Welcome, Raul!

His name is Raul Villalobos, Jr., and he started recently as our marketing intern at Conexión Marketing. He's completing his bachelor's degree at the UW, and he's on the home stretch! He helps us with all kinds of stuff--today he's doing preliminary research on L.A. Hispanics and what percentage of that group travel by air and how they get to the airport.

Raul's family is from Peru, and both his parents are good cooks. He shared a description of a traditional dish with us that is definitely a detour from American cuisine.

I'll call it Shish-ka-hearts. The actual term for it is anticuchos. It's basically delicate fillets of heart, skewered. Raul says he doesn't like eating most organs that are typically eaten in Peru and other Latin American countries (is tongue an organ? he doesn't like that, either), but he does like him some anticuchos!

After the Peruvian cuisine conversation, Gigi took it upon herself to visit the Latin tienda at Pike Place Market to pick up some Inca Cola, originally from Peru. Of course, in Peru they use cane sugar to sweeten it; in the New Jersey production we learned high fructose corn syrup is substituted.

Smells like bubble gum, looks like Mountain Dew, tastes like heaven in a cup.

Peruvian Shamans at Work on U.S. Presidential Candidates!

I try to stick to local stuff, but this was too good to pass up.

1) Shamans in Lima are working their magic to provide for a fair presidential election in the U.S.

2) They have predicted that Obama will emerge the victor.

see it for yourself:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2008329129_shaman30.html