From the monthly archives:

February 2010

Kitchen Doodads, Gadgets and Gizmos

February 26, 2010
Kitchen gadgets

Do we really need lots of specialized equipment and gadgets to be good cooks?  I find the more time I spend in the kitchen, the less of my clever gewgaws I actually use.  I sometimes open the utensil drawer in the kitchen and wonder what I was thinking.  What compelled me to buy these things?  I have not one, but two of those weird claw-like [...]

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Jamaican Pot Roast

February 24, 2010
Jamaican Pot Roast

My last post on why I cook has me has thrown me into a fit of kitchen nostalgia.  I feel like the kid in The Sixth Sense, only instead of dead people, I see fried chicken, biscuits, and pork chops smothered in cream gravy.  And I see Grandmother’s pot roast.    Her pot roast was a glorious paradigm of simple home [...]

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Why I Cook

February 22, 2010
Why I Cook

Michael Ruhlman, a fantastic writer and collaborator on the best cookbook we received this Christmas, posted a challenge to bloggers to write about why we cook.  You can read it here.  Never one to back away from a challenge, at least where food is concerned, here I go.  Though the more I think about it, the more I [...]

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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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Sexy Food

February 9, 2010
Oysters on the half shell

Valentine’s Day leaves me cold.  I think it’s a Hallmark holiday and the only people that really get lucky are the greeting card companies and the florists.  I did make the effort and “do” Valentine’s Day once, many years ago.  I went down to Colombian Emeralds, picked out a lovely garnet necklace and badgered Bones into buying it for me.  I [...]

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Band Aid for Haiti

February 5, 2010
Band Aid for Haiti

I’d like to invite all the BVI-based readers out there to the Band Aid for Haiti concert at Cedar International School tonight at 7 p.m.  The kids promise great music, good food and hula dancing.  Food and drinks will be on sale (including Devica’s pholourie with green mango chutney) and proceeds will go to Save the Children’s Haiti Earthquake Children [...]

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Beans Love Pork

February 3, 2010
Thumbnail image for Beans Love Pork

Lentils and cotechino sausage are a classic pairing and a New Year’s tradition  all over Italy.  I was cooking lentils last week and wanted to serve them with cotechino.  But I only had a few slices of the sausage left from the holidays, not enough to serve them in the classic Italian manner.  So I combined the two for [...]

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Pavlova

February 1, 2010
Strawberry Passion Fruit Pavlova

I was afraid of meringue for the longest time.  Mainly because I’ve heard so many dire warnings not to make meringue when it’s humid.  It’s almost always humid in the islands.  But I wanted to make Pavlova.  And Natasha,  our Australian friend and resident Pavlova expert, makes them all the time, no matter the weather.  Her meringue shell is crispy [...]

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