The chef of Sri Lanka’s official residence in Washington gave a cooking demonstration March 13 at the 2011 Washington Travel and Adventure Show, preparing lunu-miris and hoppers before an appreciative audience.[image title="pr_15mar11" size="full" id="2718" align="none" linkto="viewer" ] Ambassador Jaliya Wickramasuriya chats with a guest following the Sri Lankan cooking demonstration at the Washington Travel and Adventure Show. [image title="pr_2_15mar11" size="full" id="2719" align="none" linkto="viewer" ] Sri Lankan cookbook Author S.H. Fernando (left) narrates as chef Tuan Buran prepares hoppers and lunu-miris, as author Mark DeCarlo looks on. [image title="pr_3_15mar11" size="full" id="2720" align="none" linkto="viewer" ] Chef Tuan Buran of the Sri Lankan residence in Washington, D.C. [image title="pr_1_15mar11" size="full" id="2721" align="none" linkto="viewer" ] Chef Tuan Buran prepares hoppers while Sri Lankan food expert SH Fernando describes the process and author Mrk DeCarlo observes. The chef of Sri Lanka’s official residence in Washington gave a cooking demonstration March 13 at the 2011 Washington Travel and Adventure Show, preparing lunu-miris and hoppers before an appreciative audience. Chef Tuan Buran mixed the spicey lunu-miris and then rice flour and cooked hoppers over a burner as S.H. Fernando, author of the book Rice and Curry, Sri Lankan Home Cooking, described each cooking step.  Mark DeCarlo, author of “A Fork on the Road” served as host. Ambassador Jaliya Wickramasuriya also took part, explaining when Sri Lankans eat hoppers. The annual travel show at the Washington Convention Center draws hundreds of people who can sample foreign foods and meet with tour operators and adventure equipment merchants from throughout the world. Guests at the Sri Lankan cooking demonstration each received a sample pack of Ceylon tea, as well as information on the second annual  “Ambassador’s Signature Tour,” an August journey through Sri Lanka for Americans led by Ambassador Wickramasuriya. Travel to Sri Lanka is becoming increasingly popular. Tourist arrivals were up 50 percent in 2010 compared to 2009, and arrivals for February 2011 alone were 18 percent higher than for the same month in 2010. About 650,000 people visited Sri Lanka in 2010, and tourism authorities expect more than 2.5 million visitors annually by 2016.