From the category archives:

Appetizers

Audrey and the Oyster

August 6, 2010

Audrey is a fairly adventurous eater for a 12-year-old, but she still has her culinary no-fly zones. She gives a big thumbs down on anything young, cute and furry. Lamb, veal and rabbit are out. Texture is important. Crunchy fried stuff is good. Slime is bad. We tried to convince her to try the escargot in Paris but she couldn’t [...]

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Boiled Shrimp and Cocktail Sauce

August 2, 2010

Southern-Style Boiled Shrimp with Cocktail Sauce

By the time you read this, I should be in the air somewhere between Tortola and Greensboro, North Carolina. I’m going home to spend some time with my folks and pick up Audrey from camp. I’m not sure when I’ll next have internet access so I’m experimenting with the advance scheduling feature on my site. Here’s hoping it works!

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Chicken Liver Pâté

July 7, 2010

If there’s one thing we’re good at here in the islands, it’s parties. Any excuse will do…half birthdays, weird holidays, Tuesdays. So when Bobby Gray turned 60 a few weeks ago we had ourselves a fine excuse for a party. Bobby’s wife, the lovely and talented artist Lisa Muddiman Gray, threw a surprise bash at our mutual friend Andy Mudie’s house in the [...]

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At the Market

May 12, 2010

Grocery shopping on a small island can be hit or miss at times. I learned long ago that menus and shopping lists are only rough drafts. Keep your plans flexible until you hit the shops and see what’s on offer. Otherwise, disappointment looms. Instead of planning for tagliatelle with a pork and mushroom ragu, try for pasta with [...]

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A Surfeit of Salmon

October 30, 2009

Food is very expensive here in the BVI. And I do understand why, to a certain extent. Almost everything is imported from somewhere else, primarily the States. Given the price of fuel, it can’t be cheap. And there’s a lot of wastage from food going off, though that’s due at least in part to poor storage on [...]

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Kebabs on the Grill

October 25, 2009

Are you smarter than a sixth grader? I, apparently, am not. I do not know how abiotic factors affect biotic factors. I cannot explain estimation strategies used to determine reasonableness of solutions to real world problems. In fact, I cannot estimate at all. Whatever happened to long division? I’m definitely not smart enough for sixth grade.

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Tomato Choka

June 27, 2009

Devica plays fast and loose with her recipes, doling out vague measurements like handfuls, mounds and “as much as you want.” On the other hand, she guards the names of her food like state secrets, not to be entrusted to the likes of us. She’d been making roti for us for years before I learned that the plain breakfast roti are sada roti, [...]

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Baigani

May 1, 2009

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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Eggplant Choka

April 30, 2009

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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