when you want, where you want.
Torrey Peters Always Spatchcocks Her Chicken
Photo-Illustration: Maanvi Kapur
For the last four years, writer Torrey Peters has been splitting her time between Colombia and New York City. The Detransition, Baby author gets her fill of the country’s abundance of fresh fruit; she often reads while working her way through a three-pound bag of tiny mangoes over the course of an hour. “They’re so small, and there’s so much work to get out what is basically a spoonful of incredibly good, sweet mango,” she says. But she misses Asian food when she’s away. “I’m used to New York, where I can go get Xi’an noodles or stuff that’s very specific, like umami flavors.” She’ll be in the city soon, though, to promote her new collection, Stag Dance. Billed as both “a novel and stories,” it traverses disparate settings: post-contagion America, boarding school, a logging expedition, Las Vegas. For now, though, Peters is content in Santa Marta, devouring lots of tropical fruit, oceanside seafood, and the best vending-machine candy bar for miles.
Monday, February 10
Wake up at 5:30. I make a double shot of espresso and split it into two little mugs. Froth some milk for a cappuccino. Watch the sunrise with Chrys from the balcony of our apartment. On the street below, as usual, Don Francisco sweeps the sidewalks and yells at Negro, the street dog that he has named, feeds, and cares for. It’s always the same: Negro chases one of the early-morning moto-taxis; Don Francisco shouts for him to stop. When the moto speeds away, Negro trots proudly back to Don Francisco, who attempts and fails to punish him with a broom. Don Francisco cups Negro’s face in both hands and delivers to him a forceful lecture on the evils of chasing motorcycles, then ducks inside and returns with a bowl of kibble. Don Francisco has magnificent iron-gray hair and is the self-elected boss of this block.
Chrys goes inside to make us each a second cappuccino. Another character on our block, an older woman, whose name I don’t know, totters her way toward an abandoned school where all the orange street cats live; they scurry out with their tails flagpoled in greeting and mill about her ankles while she feeds them. By then, Jerson, the tinto vendor, pushes his cart down the block and, without asking, gives Don Francisco a plastic cup of tinto. I feel that I should really support Jerson and drink tinto — hot instant coffee loaded with sugar — but I just love frothy milk. Next, I blend a smoothie of one banana, one passion fruit, and two oranges with a spoonful of flax and chia. Chrys and I have the timing dialed in: We drink it just as the sun crests the mountains. When we finish, it is bright out but still cool.
Today, we run up Sendero Ziruma, a raised footpath that climbs about 300 feet, to go over an arid pass with a view of the ocean. Chrys takes the downhill fast, streaking far ahead of me. We meet up again at Cafeteria Sebas, on Carrera 4 in Rodadero, a family-run frito stand that (for my money) fries the best empanadas in town. By the time I arrive, Chrys is already sitting in one of the plastic chairs set out on the sidewalk. She doesn’t need to ask what I want: a cup of orange juice with no sugar and no ice and a chicken-cheese-and-corn empanada. Chrys is likewise predictable. She gets an arepa de huevo perico, which is an egg mixed with onion and green pepper and pressed into arepa masa and then deep fried. A guy at the stand notices our sweatiness and asks us why we bother to run if we are just going to eat fritos. Chrys says that he has it backward: We’re going to eat fritos anyway, so why not run to get them?
I’m working on an essay for Harper’s Bazaar today, and so I take a Vigia — the local brand of Modafinil, which you can buy without a prescription at the pharmacy. It kills my appetite, but around 2, I blend a zapote with milk and ice, which is my favorite drink. In Florida, I think they call a zapote mamey, but I’ve never seen it anywhere else in the U.S. It’s a fruit about the size of a small cantaloupe. The flesh has a consistency somewhere between a sweet potato and an avocado, and it’s orange from beta-carotene, like a carrot. The flavor is just its own thing, and it makes the best milkshake in the world, no sugar needed.
Around 6, I am hungry, because I’ve been reading and writing all day without eating much, so I spatchcock a small chicken, brush it with oil, and roast it in a cast-iron pan. I always spatchcock chicken, because it cooks faster and it’s fun to say. Chrys and I eat the chicken with some leftover Cuban rice — I like to make it with black beans, green peppers, onions, garlic, cumin, bay, and cinnamon bark. Then we continue our ongoing Better Call Saul marathon and eat Lök chocolate (made from Colombian cacao) in bed.
Tuesday, February 11
Sunrise the same as the day before: two cappuccinos, Don Francisco, Negro, the old woman, the cats. Banana-passion-fruit-orange smoothie.
New York published a column this morning that I wrote on Colombia’s diplomatic incident with Donald Trump, my attempt to get Colombian residency, and Trump’s executive order for trans passports: Even though I’ve had an F in my passport for a decade, his regime will be changing it to an M when I renew next year. My anxiety spikes — today is a day to avoid my phone, to avoid seeing whatever responses that column gets.
I decide to renew the revisión técnico-mecánica for my motorcycle — a yearly safety and emissions check. I half-expected that moving to Colombia would be constant adventure — but no, all over the world you must sit in waiting rooms the equivalent of the DMV while some 16-year-old approves or denies the validity of your possessions. In the waiting room, I buy a Jumbo Flow from the vending machine. Jumbo Flow is an excellent Colombian candy bar. Jumbo is the brand, and Flow is the designation for this specific bar; in this case, white chocolate with nougat and caramel.
Got a message from Nadim, my immigration lawyer. He and I have been rushing to renew my visa for Colombian residency before Trump’s gender-marker changes go into effect for my American documents. Turns out that I need to meet him at the Centro Migración to get proof that I properly applied for my cedula extranjería. On the way, I meet Chrys at Mommy’s Bagels, the new (and only) bagel shop in Santa Marta. We order a smoked-salmon bagel to split. I wouldn’t say that what arrives resembles a smoked-salmon bagel in NYC, but if I accept it as a baked-salmon sandwich, it is pretty good. The guard outside the mirrored doors of Centro Migración won’t let Nadim enter with me. “Absolutely no lawyers!” he declares. I’m on my own in another waiting room.
For dinner, Chrys and I celebrate my bureaucratic successes by taking our newly legal motorcycle to Nómada, a little spot on Playa Salguero that makes great bread in-house. We order a pizza, and the crust is just perfect, although I wish they would use buffalo mozzarella for the cheese. I guess someone imported some water buffalo a couple decades ago, and they must have flourished, because you can now find buffalo mozzarella in many stores in the area. For dessert, I order a cone of salty chocolate ice cream and am thrilled to discover that Nómada also makes the cone in-house. It is so good: crispy but also soft.
Wednesday, February 12
Don Francisco sweeping the sidewalks per usual. However! The cat lady doesn’t come to feed the cats today. What’s up with that? Our first winter in Santa Marta, there was a cat massacre. At some point during the pandemic, people began dumping unwanted stray cats at the polideportivo, which is the local public sports center. A group of nice feline lovers built the cats a cat house. Then, one night, someone set fire to the cat house with all the cats inside. It was a huge scandal. The police never caught the cat murderers. Anyway, now, when the local cats don’t get fed, I begin to worry. For the old lady who feeds them, but also for the cats and whoever has nefarious designs on them. We are out of passion fruit today, so the smoothie must be pineapple, banana, and orange.
Chrys and I meet Nadim at the notary to give him the previous day’s paperwork and to sign a power of attorney. Afterward, he takes us for lunch at a seafood restaurant called Mañe Cayón in the Los Cocos sector of the city. The floor is made of sand. It’s a very cute place; I’ve known about it for a long time, but I’ve never eaten here. That’s because Los Cocos has a bunch of newly built towers, but the capacity of the sewer system in the area was not fit to accommodate them, and, consequently, stagnant sewage often floods the streets in front of Mañe Cayón. Today, however, the sewers only overflow slightly and there is no poop smell. Very good! I order mariscos al ajo: conch, shrimp, mussels, and calamari in a garlic butter. It’s delicious. Nadim gets a cazuela — like a creamy stew — and Chrys the bandeja de mariscos.
Evening is the worst time to go to the public market. By then, all the produce has been out in the heat all day. But we’re out of fruit and so we go anyway. The market is a giant concrete public building, and the best fruit is sold on the surrounding streets, not in the market building itself. I think that is because the first floor of the market is also the meat market, and the whole place smells of blood and gore, which makes one less excited to load up on raw fruit. We get: five zapote, three pounds of loquat, one small pineapple, three pounds of sweet mangoes, one bag of cloudberries, one pitaya, one bunch mint, one Florida avocado, and one starfruit. There are certain types of fruit I’ve only ever found for sale at this specific market — mangosteens (red skin, white flesh, black seeds), for example. I would describe mangosteens as being in the Jolly Rancher family of flavors — you taste one and you think, Wow, this could be a Jolly Rancher flavor. But, of course, it is not, it is simply a lovely fruit, like all Jolly Ranchers once were.
We feast on these fruits for dinner in front of another episode of Better Call Saul.
Thursday, February 13
Good news. The cat lady is back. Morning as usual. Banana/passion fruit/orange. On our run, we buy from the fishermen on 27th Street a couple of cojinoa (which Google says translates to “blue runner”?). Cojinoa tastes to me like a cross between mackerel and red snapper. I wash the fish and put it in the fridge.
I have a Zoom interview with Veronica Esposito for The Guardian about my new book. When I go to the kitchen after the interview, I discover that Chrys’s friend Didier, whose father-in-law is a fisherman, has given her a whole bag of cojinoa. I cook two of them in the air fryer for lunch, prepared very simply. I brush them with vegetable oil, then a dusting of salt, curry powder, and black pepper — served with a half-lime.
I should cook more cojinoa while they are still fresh, but I don’t. Instead, Chrys and I go to La Inmortal Taquería, on the Malecon, which sells Mexico City–style tacos. I order barbacoa de chivo, and Chrys gets birria with the caldo. On 20th Street, we run into Alejandro, who I initially met chatting on Grindr, and then we kept recognizing each other in real life. Alejandro is obsessed with trans guys. He really wants to date a trans guy. Last time I saw him, he begged me to introduce him to a trans guy — as if I, as a trans woman, am allotted a certain number of my own trans men whom I am now jealously withholding from him. (In fact, this is the case — we each get four).
Friday, February 14
The usual. Also, I make a simple broth from the remaining cojinoa before they turn. We have some, then freeze it to use for paella someday soon.
Today is Valentine’s Day. If you know me, then you know that an obsession with saunas (both building them and taking them) has become, like, two-fifths of my personality over the last year. Sorry about that, friends.
There is a rustic Finnish-style sauna near Minca, a small town about 45 minutes up the mountains from Santa Marta. The sauna was built by Duende, a Czech man who has a farm in the rainforest with his wife. For Valentine’s, I’ve rented the sauna for the day. I think it is romantic: Duende situated the sauna down in a gorge so no one can see it — you can sauna naked and jump from a small falls for the cold plunge. Duende makes us a pot of green tea and leaves us to the heat.
Post-sauna, hungry and tired, we ride the motorcycle another 35 minutes and 2,000 feet higher up the mountain, to Asadero Camarita, which serves llanera-style barbecue, a method of grilling meat that comes from the llanos—or plains regions—of Colombia. The chef puts the meat on large skewers and rests it inside a wood-fire brick oven so that it gets very charred and smoky.
The dining area is just slabs of chainsawed ceiba wood set under a tin roof. Chrys and I order a picada for two — a sampler plate of chopped beef, chicken, pork, and chorizo. It’s so incredibly excellent. I have another big bottle of Coca-Cola, because, after all, it’s Valentine’s Day.
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