Flavorful and delightfully aromatic nutmeg is showcased in this velvety nutmeg Grenadian Nutmeg Ice Cream from the “spice isle”, Grenada. For the best flavor, use freshly ground nutmeg.
In a large saucepan, heat the milk and cream. When it begins to boil, turn off the heat.
In a medium bowl, whisk the remaining ingredients. Whisk half a cup of the heated milk and cream into the egg mixture, and then pour that into the remainder of the milk mixture in the saucepan.
Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until it begins to thicken and reaches 175 degrees. Transfer the mixture to a metal bowl and set it in another, larger, bowl filled half way with ice and water. Stir until the cream is cold.
Pour into an ice cream maker and finish according to manufacturer’s…
Caribbean American lifestyle quarterly Island Origins won the Florida Magazine Association’s silver award for Best New Magazine, silver for Best Writing: Feature, and bronze for Best Writing: Commentary. Photo: David I. Muir (Download High Res)
The Magazine Won Prizes for Best New Magazine, Best Writing: Feature, and Best Writing: Commentary
FORT LAUDERDALE, FL(August 13, 2018) – Caribbean-American lifestyle quarterly Island Origins Magazine won three Florida Magazine Association awards for its 2017 / 2018 publications. Known as the Charlies, the annual awards are the Florida magazine industry’s top prize, and were presented on Friday, August 10, 2018. Honorees are chosen by a group of leading writers, editors, designers, and educators outside of the state.
Launched in June 2017, Island Origins won the silver award in the category of Best New Magazine.
The magazine won another silver award, Best Writing: Feature, for an exploratory cultural piece called “Hidden Sounds of the Caribbean” written by Trinidadian columnist Bekim Rauseo. The essay explored the varied ethnic and dark social roots and rhythms of island music, including traditional genres like Haitian Twoubadou, Bahamian Rake and Scrape, and Antiguan Benna.
Island Origins’ final recognition was a bronze award, Best Writing: Commentary, for the autobiographical piece written by kidney disease and two time breast cancer survivor Carla Hill called “Embracing Breastless Beauty”. In it, Hill shares the self doubt and path to acceptance that she traversed to maintain her happiness through unimaginable challenges, and to thrive.
Publisher Calibe Thompson was on hand to accept the award, sharing, “Our growing readership consistently gives great feedback on the quality of our content. This recognition brings another level of validation.”
Island Origins Magazine is a Caribbean American lifestyle print publication primarily distributed in South Florida. It is produced quarterly by Island Syndicate, and appeals to a diverse, sophisticated mainstream audience. Learn more at www.islandoriginsmag.com.
About Island Syndicate
Island Syndicate is a creative agency that produces exceptional content and unforgettable experiences. The team offers publishing, photography, graphic design, videography, event production, and other branding and marketing services, to discerning clients. Its proprietary flagship offerings include Caribbean American lifestyle magazine “Island Origins”, nationally syndicated culinary and travel series “Taste the Islands”, and annual culinary event “The Taste the Islands Experience”.
Fort Lauderdale, FL (July 10, 2018) – “Island Origins Magazine”, South Florida’s Caribbean-American lifestyle quarterly, published by Island Syndicate, has been nominated for three category excellence awards by the Florida Magazine Association. The annually appointed honors, known as the Charlie Awards, recognize achievements by Florida magazines, crowning selected industry players best among their peers.
Honorees are chosen by a group of leading writers, editors, designers, and educators outside the state of Florida. “Island Origins” has received nods in the categories of Best Writing: Editorial / Commentary / Opinion for an inspirational story of breast cancer survival by Carla Hill titled ‘Embracing Breastless Beauty’; Best Writing: Feature for a poignantly written short history of Caribbean music by Bekim Betoni titled “Hidden Sounds of the Caribbean”; and Best New Magazine, acknowledging the work of publisher Calibe Thompson and the team at Island Syndicate.
“We’re a young magazine but we’re leaving an undeniable impression,” Thompson shared. “Based on data that confirms approximately one out of four South Florida residents was born in the Caribbean region, and assuming that the rest probably want to visit the islands as often as they can, we know we’re in the right place! Our audience regularly comments on how much they appreciate the vibrancy of our publication, and the rich, engaging content we offer. These nominations have reaffirmed to us that we’re on the right track.”
Winners of the Charlie Awards will be announced at a ceremony held August 9th during the Florida Media Conference in Orlando.
“Island Origins Magazine” is a Caribbean American lifestyle print publication primarily distributed in South Florida. It is produced quarterly by Island Syndicate, and appeals to a diverse, sophisticated mainstream audience.
Island Syndicate is a creative agency that produces exceptional content and unforgettable experiences. The team offers excellence in publishing, photography, graphic design, videography, event production, and other branding and marketing services to discerning clients. Its proprietary flagship offerings include Caribbean American lifestyle magazine “Island Origins”, nationally syndicated culinary and travel series “Taste the Islands”, and annual culinary event “The Taste the Islands Experience”.
Writer Calibe Thompson | Photography David I. Muir
With a more than 62 percent minority population, South Florida is home to a significant number of ethnic groups. They are simultaneously united and divided into sub-communities by three dominant languages – English, Spanish, and French-Creaole. Christopher Dupuy, owner and operator of Pals Group and the Lakay Food brand, can navigate them all.
Dupuy’s Haitian Father and Salvadorian mother met in Cambridge, England, so he first learned the common tongue – English. Then, living in Haiti, he became fluent in French, Creole, and Spanish because of the family connections. Being quadrilingual is a pretty great asset when you run a business in South Florida. It opens you up to easy commerce with virtually everyone.
He started the packaged-food distribution company Pals Group Inc with friends, shortly after he moved from Haiti to Miami around 2006. Exporting to Haiti was a popular business at the time, and the group started that endeavor with cooking oil. However, Dupuy soon realized that there were no Haitian-owned companies providing food products for the Haitian community in South Florida, and right away, decided to capitalize on the opportunity. He would become THE Haitian supplier. “All the other companies are owned by Latinos, and so the focus started changing,” he shared.
Dupuy’s small team started sales in the local market with only one product: 25-pound bags of rice, a Haitian staple. He speaks with pride about how the company got off the ground. “From there, knocking on doors, I was a sales person, I was a truck driver. We had a very small warehouse. That’s how Lakay came to be.”
A few Presidente and Bravo stores were early supporters, and little by little over the first year, they built up to more stores, more sales people, and more drivers. They diversified the rice products first, offering different sizes, then about a year later, they moved into beans, sardines, and mackerel.
A Strategic Approach
Dupuy thinks strategically. For example the government’s WIC program, a supplemental nutrition plan for women and children, allows for the purchase of 16-ounce packages of beans, so he made sure to have that specific size available, giving him access to the widest possible market.
The needs of the community inform his product offerings. In the beginning, his distribution strategy was local, and was laid out by trial and error. Today, Lakay Food products are available throughout the state of Florida, with additional distribution in Georgia, New Jersey, and New York. His footprint has grown significantly because he’s taken the time to get to know his customers, both the shoppers and the stores they buy from.
Some of the other secrets to his success are:
Developing relationships with store managers and listening when they tell you what works for their customers. Recognizing how busy they are, and doing what you can to help them help you.
Creating a game plan before you even set foot into a store. Seeing what they’ve bought before and pitching a few new products each time.
Taking pride in your shelf space. Clean it, they notice.
Picking up the flyer when you walk in, and seeing what your competitors are doing.
Making sure to share your current promotions with the store manager.
Walking the stores to see where there are gaps that you can fill. When your competitors are missing, there’s an opportunity for you to add more products and capture more shelf space.
Lakay Food’s Christopher Dupuy and Staff | Photo by David I. Muir
A Grassroots Plan for Long Term Domination
His long-term goal is to reach beyond the Haitian community, but that’s his home, his grassroots, so that’s where he always starts. “I’m truly fascinated with our culture, I love our food. And who better to serve the Haitian community, or the Caribbean community, than another Haitian. I speak the language, understand the mentality, so that, in some way, has given us a big edge over competitors that have been around for many years before us. Being able to communicate with [our Haitian customers], find out exactly what their needs are. So this is still one of our focuses when we’re looking into entering new markets. I always try to look for the Haitian community, where they primarily shop, and from there I’ll start branching out. I’m trying to also diversify our products not solely for islanders or Haitians.”
As the company grows, it’s expanding to represent other Haitian brands as well. He hopes to do much more of that going forward. “I would love Lakay to eventually be the main distributor for any product coming from Haiti.”
Twelve years after he began driving his truck and knocking on doors, with only 25-pound bags of rice, Dupuy now leads a team of five sales reps, offering 60 Lakay branded products, as well as products from the other brands they represent. He maintains a group chat with his salespeople, offering daily motivations and reminders to stay sharp, but he appreciates how much they’ve taught him, too. “I have to give a lot of credit to the salespeople that we’ve had over the years. I have taken a lot of tips from all of them, all the good, so over the years it’s given a lot of polish to our strategy.”
Within the next 10 years Dupuy plans to grow into nationwide distribution, starting where the Haitian population resides, and expanding. And he’ll get there “little by little,” he says. “ Baby steps.”
Writer Shelly Ann Parkinson | Photography Supplied
Behind the crystal-beaded veil of the celebrity lifestyle, there are regular people—albeit with thousands more social media followers than we have—whose real lives we, the adoring, clamor to see. They grant us access through their art, fashion lines, autobiographies, and through their culinary endeavors. As they look to connect on a deeper level with their fans, pursue alternative passions, and generate additional streams of income, we’re seeing an uptick in the celebrity restaurant and cookbook trend. Naturally, our Caribbean stars are also turning their fervor for food into palatable pleasures for adoring fans and general epicures alike.
Pitbull’s Restaurant
Viva La Cocina Cubana
One of the newest celebs to join the restaurateur’s club is none other than Mr. 305—Pitbull, who is set to open his restaurant, iLov305, inside the Bel-Air Hotel on Ocean Drive, Miami Beach, this summer. Though he was born in Miami, Pitbull is known for paying heavy homage to his Cuban roots. His party anthems infused with hip-hop, pop, Miami bass, reggaetón, and crunk, have always been distinctly Latin, and he never lets you forget that Cuba runs through his veins.
iLov305 will serve line-caught yellowfin tuna, pork belly sliders, Cuban sandwiches and 305 burgers, all of which can be washed down with 50 kinds of mojitos. As Pitbull would say, dale!
In the ‘80s and ‘90s, before Pitbull was a household name, Cuban-born icons Gloria and Emilio Estefan, were exposing the world to a unique fusion of Latin rhythms, Miami bass, and American pop and soul. The couple took these distinct influences to the kitchen through their Miami and Orlando restaurants, Bongos Cuban Café, Larios on the Beach, and Estefan Kitchen. All their restaurants serve up hearty, traditional Cuban recipes, as well as more calorie-conscious choices. The Estefans also share their favorite recipes in their 2008 Estefan Kitchen Cookbook.
Cooking with Herb
Ital and Herbal Marley Recipes
Ziggy and Cedella Marley, children of reggae legend Bob Marley, have become culinary ambassadors of Jamaican flavors, sharing their heavily Rastafarian-influenced, ‘ital’ (natural and salt free) diet through cookbooks and food products.
Cedella has presented 75 marijuana-infused recipes in her book CookingWith Herb, highlighting the benefits of using THC-infused canna-oil and cannabutter in traditional Jamaican recipes.
Grammy and Emmy winner, Ziggy Marley, has also written his own, Ziggy Marley and Family Cookbook, which focuses on recipes using whole, organic ingredients. In its pages, foodies can find healthy and delicious recipes such as vegetarian hash, fish soup and a decadent tofu in curry sauce.
Tia Mowry’s Cookbook
Bahamian Cooking Sensation
Identical twin actresses, Tia and Tamera Mowry, were born to a Bahamian mother, Darlene. Now decades away from their child-star days of ‘90s sitcom Sister, Sister, the twins have been carving out their own niches and are independently pursuing their passions. While Tamera plays co-host on The Real talk show, Tia has turned her attention to the kitchen, with her Cooking Channel reality show, Tia Mowry at Home. She has also penned a cookbook called Whole New You: How Real Food Transforms Your Life, For a Healthier, More Gorgeous You. In this book, although she doesn’t lean heavily on her Caribbean heritage, she does offer healthy, healing alternatives to family favorites. Her options, including spaghetti and turkey meatballs, lamb burgers, and zucchini fries, as well as delectable cocktails such as a chile-mango margarita, a pear-rosemary bellini, and a red wine sangria, reflect influences from around the world. Cheers!
Turn Me on to Something Delicious
If you’re ever in Kingstown, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, be sure to stop by Chill’n, Kevin Lyttle’s Caribbean eatery. Lyttle, whose 2004 Billboard chart-topping party anthem, “Turn Me On,” made him an international phenomenon, partnered with his wife Dr. Jacqueline James-Lyttle to create this restaurant, lounge, and sandwich shop.
According to Dr. James-Lyttle, Chill’n “serves as an escape from the madness of the city. That was the vision, and it feels amazing to see it realized.” She says, “Kevin and I remembered, and wanted to recreate and update a similar vibe that existed in that same spot when we were younger. [It was] the only place where you felt like you could afford its delicious menu, even on a teenager’s budget.”
Chill’n serves up freshly made patties, rotis, burgers, pizzas, wraps, and desserts, and features a salad station and signature cocktails like ‘Vincy Embassy’ and ‘Beautiful Disaster Cocktail.’
“Visitors don’t usually leave without trying our world-famous patties. Families share a large pizza with our signature sauce. In the evenings, the vibe is transformed, and cocktails such as ‘Passionate Chill’ are flowing, as professionals take a load off, just footsteps from their workplace,” adds Dr. James-Lyttle.
Writer Monique McIntosh | Photography Michael Pissari
The prospect of owning a restaurant has got to be daunting, but the excitement of it clearly outweighs the dread! That’s why every year, hopefuls enter the market armed with signature recipes and visions of palate pleasing plates and satisfied customers. But, despite the allure of the restaurant world, the reality of launching and running your own eatery is far from romantic.
For starters, about 26 percent of restaurants fail within their first year, according to research by Dr. HG Parsa, a professor at the Rosen College of Hospitality Management, University of Central Florida. Cumulatively, that number jumps to about 58 percent by year three. While a far cry from the pervasive myth that the vast majority fail within the first year, it still holds true that a restaurant business can be tough to launch, and even tougher to sustain. So, before embarking on your own edible venture, consider these tips from the teams behind some of your favorite Caribbean restaurants in South Florida.
Cindy Hutson’s Peppers
Pay Your Dues
Having first-hand experience of a restaurant’s day-to-day toil is gold for any prospective owner. “If you want to get into the hospitality business, go work in a kitchen, and then decide if you want to get into this line of business,” advises Chef Wilkinson “Ken” Sejour, owner of the Chef Creole Seafood restaurants.
When he was launching his first location in Little Haiti in 2000, Sejour jumped into the kitchen after his cook didn’t show up one day. This was an unexpected adventure for the young entrepreneur, who initially launched the restaurant as an investment opportunity. “I never thought my role would involve understanding recipes,” recalls Sejour. The experience, however, spurred him to learn the science behind cooking, and to develop Chef Creole’s signature dishes, particularly their iconic, spicy ‘pikliz’ sauce, inspired by his Haitian and Bahamian roots.
Those early experiments allowed him “to create what I call my ‘bible’,” says Sejour—a standard operating procedure for the team “that was tailor-made for our business and brand.” He currently operates four restaurants, and is opening a fifth at Miami International Airport.
Show the Receipts
It helps to know your way around an Excel spreadsheet when you’re trying to attract investors. Focus on creating an attractive financial statement, outlining the estimated profit margins based on projected expenditures. Use industry average models to calculate, and adjust based on your restaurant’s scale (whether high-end or casual dining), your planned location, and potential patronage. And don’t be aggressive with your projections, says Delius Shirley, restaurant consultant and owner/partner of Ortanique restaurants in Miami and the Cayman Islands.
“Look into your first three to six months as a growing pattern, then aim to hopefully stabilize at a certain percentage, aiming for three to five percent growth per year.” And when you’re ready to pitch, don’t expect much support from banks. “Banks are not going to fund restaurants, period,” says Shirley, as restaurants are financially risky. Instead, “explore private investors, or go to companies that look for capital funding for you.”
Cindy Hutson’s Steak
Adapt to Survive
Just because you have a killer restaurant idea doesn’t mean it will succeed in your area. Instead, consider adjusting your restaurant’s format to target key markets. That’s what the popular Bahamian fast-food chain Bamboo Shack did when they opened their first stateside location in Miami Gardens in 2016.
Within a fast-food cluttered landscape, the chain opted for a fast-casual concept, integrating their signature efficiency, and offering made-to-order fried conch and cracked chicken, with a side of Kalik beer and blazing soca tunes. New dishes were also added, offering their menu staples in Chipotle-style rice bowls and wraps.
“The food is synonymous with Bahamian culture,” says VP of Marketing and Public Relations Gandhi Pinder. “But we are always searching for ways to diversify the menu and reach every palate.” It’s this flexibility that allowed the brand to expand, notes COO Gilchrist Pinder. “You have to keep up with the times. We continue to tweak our recipes to achieve a higher level of excellence.”
Invest in Talent
Diners often try to dine in when the chef is in house. However, the secret to a great restaurant is how well the kitchen and service staff operate without the chef’s supervision.
“Cultivating a team you can depend on is so important,” says Chef Cindy Hutson, fellow owner/partner of Ortanique Restaurants. “Since opening 19 years ago, we’ve kept a lot of the original staff.”
In addition to Ortanique, Hutson and Shirley also run their Zest restaurant brand, with locations in downtown Miami’s Southeast Financial Center and Negril, Jamaica. Growing both brands requires regular travel, and a reliable team to sustain their visions while they’re away. So finding the right team members proves crucial, notes Chef Hutson, who prefers quality over quantity. “Miami is so saturated with restaurants, so new hires know if they get written up, they can leave and get another job quickly. So we’re looking for the ones with real passion that can embrace our restaurant’s culture and heritage.”
Chef Ken also believes this is one of the most important ingredients for a successful restaurant. He says, “Talent is always going to be a big investment, and you should not spare cost. Get the top of the line in every department, from the general manager to the dishwasher. Therein lies your future and your profit.”
Cynthia “Chef Thia” Verna is a social media celebrity, award-winning chef, best-selling author, national television show host, and in her most powerful role, an advocate for survivors of sexual assault. Her rapist became the father of her beloved first child, but she’s found her way to personal redemption through spiritually, and food.
I was raped. I’m grateful to God that I don’t remember much of it, because I was drugged first. I was at my job as a cook in one of those fancy hotels in Haiti, and we were sitting by the counter. He gave me a glass of water and after that, I don’t know. I blacked out, and woke up the next day feeling weird, with blood in my underwear. I called my mom right away and told her I was pregnant.
I was about 19 at the time. They never educated us about sex in Haiti, and we didn’t talk about that with family members back then, so in my mind, it was automatic. If you have sex, you became pregnant. It turned out, I was right. I was the first one in my whole family to have a baby without being married.
It wasn’t an easy decision, whether to keep him or not. My faith in God was always strong. All my grandmother ever did was pray, so I thought, “if I have an abortion, it’s a sin.” But you have to face the family, and you have to face that people are looking at you like – she’s a slut. I was back and forth about the decision constantly. Then fear, guilt, and pain in my heart told me not to terminate the pregnancy. I guess you could say that my religion saved my son.
My mom didn’t judge me. She said whatever I was going to do was my choice. When I told my father I was pregnant, he asked if I knew who had done it to me. I told him what happened, and there was no response. I expected him to beat me or to get angry, like I was feeling. I wanted him to have a reaction, but he didn’t. I knew my father loved me, and I know Caribbean fathers don’t really express emotion. But the fact that he didn’t show any at all, it hurt me, so deeply. After my son was born, my dad wrote me a very long letter telling me how disappointed he was.
I blamed myself for the rape, for years. Many times since then, I’ve tried to take my life, but I was never able to go through with it.
Cooking, Dancing and Praying Helped Me Heal
With my son, Alexandre, just a baby, I went to work in a restaurant. I left him with a nanny while I worked, but came to believe that she was doing things to make him sick, so I left that restaurant and opened my own. I was 21 and Alexandre was about nine months old then. Opening my restaurant, Atelier Le Bamboos (Art Gallery in the Bamboo), allowed me to always have him with me and keep an eye on him.
Even before I met him, I felt like I had failed him. The bitterness didn’t start when I was raped, because I didn’t understand what had happened to me. But the older I got, the more I understood the tragedy and the magnitude of that incident, the more I would hate myself. I developed an almost crippling fear because of my own assault, and I became overprotective. I didn’t even trust Alexandre to be left alone with the man I married, the father of my first daughter, Thaïs. Lack of trust was a huge issue in our relationship, and was probably part of the reason we got divorced.
My first husband was about 17 years older than me. He became that father figure to me, and to my son. He’s the one that pushed me to go to cooking school. I had been cooking professionally since I was a child, but never went for formal schooling until he encouraged me to.
I later married a younger man and had a second, beautiful daughter, Enya. After my divorce from him, and more disappointment and heartache than anyone should have to live with, I felt that the world looked at me as a failure. I felt humiliated, again. People see me as this strong person. What many people don’t understand, is that I believe surviving the pain and struggle is what gave me the greatest strength.
It was cooking, dancing and praying that helped me heal. I would do those three things for hours at various points in my life, and would never get tired.
Cynthia “Chef Thia” Verna | Photo by Richard Lecoin
Cooking was like therapy for me. I would actually look at the meat and talk to myself, like I was recording myself teaching me how to cook. Cynthia was listening to Chef Thia. I separate the two in my mind. People would think I’m crazy… but I’m not crazy.
When I’m cooking, when I’m Chef Thia, I’m stronger. I feel like I’m in charge, more powerful, more confident. When I don’t have any food around me, I feel naked. That’s when Cynthia, who is really shy, comes out, and I start doubting myself. Sometimes when there are too many people around and I start getting self conscious, I offer to cook something so I can calm down.
Out of Darkness Came Light
My son is a blessing. Every time I look at him, I can see how strong I am. If I had listened to family, he wouldn’t be here. But I followed my heart. He’s 21 now, and every time I look at him I have this big joy, this big space lighting up my whole heart.
I’ve been very strict with all three of my kids. When my son was 18 and had just graduated, he asked, “Why is it that you are so hard on me?” I had told my son his father wasn’t his biological father when he was nine years old. But he never knew anything more than that.
So I told him about how he was conceived. He’s a calm kid, like an old soul, my son. His reaction was to feel pain on my behalf, you know? Like, “Wow! My mom had to go through that?” He hugged me, he cried. He told me it was okay, and that he was proud of me.
This kid is a gift from God. He’s the one who taught me to be calm, to have faith in myself, and not care what people say. He was right next to me when I called my older daughter to tell her about it too, and her reaction was, “I respect you, Mom, for being able to tell us that.”
I wouldn’t have written my autobiography, Ordeals, without Alexandre’s permission. He pushed me to do it. He’s the reason I started speaking out about rape. He said, “I think it’s a good idea for you to let mothers know that they don’t NEED to have an abortion because they were raped. It’s not that child’s fault.”
We can’t protect our kids 24/7, no matter how much we want to keep them from the bad things in this world. For my kids, all I can tell them is to be strong, to keep the faith that I planted in them, and go back to it when they need to, like I did.
It’s my wish for my children to find things that they are passionate about, and to never stop living.
Read Cynthia “Chef Thia” Verna’s entire story in her 2015 autobiography, ‘Ordeals’, available on Amazon.
Writer Calibe Thompson | Photography David I. Muir
I started life as a chubby kid, and I blame that on my addiction to food. It has an uncanny ability to be satisfying and crave-inducing at the same time. Where I come from, there is no quinoa or fennel or wheatgrass. Neither is there gumbo or collards or sweet potato pie. Just a freshly picked, thoroughly seasoned, tropical-themed selection of yummm.
Within the Caribbean region, with a population of less than 40 million, from island to island, different foods steal the show. Enjoy all things conch in The Bahamas, try turtle soup in the Cayman Islands, it’s pork in Cuba, and plantains in the Dominican Republic. I’d never seen a flying fish before I visited Barbados, but it’s popular enough there to be the national dish. We’ve made ackee part of our national dish in Jamaica, but they won’t even touch it in Trinidad. For them, it’s all about the curries and rotis. The list goes on.
The Caribbean is possibly the world’s truest melting pot, and the foods we all eat have the influence of our shared ancestry in every bite. Africa is in the ground provisions, fritters, and heavy puddings we enjoy. The influence held by France or Spain or Amsterdam over one region or another can be tasted in the crust of their version of meat pie (patties, empanadas, or paté), whether sauces are heavier on the tomato or citrus, or whether we’ve even heard of eggplant or parsley. The Asian countries brought us rice, breadfruit, exotic sweets like jackfruit and starfruit, and spices like turmeric.
It’s mind-boggling to me how macaroni and cheese can taste exactly the same in Chicago, Texas, and Colorado, but has distinct recipes and even different names in Jamaica, Haiti, and Barbados. If you go to Grenada, you must order rice and peas, but in The Bahamas, they only serve peas and rice. On my home island, it is made in one pot with coconut milk as a key ingredient, along with kidney beans or, if you feel like living it up a little, pigeon peas. Imagine my surprise at learning that in Haiti, it needs tomato paste and mixed seasonings to be acceptable, or realizing that in some of the Latin islands the rice and beans never actually touch each other until they’re plated. How naive and underexposed I felt!
I still refuse to cook if I don’t have to, and I’d never call myself a foodie, but creating the Taste the Islands television series has opened me up to so much I never knew about our food. Today, chefs are deconstructing traditional recipes in amazing ways. Just the other day, I tried Chef Irie’s ackee hummus and mango gazpacho. (He won’t share the recipes. You’ll have to hire him if you want to try them). At Solomon and Kuff in Harlem, they serve goat chops, and cocktails made with a base of goat fat. And there are multiple restaurant weeks and food festivals across the Caribbean region showcasing true culinary ingenuity.
If you’ve been stuck on the fennel and wheatgrass train, I suggest you take a detour. Start with Flatbush, Little Havana, or Stone Mountain, and work your way out from there. As Chef Thia would say, bon manje (eat well)!
Deliciously pureed plantain mixture topped with the onions.
INGREDIENTS
3 green plantains
1 qt water
1/4 cup olive oil
1 cup sliced, white onion
1 1/2 tbsp salt
1 cup sliced, anaheim peppers
INSTRUCTIONS
Place the plantains and water in a saucepan. Bring to a boil, and cook 20 minutes, until plantains are tender but slightly firm. Drain, reserving 1 cup of the liquid. Cool plantains, and peel.
Heat the olive oil in a skillet over medium heat, and saute the onion until tender.
In a bowl, mash the plantains with the reserved liquid and salt. Transfer to a food processor, mix in the peppers, and puree. Serve the pureed plantain mixture topped with the onions.
Here is a delicious recipe for the Dominican Sancocho De Siete Carnes including beef, pork, chicken and goat meat.
INGREDIENTS
1 lb stew beef (flank, chuck or round)
1 lb goat meat
1 lb pork sausage (longaniza)
1 lb pork for stewing (belly or chump end)
1 lb chicken
1 lb pork ribs
1 lb bones from a smoked ham
Juice of two limes
1 tsp chopped cilantro or parsley
½ tsp powdered oregano
1 tbsp mashed garlic
1½ tsp salt
4 tbsp canola oil
2.5 quarts water
½ lb white yam cut into 1″ pieces
½ lb calabaza squash cut into 1″ pieces
½ lb malanga (coco) cut into 1″ pieces
3 unripe plantains, 2 cut into 1″ pieces
½ lb cassava cut into 1″ pieces
2 corn cobs cut into ½” slices (optional)
INSTRUCTIONS
Cut all the meat into bite-size pieces.
Rinse all the meat, except for the pork sausage, with lime juice.
Place all the meat, except for the pork sausage, into bowls, and season with coriander, oregano, garlic, and 1/2 teaspoon of salt, ensuring all pieces are coated with the spices.
Cover and refrigerate for at least half an hour to marinate.
Heat oil over medium heat in a large pot and add the beef, stirring until browned.
Cover and let simmer for 10 minutes.
Add a few tablespoons of water if it looks dry, to prevent burning.
Add the pork and simmer for 15 minutes, adjusting water if necessary.
Add the rest of the meat to the pot, except for the chicken, and simmer for 15 minutes. Keep adding water as needed.
Add the chicken and simmer for 5 minutes.
Add 2 quarts of water to the pot and bring to a boil.
Add the yam, calabaza, malanga, and the two cut plantains.
Simmer, covered, for 15 minutes.
Grate the remaining plantain to make it into a pulp, and add to the pot.
Add all remaining ingredients, except for the salt.
Simmer until all ingredients are cooked through, adding water as it evaporates, and stirring frequently.
Season with salt, to taste.
Serve hot with white rice, slices of avocado, and finish with hot sauce.
NOTES
The meats cook for different lengths of time for maximum tenderness and flavor. Please pay attention to the order in which meat is added.
