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Last year, Andrew Zimmern brought "Bizarre Foods" to Lima to sample the unusual eats of the Peruvian capital. This week on Travel Channel, he heads back to the Land of the Incas to get a completely different culinary take. "It's a transcendent place," Zimmern says, "with hundreds of stories to be told, and its many cultures float at the surface of society. It's also a horizontal culture, not a vertical one like America's particular zeitgeist." In the Monday, June 8, episode titled "Peruvian Amazon: Giant Rodents & Biting Ants," Zimmern heads into the heart of the Amazon jungle to Iquitos to try his hand at catching and cooking giant biting ants. "You find the hive and break the walls down and grab them at the shoulders," he says of how to catch them. "It's easy to not get bitten by the ones you are snatching. It's the other 77,000 of them coming at your legs that make it hard. We cooked them in tucupi (a yellow sauce made from the root of the native manioc plant) with a local shaman. It's a superfood stew." He also swam with paiche, an important food fish in South America that can reach 12 feet in length. In the past, it has been fished to near extinction in some parts of the continent and commercial fishing of it is banned in Brazil. "It's one of the best fish on earth – clean, white-fleshed and delicate," Zimmern says. "... I tried to lift it out of the net to free it. It's got armor plating so it was very tricky, but fun to be in the water with them. The man responsible for making them nearly extinct by hunting them down is the guy dedicated to farming them now, so it was an inspiring story." And as for those giant rodents, known as mahas, they're smoked and Zimmern says they taste "like ham." Bon appetit. What book are you currently reading? " 'I Married Adventure,' the story of the 19th century explorer Martin Johnson. He was also a nature photographer who brought home stunning movies of Africa and the South Seas to eager Americans and spent a lifetime traveling the world with his cameras and his wife. " What did you have for dinner last night? "Seared beef, roasted tomatoes, sweet potatoes charred in a fire with sour cream and hot chiles." What is your next project? "I am about to try to sell a cookbook, I just launched a production company that has three shows we are working on, and I am expanding my restaurant business by a factor of about 20. I have another season of 'Bizarre Foods: Delicious Destinations' I am working on, and of course another season of 'Bizarre Foods.' " When was the last vacation you took, where and why? "Disney World. It is the most magical place on Earth. We go a few times a year. I love Costa Rica, on the Pacific south coast. We go there a lot." BY GEORGE DICKIE Zimmern and 'Bizarre Foods' sample the fruits of the Peruvian jungle Few movie formulas have been as time-tested as the one about mismatched partners bonding through shared circumstances. From "It Happened One Night" to "Lethal Weapon," it's been repainted and taken out for new spins over and over. One of the latest variations on the theme is "Hot Pursuit," which answers the question, "Would anyone ever think of teaming Reese Witherspoon and Sofia Vergara?" Immediately, that combination has "mismatched partners" written all over it – Witherspoon coming off the serious intensity of "Wild," and Vergara being known for her sometimes wild humor on "Modern Family" – and the fact is that "Hot Pursuit" works best when it's simply the two actresses clearly enjoying riffing off each other. That said, the script seems weirdly intent on tripping them up as often as possible. The set-up wasn't developed at Rocket Science School, with Witherspoon as a Type A cop who has to transport a drug dealer and his moll (Vergara) to testify against a powerful trafficker. Before you know it (and since director Anne Fletcher keeps the picture moving briskly at less than 90 minutes, much happens here before you know it), Witherspoon's partner and Vergara's spouse both have been eliminated by those who don't want that testimony to happen. Let the hot pursuit across Texas begin! From that point, much snarking and masquerading ensues for the two women as they try to survive, much less get to the courthouse on time. Both producers of the picture as well, Witherspoon and Vergara aren't exactly known for slow talk once they get revved up, and a certain amount of fun can be had from trying to gauge how many miles per hour their jaws are moving at. (An extra bonus: their bloopers that close the picture.) The truth, though, is that they both deserve better material ... Witherspoon in particular, since "Election" and "Legally Blonde" stand as testimony to just how much she can do with comedy that has a dose of wit. And the same goes for Vergara, frankly, considering how many times "Modern Family" has been honored for its writing. There's little in "Hot Pursuit" that will be mistaken for wit, but you still can be grateful that its main stars bring their natural gifts to the party. Sofia Vergara (left) and Reese Witherspoon BY JAY BOBBIN 'Hot Pursuit' puts buddy formula to new test Page 8 June 8 - 14, 2015

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