Caribbean Christmas

This is the first year that I will not be going home to my little island in the sun for Christmas. This year will be new and different and exciting all the same. But there are a few things that I'm certainly going to miss from home. Most of them are food... surprise, surprise. These are the things that define Christmas at home for me.

Ponche Crema

Mmm... Ponche Crema! This is a little bit like American Eggnog, but very very alcoholic and infinitely more delicious. It is rich and creamy, and with a perfect sprinkling of nutmeg it just tastes like Christmas! You can find a recipe here. I must stress that it wont be any good unless you use a proper West Indian dark rum, preferably Cockspur. Don't even try to use Bacardi! Throw that shit down the drain!

Pastelles

Mmm... Pastelles! So this is a Trini/Venezuelan dish. There is a similar Bajan version called Conkie that you can read about here. Really I prefer the Trini version (and this is the only time you will ever see me admit to anything from Trinidad being better than Barbados). The filling is a mix of meats, heavily spiced and finely minced. It's then covered in a cornmeal casing and wrapped in a Banana leaf. From mid-December to mid-January my family eats these for breakfast at least twice a week. Pastelles really make me feel Christmassy!

Parang Music

So I really love traditional Christmas songs- Jingle Bells and Let it Snow and all the usuals. But these songs don't really tend to be party songs. No one ever jumped up to the dance floor for Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer. At home we need something to dance to! We always need party music and Parang fills this space for the Christmas season. Most Parang songs, just like Calypso, are filled with suggestion and innuendo. Parang is funny, fun, festive... oh I just love it! 

Breakfast

Ok, so Cadbury biscuits obviously are not West Indian. Or even very Christmassy for that matter. But this very tin of biscuits means Christmas to me. You see, my family is a bit obsessive about presents. We're all pretty much grown, but still are up before 7 on Christmas morning to see what's under the tree. This means that there is no time at all to make or eat breakfast. Instead, a nice big tin of Cadbury Biscuits gets opened and we all gorge ourselves on chocolate while wrapping paper and ribbon gets torn to shreds!  

Christmas Ham

Mmm... Ham! Turkey is not the holiday meal of choice at home. It's ham. A nice big pig leg, honey glazed, covered in cloves... my mouth is watering just thinking of it. My Dad has one of these electric carving knives that whirs and buzzes as he carves our ham. The noise of the knife plus the smell of the ham is like a magnetic pull to the kitchen. We often eat it faster than he can carve!

 

SORREL!

Of all the things that mean Christmas to me, of all the delicious things that I love, none compares to my absolute obsession with sorrel. I LOVE sorrel! This beautifully red, fragrant juice is the most wonderful thing that December has to offer. A glass of sorrel with my pastelle in the morning, a vodka-sorrel to match my party dress in the evenings, sorrel-tinis getting mixed up on Christmas Eve... oh my oh my oh my. Many of you know what I'm talking about, but for those of you who have never had the pleasure of this beautiful drink, I cannot even describe to you how nice it is! It's like nothing else I've ever tasted. And if anyone reading this can tell me where I can get sorrel in London you will be my new best friend! Seriously, I'll bake you something delicious. 

If you're looking for more delicious Caribbean eats, head over to Skip to Malou* today for some more perennial dishes!

Daddy's team

I grew up in a family of girls. I have two sisters and our closest family (physically) were four girl cousins. And we are GIRLY-girls! Nail varnish and lipstick, dresses and high-heels, handbags, cute boys, celebrity gossip -- all eternally common topics of conversation. So it's no surprise that in my youth, "Who's your favourite Spice Girl?" was infinitely more important than "Who's your favourite football team?".

But I've recently become fascinated by this whole palava of choosing a team. Or, do you really get to choose? As I've said, for me, picking a team, be it football (the real kind or the american variety), baseball, rugby, or anything else... it was just never an issue for me. The only team I can say I "support" in any sense of that word is West Indies cricket, which yes, my Dad also supports. But it's our national team and there is NO choice!

Supporting Windies

Last week I read this: How We Become Sports Fans: the Tyranny of Fathers by Robert Krulwich on the NPR website. The video below accompanies the article and sums up, in both a funny and sad way, how the majority of little boys and girls learn which team to support: Dad!

The article discusses statistics that show that most people choose to support the team their Dad supports. A lot of the time, as we see in the video, there is immense pressure to go with your Dad's team. I think this is in large part because being a fan, a real fan, means having such a great emotional connection to your team. Being a real fan involves such an insane sense of loyalty; you're team becomes, in a way, your family. So who would want to create a conflict of interest between your real family and your sport family? Krulwich also argues that sharing in Dad's emotional reaction to the triumphs and defeat of his team is important bonding opportunities for kids. It's a fair point.

But there are people who choose not to support Daddy's team. It is rare, but it happens. What about you? Did you pick your Dad's team?

My Love of Food Part I: The Beach House

What gives you pleasure? When you think about complete and utter bliss, what is it that you're doing? Well for me, the answers are FOOD and EATING. I love food. No, I luurrrvve food. Really I ought to weigh about 190 kilos and it's really only miracles (and exercise) that prevent this. I live for food. I dream about food. "Diet" is a very threatening four-letter word. The truth is that I don't eat in excessive quantities (usually), but I'll eat just about anything. In particular, new flavours make me happy. I love tasting something for the first time and deciding that I really love it. There is nothing better than learning about interesting and unique flavour combinations that work!
So this post is going to be in two parts. Part I: review of dinner last night at The Beach House, Barbados, and Part II: my top picks for Food P**n (I'm afraid of generating unwanted traffic with the p-word)

Part I: The Beach House
As a family, we like to go out for a nice meal when we're all together. Especially because we aren't all in the same place that often. Last night was my parents' 32nd Anniversary (big up) so that was our excuse this time. We went to The Beach House in Holetown. I'd never been before, and to be honest, it wouldn't have been my first choice of restaurants. But I'm really not that picky and I was happy to give it a go. Let me tell you, VERY good decision. The food was excellent!

First I ate Grilled Scallops with Pumpkin Risotto. Mmm! The scallops were big and juicy and perfectly cooked. Living in the UK, nice fresh scallops is not something I eat very often. So I was really pleased to have these. The risotto was just a tad undercooked (which is rare for risotto) but it was nicely flavoured and to be honest I was too taken with my delicious scallops to care. Other starters of note were the Crispy Pork Belly. I cannot describe it any better than that. It was crispy. It was pork. It was belly. And it make my belly very happy indeed.

For the main course I had Grilled Swordfish with Melon Salsa. The fish was delicious. Fresh, perfectly seasoned, perfectly cooked; just a perfect piece of real Bajan fish. But the star of that dish was the melon salsa. That surprised me. I'm not in general a big fan of melon. I find it a bit boring and a bit tasteless. But this was anything but tasteless. First, it was beautiful! So many different colours really made it appealing. I took my time tasting each little colour at a time to identify it. As far as I worked out, it was honeydew melon, watermelon, cantaloupe, mango, tomato, and butter-nut squash. These were all diced finely and seasoned with a mix of herbs, the dominant flavour being cilantro. It was absolutely delicious. It was surprising and refreshing and colourful. I'm definitely going to try to create my own version of this sometime. Amazing!

My family always shares desserts. In fact, we share most food, but there is an unwritten law about sharing desserts. So between us we had three: Bajan Lime Tart, Bread and Butter Pudding, and Apple and Sultana Crumble. The Lime Tart was not what I was expecting. It was a deep pastry shell that was thin and just a bit flaky. The lime filling was a mouse-like texture and barely-green colour. It was topped with a coconut meringue that smelled like bonfire-roasted-marshmallows. It was really very tasty. I like that the lime flavour was subtle yet refreshing and the thin pastry didn't make the dish too heavy. I would have preferred a bit more contrast in texture between the lime-filling and the meringue topping, but in general a very good dessert. The Bread and Butter Pudding was probably my favourite. This is unusual because this is not really my favourite dessert. This one, however, was not a heavy dessert as it often it. It was light and fluffy and had the perfect amount of cinnamon and raisins. It was also served with a really nice vanilla ice cream. The last one we had was the Apple-Sultana Crumble. This wasn't very good. It was more sultana than apple and there was too much of the crumble bit. It was the heaviest of the desserts we ordered and didn't really satisfy the sweet-requirement at the end of a meal. On the up-side, it was also served with that delicious vanilla ice cream.

My overall opinion: go eat at the Beach House! Just don't order the crumble. The food is simple but very well prepared. The menu blends West Indian and English inspirations, but I left feeling as though I had had a genuine Caribbean meal. My one critique is that the option for appetizers is not very great for a vegetarian or someone who doesn't eat seafood. Neither my mother nor my sister eats seafood and they were both quite disappointed at the options: Caesar Salad or the Pork Belly.The only vegetarian option was the soup-of-the-day (Potato and Onion), but I couldn't help but think that some days the soup might have a meat-based broth... So maybe not the best place to go if you eat veggie, but if you love a good piece of fish, a good view, and decent service, I would highly recommend The Beach House.

Sorry no pictures, I was enjoying the food way too much to get the camera out. Look at some photos on their website.

Come back Monday for Part II: Food P**n!

Lessons Learned in London

This weekend I went to London for a long weekend to lime with some of the famjam. I always love London, it is such a great city. But I especially love a great city with great company. Cleverness and Funnyness runs in the family, which is exactly why we get to use words like "cleverness" and "funnyness". As a result, I always learn some cool things with the cousins...


The Best Way to Listen
The best way to prove that you are listening to all very interesting conversations is to repeat the last word that has been said. Here's an example:
talker: bla bla bla bla baby!
listener: Baby?
talker: YES! bla bla bla four years old.
listener: Four?
talker: Can you believe it? bla bla bla so cute.
listener: Cute!
This can carry a conversation for hours. Proven Effective.

The Worst Way to get to street level
So most tube stations have escalators, but many only have lifts. This is incredibly annoying especially when only one of three lifts is working in a very busy station. In a true exhibition of the family Cleverness, we took the stairs... many, many stairs... 192 stairs. We rewarded ourselves with alcohol, so it was ok in the end.

How to Send Postcards and Write a Journal
The London visit was actually to meet the cousin at the end of a Grand European Tour! complete with history and education and food and drinks. When you go on a very exciting holiday and see very exciting things there are two things you must do: show off your cool adventures to all your poor friends stuck at home, and write detailed memoirs so you can remember your travels for the rest of your life. The inherent problem with this is that when you are on a very exciting holiday and seeing very exciting things, there is absolutely no time to do either of these things. The solution: post-hoc sentiments. Proven Effective.

Here is a photo:

In case you didn't know what London looks like. Taken from here.

Evaluation of the weekend: It was nice.