I recently read that there is an organization dedicated to “slow food.” Although I can appreciate the goals of this organization, I am surrounded by slow food and must confess to missing fast food. Not necessarily the burger chain kind, although that’s often our first stop in Quito, but any kinds of ready-to-go food, whether take-out, counter service or from the grocery store. Especially here in Shell, this is not a fast-food culture. Although we would love to have Cowboy Chicken, Fuddruckers, or Pei Wei nearby, I am slowly expanding the things I make from scratch. We have made pretzels, doughnuts, tortillas, bread, granola, peanut butter cup candies, Cheesecake Factory’s Lettuce Wraps, fajitas, enchiladas verdes and many other favorite dishes that we can’t get here. We also make juice from scratch – usually lemonade, blackberry juice or one of the fruits not found in the States. We use the ubiquitous moras (blackberries) to make pancake syrup as well. Most recently, we have discovered jungle peanuts. Apparently they are not a native crop to this area, but grow well. We bought 10 pounds recently and have learned to dry-roast them, honey-roast them and use them for making Cracker Jacks! I don’t know what variety they are, but they are striped. It beats buying the imported ones, but taste better than the ones that are sold in stores. Things we have yet to try are homemade wheat thins, cheese, candy corn, pop-tarts and peppermint patties! We’ll keep you posted on how those turn out.