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EK: Well, my mother was a very creative person. She was creative in cooking, which was her forte, she loved to cook. So even though we had two nannies -- but this is not uncommon in South America at that time -- and even now some of my friends have a nanny or someone to take care of the household which really is helpful. I wish we did, too. [Laughs] But it was just one of those things, but she never allowed them to cook because she loved to cook and she loved to experiment. So she did all the cooking, so she would come from the store just to cook and prepare, especially for my dad, who still loved Japanese food. So she would make him things that he enjoyed, but also a lot of Peruvian food which continues in me because I like to cook, too, like my mother.

KN: Do you know any cooking dishes that your mother taught you?

EK: Oh, yeah, almost all of them.

KN: Amazing. And still today you cook...

EK: Oh, yeah. Like one might be anticucho, which is beef heart, skewered beef heart. Do you know that one?

KN: Yes.

EK: Okay. And papalahuancaina, it's a potato with a cheese sauce. And papa rellena, which is like a piroshky of the Russian, except it's made of potato and inside is the meat and the olives and the raisin and the culantro, cilantro in Mexican. And then you flour it and you fry it, and that's delicious, too. Oh, you also have to put in egg, boiled egg, sliced boiled egg in it, those kind of things. Oh, and cau cau, which is tripe cooked with... what is that? The yellow spice? Do you know the yellow spice? Starts with a T, (turmeric) now my mind is gone. It will come to me. But anyway, so yeah, I cook just about everything. Ceviche is another that everybody seems to like. Everybody loves that. And then, let's see, arroz con pollo, you know, the rice with the chicken?

KN: Oh, that's wonderful.

EK: Yes. And that's made out of liquefied cilantro, liquid, and what else? Oh my gosh, there are so many.

KN: So your father met your mother when she was seventeen, and by nineteen she had been married, was running the store, had you, was making all these amazing dishes. Your mother was a real multi-tasker and a very hard worker.

EK: She was. A very hard worker. I think that's kept us from going, feeling sorry for ourselves. Some children sense the mother, and they feel sorry. I never felt sorry for myself, ever. Even when looking back, life must have been difficult, I never felt sorry for myself. I think that's her spirit.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.