Cuisine

By Edd Staton It's not like Cuenca is lacking for almuerzo choices. Full lunches can be found all over town from $1.75 to $5.50. So why did Sofia Rosero decide to open a restaurant with so much stiff competition?  "I've run restaurants before and I knew I could do it better!" Sofy flatly declares. She...

In 1897, 16-year-old Rosalía Suarez carried ice from Mt. Imbabura to her home in Ibarra in northern Ecuador. In a large copper pail, she mixed tropical fruit juices with the ice, inventing “helados de paila,” or copper-pail sherbet. Nearly 115 years later, Rosalía’s ice cream shop is still using the original recipe: ice, sugar, and...

by Susan Schenck  I pondered the menu at Cuenca’s hot new healthy restaurant: Live Organic, located at Gran Columbia 9-87 and Padre Aguirre.  I felt like I was back in California as I saw ingredients I hadn’t ever seen in Cuenca restaurants, such as superfoods like goji berries, hemp seeds, kale, wheatgrass, maca, acai berry...

“It reminds me of Austin, Texas." “It’s straight out of San Diego.” “It would be right at home in Boston.” These are a few of the comments from expats about the San Sebas Café, which opened in mid-December on Mariscal Sucre and Coronel Talbot at the southwest corner of San Sebastian Square. With its warm...

A dozen coins tumbled away from the shoes of the elderly white-haired man who was standing on a corner in Cuenca, Ecuador. Cuenca is a beautiful city in the southern part of the country that is now a magnet for expatriates looking for a place to retire outside the United States. "Let me help you...

by Susan Schenck Sometimes, just once in a while, I miss some things I could easily find in California, land of health products. One of the products I couldn't find for the longest time was coconut oil/butter—a very healthful food. As I write in my book The Live Food Factor, “Coconut oil contains medium-chain fatty acids, or...

For nearly two decades, if you wanted Mexican food in Cuenca, you had only one choice: El Pedregal Azteca (“The Rocky Aztec”), where María and Juan Manuel Ramoshave been serving authentic northern Mexican cuisine since 1989. Located in the heart of El Centro on Gran Colombia near Padre Aguirre, the Azteca is known for a...

by Susan Schenck Cuenca has a new restaurant serving raw gourmet dishes! Nectar, which opened on October 28, is a vegetarian tea house and gallery located on Benigno Malo 10-42 between Gran Columbia and Mariscal Lamar (on the second floor) and is open from noon to 6 p.m Tuesday through Saturday. (In a few weeks,...

The Coopera, an organic-agriculture, financial-services, and social-support cooperative based in San Joaquin, a village on the western outskirts of Cuenca, was established in January 2004 by eight founding members with a total investment of less than $50 (each contributed $6). Today, it has more than 60,000 members and assets of nearly $30 million. The Coopera...

by Susan Schenk It seems like yesterday. The close friend of a friend of mine was dying of AIDS and he related to me the agony of being on his deathbed. “At that point, I think I would just call for Dr. Kevorkian,” I remarked. “No, you’d be so surprised!” Russ replied. “You just appreciate life so...

by Susan Schenck Before moving to Ecuador, I had been a very strict raw vegan for six years — until I started getting deficiencies. My brain didn’t function without DHA and B12. I also lacked vitamin D and K2 for the bones. A vegetarian diet doesn’t work for everyone — the fact is, we evolved...

by Susan Schenck “Cadelaes, Casa del las especias” is a great little store in Cuenca that has top-quality items, as well as some obscure items unavailable elsewhere. For one thing, they have the best walnuts in Cuenca. I'm a fan of walnuts because they have a higher ratio of omega 3s to 6s than most...