flowers and rocotos

M was very good at flower arranging and I learned alot from her. She used a ken san to hold a fan arrangement of godesias in a shallow silver tray. When you walked in the front door it was right ahead, sitting on a chinese trunk in front of a large window that gave out onto the comparatively small garden.Lovely.
In a corner or the living room, off to the right, there was a large cognac shaped vase. I noticed how she placed flowers with chicken wire or simply by using the stems, as with roses. So I tried my hand at imitating these. I think I did pretty well.
I never got along with her but I admired her flowers very much, and I liked her empanadas salteñas alot, too.
But I didn't really like the other Bolivian food. It was way too picante for me. They cooked with ají, decorated the dishes with ají, and served an additional fresh raw ají sauce to top things with!!!! I could never eat more than a couple of mouthfuls.Then my tongue numbed, my eyes watered uncontrolably, I gagged, coughed, and gave up trying to be polite.I never liked the chuño or tunta that accompanied sajta or saice either.

There was a half circle of petunias around the patio- beautiful things that would bloom pink lace all together. There was a bamboo wall hiding some ugliness on the far side with ferns in pots below them. She'd use those fronds in her flower arrangements.
Poking around, I found some quirquiña on the other side. Funny, I didn't know what it was, but I guessed right. They'd told me that once it was eliminated, it wouldn't grow back, just for spite, and that by mistake the gardener had removed it all. I found some and simply figured it was it. I never really tasted it.
It's used in the Jaipahuayca, the rocoto sauce always placed on the table to be placed on things and thereby blast away any other flavor. Choke.