Page 152 - WINE DINE AND TRAVEL FALL 2024 SPAIN

“Well, here are the “kitchen” facilities,” de-
clared Franke, the friend who had urged
me for years to participate in a medical
mission in the Peruvian Amazon. “This is
where you will cook for the forty members
of Selva in Action (SIA) (www.pams.org/si-
amission)for the next week!” We faced a
two-burner stove, a bottle of gas, as a
small generator hummed behind the lone
cement wall.
A blue plastic tarp flapped in the hot
breeze.
I gulped, then laughed, then turned to
my young “kitchen partner,” Tessa, fresh
from feeding crowds at a summer camp on
Orcas Island (WA). We looked at each
other quizzically. The eleven cookbooks I
authored were of no inspiration as I took in
cabbages the size of footballs, two dozen
oversized carrots, a bagful of rice, a pack-
age of spaghetti (yessss!), a plastic con-
tainer of tomato sauce (yessss again!), but
what to do with Amazonian fruits named
cocona and mamey? No clue. Jars of un-
determined origin lined rickety plastic
shelves. Our culinary imagination went into
high gear.
The SIA medical team was gathered in
this NE corner of the Peruvian Amazon, an
hour outside Iquitos, at the invitation of its
co-founder, Anita Soluna, a passionate
septuagenarian with an M.S. in Clinical Psy-
chology and previously served as Director
of Education for the Los Angeles County
Chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving
(MADD). A love of archaeology drew her to
Peru initially. And, as she likes to recollect:
“The jungle spoke my name.” Anita and her

152 WINE DINE & TRAVEL MAGAZINE FALL 2024