Shades of the Caribbean - roti-licious ;)

One regret of mine since coming back from Barbados...well, all those days and only three rotis? ;) Let me explain...

We are back in Ireland a week, and in that time we've had complete downpours two days, mixed with hanging drizzle another three and then the two days of glorious autumn sunshine that were Friday and Saturday. I spent as much of that glorious sunshine in the garden...what's to do? Well, there was digging of the pitiful crop of late spuds (Golden Wonders that we didn't protect from the omnipotent blight), the clearing out of the greenhouse and the general cutting back of weedy species and rogue raspberries. It was mostly a solo run as Number 1 gardener was away working for the man, but time passed easy in the sunshine and there was always the anticipation of his return ;)

Flash forward and it's Sunday evening and a week apart beckons. I'm heading for the wild west and he's for the south. What else to do but pretend we are back in Barbados and try to re-create roti? Again, for the Irish folk, and basically any non-Caribbean...

This is what making a roti should look like ;) can't wait!

Roti is the word for a type of unleavened bread, similar to what we call a wrap - but very different - that is served with curry in most Caribbean countries. I only tasted this comforting yet divine pleasure in Barbados. while it's origin is Indian. The pastry of flour, oil and water is wafer thin, delicate and crumbly and is worn draped perfectly, nay - huggingly - around the curry interior. This of course can be made to your own taste (curry makers and lovers will know that curry manufacture needs a whole post of its own). Sometimes this soft, flaky roti is filled with split peas or lentils, sometimes it is plain. Can this Caribbean delight be created in the Holly Cottage kitchen? We'll see ;) The curry is on the fire and the man is making the dough...more for the next post.

I wish I was....in Bathsheba (think air to Carrickfergus)

Meantime, after tidying up the straggling tomato plants, I was musing on the bounty of green tomatoes. And so, on this Sunday evening we have a huge pot of green tomato chutney chow chow simmering away on the Stanley range - the perfect accompaniment for cheese, burgers, hot dogs (don't tell the tomato chilli jam...sssh!) Take 2.5kg of

green tomatoes (you won't buy them in the shops so talk nicely to a gardener who is stuck for time and ideas!), 0.5kg onion, 500g brown sugar, 250g dried fruit (we used the only dried fruit we had - dates, apricots, cranberries and raisins mixed), 1 litre of malt vinegar, 2 teasp salt and 3 teasp ground black pepper. Start by melting the sugar in the vinegar, bring to a steady boil, add the dried fruit, bring back to the boil and then add the chopped tomatoes and onion, salt and pepper.....and basically you are where we are ;) Apparently the longer it is left to simmer the better. By bed time I expect that we will be potting this green elixir into sterilised jars, and adding them to the store of beetroot relish and tomato chilli jam - and all the other 24lbs of strawberry jam in the front room (we need to build on at this stage!).

Hmm...I need to lose a few pounds ;)

Smiley green tomato..."I have a purpose in life ;)"

And so, the full stop to another week. Fingers crossed for the roti lovers of Ireland and more to come next weekend.Have a great week y'all..mine is set to be marked by torrential rain and wet days in the west of Ireland - how bad? Great to be alive ;)

The good, the bad and the ugly...

Home from home...Barbados

Coming down from a 'break away' (sounds like a prison break :)) can always be painful. We had almost three sunshine filled weeks in Barbados - days filled with new meetings, new foods, new places - and now we are back on the short stretch to Christmas in the crisp, clear air of an Irish autumn. It'll be lovely.. 

Getting off the plane, the first thing you sense is the moisture in the air (the vulgar expression for this being the damp). Then a cooling of the bones. Then goosebumps rising. You suddenly realise why flip flops in October is not an Irish tradition. But once you walk through to the airport building, it's the friendly nod of the Irish passport control man that really makes you feel at home. I always say howrya at this this point, in the full knowledge that it's only one of your own that can interpret this very culchie yet urban Irish shorthand version of how are you :) 

Driving home's sunset...Irish home

We had a great time in Barbados - more to follow of course. But for now, it's the sharp shock of the pleasures of home that are occupying my mind. We got back on a Friday night to a cold house - un-packing always therapeutic, but couple it with a Mick Flannery sound track and re-discovering the corners of your pre-holiday mind in the corners of your own sweet home, well - it's sweet. Finding a home for the the six bottles of Bajan hot pepper sauce, the over-sized tub of Bajan seasoning and the bottle of rum for the folks in Cappaduff was a joy, but the washing and drying of several bikinis, shorts and sun tops was challenging :) 

Flash forward 36 hours and we are well settled back in the comfort and cosy of Holly Cottage. So too is Holly the canine baby of course, well tired after three weeks in a strange home with two adoring devotees in Cork. If she could tell her tales - if only! It did take a twelve hour sleeping session and three cups of coffee, but the Irish sunshine led us back into the Holly Cottage garden. And here brought to mind the good, the bad and the ugly!

Hot chilli - meet cool tomato and basil

The good - nay - the beautiful, is the bounty of sweet cherry tomatoes, red chillies, intact celery plants and the one pumpkin that squeezed through the six failed pumpkin plants! Oh the excitement of one where there might be none ;) The bad is that we haven't planted anything new that we can follow through the winter - must correct this as soon as possible! The ugly is the toll taken on the Brussels sprouts by our insatiable plot sharers, the caterpillars. Let's not dwell on the negative however, for the bounty of tomatoes and chillis is awaiting a destination...what led us to tomato-chilli jam is anyone's guess, but here goes..

Where's the cheese!

Take a pound of sweet cherry tomatoes, lovingly picked by a hungry Cork man - add 10oz of sugar (we only had castor but brown would be sweet), two red chillis (I'd add four after tasting the final product - be sure to add the seeds if you're a heat freak), vinegar, fish sauce (we used worcesterhire), ginger and garlic.....stir over a steady simmer for half an hour.....and yes, you guessed it - wow ;) Take a piece of blue cheese, some apple and an oatcake and this stuff will take your tastebuds to far away places...

Maybe even Barbados ;) Virgin Atlantic eat your heart out!

Weekend leftovers

The past two days have been a mini festival for us really - celebrating the Irish cousins returning home to Barbados and taking time to catch up on the months and years since the last visit. The food was piled high in the kitchen between Saturday and Sunday, but has dwindled away to foil wrapped leftovers that found their way to our lunch plates today. The main event on Saturday however was the fish that  Hyacinth cooked for us. 

Hyacinth landed-early Saturday morning armed with 53 years of expert cooking for her own family and all the Bajan families she has worked for down the years. The main event was breaded flying fish - fresh from the village, and coated in a frothy batter of flour, baking powder, egg, sweet peppers and rum. The flying fish and another called dorado were lightly fried and served with the tastiest fish broth...what was in it I don't have a clue other than today it tasted even better on the left over rice and peas from yesterday. Now, that stuff is money ;) She also made a polenta like dish called coo-coo from corn flour thickened with the water from boiling okra. A definite comfort food! Breaded flying fish and coo-coo is the national dish of Barbados - just found that out on Google - all was served up with boiled sweet potato. Hyacinth spent about four hours in the kitchen and then went her own sweet way. Next morning there were six loafs of coconut bread delivered by her daughter, fresh from the oven (I think she gets up at 4 every morning). Food is definitely a joy but when given with such heart, tastes even better.

On Sunday it was Gran's curry with plantain chopped and cooked in the oven with cinnamon and brown sugar...WOW! Add to that Sylvia's chicken pilau, Larry's five day marinated pork, mango chutney, Charmaine's delicious black fruit cake (soaked in Guinness and other goodness)  and Gigi's banana bread.  

And hence the plate of weekend leftovers to remind us ;)  yum. Time now however to start cooking for ourselves!

By the way, apologies for no photos, technological glitch but they will follow...

Sunday storm a'raging in Barbados

The wind is whipping up a rage and the rain has been pouring all through the night. No, it's not Ireland :) This smaller island is tucked away just shy of the scalp of Venezuela. Barbados is a Caribbean beauty that has always evoked for me those stereotypical images of tall palms and warm green waters, with sunshine a constant. So why has the rain followed us from lovely Ireland?

Barbados is not immune to the odd heavy shower...not unusual at all, and necessary to get all those sugar cane plants sugaring! The island has been spared a hurricane since 1956 but does get a light bruising from those raging beasts that batter her other more northern island neighbours. Barbados sits at the bottom of a chain of small islands - Grenadines, St. Lucia, St. Vincent....smaller cousins of northerly Jamaica, Haiti, Cuba. This escape for the urbanites of Europe and North America and home to thousands of native Bajans, is surprisingly densely populated on the west and southern coasts but beautifully rural on the east coast. The east has shades of Mayo's lonely beaches with surfers' dream waves. We drove from Speightstown on the west, over the hills into the 'Scotland district' to find tree lined hills and the Atlantic Ocean. We stopped for a swim just north of Bathsheba, alone save for a hardy rasta fisherman who wasn't catching much. The fishing season has been bad here this year - none of the usual bounty of flying fish. When I hear local folk talking about unusual patterns in weather, new species of seaweed turning up on beaches, changes in fish stocks.....well, I guess I get a foreboding of changes that may come. Everything changes - change is the signature tune of the universe. Stephen Hawking says that intelligence is the ability to adapt to change. I just wonder if the change comes too fast, there may be a lot of us left behind. 

Anyway, it's a family day today. So, rain - go your way to Cuba! Cars are being loaded now with Gran's homemade curry, seasoned pork, bottles of delicious coconut water and maybe even more sweet rum ;) The Bajans know how to cook and in the time we've been here I've tasted local delicacies like pudding and souse, roti, pickled breadfruit....recipes to follow, I need to let it all sink in first! 

A restful Sunday to all ;)

Cuba

Local transport - 1950s style

The last week has me thinking about Cuba..maybe it's our impending return to the Caribbean, or maybe it's the fact that it's been a year since our bare feet felt the soft sands of Cuba's beaches. Travel can mean different things to people of course - for some it's more about 'doing' the country and checking off a list, for others it's about exploring a new place, new climate and the mindset of a nation's people. And trying to realise the difference; for it often takes longer to understand the difference. When I first mentioned to friends that we were thinking of going to Cuba, I was generally greeted by the repeated comment that we should go before Castro dies and everything changes...before Cuba succumbs to the (inevitable?) pressure of westernisation? - both the economic and social pressure. I wonder did people say that about Ireland before our own surrender to McDs and our very own westernisation?

Tobacco country: Vinales

I have been thinking a lot about the people and the places that we encountered along the way. We met several Cubans, but we rarely got into any level of conversation other than chat about the weather, our journey or our home. No heavy chats about the Castro regime or how things have been and might become. Speaking with other visitors to Cuba and reading books around the topic, the consensus is that the Cuban people just don't talk about it...certainly not to curious outsiders who want to be able to share the truth with the coffee club when they get back to warm Irish homes - far from that 'idealistic socialist regime nation' - "it won't, can't last". Maybe it is on its last legs, and sure - every country must change as the mindsets of its people changes, or risk tyranny. But it sure is beautiful.

Very cool Trinidad ;)

We only traveled a short time about the place, staying in various Casas Particulares of diverse standards - all clean, all welcoming, but some more basic than others. In the bigger towns there were a lot of small apartments dissected out of grand palacios to make homes for maybe twenty families today where pre-revolution there was one. There was something about those families though - seemingly squeezed into the size of a modern Irish kitchen. They were connected, and they were - are - community. Too naive to muse on how they must be so happy and content, but there was a certain magic there.

Sweet sugarcane, yummy juice!

The food outside of the government run places was great - again it varied between Casas Particulares and Paladares. But we eat fresh lobster - best ever, fresh fish, pork, chicken....and real vegetables, like the ones growing in a pesticide free zone outside our window. And we eat a lot! I am still carrying the memory of those massive dinners and feasts of mango and omelette breakfasts, though the coffee was not so reliable. I was also reminded by my traveling companion that everything was served up with wedges of lime on the side - not complaining! I started the same thing when we got home for a while - very tasty ;) And the rest of course can be used wisely with the sweet rum...mmm

Local transport on right; tourists to the left..
spot the difference?

Highlights were trekking on horses through the countryside outside of Trinidad in the province of Sancti Spiritus; the fabulous people we stayed with and of course - the much slower pace of life. The tourist buses were on time, air conditioned and even with poor Spanish we managed to communicate well. Again, the world of the tourist is not that of the Cuban people and we were reminded a few times when we spotted the non-tourist transport. Less glamorous and very rudimentary air conditioning!

Cuba is a place of contradictions, explore it for yourself and draw your own conclusions. I loved it - the lush green valleys of Vinales; the red earth under our feet; the heavy rain showers when we had to shelter with our horses in thatch sheds; the over-feeding by our Casa Particulares hosts; the blatant adoration of Che Guevara; the slow, slow pace; the hens who ruled the back roads; the clear blue waters of the Caribbean and the biggest avocados (straight from the tree) and sweetest bananas ever tasted.

Cuba is a place that has stayed to the fore of my mind in the year since we left it's shores. If you want to read more, Dervla Murphy's fantastic book The Island that Dared: Journeys in Cuba is an excellent companion.

Rhubarb Rocks!

Hot rhubarb goodness steaming through ;)

The good weather has everyone in higher spirits than normal, so coming home on a Monday evening you feel like doing a bit extra ;) So No. 1 gardener was out doing heavier jobs while I took to the baking again. Y'see, the banana bread did disappear - great with natural yogurt by the way - so I wanted to test the same recipe with rhubarb. And so, I simply substituted the mashed bananas with 1lb of finely chopped, thin and very red stalked rhubarb. I also added the zest of an orange for the craic...the pictures tell the story, but the proof as always is in the tasting ;) Don't wait for me to send you a slice, just do it!

The story unfolding..

The rhubarb this year has possibly been over performing for us - we've harvested at least 10kg from our three humble plants that began as lonely stalks 18 months ago. Another gift from the Cappaduff folks, so they came from good stock. After potting up about about 30 lbs of jam, we were glad to try something different. Freezing is also a great option if you can't keep up with the growing, and makes for a welcome store in darker times. Someone said to me recently that rhubarb is one of the easiest things that you can grow - based on our experience I'd have to agree. It's not to everyone's taste, but as with all gifts from the garden - pass it on to someone whose taste it is. 

And so, enjoy the sunshine ;) In this house right now I'm currently being treated to the aroma of simmering, scrumptious tomato sauce packed with fresh basil straight from the Holly Cottage garden....summer ain't over yet!

An Electric Picnic of sorts...

The sun is shining in on Holly Cottage, oh so lovely! It's Sunday evening and time to stop moving and stooping, and picking and getting all the jobs done that get crammed into the fine weather weekends - if and when they come. And when they do come, well, it's all hands and paws on deck trying to keep pace with weeds, thinning, harvesting, cutting back and re-locating ;)

"..a good turn up for the books..."

Yesterday was to be an easy day, but then we got in touch with the weed situation! They're so good at what they do those pesky weeds - they don't mind being trampled, they spread quick and easy and when you pull them they manage to leave just enough behind to fight another day. And so I was stooped for some time to pull the tricksy weeds from the drills of carrots, parsnips and turnips. Some mighty carrots though, sooo tasty; promising parsnips and too many turnips! Those purple giants are so lovely and easy grown but too many for us. Distribution in gift packs tomorrow so - an early Christmas present for some along with pots of last week's relish. Other jobs were pulling the peas and digging over the soil for winter green manure - Holly the dog was distraught at the loss of the peas. We discovered that when we leave her home, those mornings she could be found  gobbling on peas - leaving only massacred shells to bewilder us when we got home from a long day in the office...until that is I caught her red pawed in the act last Wednesday. Who can blame her really? And she hurt her paw this weekend, so we are going easy on her!

Fire-starter.....na, na, na........

So a Saturday of back bending work and the Holly Cottage garden space looks fantastic. Celery are blanching - collared in milk cartons. This is new territory for us - the cartons slipped over the growing crowns should help to train those tasty stems up and up (we hope - I keep you posted); tomatoes are reddening and their stems are buckling under the weight of all that juicy goodness, while Craig's chillies - literally - look like they are on fire. Those shiny red buds, a supernatural colour reminiscent of red patent shoes are just waiting to unlock their firey magic. Nets are up to protect broccoli and sprouts -  why then did I discover to my horror, nearly 100 caterpillars feasting between yesterday and today on our plants? They were blatantly sun-bathing between munching away on green goodness - clearly having slipped the net. Between basking caterpillars and cat sized slugs - it's enough to turn a girl to shop bought broccoli!

Try buy that outfit in H+M!

Along with those less than desirable fauna, we have close on 50 bees - honey and cute bumble varieties - buzzing between the lavender, chives and oregano. These hard working types are usually joined by Tortoise Shell and the odd Peacock butterfly to brighten up the day. We're hoping the bees will find the pumpkin flowers attractive, as back up we'll try a bit of DIY ourselves ;)

Of course you can't expect to work on an empty stomach so this week's treat was a sunflower seed-topped banana bread, yum (and by the way, near disappearing)! Take 10 mins while your oven is heating up - beat 4oz butter and 6oz soft brown sugar, slowly add 2 beaten eggs, mix in 8oz wheaten flour and whatever spice you like (cinnamon and all spice are good). Fold in 6 mashed bananas and a dash of milk with a handful of chopped walnuts (we didn't have any - so we settled for sunflower seeds sprinkled on top). Into the oven for an hour at 170 deg (depends on your oven - hope yours is better than our gremlin infested antique :)) and the sweet, nutty, reviving goodness will save you from passing out on a hard won gardening day.

And so, instead of tripping to the Electric Picnic, we tripped around our own backyard and thankfully the sun shone. Robert Smith will have to wait another day for me -  I hope it was amazing for all followers new and long term devotees, but the memory of The Cure in the then Point Depot in 1992 was enough to keep my green fingers tapping.