I'm a proud Haitian American and I've traveled the Caribbean quite a bit tasting and enjoying the cuisine, experiencing the culture, and getting my business butt kicked running a cargo business my partners and I foolishly embarked on. Caribbean cuisine is a beautiful kaleidoscope of many many flavors. The indigenous vegetation, blended with culture and flavors dragged in due to the African slave trade and East Indian indentured servitude, sprinkled with the flavors of the of the European occupying forces, and topped off with the immigrant cultures from the middle east and the orient all results in some of the best food I've ever tasted in my life!
Sadly though, I now have a crazy phobia of cooking Caribbean food and serving it to folks not legally required to like me! Slowly but surely I'm learning all the dishes I grew up eating like du riz a sauce pois (white rice with bean soup), du riz a pois (rice and beans), griot (fried pork), and banan peze (fried plantain), just to name a few. My uncle married into a Trinidadian family and I've been lucky enough to still be able to enjoy in America so many dishes that I loved eating while living in Trinidad (while screwin' around with that stupid boat). Shark and Bake, roti, channa and potato, curry chicken, doubles, curry mango, stuffed baked. YUMMMMM!!!! Thanks to my Trinidadian family my Caribbean cooking skills are expanding past Haiti and south into Trinidad.
But you do know what I love about my blog? Aside from the fact that it's forcing me to exercise my eyes and hands, getting me to write again and exercise my creative writing muscle, but it's also forcing me to cook again. I have had some serious physical therapy sessions just from chopping vegetables! I sweat like I'm in a sauna. Thankfully, someone is ALWAYS by my side making sure I don't pass out or chop off my fingers. My double could be quite dangerous at times...After an afternoon of cooking pots, pans, and dishes remain to be cleaned...by some well fed soul...luckily, my family takes pity on me, and let's me prop my feet up while they wash. Thank God for handy helpers!
Sadly though, I now have a crazy phobia of cooking Caribbean food and serving it to folks not legally required to like me! Slowly but surely I'm learning all the dishes I grew up eating like du riz a sauce pois (white rice with bean soup), du riz a pois (rice and beans), griot (fried pork), and banan peze (fried plantain), just to name a few. My uncle married into a Trinidadian family and I've been lucky enough to still be able to enjoy in America so many dishes that I loved eating while living in Trinidad (while screwin' around with that stupid boat). Shark and Bake, roti, channa and potato, curry chicken, doubles, curry mango, stuffed baked. YUMMMMM!!!! Thanks to my Trinidadian family my Caribbean cooking skills are expanding past Haiti and south into Trinidad.
But you do know what I love about my blog? Aside from the fact that it's forcing me to exercise my eyes and hands, getting me to write again and exercise my creative writing muscle, but it's also forcing me to cook again. I have had some serious physical therapy sessions just from chopping vegetables! I sweat like I'm in a sauna. Thankfully, someone is ALWAYS by my side making sure I don't pass out or chop off my fingers. My double could be quite dangerous at times...After an afternoon of cooking pots, pans, and dishes remain to be cleaned...by some well fed soul...luckily, my family takes pity on me, and let's me prop my feet up while they wash. Thank God for handy helpers!
But through cooking I've discovered a passion laying dormant within me. I've always loved food and flavors and all that good stuff. Who doesn't like a good meal? I've also never been afraid to get in the kitchen and whip up something for a crowd...but not until now, after my stroke, through my rehabilitation process, my crawling my way back to being "normal" have I actually felt moved...finally happy doing something...anything. Is this making any sense? I feel almost a sense of urgency to memorialize all of those recipes I loved from my mother's kitchen, I feel it's my duty to get past my phobia and force some folks to taste my Caribbean food to make sure it's right, not just good. I feel a special urgency to do it now...
So I'm doing it now...but I'm also doing all those things I also have done well in the past and get rave reviews about just to make sure my ego is sufficiently stroked in between cooking disasters. :-) So today's dish of the day is a pseudo-Italian offering, Spinach and Turkey Penne Pasta! ENJOY!
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