Dear Readers,

Living here in Camden is great because we are close to many places where they serve foods from all over the world.  Today my husband, Carlos, and I brunched in a place in Pennsauken called Mi Tierra Colombia.   (My Land, Colombia)   We often frequent this cute little eatery at Route 130 and Browning Road next to the Radio Shack in a strip of stores.  We enjoyed our food (scrambled eggs with bits of ham and red and green peppers for my husband and chicken, rice, beans and salad for me) and we loved our fruity cold drinks.  Carlos had guanabana (soursop) juice and I had mango juice– fresh and delicious.

We watched a server put something in two little brown paper bags, put the two bags in a big white plastic bags and give them to two tall men at the counter. .One paid  grabbed the paper bags out of the plastic and tossed the plastic bag on the counter.  He handed one of the paper bags to his friend and they immediately pulled out a sort of little round cake from the bag.

The two men tore into the cakes.

They looked so almost enraptured that I said to my husband, “What were they eating?  They couldn’t wait to eat it.”

Carlos called over the server and she explained that they had ordered arepas, a sort of round flat cornbread cake with cheese.  Curious to see what had sent the two men into such a state, we ordered one to take home.

Wow!  If I knew it was going to be so good, I would have started eating it in the restaurant, too.  The arepa was sweet, a little crunchy, a little corny and a little greasy.  Incredible.  Carlos and I shared one in our house, but I could have eaten an entire arepa myself.

I looked up arepa on the Internet and found out that there are many variations of the arepa and that it is generally a breakfast food.  Yum, yum, yum.

Don’t you just love to eat?  Food is such a good part of life and I know that I am blessed to live in a country where food is abundant for most of us.  Admittedly, there are Americans and people all over the world who are hungry and that is truly regrettable and extremely unjust.  However, I’m not one and I thank God that I’ve never had to go without decent food.  I’m happy about food, but I never forget that I’m one of the people in the world who got a good deal in life.

The rest of the day was pleasant, too–a visit from my daughter and a new book on my Kindle, Face-Off, an anthology of stories by authors of thrillers.

Life is good.

Marguerite Ferra

Writing from Cramer Hill