I wasn´t going to make another post this week... but the lunch that Mike and I prepared for our family ended up being postworthy.

We decided to make breakfast for lunch, as it was easiest to find the ingredients and easy to make. I made Heather´s ¨French Toast Bake¨. We went to Mega, the supermarket, to find the ingredients on Tuesday. We found everything but half and half and corn syrup. We bought some regular cream and decided to ask our sister where we could buy corn syrup. We didn´t see her until later that night, and she told us of a market that carries a lot of american products in the touristy area.

Well, we are about a 50 minute walk from the touristy area, and there happened to be a strike yesterday, and so no taxis were running. Well correction, some were running but with the chance of having rocks thrown at their windshields by the people in the strike including all the other taxi drivers, the teachers and the farmers in all of Cusco. So we walked. We got to the store, and they didn´t have it, which was fine cause it was a nice walk, but it was an even longer walk back, trying to decide how important corn syrup was in the recipe. I decided not very important, and was going to go along with making my dish anyways.

I had everything ready, and Pancha heated up the oven. I told her I needed it at 170 C or 350F, and she told me that their over didn´t have a temp gage, and I started getting nervous. I put the dish in anyways, just planning to watch it closely. Well as soon as i turned my back the oven started on FIRE: yes, on fire. We are lucky the oven is in the patio because there was smoke everywhere. Pancha rescued my dish from the oven and put out the fire but then the next delima was how to cook it. Well Cynthia and I ended up carrying this hot, smoky dish about three blocks to this place called hot oven. You pay and they cook the dish in a wood oven. Well, wood ovens are hotter than three fifty, so naturally my dish burned on the top and didn´t cook all the way through. We brought it back to the house and cooked it hte rest of the way in the microwave. It was a disaster. It ended up tasting fine, however, and Mikes omlettes and bacon were awesome, but wow what a day! And since we had to walk to school, we were gonna be late. Luckily, the strike had calmed down and so we found a taxi! Whew! Needless to say, we are going to bring our family in Ecuador out to eat instead of cooking! The strike is all done though and so we are off to Tipon for class today, a small town outside of Cusco! And guess what? They are famous for the guinea pig... (insert gag noise)....

see you in a month! marcy