Jun 2, 2007

blisters and butterscotch pudding

Yesterday afternoon, I went to a baby shower. It was a little different than any other baby shower I'd been to. It started out as the regular group of women that I have found myself a part of - all officers' wives, all a little older, all fancy dressers. We are apparently a group of good-deed-doers. I can bring to mind very few of their names, although they have been inviting me to their functions for about a year now. They are very nice, but I have never really been part of any group before, and it taxes me a bit to sit through some of these functions when I know I have almost nothing in common with anyone them. Usually I claim fatigue when I go, so they don't feel badly about not having anything to say to me, and I don't feel badly then when I sit and listen in on one conversation or another.

One thing I have learned with this group is that I will never have to worry about over doing or over dressing. Most are pretty casual, luckily for me, but there are some GAUDY gals here. Big bangly jewelry; big red lipsticked mouths; glittered blouses; stiletto-heeled patent leather black knee boots; long, dark red painted finger nails. I wore my just-finished olive green granny square sweater and jeans, and shiny new black scuff shoes that ended up giving me blisters by the end of the night. Keep in mind that I was the bride who was out-dressed by nearly all the female guests at my wedding in Trujillo. It wasn't really MY day - it was a night for everyone else to dress to the teeth and get drunk. How depressing. (That's another story, though.)

Anyway, the highlight of the evening for me was the buffet. All you can eat snacks and goodies - not really a meal, just PILES and PILES of finger foods. I found something there that I had been wanting to try. It was a dessert called "Suspiro Limeño" - or "Liman Sigh". A sigh. Aaahhh. Think of a sigh. A ssiiggghhhh. A breath of air escaping. I imagined that it would be a light and airy dessert, something like flavored meringue. AAhh. I imagined a delicate flavor, fruity, lightly spiced, perhaps a hint of fresh, clean lime flavor. *sigh* You know, lime - limeño, lime - limòn...Lima limòn...

Gotta look out for those preconceived notions.

When I saw the dish labeled "Suspiro Limeño", I asked, "Are you sure this is Suspiro Limeño?" I was assured it was the authentic dish. Hmmm. Okay, well, I'll give it a try. It certainly didn't LOOK light and airy. It truly didn't LOOK delicately flavored or lightly spiced. To be honest, it looked like my mom's butterscotch pudding with heavy whipped cream folded in. And that's exactly what it tasted like, too, without even a HINT of lime. It wasn't bad. In fact it was good. I just thought it was ironic that I had to travel all the way to Lima and wait for a baby shower before I got to have butterscotch pudding again. I guess in Lima, they do *HEAVY SIGHS*.

I found delicately flavored watermelon later. It wasn't very ripe, so the flavor was just barely there. I never did find light and airy. *HEAVY SIGH*

3 comments:

Wondering Through Life said...

Red lips that talk fast and in words I can't grasp are a wee bit scary to me !! It's one of those times you center on all the lips chattering and lose track of the faces. *shiver*

Pudding, maybe you need to invent your lime, light and fluffy pudding and market it ?? You have a lot of lab rats at those parties to try it on until you get the mix just right LOL.

Nice to see you post again !! HUGS Lisa Catherine

Kathleen said...

All those big red-painted lips talking all at the same time...like on TV when all one sees are the mouths moving and then it feels like you're going to get ill...yup. I know that feeling.

knitphomaniac said...

I think with some recipes, different people make it different ways, so it may be the case with that pudding.

I know that my family comes from different regions in Italy, and no two people from different regions make the same recipe the same, in fact in some cases it's drastically different, even though it's a traditional Italian dish.