How prayer saved my day and what you can do to save Trichelle

I have some girls who form the core of personal support and love in my life and for whom I would do anything, and vice versa. Beautiful, strong women who have been in my life for years and years. Earlier this week, I received the horrible news that my friend's sister is missing. It surely has to be every person's worst nightmare - to turn around and not know where your loved one is and whether they are safe, scared or alone.

It has been weighing heavily on my mind and being away from home makes one feel a bit hopeless but then we all feel that way. So while the police carry out their investigations, we wait. All any of us can do now is sit, wait, and pray for her safe return and pray for her family, who undoubtedly need all the support they can get at this time. This could be any one of us, sadly so no thought, no prayer is too small. Thanks to everyone who circulated the photos to friends and lifted the family up in prayer. Hoping for good news soon.

This being said, I have not been the sharpest tack in the drawer this week, and it took me all week to scramble some words together on a page to send to my dissertation supervisor. Not my best work but when I finally sent it off today, I decided that I also needed to eat, having not eaten a proper meal in days. So I did the whole nine yards with the cooking, rustling up a fantastic curry to go with my contraband dhalpuri roti (luckily UK Customs did not feel the need to seize this as they did my NZ cheddar). Hungry and tired, I doled out a serving of this Trini culinary goodness, set it on the table, cleaned up and then went out to put out the trash - a 15 second exercise. In less than 10 seconds, the sound no pyjama clad, fluffy socks and fluffy slippers wearing, bad hair day woman wants to hear, echoed in my ear sockets - the sound of a slamming door, automatically locking me out, while the keys jangled in the lock and mocked me from the inside. F#@^ me!

Luckily for me, two things were in my favour - 1. the neighbours were home and while #2 was the main reason I was in this predicament, with the wind from this source being the reason the door slammed behind me, still, 2. the back door was open.

This is where I put my acrobatic skills to work and for those who know what my university hall name was, this would be funny. The neighbour got out his old rickety ladder, and leaned it against the fence so I could climb up and clamber over. If you know anything about British fences, and guttering, you would know that they are basically shit. If you know anything about me, you would know that I am a true Caribbean woman with an ass and meat on the bones. To say this exercise of climbing over this fence which could barely take the weight of a Barbie doll, and praying I did not break down the entire thing was a challenge, would be an understatement. I looked for something on which to hold on to, and the guttering was as fragile as the fence so I had to hold on to the neighbour, and pray for dear life. I whispered a prayer asking first for personal safety - I did not want to have to tell my mother over Skype that I had broken anything, and also I prayed for the fence cause I am not in a financial position to help pay to repair a broken fence.

Well, I am here typing this, and the fence still stands and the curry was excellent. It just goes to show that prayer is great. Faith is powerful, no matter what the challenge - no matter how big or small, trite or life changing.

My friend's family is going through a situation I wish on noone. Please say a prayer for Trichelle and let's bring her home.

Read more »

Foodie Pics: Curry Tabanca

I always say, I could eat curry every week - maybe not everyday but definitely once a week and it had been a while since I had a good curry. And my mantra is, if you want something good, best you do it yourself and so I did. I had promised a friend to come over and cook Trini curry for him this weekend and we did that, while watching my dismal cricket team play India. It was lovely. And so after introducing a Brit to Trinidadian curry on Sunday, and ultimately teasing my own tastebuds for the spicy goodness of a curried chicken, yesterday, I went to Tesco and got chicken, chick peas, potatoes and chapatis.

First, I seasoned the chicken last evening so it could marinate overnight. Lots of onions, garlic, green herbs, , peppers, geera (cumin) and curry powder. Chief curry powder, and Chief ground geera - not the crap they have here. It looks beautiful doesn't it?

I love cutting drumsticks in half for curry. To me boneless chicken for curry is sacrilege

Then this morning I cut up my potatoes into small cubes. I also chopped some onions, garlic, peppers and threw them in some very very hot oil, with some whole geera, (I just love geera) before adding curried powder mixed with water for the chunkay. Then, in went my chick peas and then later my cubed potatoes. Bubble bubble...

The channa, better known as chickpeas, bubbling in the curry

With my oil extremely hot in my dutch pot, I added the seasoned chicken and allowed that to cook in a covered pot for about an hour. I nyammed on a toasted sesame bagel with a scrambled egg white and some hot chocolate while this was going on. Did I mention I started cooking at 8am?

Putting the chicken on to do its magic

I finished cooking before 10am which was great and cleared the kitchen and packed everything away until 2pm lunch hour. I did make dhalpuri from scratch on Sunday but there was no way I was doing that today so I picked up some chapatis and heated them in the microwave for about 20 seconds. I also, last night, brewed some green tea and added the juice of 3 limes and some sugar for a thirst quenching iced green tea. Lunch was then served.

Tuesday lunch - curried chicken, curried channa (chickpeas), chapatis, iced green tea with citrus

Close up of the meal, with the chicken so tender, the flesh was falling off the bone. It was bliss. Jealous much? Back to work.

Curry a la Trininista!

Read more »

Cooking, while Coding

On Sunday morning, at 2 o'clock, I was in the kitchen. Cooking. I was working on an assignment - coding in qualitative data analysis - but knew I needed to get cooking out of the way so that when I resurfaced later that afternoon, I would not have to face an hour or so at the stove, but a mere 3 minutes with the microwave. Student life.

I was really in the mood for pelau but while I love cooking it, as it is an easy one pot meal, I hate cleaning and cutting raw chicken. I guess I could have gone to a market and let the butchers do all that but I am pretty anal when it comes to chicken. I like to clean the fat off myself - for peace of mind. I also hate markets. The smell of raw meat hanging around me is not very appealling. I never liked going to market with my mother, as everything smelled and it was loud and seemed yucky to me. I prefer to spend extra money in a sterile supermarket, where, both here in London and in Trinidad, I buy everything I need - from veggies to chicken to cuts of meat. In any event, the thought of cleaning chicken legs was not an attractive one, so I bought easy to cut pork and decided to do a stew.

I had bought some beautiful pork last week and had cut and seasoned it on Friday morning.

The onions and garlic were welcome smells, along with the peppers and herbs.

I was going to use it to make a stew with some potatoes, and add it to a seasoned veggie rice. I used fresh carrots, onions, ginger, garlic, parsley, and broccoli for the rice.

I also like boiling my rice with a bit of saffron to make it a pretty yellow.

Peeled and cut my potatoes for my stew.

Stir fried my veggies in EVOO, starting with the onions and carrots and herbs, and adding the broccoli near the end, before adding the rice.

Watched Law and Order while the entire thing was cooking, washed up, finished my assignment, put everything in the fridge and went to bed at 11am. Woke up at 5pm and uncovered my plated lunch, heated it - nu fuss, no muss. And in the end, I added some garlic bread to the finished product. And a glass of white wine. It was really lovely.

One thing I have not done since being here was baking. I get the urge sometimes but usually satisfy my craving at the supermarket's in-store bakery. But they don't have cheese puffs and as you know, I am a cheese puff lover - so who knows? Heading to the bakery now actually..ta ta.

Read more »