One Sunday afternoon in the north most tip of the Miraflores district in Lima, Peru, I was hungry and looking for a place to eat. It was Sunday so it had to be ceviche, for Sunday is the day of the Christians and fish is the dish of Jesus and it is a personal rule of mine to eat ceviche for lunch on Sundays whenever possible.
Latin America has a long tradition of written non-fiction narrative, known as crónica—think Gabriel Garcia, Elena Poniatowska or, more recently, Gatopardo and Etiqueta Negra magazines—but that tradition has never made the leap to radio. Until now.
November 2009 was a good time to come to Miami. That fall, the country was in love with hope. Obama had won the presidency. The economic free fall had halted just shy of collapse. Hurricane season had come and gone, without the usual havoc. It was time to look up again.
We continued chatting over tacu tacu topped with a seafood stir-fry, a slow-roasted goat shank, Mirasol risotto and shellfish in an herbed butter sauce. The sun started to sink into the ocean, as we ended our meal with Andres’ mother’s home-made ice cream. I walked to my car and headed home, my stomach, content, and my heart, full.
We’re only fifteen minutes into the interview when Itzhak Beery spits rum in my face. First he takes a swig—well, a trago—of rum. There is the glint of mischief in his eye, the mischief of a man who proposes to put you off balance, if only for the sake of rebalancing you.
“Really?” I said to Isabel. What I wanted to say, to shout, was, “No way! Blasphemy! You can’t make it with that! That’s not ceviche!” She had just told me that she added ketchup to her Ecuadorean shrimp ceviche.
