Trini Foodie Pics

Study break. Diva cooking.

Yesterday we had some cooking therapy as I mentioned I would do before. I was in the mood for a Trini pelau and though I did not do a true ball by ball coverage, while the pot was bubbling, I took a few shots. Yaaay. And the soca was pumpin' via Red 96.7FM as well. Streaming is my salvation.

I will not do a recipe type thing. Shall I remind you of my ineptitude with creating recipes? Again, here is a link to a recipe. I did not even look at this recipe but I trust Trinigourmet makes it the same way I do.

Okay, so the key, in my opinion to a good pelau is the seasoning of the chicken and the stewing of said chicken. Once that is done well, you're about 75% on your way to a good pelau. Stewing involves heating a little bit of oil...I use about a teaspoon or so, and adding brown sugar and allowing it to caramelise in the oil until it starts to turn dark. Do not let the sugar burn or else, it's all over. Do not add your chicken too early either or you will have a sweet meal. There is a precision to this browning of the sugar thing. Here is the pot, with the browning chicken, and the green peas added. This is the foundation of a good 'lau.

My chicken and peas after I added my long grain rice, veggies and seasonings - onions, garlic, green peppers, carrots, pumpkin. I love pumpkin and my cousin does not put pumpkin in the travesty he calls pelau -I can never eat that, for a host of reasons.

I love my Afro-Caribbean store, run by Pakistanis, because I saw coconut water - yes, that is what it was called - in Sainsbury's and left that right there. Coconut water to Caribbean people is the clear stuff you drink from green and yellow coconuts. Coconut milk is the creamy liquid you get from pressing the dried copra of the dry coconut. I was not sure what this crap in the tin was but I left it there. So when I saw Maggi powdered coconut milk powder in my shop, I did not even hesitate.

Add some warm water to that bad boy...I don't like my milk too creamy or rich so I only add about 2 tbps.
You can make it as thick and creamy as you like.

Add that milk to my pot. It is all a bunch of stuff thrown together in a pot that does not look so appealling at first. You let it simmer and steam until the rice is cooked - not too soft and sappy. Get it nice and grainy.

The soy sauce - to add some colour after the milk addition.

The finale - add a coleslaw and a fork, and you're all set.

I make a really good pelau. I think. I make it with a lot of love. I mean the first time I cooked a pelau at home, when my dad and I were left to our own devices as my mum was off shopping in the US, he could not believe it. And to think, during my first university experience, in my first semester, I could barely boil water. Oh how times have changed. Hmmm...just missing a mauby.

Read more »

English Premiership Angst

Arsenal apparently played Man City tonight. Who cares?

I love football but I made a decision many years ago to stop following League football because it is very easy to let this football thing become your entire life. I have seen how I change during the one month of World Cup football every 4 years - missing work, hiding in the kitchen to watch games, speeding down the highway to get home for a game, BBMing the progress of games while in meetings, cursing at the tv, gnashing of teeth, pulling of hair, crying over losses. So it is no wonder that I just said to myself - international football only. International tournaments specifically. World Cup, Euro Cup, Gold Cup.

This leads me to my the question - is the big screen in this house the only f...g big screen in the entire city of London??? Why is it all these men end up in THIS house when there is some foolish Premiership game on? I mean, I know I am begging a lodging, but really, man - every damn game is the same crap. There must be a pub or someone else's big screen in someone else's house. Trying to study in the midst of this racket is beyond impossible and especially if loser Liverpool, who cannot seem to win a pie contest, seem to be playing. Then it is pure hell.

Not pleased. Not pleased. Not pleased.

I have resorted to online noise generators and currently, I am in the middle of a thunderstorm near the ocean. It started off with just the ocean and I was somewhat calm but then as goals started coming, or not - not sure, don't care - then I became stormy and the night was filled with the sound of thunder and rain, falling in my ocean. Does this football thing ever end? Tell me when so I can have a party that day! A big noisy party!

In other angry student updates, I am done with my current phone network - Three, or 3, or whatever. I have missed countless calls from friends and family because the network is crap. Between yesterday and tonight, 3 (go figure) people either emailed me or told me that they tried calling me to no avail. The phone is right next to me. It has not rung. It's shit. My mother has given up on trying and now only relies on Skype. So, I am now an O2 customer and they better hope and pray I stay a happy O2 customer. And oh look...the first giveaway I spot - tickets to go watch Arsenal. The joy.

Read more »

Exam One - Over. Time to Cook.

Well, the exams I have are not mid-terms but this was a funny image that I just had to steal.

I still have another exam this week. I am not one to gripe about exams, discuss exams, and I have ever only cried over an exam once in my life. A'Level English, Paper One. I will never forget it. My teachers all expected greatness from me in this subject. I was the Literature master. lol. I could dance rings around Jane Austen and T.S. Eliot. I love books. I love prose. I love poetry. This was a joy in my life - studying Literature at A'Level was a joy. This is how studying should be - not boring scales and validity and crap!

Paper One. Shakespeare, Bronte and Chaucer. The three books I was most prepared for. Hamlet. Jane Eyre. Wife of Bath, And then the unthinkable happened. My watch stopped. Then it re-started 30 minutes later. I was writing merrily, glancing at my watch, timing myself. There I was, this brown Caribbean princess, telling the little white man somewhere in Cambridge all about Hamlet and his issues, having already delved into the world of Chaucer and leaving the piece de resistance - Ms Bronte and her Ms Eyre for last. When the examiner announced that we had 15 minutes left, I could not believe it. I had not even started with Bronte. How could it be? My watch said I had at least 45 mins left. I scrappily ended the Hamlet essay and raced on over to Jane Eyre, holding back the panic and the tears as I scribbled my life away for the next 15 minutes but I would always need more than 15 minutes.

I remember my English teacher waiting for her girls outside the class and when she spotted me, she asked "how was it?" to which I could only reply "I did not finish". The disappointment on her face was too much for me to bear and I cried my little eyes out, and threw the watch in the dustbin, my Grade A going down the toilet. The Grade A I wanted more than anything. It was the only time I had ever cried over an exam.

So don't expect tears today. I finished the exam this afternoon at 12.30pm, and my next thought was - I am in the mood for a pelau, dread. A pelau being a wonderful and one of my most fave Trini meals - comprising of rice, chicken, or beef or whatever works for you, green peas, veggies, all cooked and simmered in coconut milk. Yummo.

And so I went to good ole Sainsbury's, got some chicken, some vegetables, a ready made cole slaw pack, minus the mayo, some mayo (cause the pelau gotta have the cole slaw), some juice. Got to the Caribbean shop and got some coconut milk powder, Maggi no less (pig in mud dance!) and come tomorrow, in between reading about segmentation and brand equity, I will have something looking like this on my table - the excitement!

Trini pelau - Photo courtesy the wonderful Trinigourmet

You can check out the recipe from Trinigourmet here.

But in case you were wondering about the Literature outcome way back in the day when I still wore a uniform to school, and my school had no boys, I was comfortable with Paper 2 - which included Hardy, Austen and somebody else I cannot recall at the moment, but Paper 3 was going to be an issue - Woolf, Eliot and Beckett and all this existentialism nonsense. I never got Woolf - thought To The Lighthouse was tats (rubbish) the first time I read it but in the week I had to scrape up some pride, I fell in love with ole Woolfie and destroyed that paper.

And despite crying non-stop over not finishing the first paper and seeing my academic life flash before my eyes, I still got my A from Mr Cambridge. This is why I don't fuss over exams. You're either gonna do well, or not. You either put it in the work or you didn't. Be real with yourself. You're either a star, or not. Don't beat yourself over it. Move on. Life is too short, man. Cook a pelau! Or go watch a movie. I cannot wait to see Black Swan. Looks like my kinda ting! The weekend cometh...the countdown to freedom is on!

Read more »

Week One of 2011

Not the way I would have liked to spend the opening week of the year but such is my reality. But I am not stressed. I am not crying over textbooks or pulling my hair out. Au contraire. I have been fiddling around with cute hairstyles, I managed to do my nails over the weekend - after months of neglect. I have been cooking - today's winning meal was basmati rice, dhal and curried chicken. I think I am just, at this point, fed up and these exams can do with me as they will. I just want them to be over already! I would love to have a life again. To wake up and open the door and go walking just for the hell of it. If I can make any resolution for 2011, it would be have more fun this year. I have made a commitment to get this Masters degree and with distinction, but really?? Does this mean I am not allowed a life? REALLY??? Not only has this Masters plan made me a pariah in the dating world - because men don't want to date a student because they are so concerned about our studies (bollocks!) but I am starting to look like the wallpaper in my bedroom, which is not attractive. So Karen, that would be one of my 52 - maybe the entire 52. Have more fun. I am in one of the best cities in the world for crying out loud. I did not mean for this to go from idle chatter to a full blown rant, by the way.

Anyway...

Not only is studying bad for my emotional health, but it is also terrible for my physical health. You get hungry every 11 seconds and today's comfort snack was a nice teaplate with 3 mini pancakes, a dab of butter and honey. Yummo.

Bad Trininista....bad girl.

However, the plan is to make weekend #2 - technically it will be weekend #2 really - make up for the awful first week of 2011. I already know I will be having drinks (if my busy week has not already chased off my drinks date as per my statement above), maybe take in a movie (The King's Speech vs Black Swan, or both...live a little!) and maybe some culinary therapy. Not in the mood for drunken London club life this weekend or weird girls named Miranda (see previous entry). Maybe a day at National Gallery.  Maybe the British Museum. Maybe Greenwich. I mean, the possibilities are endless. I am 85% flu free, and will be 100% exam free. Go me!

But tonight, I don't want to write too much for fear that the info I just read for the millionth time seeps out of my brain with every non-research related word I type here. But wish me luck! First exam at 9.30am tomorrow. God help me!

Read more »

New Year Celebrations in London

When I opened my eyes at minutes to 2 this afternoon, I pulled the curtain to see what 2011 looked like in the day. It looked just like 2010 did 24 hours before - grey and bleak. My stomach was also bleak...rather empty and I just inhaled carbs and copious amounts of orange juice.

And I did say I woke up at minutes to 2 this afternoon, after ringing in the new year with friends at a bar/club in London. We almost ended up ringing the new year in the queue, until one dude started complaining to the owner - a rather unfortunate looking character who thought he was God's gift with his hair plugs and his shiny suit - with support from yours truly, and when the countdown began, I was indoors, in the queue at the bar. lol. But it was a great evening with friends, and lots of memorable highlights such as:

- Friend #1 (shall remain nameless) pissing in the sink at McDonald's because...well...he just had to go. I may never use a public bathroom again, and I scarcely do it now as it is
- Friend #1's friends (none of whom were quite sober) picking up a stray at McDonald's and by stray, I don't mean Sparkie. Just some random girl, named Miranda, who suddenly was part of our group
- Getting lost, asking Londoners for directions and them too drunk to be of any use - dude told me the street we were looking for was in Soho when the map clearly showed the street was right there somewhere.
- Miranda trying to pick fights with random black girls in the queue. I said silently to myself, Who on earth is this girl, and why is she being a nuisance? I will not be getting my hair pulled in a fight for some stranger
- Some crackhead looking person, clearly high on something, trying to pick a fight with me but as I told her, when she can be as stunning and lucid as I was, then try again. I think I might have been the only sober person in London last night!
- Miranda finally leaving, but via ambulance, because she was so wasted they had to call the NHS for her, after she apparently almost brought up her entire digestive system on the pavement

I hope wherever Miranda is - she is okay but cannot say I was sorry to see her leave. What a nutter.

New Year's Eve in London was quite an experience. I mean, I know the Brits on a good day love their tipple but Jesus...I was at Euston station at 9.30 and people were already wasted, falling over, screaming, and just being plain annoying. By the time I was walking to my bus stop this morning, there were bodies all over the pavement, friends propping up friends on benches...crazy. My New Year's Eve parties back home were always on the "bourgie" end of the spectrum so this...lol...was different.

But as we mention bus, it's been a while since I put up one of these but this was seriously called for...

Mayor Johnson, I sat at Bus Stop D at St George's Circus for maybe 110 minutes waiting for a bus that was supposed to come every 30 mins. I can now tell you every bus that services SE London - the N1, the 63, 453 etc, because I saw them at least 4 times each - thought I saw the N155 maybe about 6 times. But nowhere to be seen was my bus. Your TFL people on the street were very helpful, and after 100 minutes called in to see where oh where was my bus because I sat at the bus stop, not drunk, not falling over, not being a menace - but very quietly, albeit angrily, nursing what was a cold in remission, hoping it would not come back a second time.

Mr Bus Driver, forgive me for giving you a look laced with acid and not returning your "Happy New Year" when you finally got there - but you surely could understand my vexation at having to start my new year with an almost 2 hour wait in the dropping temperatures for a bus and then having to sit and listen to some drunk female cuss her mother on the phone in a most vile and alarming fashion. Oh London...

Other than that, and the fact that I must now open a textbook on the first day of the year, 2011 promises to be awesome.

Oh, I also got my delivery yesterday. I love sparkly stuff!

Read more »