From the category archives:

Ingredients

Attack of the Killer Tomato Festival

September 3, 2010
Attack of the Killer Tomato Festival

Greetings from your guest blogger! I’m Amy Davis, sister of Abigail, faithful reader of Sugar Apple and sometime recipe tester. A couple of weeks ago my husband, Ted, and I attended The Second Annual Attack of the Killer Tomato Festival here in Atlanta and Abigail graciously invited me to blog about it.

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Make Your Own Bottarga

June 29, 2010
Spaghetti with Bottarga

Waste not want not, or so they say.  Working on the assumption that there’s a lot of truth in that old chestnut, we’ve almost worked our way through an entire twenty pound mahi mahi.  We’ve had seared mahi mahi with green seasoning, mahi mahi and coconut curry, soy-glazed mahi mahi, mahi mahi in a creole sauce, and fish head curry.  The [...]

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What’s In A Name?

March 3, 2010
Caribbean Ratatouille

Or to rephrase the question, when you’re making a “traditional” recipe, how far can you stray from the original and still call a dish by name?  Like most cooks, I set my own (often shifting) parameters.  And my parameters may waver more than yours because of my location and the unavailability of certain ingredients and equipment.  I’ve run across more [...]

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Quick and Easy Shrimp

October 1, 2009
Quick and Easy Shrimp

I always like to have a few dishes like this shrimp in coconut oil in my repertoire.  Quick, easy, delicious, pretty.  And made from pantry ingredients I always have on hand.  Or almost always.  We’re rarely without a bag of shrimp in the freezer.  Who doesn’t have black pepper?  And the curry plant in our garden reproduces with rabbit-like speed.  Anyone need a curry [...]

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Blackberry Peach Cobbler

August 10, 2009
Fresh summer fruit

The trick with amazingly fresh seasonal fruit and vegetables harvested at their peak is simple – try not to mess with them too much.  No fancy preparations or sauces.  Just let your produce speak for itself and don’t screw it up.  It will speak to you. It does to me.

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Mango Season

July 2, 2009
Thumbnail image for Mango Season

 
 
 
“The flavor is as though nightingales were singing on the palate.  The texture is like cream melting on the tongue.  What the gods gorged on, on Olympus, is called nectar and ambrosia, but mangoes are plainly meant.”  Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

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Tepache: Tropical Pineapple Fizz

June 18, 2009
Tepache

“As the Prada handbag of the 18th century, a real-life, homegrown pineapple was a powerful status symbol, so much so that it was extremely unusual to eat the fruit.”  Or so says Fran Beauman in her book, The Pineapple: King of Fruits.  The Australians must agree because the government of Queensland sent the future Queen Elizabeth 500 [...]

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Sorrel Drink

May 30, 2009
Dried Sorrel

You may recall I wasn’t too impressed with the sea moss drink I made this week.  So I thought I’d move on to making sorrel drink, a beverage I definitely like.  I first had a drink made from sorrel in Mexico, where it’s called agua de jamaica.   Sorrel is a Christmas tradition in the Caribbean and our friends, Mike and Julia Donovan, gave us [...]

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Sea Moss

May 26, 2009
Sea Moss Drink

There are an astonishing number of Caribbean beverages and soups reputed to be aphrodisiacs.  Mannish water, bull foot soup and creole fish broth will put lead in your pencil.  Mauby, ginger beer and peanut punch are good for the wood.  Or so they say.

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Fede’s Farm

May 14, 2009
Fede's Balcony

Federica drives like an Italian:  fast and fearless.  At least I think she does since I couldn’t actually keep up with her.  We left yoga class at Mount Healthy and took the twisting, turning, mountainous Ridge Road to Federica’s home overlooking Cooper Bay.  Federica led the way and I followed, made brave by the promise of fresh arugula and aged parmigiano reggiano flown in from [...]

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Eggplant Choka

April 30, 2009
Making eggplant choka

Every so often I am overcome with an overwhelming urge to grow something.  Usually it is best to ignore such urges because I am, it seems, cursed with a brown thumb.  Or perhaps a yellow thumb.  Moviene Fahie grew the beautiful purple, eggplant-colored eggplants above.  I, alas, grew the urine-colored yellow specimen…yet another gardening failure to add [...]

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Pretty on the Outside

April 26, 2009
Caribbean Conch

A conch shell is a beautiful thing.  Those of us who live here all have a collection and the tourists will pay rather astounding amounts of money for a good-looking specimen.  The invertabrate inside is, however, not so attractive.

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Hitching to Jamaica

April 22, 2009
Donkey ride

Coming from the States where hitchhiking is not safe or legal, it took a while to get used to the large numbers of people by the side of the road looking for a ride into town.  But hitching is generally safe here in the BVI and you’ll find locals, tourists and yachties alike flagging down a passing car for [...]

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Roasted Red Snapper

April 15, 2009
Roasted Red Snapper

I’ve always been a bit afraid of cooking fish.  I love to eat it, but the preparation and cooking is something I find intimidating.  What if I overcook it…what if I have to scale it…what if, god forbid, I have to clean it myself?

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Passage to India

April 8, 2009
Ingredients for curry powder

Bones is famous on the island for his amazing Indian dinners and, in fact, he won my heart with a curry.  I was in the BVI for my first Caribbean holiday and got invited to a birthday party on the last night of my vacation (I was invited to more than one party while on vacation, the [...]

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