From the category archives:

Tropical Fruits and Vegetables

Mango Sorbet

July 30, 2010
Mango Sorbet

“Boy, it’s hot.  This is hot.  It never got this hot in Brooklyn.  It’s like Africa hot.  Tarzan couldn’t take this kind of hot.  I don’t know if I can stay here if it’s going to be this hot.”  Matthew Broderick as Eugene Morris Jerome in Neil Simon’s ”Biloxi Blues”

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Taking the Cure: Pineapple Chow

July 22, 2010
Pineapple Chow

When I feel a cold coming on, nothing sets me right faster than a searing dose of scotch bonnet peppers, the more incendiary the better.  Chicken soup is a fine cure, to be sure.  But what I crave when the fog of a summer cold sets in is a good hot Trinidadian chicken curry.  Served with a stinging hot choka and [...]

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When Life Gives You Limes…

March 26, 2010
Tropical Key Lime Pie

I don’t serve dessert on a regular basis and tend to save the baking of pies and cakes for birthdays, holidays and miscellaneous festive occasions.  When a dinner guest asks what they can bring, my answer is usually “dessert.”  I’ve been known to make a quick cobbler or crumble when the urge strikes.  But a person with a [...]

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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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Spicy Caribbean Gumbo

February 20, 2010
Spicy Chicken and Sausage Gumbo

The Caribbean, land of perpetual summer.  But we do have seasons – and not just hurricane season and tourist season (which reminds me of a fridge magnet someone once sent us…”why is it called tourist season if we can’t shoot at ‘em?”)  This time of year, the heat of the day is tempered by wonderfully cool nights when [...]

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Mystery Gourd

February 14, 2010
Snake gourd

Bones bought these pretty gourds from one of the farmers exhibiting at BVI Farmers’ Week last Saturday.  The farmer called them snake gourds but didn’t offer any direction on how to prepare them (assuming they are indeed edible).

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No Resolutions

January 13, 2010
Caribbean pumpkin with lime

Healthy dinner

Just to be perfectly clear, I don’t make New Year’s Resolutions.  I mean, really.  Has anyone ever in the history of New Year’s Resolutions ever followed through on one?  Go to any exercise class at the beginning of January and it’s packed.  It annoys the regulars but they don’t worry overly much because they [...]

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Stuffed Christophene

December 14, 2009
Stuffed Christophene

I call it christophene.  But you can also call it christophine, mirliton, chayote, choko, chocho, chuchu, chow-chow, alligator pear, vegetable pear, sayote, tayota, Madeira marrow or xuxu.  I’m sure there are a few I’m missing.  If there’s ever an award for the vegetable with the most names, christophene is a sure contender.

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Pumpkin Soup

September 30, 2009
Caribbean pumpkin

Some foods are forever linked to the place you first ate them or first cooked them.  For me, pumpkin soup stirs up memories of St. Lucia.  I spent three weeks in St. Lucia in early 1993, not entirely by design.  I blame it on Northern Magic.

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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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Grilled Pot Fish and Fried Plantain

June 25, 2009
Pot Fish

The last time I saw an old wife or a grunt I was snorkeling.  Until this weekend, when I found them both at the BVI Fisheries Department fish market.  I was looking for a snapper to put on the grill but, as we say in the islands, “snapper finish.”  I looked over the mostly unfamiliar pot fish on offer and didn’t know what [...]

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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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Pumpkin Ravioli

June 8, 2009
Pumpkin Ravioli

I was thrilled to get an email from Federica asking if I wanted to join in a series of lunchtime cooking sessions with a few other like-minded women who enjoy cooking and eating.  The sessions would be based on “the flavor choice and cooking experience that you want to share with everyone else…each one prepares [...]

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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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Baigani

May 1, 2009
Baigani

Devica, our nanny/housekeeper/savior/friend, is a never-ending source of surprise.  I’ve known her for eleven years and it was only yesterday that she let slip that she cooked for a living back in Trinidad.  We’ve been raving about her food for years and now I find out she’s a pro.

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