following, though growing conditions are quite similar. The industry just hasn’t developed. In Lima’s Miraflores district, the sweet shop Xocolatl, is one of the first to concentrate on higher end chocolate in the city. Even though the majority of their cocoa comes from Ecuador, it’s a start.

While I travel around Peru fairly regularly and have probably eaten a wider range of Peruvian restaurants more than anyone on earth, Mistura was a revelation. Getting around Peru and sampling different restaurants takes time, but Mistura brings some of the better ones from across the different regions to one location. There were chefs, restaurants, and street stalls from Lima, Arequipa, Tarapoto, Trujillo, Tacna, and elsewhere that I had ever heard of. Some vendors served obscure or classic regional dishes, while others saw talented chefs altering Peruvian classics in funky new ways.

The wait for food at Mistura ranges from just a minute or two to more than an hour. While you can get food from the majority of vendors in less than 20 minutes, there are a few with lines that grow longer by the day because of word of mouth getting out about their particular dishes. El Grifo’s Fettucines a la Huancaina has created the most buzz in my opinion, though many of the more simple and rustic vendors are drawing huge crowds as we

At Lima’s food festival of Mistura, it was the bees that first attracted me to Postres Tradicionales Tina. The restaurant is headed by a group of Afro-Peruvian women who serve a long list of traditional Limeño sweets. For some reason, every bee within a mile of their stand at Mistura flocked to their trays of Mazamorra Morada, Arroz con Leche, Arroz Zambito, and especially their camotes glaseados (glazed sweet potatoes) and another chunky mixture I had never seen before. There are dozens of other vendors selling sweets at Mistura, but the bees didn’t go there. They only came to Postres Tradicionales Tina.

This year’s Mistura is dedicated to the Potato, el papa. The entrance to the festival’s Gran Mercado has a display labeling roughly 500 types of Peruvian potatoes. They are red, blue, white, yellow, black, purple, and even multicolored. If you walk further into the market you will find cooperatives of vendors, most of them in traditional garb from the region they live, and baskets and bags of the potatoes from their respective regions. The potatoes being sold from Puno are completely different from the potatoes being sold from Huancayo. The shapes are different, the colors are different, the sizes are different, and the flavors are different.

In a cab home from the opening day of Mistura I noticed that there were actually buses with people in them moving driving in the spot where the long awaited Metropolitano mass transit system was being bu

As I sat in a conference listening to Sonia Bahamonde of the cult cebicheria Sonia in Chorrillos speak to a closed room of Latin American reporters, along with her husband Fredy and daughter who is also named Sonia, a sort of hubbub came from outside. Shouts of “Gaston, Gaston” rang out and came closer. Soon Gaston Acurio, Peru’s most famous chef and the organizer of Mistura, walked in the door. He stood to one side of the room, certain not to interrupt one of his culinary idols. He was just catching his breath it seemed.

In Ecuador guanta de monte is just another name for Paca, or Agouti paca. It’s a large rodent, not as large as a capybara that lives off the forest floor, eating fallen fruit, leaves, and tubers. In parts of the Amazon, it’s food. In Coca, where Francisco de Orellana set off on his journey across the Amazon in 1541, sidewalk stalls – some of the best places to eat in town – serve guanta in Salsa de maní – a peanut sauce (sometimes called gordo de maní ) that originated in the province of Manabí. PRice with a with a heaping pile of rice and a grilled banana = $1.50.