Lifespan of a Chennette

Pommerac, Pommerac, CLICK CLICK CLICK

April 30, 2008 – 5:25 pm

It’s been a while since I’ve submitted a photo to Jai and Bee for their monthly food photography event CLICK, but as usual for the few times I have, it’s just on the deadline.

Today.

The theme for the month of April (which ends today, I know) is Au Naturel! And, my entry…the lovely POMMERAC, ready-to-eat, unprocessed and untreated. Delicious. And pretty, with the redness and the whiteness next to each other. And the furry centre.

Pommerac is the French patois name in T&T. Also called Jamoon in Trinidad. Known as Malay Apples. These are much more fibrous in texture than an apple, not crunchy, but with high water content. Different taste, however, that I haven’t figured out how to describe! Latin name: Syzygium malaccense.

In Jamaica they call it an otaheite apple (ignore what other people call the otaheite apple). From a comment on my Flickr I was advised that they call it Ponmdo in creole Martinique, Pomme d’eau in French. In Guadeloupe it’s called Pomme Malaka. As it’s not really sweet they say also “acre” and in creole that word is “rak“. That becomes Ponmrak or Pommerac if you turn it Frenchy (according to jendayee).

UPDATE (6 May 2008): From a comment left by Trinikreyol on my Flickr:

Ok i am a trini and i speak creole also known as patois, i can give you an explanation of the word pommerac. In trinidad unlike martinique and guadeloupe our creole has been strongly influenced by spanish. The word pommerac comes from a combination of the words pomme which is french for apple and the spanish word maracas which is what some trinis call shack-shack. The fruit does look like the instrument as well as an apple! Hence the name!

Some other shots.

Chennette |

Click, Trinidad and Tobago, fruits, photos |

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Making Grocery

April 27, 2008 – 3:53 pm

Mom and I made grocery* a couple weeks ago in Trinidad, before I went on a brief vacation to the US (California! the Pacific, whales and redwoods!). It was at a relatively small supermarket near home, but part of a national chain (well, they have 3 or 4) so they’re always well stocked. Of course, given all the news stories that week, and continuing, I was not surprised to see empty shelves where the flour should be. Almost empty; there still remained a hand-lettered sign “ONE PER CUSTOMER”. I had brought across some whole wheat flour from Guyana for the family, since we’d known of this shortage before, and for the moment sister the elder and myself could still get our hands on flour. Actually my suitcase was filled with grocery items…eggless chow mein noodles are frequently exported from Guyana to Trinidad in Chennette’s suitcases.

We picked up some ice cream since Lilandra and I had intentions of making blizzards, and while Mom started the cashier process, I browsed the sweet temptation shelves to find appropriate additions to the blizzards. On a side note, this supermarket tends to have mostly locally produced chocolate and candy bars; it was also the first place I’d ever seen bars from the Caribbean Chocolate Company (but that’s probably because the supermarket is in walking distance from the company). By the time I’d carried my small selection (including a Nuggle and a Catch) to the cashier, she was telling Mom that “Wayne”** would bring “it” down in a minute, and she gave Wayne instructions for finding whatever it was. I was curious because I thought we’d got everything on our list, but part of my mind assumed it was some belated Easter supermarket gift (Mom gets these things from her favourite places all the time). Mom refused to meet my eyes, however, when I looked at her…

By the time we finished paying, and Wayne came back down with a box, the kind used to pack chee-zees or something, I was less convinced. We usually get our chee-zee-fix (and other such fake snacks) from the parlour*** next door in much smaller quantities. But I am naturally discreet, being a lawyer and all, so I held my tongue until Wayne had safely put the box and our other groceries in the trunk, and we were safely ensconced inside the car.

“So, what in the box Mom?” Keep Reading »

Chennette |

Chennette, Trinidad and Tobago, family, food, life |

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Apples and Oranges, and Apple Crumbles

April 1, 2008 – 4:52 pm

My favourite quick dessert to make recently has been an apple crumble. I don’t need a recipe and once I have an apple or 2 I have all the ingredients at hand. Peel, core and slice. Mix in nutmeg syrup (or honey) and add liberal amounts of cinnamon and less liberal amounts of clove. A touch of lime. Throw in a baking dish and top with a varying mixture of flour/oats and butter with some sugar. Spice up the crumbly bit if you want. I like it spicy. make enough crumble to satisfy everyone. Every bite of apple should have enough crunchy topping. Bake till done. And brown to your liking.

I’ve never been a huge fan of apples. Except in apple pie. And crumble. I like them. I eat
them. I had issues with their water content and the fact that they were always imported and
therefore highly prized for the name, or the shiny exterior and the foreignness. Sometimes they seemed more water and skin and no fruitiness. But then I have issues with fruit sometimes. I’m a fussy person sometimes when it comes to food. And I don’t like change. And it’s hard to make decisions that involve spending major amounts of money. Whether or not I can afford it, I’ve been raised to be naturally frugal, at least in outlook. And that makes shopping for new things a hard road. Look how long I took to choose between the Nikon D80 and the Canon Rebel XTI!

What does this have to do with apples, and oranges and crumbles? Well, some people
tried to hint at it this morning. Remember my monitor dying been profferred as my
reason for intermittent blogging back in January? Well, I crumbled. And I bought an Apple. No oranges here, I apologise for the blip in the truthfulness of my title. My very first Mac, a Macbook. In black.

Let the revolution (peaceful and only in part, as I still am PC at work, and with my old HP now my entertainment centre) begin.

Chennette |

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Making Dhal, Trini-style

March 26, 2008 – 12:49 am

I’ve been thinking about posting on dhal for a long time now, but Cynthia (of Tastes Like Home) did a dhal post last year, called Dal, Dhal, Dahl together with her column. Since she’s Guyanese, I find it strange that she left out the “Dholl” spelling that so captures the rounded vowel and emphasis of her native accent, but I’ll bypass that since her weekly column at the time was a great exposition on the subject of dhal. Not just in the Caribbean, but her exposure to the great varieties of dhals out there. Dhals are great, going well with rice or roti and a nice addition to the protein diet when you’re enjoying vegetarian.

No matter what you call it, and how you spell it though, for the traditional East Indian populations of Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana, there really is only one thing that goes by the name. So much so that it’s not just this one dish that’s called Dhal, but the yellow split pea that we use to make Dhal is called Dhal. No matter that dhal may be a term used to describe split pulses in general, we only give one pulse the honour. Even when it’s not cooked into dhal the dish, we call it dhal - dhalpuri, anyone? - I remember a family friend mentioned that her children loved macaroni and dhal and laughed at our the faces we made, telling us she stewed the dhal so it really did go well with macaroni.

But getting back to the more traditional, or recognised use of the yellow split pea - making dhal, the dish. I love dhal. I like it with sada roti. I can drink it like a soup. But most of all I love it with rice. I have memories of my grandmother, and a great aunt, who made saffron-y yellow dhal, spicy and hot with pepper, and the taste of the chunkayed brown garlic and whole geera, decorating the dhal with black teardrop flecks. Keep Reading »

Chennette |

Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, food, photos, recipes |

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Taste T&T 2008 is on the way!

March 12, 2008 – 10:47 am

Preparations are underway for Taste T&T for 2008 and it appears there are going to be some modifications to the format this year. I hope for the better. Although they did have a pretty cool product last year! So mark your calendars for late May/early June (dates may still be changed):

Taste T&T 2008
Food Festival - May 30 - June 1, 2008
Restaurant Week - June 2-7, 2008

If you read my review from last year’s Taste, you may remember that although the offerings from T&T’s top chefs were great, I bemoaned the relative lack of Trini streetfood and other local delicacies. Well, I am clearly influential Because this year, they are adding an additional night to the Festival, focusing on local foods! And as you can see, they’re going to feature restaurants in a special way at the restaurants. They’ve also moved the Festival to the Jean Pierre Complex in order to accommodate more people, and expand the Demonstration Kitchen. From the T&T Express:

On the first night of the festival, a Taste T&T Food will be held and will focus on local items like the best doubles, bake and shark and corn soup. The ‘Food Festival’ will take place on May 31 and June 1 while June 2 - 7 is dubbed the ‘Restaurant Week’, offering specials at the restaurants of the featured Taste T&T chefs.

I cannot find the official press release, either on the main Tourism Development Company site, or its tourism gateway site, GoTrinidadandTobago.com, but the T&T Express had a story this morning in the Business Section. The story is a little confusing (perhaps only to me), but at the end the proposed schedule is very clear - the special local food part of the festival, on the extra day, is going to be in St James, that well-known northern/western hub of Trini food all hours of the night (Debe being the key South locale for Indian delicacies in particular, and Curepe being an ‘Eastern’ hub of sorts).

Of course I have other issues with the Express story, notably the misplaced apostrophe in the headline: “Restaurant’s featured in this years Taste T&T”. At least they have the apostrophe, even if they put it in the wrong place…the wrong word…sigh…I hope it’s just in the online version, where we can blame it on the webmaster. Anyone have the print edition?

I hope Lilandra and I can be there this year! And maybe the TriniGourmet is looking for a foodie reunion?

Chennette |

Trinidad and Tobago, food, restaurant, travel |

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The Haunting of the Solomon Hochoy Highway

February 25, 2008 – 2:02 am

I just wrapped up an outstanding work-paper, and started reading the news online. And discovered this article in the Trinidad and Tobago Express, about motorists calling for a warning sign on a particular stretch of highway. When I saw the headline - Motorists lobby for warning sign on highway ‘death stretch’ - and from the South Bureau, no less, I just knew.

It wasn’t about a strange bend in the highway, like the one approaching the Freeport exit, and it isn’t a blind corner or steep incline. Oh no.

It is the ghost who haunts the Solomon Hochoy Highway. Come on, all Trinis know this story, or some version of it. You know the place, heading South, past Chaguanas, past Couva, as you are passing Claxton Bay, amid the rolling Central Range hills. Where, your necks would crane Westward, trying to catch a glimpse of the statue among the greenery, terrified if you did, but needing to complete the ritual of a drive to or from Sando, by trying to prove to yourself that the stories were true.

What stories be these? Ah. The poor woman who haunts the highway. Some tales say she was young, and beautiful (well, all tales say that, otherwise, what good would be the tale?) and she was felled by the bite of a snake and her poor grieving father who loved her dear, built a statue in her memory. And his enduring love, and the statue, ensured that she wandered the highway in great winds, blowing cars off course, just at that point, causing accidents and instilling fear in the Trini population. Or, as this report says in the words of a villager:

“People have told me about the image of a woman that sometimes appear kneeling on the road, and in trying to avoid hitting her they often run off the road.”

I have heard tell that the statue was struck with a cutlass, and remained headless, this being the cause of the haunting. Or that there was a jealous lover of someone involved, seething with rage and destructiveness. I do not know. Urban legend? It all seemed so true, so recent as children, but that was so long ago. I believe the statues has even been removed, but still the stories persist.

Stories like the ones my aunt would tell us, swearing it was true, of she and her friends driving home in the night and suddenly, when they reached that point in the road, there would be an extra “passenger”. The shock of that happening to someone driving alone is surely the cause of a car swerving sharply off the road. Not high winds in the area. Or the curve of the road. Or late night, sleepless drivers…no, it’s that poor ghost.

Will the government put up a sign? What will the sign say? “Dangerous Ghost Ahead“? “Unearthly Conditions” “Lookout! Ghost!” or “Ghost Lookout” for the tourism oriented. How about “Don’t swerve to avoid people kneeling on the road” or “Beware people who tell tales that scare“. I am eager to know.

Actually, I am also eager to know what versions of this story prevail. So, do tell.

(And yes, I am aware that the picture above is NOT of the Highway in question. However, it is in the Central Range, and if you follow this road you will end up on the Highway, very near the spot in question.)

26 February 2008: Update - It seems the Government answering the call for warning signs. Some rubbish about cross-winds and whatnots, but I’ll keep an eye out for when they go up in the Claxton Bay area…

Chennette |

Chennette, Trinidad and Tobago |

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Trini Cheese Paste Recipe

February 9, 2008 – 8:33 pm

It’s a bit odd to me that I am posting a recipe for cheese paste, because if it’s one food item in the Trini repertoire that should be entirely freeform in its construction, it’s this ubiquitous sandwich spread. But I made it recently and I thought, why not? It’s more than just a sandwich spread really. Sure, everywhere there are sandwiches on offer, you’re bound to find cheese paste - at school parties, tea parties, lunchkits, at the Oval for those who didn’t wake up early enough to cook (or like food they can eat without a plate) or in the North Stand for Panorama. But cheese paste finds its way into puffs, and on toast, where the butter can melt and the cheese softens to create quite a different taste and texture experience. Just crix and cheese paste is such a staple in our food culture, that it was on offer at the Taste of T&T!

Everyone makes their cheese paste differently, to their individual tastes, following methods handed down by their parents, or borne from late night cravings and experimentation. We all have our preferences, many strongly held to the point of fanaticism, I am sure. I know how we are about our food. Keep Reading »

Chennette |

Caribbean, Trinidad and Tobago, food, photos, recipes |

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For all you know, I may really be a Rock Star!

February 2, 2008 – 2:33 am

So, Ewe did this really interesting meme a week or so ago, and she was hilarious. Plus, being you know, really deep, and artistic She had to be, to have survived 2 bands and a solo career in the music biz. I tried it right away, but since I couldn’t find Paint in the wee hours of the morning to edit my album cover, I didn’t get around to posting. And my rock star life really isn’t connected to this blog, but I am on a bit of an intellectual break anyway. What am I talking about? Well, see, it’s like this:

1. Click on this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first title on the page is the name of your band.

2. Click on this link: http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four words of the very last quote is the title of your album.

3. Finally, click on this link: http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/
The third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

You then take the pic and add your band name and the album title to it, then post your picture.

My Hitherto Unknown Rock Star History: Keep Reading »

Chennette | Chennette, meme | Comments (8)

Guyana Tragedy

January 31, 2008 – 7:09 pm

I don’t often refer to current affairs or try to analyse our society in this blog, for many reasons. I maintain my anonymity online primarily because of my job, and my own sense of professionalism. I also censor myself because I just want this blog to present my Trini or Caribbean culture, as part of my way of preserving or recording my experiences (and I guess my family’s history) and not to court controversy or argument that might distort that. My main aim was in some small way contribute to the online world view of Trinidad and Tobago, and the wider Caribbean, with no bigger disagreements than whether gulab jamoon needs a chunky granulated sugar coating or an icing sugar glaze.

But I don’t hide the fact that I am a Trini blogger in Guyana, and to continue to blog without making reference in some way to the tragic, and unthinkable events in Lusignan last Saturday, is not right. You can follow the link, but essentially a group of about 22 men, stormed into that neighbourhood and shot up five homes, killing 11 people, including 5 children. There were children shot dead as they lay on their beds on a quiet Saturday morning. Children. I cannot begin to understand how someone could head out with the sole intent of killing people, innocent adults, with no apparent motivation except to cause unrest and unease in the society, or declare war on the government and the police. When I think that someone, many someones, would have stood over small children and found the urge, a rationale somewhere in their minds, to shoot them…well, my brain begins to shut down. Who does that? In a country in which I live. Neighbouring my homeland. Eleven people. They’ve been calling it a massacre and they’re right.

I have no comment to make on the politics, or the government, as I don’t know if anyone could have expected this. I will say that if this was meant to stir up social unrest, incite racial violence and retaliations, I don’t think they’ve been successful. The people of Guyana haven’t given into this unfathomable move on the part of vicious, inhuman criminals. Guyana has had its share of unrest and violence in the recent past - people still hold their breath around election time and there’s tenseness sometimes that took me by surprise the first time I visited - but apart from the Lusignan community protesting and the general unease, I think the situation has been relatively stable.

There have been some worrying incidents with the protesters, the police and tear gas which affected a school, chases and gunfire in nearby infamous Buxton, but so far so good. I took this long to decide to blog about it because my mind didn’t want to think about it, about the kind of people who would do this, about the victims - especially not when I saw a news story which showed children on their beds, mosquito nets and sheets soaked in red…

I know this may not be what you expected when you encountered this blog, which is usually about food, and pretty places in the sun and the somewhat rambling, random musings of Chennette in her free time. But Chennette lives in Guyana, and all of Guyana, and many of her neighbours across the Caribbean Sea, are in shock and mourning.

Chennette | Chennette, Guyana, life | Comments (8)

Click: LIQUID COMFORT (Trini Home Chocolate)

January 27, 2008 – 3:07 pm

I am coming close to missing this deadline of Click. I knew the minute the theme was announced what my Liquid Comfort was going to be. Hot Chocolate. But not just any chocolate, but Trini home chocolate, made from home grown cocoa, mixed with cinnamon, nutmeg and bay leaf. This was a regular weekend morning breakfast drink at home. Mom would boil the bars of chocolate, and add milk and sugar or condensed milk. The drink was always gritty with the cocoa solids and spices, so it had to be strained, which we did over the sink since we had iffy coordination. Although the packaging said simply dissolve in hot water, we always boiled it with the water, milk and sugar. So my memories include scalded tongues for the rest of the weekend, because who could wait with the scent of cocoa, cinnamon and nutmeg wafting up at you.

Home chocolate, or cocoa tea, isn’t the most beautiful looking of drinks, so maybe it wasn’t the wisest choice for a photo event. Particularly with my lack of experience on staging food, and perfectly lit places in my apartment. The natural oils in the cocoa can seep upwards, and the top of the drink gets a dark sometimes gritty sheen. If you boil it with the milk, you also can get a little cracking in that darkness. Not the creamy richness, or milky goodness of other hot chocolate drinks, topped with marshmallows or whipped cream (both of which, for the record, I don’t really like), but it’s good. And it’s home for me. I don’t know why certain chain cafes in Trinidad sell “Mexican Spiced” hot chocolate, when we have our very own spicy chocolate mixture. Sigh. Regard this as my bid to start commercial availability chocolate-tea, Trini-style, at all those trendy habitual hot-drink establishments. Keep Reading »

Chennette | Click, Trinidad and Tobago, drink, photos | Comments (16)

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