Jello Chilies

I've been craving Peruvian food lately, so I decided to cook up a little ceviche and ají de gallina and guanabana ice cream tonight for some of the old Goshen crew that's here in Denver. It's been quite awhile since I've done any serious Peruvian cooking, but I tracked down some recipes and set off to do the house grocery shopping. Unsurprisingly, there was no ají amarillo (a Peruvian type of yellow chili pepper) to be found at Albertsons or Whole Foods, where we usually do our shopping. I headed for one of the Mexican supermarkets to try my luck, but had none, except for finding some frozen guanabana pulp. I finally ended up at the biggest Mexican supermarket I know, the fourth stop of my grocery shopping trip. After searching all the likely aisles in vain for my ají, and more than ready to be done with shopping, I finally asked the man taking inventory of the spices for help. Our conversation went something like this:

"Excuse me, do you know if you sell ají amarillo?"
"What?"
"Ají amarillo...es un tipo de chile peruano que se usa para hacer ají de gallina..."
(look of skepticism and confusion) "Jello chilies?"
(look of surprise) "No, no, not jello. A pepper. Un chile amarillo."
"But amarillo is jello."
(half second of silence. epiphany.) "OOOOOhhh, yes yes yes, I'm sorry. Yellow chilies. Jellow chilies. ¿Se los vende?"
"A ver...es que no sé...es que this store is more Mexico, no South America...you want that I talk to my friend from Peru? He will know."
"OK, that'd be great."

He proceded to whip out a cell phone and call up the Peruvian friend, who informed us that the store did indeed carry yellow chilies, and that they were located with the other South American products, although neither one of them could tell me where that might be. I gave a heartfelt thanks and returned to my search, meticulously re-scanning every aisle and feeling rather frustrated until I caught sight of a lone 2-liter of soda on a top shelf, a neon-yellow beacon of pure Perú. Inca Kola. I couldn't help but grin. Sure enough, I found the ají amarillo not two feet away, and bought the Inca Kola for good measure, stopping to find the jello-chili man and thank him again on my way to the checkout before heading home for an afternoon of shredding chicken, chopping chilies, soaking raw fish in lime, and sipping on the Golden Cola, which tasted just as terrible as I remembered but made my heart sing. Craving satisfied. Thank you, jello-chili man, for making it possible.