A Few of My Favorite Things Jamaican

Color, music, spices, Marley, friends, heat, sardines, bush tea, reggae, fish, coconuts, tradition, family and prayers, are just a few of my favorite things that remind me of Jamaica in my month of cooking and culture. One more place to fill my “suitcase” with recipes and memories.  Thank you Jamaica for your sunny disposition and…

Fish and Sweet Fried Plantains

Jamaicans love their fish, escoveitched. It’s a vinegary, carrot, onion bath over a fried piece of fish. Yes, I was skeptical too, but this was amazing. Fish are abundant everywhere in Jamaica, so this is just one of the many ways to make fried fish pop. The vinegar mixture consisted of vinegar, peppercorns, onion, carrots,…

West African and Asian Food Influences in Jamaica

Have you ever wondered how a certain food came about?  How did it make its migration to a certain place? Pizza had to come from somewhere and french fries-are they really from France? When the African slave trade began in Jamaica in the early 1600’s, some of the foods that the West Africans introduced included…

Hot Summer Nights

“I don’t know how long I kept at it… I felt reasonably safe, stretched out on the floor, and lay quite still. It didn’t seem to be summer any more” -Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar. The dog days of summer-the most sultry time of the year. July’s weather is so hot right now, with 101…

Jamaica-me-Crazy

I am…crazy-busy looking into new countries so that I can cook and blog about the international foods and flavors -AND – cause I love this crazy process it’s time to stir the pot, raise the temperature and clean the dirty dishes again. After a year of taking a cooking/blog writing breather, I find myself wanting…