Nobody does racist like KFC

KFC claims that its ad showing a white Australian 'calming' a crowd of apparently scary West Indies cricket team fans by timidly offering them a bucket of chicken is certainly not racist, and that the criticism it has attracted is just the result of a cultural misunderstanding and misinterpretation by "a segment of people in the US".

Here's the ad:



And here's what KFC had to say:

"It is a light-hearted reference to the West Indian cricket team," the statement read.

"The ad was reproduced online in the US without KFC's permission, where we are told a culturally-based stereotype exists, leading to the incorrect assertion of racism.

"We unequivocally condemn discrimination of any type and have a proud history as one of the world's leading employers for diversity."

So the ad was not supposed to be viewed by Americans, but presumably only by racist Australians? Here's a question: was it supposed to be viewed by West Indians? Because I'm one, and I'm a cricket fan. And I'm pissed off. Hope that helps.

True, there isn't the same stereotype in the Caribbean - as there is in the US - that black people like fried chicken. But 1) the entire world and parts of Saturn are aware of the "black people like fried chicken" stereotype. You create an ad featuring groups of Black people that you're portraying as unruly and perhaps threatening (hence the white guy cowering in the middle); it doesn't matter that the people aren't wearing red, white and blue. They are Black people. That is going to offend Black Americans, and quite possibly Black people elsewhere.

2) Even in the absence of the fried chicken stereotype, that ad is offensive. Black people (Caribbean or otherwise) can apparently not be identified with, or spoken to with actual words (most of the West Indies team and their fans speak English as a first language, by the way). So they must be offered food. Cheap, unhealthy food offered by a White man in order to achieve some self-serving ends. That does not sound familiar at all.

3)Alright, so non-cricket-watching Americans don't get it. There's a rivalry, see, that has existed for decades, between the Australian and West Indies cricket teams. And here's an Aussie fan stuck in the middle of the West Indies section. However will he escape? Well, for starters, he could be shot eating some of the chicken himself. Two extra seconds of filming that may have saved KFC a lot of embarrassment. That way, the message could have been "See? Crappy fried food brings us together!" Rather than "Want to calm the natives? Offer them some heart disease chicken!" He actually utters the words "too easy" after the chicken has presumably worked its voodoo.

The overwhelming argument in support of the ad and attacking the stoopid Americans who dare to get offended is as follows: it was aired at a cricket match between Australia and the West Indies, so you won't get it because you don't get the Australian cricket culture. Well, there's another culture to consider here, which is kind of the point. And had I been at that cricket match when that ad was aired, I would have had some issues.

Weight-loss surgery for all!

Dr. Super is loving this.

Usually reserved for the most obese people, weight-loss surgery is unlikely to be a last-ditch option much longer. Technological advancements are turning it into a one-hour, incisionless procedure -- making it more attractive to moderately overweight adults [...]; overweight and obese teenagers; and normal-weight people with difficult-to-control diabetes. Several new procedures are already in human clinical trials.

I think we're all getting a little carried away and assuming that just because a procedure is easy to accomplish, its effects are also easy to live with after the fact. As many have discovered, and as this same article notes, even though the already low morbidity rates for this type of procedure continue to decline and operation recovery times become shorter, patients still have to contend with medium- to long-term problems, including "nutritional deficiencies, diarrhea, regurgitation and bowel obstructions."

According to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 19% of patients experience dumping syndrome, which is involuntary vomiting or defecation. Complication rates involving ulcers, wound problems, hemorrhage, deep-vein thrombosis, heart attacks and strokes range from 2.4% to 0.1%.

And where do we draw the line regarding preemptive surgery? One surgeon notes that "[p]eople 50 pounds overweight are the ones we should treat, before the problem gets worse," but isn't that number quite arbitrary? Unless we ascertain that at 50 lbs overweight (as opposed to 40 or 30), people start to see marked deteriorations in their overall health (in fact, we've been told that every 10 lbs packs its own share of doom), then the benchmark at which surgery becomes an option can arguably continue to shift downwards.

I suppose weight-loss surgery is now poised to enter the realm of cosmetic procedures, where if people opt to risk their lives and health in order to try and feel better about themselves, then they have that right. The rub lies in the fact that most elective cosmetic surgery is not covered by the majority of insurance plans or universal health care systems. And so it will be interesting to see - especially in the context of the raging US health care debate - how this particular argument evolves.

Happy *burp* Independence Day (Conversations in holiday eating)

It's Independence Day in Barbados - 43 years since we told England "thanks for the slavery and that but we can take it from here." I hadn't spent an Independence Day in Barbados for some time, before now, but it's one of my favourite weekends of the year, in part because of the conkies, which might possibly be the best food in the Western Hemisphere (next to steamed pudding and sweet bread). This morning, reading the news, I saw that when asked about Kate Moss's statement that "nothing tastes as good as skinny feels", Rihanna responded "I love food because I'm from Barbados." And I thought: what a simple and beautiful truth lies in that statement. The 'because' is the real poetry there. Simple cause and effect: since I am from Barbados, I love food. My love for food is based on my geographical provenance. No need for further examination. It's science.

And it's pretty accurate. Holidays and food go hand in hand in lots of places. But for many of us here, eating is an event. I've been planning activities with friends and colleagues, and after we've planned the menu and assigned responsibility for preparing the various items, the conversation has been known to go like this:

Me: So we have all the food and drinks sorted. What else will we do?
Friend 1: And the cups and ice? And the Banks? (Because apparently Banks beer is crucial enough not to count as a drink, and to merit a separate discussion point.)
Me: And the cups and ice and Banks. What else will we do?
Friend 2: How you mean?
Me: Well we can't eat all day.
Friend 1: *blink*
Friend 2: I don't understand.
Me: Well, we'll get there, we'll spread the blankets, unpack the food, eat it...
Friend 1: People will drink, talk, fall asleep, wake up, eat again, finish the drinks, eat the leftovers on the way to the cars and go home. Seriously...how long have you been away?

And of course it has changed a bit over the years. My generation and subsequent ones are pretty active. We'll set up some stumps for cricket and play paddle ball and volleyball at the beach, but whenever I'm at a daytime holiday event with people of all ages, the food is definitely the star. And it's a challenge if you have certain food preferences.

Say my plate has some rice, a flying fish and fried plantain:

Guy I've seen twice in my entire life: Why aren't you eating?
1st Stranger: You trying to reduce?
2nd stranger, wandering in: She trying to reduce?! Reduce where? Girl you big as a mosquito. (Note, I'm considerably larger than a mosquito.) Eat some food.
Me: I'm not trying to lose weight. This is enough food for me right now.
Twice-seen guy: Oh you sick?
Me: No. This is what I want now. I'll have more later.
Stares from all 3
3rd stranger, wandering over: That is all the food you want?
Twice-seen guy: She trying to reduce.
Pitiful glances from all.

Or, say my plate has a variety of foods but no meat:

Neighbour: Why aren't you eating? (You'll notice there's a very clear definition of eating that is more than just 'ingesting a food item and swallowing')
Me: I have food. All that's left is meat and I don't eat that so...
Neighbour: Oh you don't eat pork! There's lamb and chicken.
Me: No I mean meat. And poultry. And shellfish.
By 'shellfish', I'm mumbling and ashamed.
Neighbour, confused: Oh. There's a lasagna there. That has vegetables.
Me, trying to disappear: Right. That's beef. I'm alright, though. This is enough. Thanks.
Neighbour, calling in reinforcements: She says she doesn't eat meat. No meat in that soup, right?
Stranger: No. Only some pigtail.
Me: Right. That's um...from a pig. But you know, I'm good here. I have plenty.
Both look at my plate disapprovingly.
Stranger, calling in more reinforcements: Straw! What here doesn't have in meat?
Straw, also a stranger, walking over: Ahm. I ain sure. Eat some chicken!
I think he believes that if he says it with enthusiasm, I'll be spontaneously convinced to eat chicken.
Me: No, thanks.
Straw: Eat li'l piece. It can't kill you.
Straw is not even in the vicinity of the point.
Me, backing away lest I be force-fed some lamb stew: I have plenty, though. Seriously. Thanks.
Pitiful glances from all.

Of course, we're a modern society, for what that's worth, and we have our fitness competitions and fashion industry and a desire to be thin that is not pervasive, but exists. (We also, for the record, have a non-negligible vegetarian population, so I never understand why so many people act as if non meat eaters are of some kind of cult.) Fat people are still teased, as are thin people. But in general, the thin ideal is a lot less thin than it is in other places. It's more a kind of medium-sized ideal. Still, this type of food philosophy, though seeming quite food- and body-positive in some ways, is quite intolerant in others. It assumes that it cannot create disordered eating, and so does not really allow for its existence in the way food is discussed and treated among groups of people. That assumption is of course incorrect, and I think we're on our way to realizing that.

But there's a certain level of comfort that we have with food, and a pride in creating it that historically comes from doing interesting, innovative things with very little, laboriously-, locally-grown food. That pride is deliciously experienced around Independence Day, and in honour of this day, I give you the afore-mentioned greatest food of the Western Hemisphere. The Conkie.

Ingredients:
2 cups corn flour
1/2 cup flour
3/4 lb finely grated pumpkin
6 oz margarine/shortening melted
1/2 lb sweet potato
3 cups grated coconut
1 tsp salt
4 oz raisins (optional)
3/4 lb brown sugar
1 cup whole milk
1 tsp spice
1 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1 tsp almond essence
Banana, Plantain or Fig leaves (singed over fire)*

*They'll say you can use wax or foil paper if you have no banana leaves, but They lie. No, you can. But you shouldn't. They simply won't taste the same.

Banana leaves are used to wrap the conkie mixture, so you need leaves that aren't shredded. Strip leaves from stalk with a sharp knife. Leaves are very delicate and tear easily. To use them in your recipe, you must make them pliable by briefly singeing them over an open flame. If your leaves start to curl up, that means they've been on the flame too long. If your leaves spontaneously combust, that means you're using old, dried up leaves. So, you know, don't do that. Use green leaves.

Tear singed leaves into individual squares for wrapping your conkies. The standard size square is 8" x 8", but they can be bigger depending on how big you want your conkies to be. Cut the leaves into desired pieces.


• Combine grated coconut, sweet potato & pumpkin.
• Mix in sugar, spices, flour, corn flour, salt and raisins.
• Add milk, margarine and almond essence.
• Mix ingredients well. Mixture should be thick and drop slowly from a spoon.







• Place 2 to 3 heaping tablespoons in the centre of each banana leaf square.
• Fold the banana leaf neatly around the mixture. Be careful not to tear the leaf, or the mixture will leak.




•Steam conkies over rack of boiling water in a large saucepan or steamer until firm to the touch.









And vIola! Here's your unwrapped conkie goodness:













These lovelies freeze very well. My mother once made them on Independence weekend and froze me a batch until I came home in May the following year. I don't think I did any grocery shopping that entire first week I was back.

Happy Independence Day.

Recipe and photos adapted from www.justbajan.com

In which I boast about my pet goat, my library tickets, and my inimitable mamá

It occurs to me that since Sunday is Mother's Day (Mothering Sunday in the UK was March 22, but my family celebrates the May Mother's Day. Also, Mothering Sunday is kind of a creepy name. It sounds like we're all meant to go out and nurse and diaper whatever we can find - maybe a frog or the postman or David Hasselhoff), I should say something inspired about motherhood, or name my favourite mother characters in film or TV, or write a poem, a skit. Something.

My best friend just became a mother, and I was moved in unexpected ways when I heard that her daughter was born. That should give me an angle, right? Not so much. It does give me a beautiful new child in my life, and another person to call on Sunday, but no useful angle for a Mother's Day post. (I don't so much like the Mother's Day phone call, because after the somewhat weak "Happy Mother's Day!", you feel like you're meant to keep talking about motherly stuff, and I'm not sure what that would be. And it's a bit like that birthday call where you ask "So what does everyone have planned for you today?" and if the answer is "nothing", what can you say besides "I'm sorry your kids suck"? So I stick to calling only people I'd want to talk to anyway. The others get overcompensatingly exuberant e-cards.)

So I thought and I thought about my own mother and all the things I've learnt from her and what has changed about our relationship and all those things we've all thought about millions of times. I thought about how she always made all our clothes for special occasions, and about how that was the treat, not store-bought clothes. When my mother decided she could find the time to make us an outfit, then sat attentively while we described how we wanted a side zip but under no circumstances was it to be a back zip, and a scrunchie to match - the scrunchie was very important - and other ridiculous but crucial details, it was like Christmas. And I thought about how she would wake us in the middle of the night to make sure it fit because she wanted to sleep too, you know, and she wasn't the one going to Andre's birthday party tomorrow. And we would drip out of bed bleary-eyed and (silently, of course) grumpy, wait for the clothes to be pulled on, and then watch in gleeful amazement as we were transformed before our very eyes into Sheena Easton or Lisa Lisa or Ashley from Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Which was of course what we were going for.

And I thought too about Saturday morning trips to the library, when my mother would hang about talking to the library staff about what new books they had gotten in, while we chose our reading for the week. And then we would check the books out ourselves with our very own tickets and feel important because other people's parents were choosing and checking the books for them and wouldn't even let them keep their own tickets. I mean...pfft..what kind of amateur night were they running?

These two habits and passions of my mother's, clothes and books and everything associated with them, were without doubt passed on to me. Less lasting was her interest in farming and gardening. My mother was big on family food security and earning extra for our well-being, which is why I got all warm and smooshy inside when I saw Michelle Obama planting her White House kitchen garden - what we also called our backyard plot. But my mother didn't stop there. she never stopped anywhere. Soon we had chickens, pigs, sheep and all manner of livestock, and quickly realized that this was our deal too: bringing the sheep in from pasture (incidentally, black bellied sheep are given to running around your legs in circles when they're on ropes. So yay for surprise sheep games after school!); helping kill and pluck the chickens; choosing which piglets we would sell on and which we would keep. And when I started to question the whole canine/livestock inequality dynamic - whereby dogs ended up in our photographs and sheep in our stew - I was given a pet goat named Mars, helped my father build a pen for it, and was invited to explore the kind of relationship I might have with pet livestock, which wasn't as exciting as one might imagine.

And I realize that the thing most striking about these examples and about our relationship overall, is the amount of agency and personal responsibility that was involved on our end, as children; the extent to which my mother showed us that it was our thought, our imagination, our creativity and work that would determine the kind of outfits we wore, the food we ate, the kinds of journeys we could take through books and relationships, and the kinds of lives we would live. Even though we were young, we had a space to collaborate with her, and input that was valued. Of course, it was a lot less valued when it came to say, what time we could come home at night, but it counted in the important places. And my mother isn't my best friend these days, which might sadden some. But I don't think she has to be. I have lots of great friends; but there's only one woman on earth to whom I feel an unspeakable connection borne of the independence that she both taught me and allowed me in those early years. And wherever our relationship goes from here, for me, that is something whose value cannot be measured.

The new fish fingers: breaded, fried and willing to strip on demand

This ad skeeves me out:



Pink. Fish. Female. Hmmm....whatever could they be getting at? Notice how the oversexed, female fish finger is so anxious to remove her breaded exterior to prove her worth to the random, male fish fingers that she doesn't know. Because that's what women do, or should be doing, apparently.

The thing is, the last two lines, after the other fish fingers are overwhelmed by the 'pink', would actually be funnier if they hadn't made it so sexualized - if pink were some attribute prized all on its own among the fish finger community, but not associated with human anatomy. As it is, the lines seem funny, but then are immediately a little disturbing.

The Mattesson's Smoked Sausage ad is even more imaginative. Don't even try to guess the association here unless you're a Mensa member:

Peanutbuttereggdirt au gratin

My dearests, I'm afraid I'm having another peanutbuttereggdirt day today, exacerbated by the fact that the article I wanted to write about this morning, that I've been saving as a draft until I could come to terms with all the deliciousness I wanted to express about it, has disappeared. The Nation newspaper has switched over to a new format, and apparently, "How to Redirect Your Links and Establish Archives" isn't being covered until next semester, along with "RSS Feeds: Actually Important" and "Making Links Clickable 101".

And since I have a really busy week ahead to which there is as yet no rhyme or reason, I'm using my Monday and this space to utter random things and clear my head. To wit:

Shivnarine Chanderpaul > Andrew Strauss

What rabid strain of delusion are the creators of this show suffering to think they can recreate the insane awesomeness that is Absolutely Fabulous?

When I buy a house, it shall have a lanai, and The Lanai shall be the Sacred Place where my family/group of friends/whoever the hell is living there goes to resolve conflicts and gain perspective, just like the Golden Girls did. It shall also be the place whose better light we use to answer the question "What is that? Like...a rash...or a bunch or pimples or...?"

Ah these Londoners and their 'T-shirt weather', which is apparently anything warmer than 'arctic blast'.

What the hell kind of g-ddamn Spring is this? Outside looks like a scene from Pan's Labyrinth.

It would be great if a funding proposal could consist of just the words: "Me bright. You send money. Me do things."

How can I already have my year planned right up to Christmas? Man, 2009 is going to be the shortest year ever.

If another person pulls that "equality means never having to say you're sorry for hitting back a woman"* bullshit I'm going to eat Aretha Franklin's hat.

There's a bird in our little lagoon whose call sounds exactly like a snore. Or maybe she's watching a Clive Owen film.

Yogurt is what evil would taste like.

Guy pushing the stroller: I can see you have an infant in your giant, starship Enterprise pram, but as much as I would love to fling myself into oncoming traffic to accommodate you, I don't think room to tiptoe along the edge of the pavement is too much to ask.

Chuck Bass wants to eat my soul. Don't look directly at him!

I'm sure there's more stuff in there. But I think I have to get on with life now.

*Much more on this in a subsequent post.

Sorry, no laughing. It's Lent

My friends are asking me what I've given up for Lent, and everywhere I go, people are hunched over in talks about their respective decisions as if they're at a G8 summit. Maybe I was a completely clueless Christian when I used to go to church - which is likely - but I never heard of all this Lent sacrifice in my evangelical church. I think that has to do with the separation in Christendom after the Reformation. Martin Luther hooked us up.

Even at primary school, where they dragged us to Ash Wednesday service and rubbed ashes on our foreheads in the shape of a cross, I don't recall such decisions being discussed. All Ash Wednesday service marked was a comparison of the blackened smudges and a competition to see who could keep them on our foreheads the longest:

Child 1: Ooh you got a big cross!
Child 2: Yea but my ash is falling off 'cause it's too much to stick.
Child 3: At least you got real ash and not just a dark mark.
Child 4: Fill it in with crayon!
Child 2: Crayon don't mark skin, foolbert.

And so on.

But this Lent thing seems pretty mainstream these days, like New Year's resolutions, only better, because you don't have to pretend you're actually going to keep it up for a whole year. After the forty days, it's right back to good, old-fashioned sinning and debauchery. Or in some cases, just back to Facebook.

It seems you don't have to give up the biblical sins for Lent, just something you consider a vice. While at my friend's house the other day, her daughter decided she was going to give up 'fizzy drinks'. Then she remembered that it was already past Ash Wednesday and she had had one that day, so she had to find something else to give up. Apparently chocolate was out because it too had suffered the similar fate of her forgetfulness. I suggested that she give up fighting with her brother, but she gave me a withering, 'old people are so stupid' look and said "No, that's not possible." The girl knows her limitations.

Another friend of mine is giving up the following: flour (poor flour, walking along minding its own business, trying to feed people, and then 'Whap! You're a vice now, fella. Into the pokey with you.'), junk food, drinking, cursing and sex. I pointed out the irony of an unmarried Christian giving up sex for Lent. "Why don't you give up say, fornication, you know - forever?" I asked. She laughed. She too knows her limitations.

I'm not giving anything up for Lent. I've worked hard to perfect my vices and I'm keeping them. But I'd love to hear what other people are giving up, or how you feel about the tradition in general. So leave your thoughts in comments, if you haven't given up typing for Lent.

Tune in at 8:00 for an eating disorder

It seems like every other week, some TV celebrity decides to unmask the dangerous world of dieting by herself embarking on a gruelling journey towards the perfect figure. This week, it was a rerun of Louise Redknapp’s “The Truth About Size Zero” feature shot almost two years ago. The TV presenter, who was voted FHM’s Sexiest Woman of the Decade, and is usually a UK size eight (US size four), severely restricts her calories and undergoes punishing workouts for a month in order to fit into a US size zero dress. She also visits celebrity friends who have suffered eating disorders, along with some young women at the Rhodes Farm Clinic for eating disorders in North London, and they all share with her their struggle to develop a healthy relationship with their bodies and with food.

The formula is pretty much the same as all the others: Louise eats a couple blades of grass and an egg a day, exercises herself into a state of constant lethargy and nausea, her weight drops dangerously low, she is warned by doctors to stop but continues anyway, and at the end, she fits into the size zero dress and then goes out with her friends to get sloshed.

Throughout, she complains about how hungry she is, is consumed with guilt that she is constantly snapping at her husband and young son, and keeps reminding us that she feels awful and that the whole thing sucks. But what is the ultimate lesson? She never stops, even when she starts to have bouts of vomiting, she loses the weight, and she fits into the dress. And even though we’re told she’s dangerously thin and given the whole “please don’t try this at home” spiel, frankly, she looks great and not at all emaciated. So, what we have just been provided with is a living model of how to successfully starve oneself into a size zero dress in 30 days. Presumably, this was not the aim of the piece.

I say ‘presumably’ because I’m not quite sure of the intentions of the whole trend. I don’t want to malign poor Louise and question her own motives: perhaps she really is concerned about all the young, confused, starving women out there. And she’s certainly not the only one to undertake such an ‘experiment’. We’ve had Alesha Dixon with her “look, no airbrushing!” special, Natalie Cassidy trying every diet under the sun for our viewing pleasure, and it seems like Dawn Porter is always somewhere or other eating or doing something bizarre to lose weight. But I have to wonder whether these shows and their presenters aren’t doing the same thing they’re accusing the rest of the media and the fashion world of doing: capitalizing on our obsession with weight and our bodies in order to capture an audience.

First of all, where is the real sense of experimentation? We know that if you greatly restrict calories far beneath your basal metabolic rate (what your body would need to function if you were to keep perfectly still all day), you will lose weight rapidly. Louise’s programme did mention that you lose large amounts of muscle as a part of this, which is undesirable, but the aesthetic result – her body – doesn’t show this to be a bad thing. So what we expect to happen does happen: she loses weight and feels somewhat sick. But she carries on, and at the end, she’s 15 pounds lighter. And – and there’s no way to say this delicately – they don’t die, these presenters. They don’t even almost die or even have to take a sick day. There are no tufts of hair on the bathroom floor or gum disease or heart failure. If they were to carry on this way for a little longer, some of these things would likely start to manifest. But the fact is, they don’t.

So all we get to do is watch these people lose weight, which I think some of them secretly want to do anyway, (experiment and public service my arse), and then those among us who have spent the last six weeks wondering how we’re going to shift that holiday weight – or worse, those twelve and thirteen year olds out there who are smack dab on the verge of eating disorders – now have added and proven ammunition.

Frankly, I call bullshit, and I’m over it. I call bullshit on the truth-seeking, public education intent of these shows, and I challenge the TV networks, here in the UK and elsewhere, to make the real sacrifice, strip away the glamour and the voyeurism factor, and make a genuine effort to help solve this problem.

The mongoose's Barbados

Inspired by The Guardian’s Been There guest blog spot, I’ve decided to share some ‘insider tips’ on visiting Barbados. In a country that is 166 square miles, it might seem unlikely that anything could be hidden, but let’s just say this is my Barbados: the way I like to do it.

Most people who find themselves vacationing in the tropics will most likely have fled the winter chill, and Barbados is fantastic year-round. But there is no time quite like summer. The fares and accommodation are cheaper, the Crop Over Festival is in full swing, and the smell of party is in the air. Then, you get to jump for Kadooment, the all-day street Carnival; hear the calypso music – either in the tents or on the radio; and have your pick of events. You will never run out of things to do during the summer, and you’ll manage to avoid the hordes of frozen souls seeking respite. Hotels are not cheap. If you can afford it, I’ve always envied the rooms at The House and The Sandpiper when I snuck a peek while there for lunch, but if you’re going to be out and about, the cheaper ones in the Gap, or even an apartment hotel, are fine choices.

Barbados is among the top Caribbean destinations for haute cuisine. My favourites are The Mews at Second Street, Holetown, or Champers for a more casual setting with lower prices and delicious food. But for true Bajan fare, go to Moontown, the fishing village in St. Lucy, for all kinds of fish, sea cat (octopus) and other goodies. I prefer it on a Saturday afternoon when people are just milling about, and I always get a whole, steamed red snapper, and breadfruit cou-cou if they have it. But on Friday and Saturday nights, there’s a fish fry that’s more animated, and it’s a bit less overrun than the one at Oistins. Stick around and explore Speightstown, especially the produce market.

Also on a Saturday, The Village Bar at Lemon Arbor, St. John serves a mean pudding and souse. Get there early (around 11:30), order early, and hang out for a while. And see if you can get some Legendary fish cakes if you ever pass through Bank Hall.

With apologies to Chefette, it must be said that Tuck Away on the west coast has the best ice cream in the country, and possibly on the planet. They feature slightly wacky, all-natural flavours like soursop and nutmeg, but if you’re a nut lover, the peanut butter is hands down the best. They don’t keep a fixed menu, so cross your fingers that they’ll have what you’re craving.

If you happen to be there at New Year’s Eve, Esquire Entertainment hosts what is fast becoming the only holiday event that matters. Bliss (that’s the name of the party) is refined enough that you can wear that LBD that you dubiously packed, but Bajan enough that you won’t feel you could be at a high-brow party anywhere in the world. They also host a brilliant summer shindig. The talent involved are friends of mine, but there’s no shilling here. Ask anyone: it’s simply the best party around. At any other time, The Gap will give you a decent taste of nightlife. But you’ll need to keep your ear to the ground for one-off events, which are really the heart and soul of party life in Bim. Listen out for the name Brewster’s Road. They tend to stick to summertime parties, but if they have an event on while you’re there, do not miss it.
For contemporary culture that goes beyond the more predictable hotel or cabaret shows, see some of the spoken word performances by young talent like Adrian Green, Dempstu Simmons Jr, Selena Dodson and Yoshi. Around March to April, there’s the famous Holders Season, which features mostly imported but varied talent. I love it, but if you’ve just left London, you may not feel pressed to go to Holders for a play by the Globe Theatre.

Of the usual tourist haunts, I would recommend Harrison’s Cave and the Barbados Museum. But I’m not the sight-seeing tour type. I like to just get out and get dirty, which is best done in Bridgetown on a Saturday morning. Visit the markets, get jostled about in Swan Street (I no longer do this. I’ve earned my stripes) and drink a coconut.

You’ll need to rent a car to drive along the east coast, and to the Soup Bowl and pools at Bathsheba. Be sure to see Cattlewash and Bath, and get further into the interior like to Cherry Tree Hill and Morgan Lewis Mill in St. Andrew. Ragged Point lighthouse is another beautiful but under-rated spot for observing the east coast scenery. In Barbados, not much is far away. You’ll have plenty time to see it all. I usually take to horseback for some of my exploring: there are stables that will let you have an equine companion for the trek. But a car works as well.

For shorter haul trips, you’ll be encouraged to take a mini-van (public transport, not the SUV) for the novelty of it. They’re smaller, more frequent and a little more accessible, but more frenzied than I like to feel as a rule. Instead, I prefer to take the big, blue government buses when I can. When I was a child, I would sit among the vendors going to market on the bus and listen to their take on everything from cricket to the budget speech. It’s a calmer ride, and this is where the really interesting people are. You can plan your journey on their website.

So that’s it; that’s the mongoose’s Barbados. Come on in.

Coconut vendor pic compliments a fellow blogger.

More than one way to skin a mango

I hang out on this brilliant message board where I’ve made quite a few friends. Well, no, I don’t ‘hang out’ there. That would suggest indolence, or free time of any sort, which would in turn make me unfashionable. Rather, I stop in periodically in between taking meetings in the city (read: watching Danger Mouse) and doing research (read: tossing up different styles of underwear and seeing which ones hit the ground first.)

I love the women there. They’re generous, interesting and very entertaining. But every now and then, they help me put my cultural background in perspective and realize the pure common sense of how I was raised.

Recently, someone at my beloved message board re-posed an enduring question: how do you eat a mango? It’s not the question itself that makes me chuckle. Presumably, as a tropical fruit, a mango is not that easy a code to break, although I have seen them in supermarkets far and wide. But we’ll concede that the mango is tropical, and with this knowledge, you and I are not to look down our noses at the mango-inept just because we had the luxury of having the things growing in our backyards. Alright. But it’s the treatment of the problem that amuses me.

Person 1: How do you eat a mango?
Person 2: Check out the Williams Sonoma mango slicer. I got mine there.
Person 3: Oh or if you like, here’s the link for a video tutorial. It’s long but worth it!
Person 4: See, this is why I don't buy mangoes.

Now, the above really reflects a dilemma of privilege. I like kitchen gadgets as much as the next woman, but a mango slicer? An online video tutorial? People, it isn’t that serious. I’m always tempted to yell “BITE A HOLE IN THE TOP OF THE THING AND SUCK IT!” But I fear that would be misunderstood. And probably a little unfair.

But a mango isn’t a little neon fruit covered in hair and scales that scuttles off when you chase it, and then, once you’ve caught up with it and cracked it open, is filled half with little hard seeds and half with a slimy paste. If a desperately hungry woman happened upon a mango tree and picked a fruit, she wouldn’t be frantically seeking out a Williams Sonoma for some guidance on how to eat it. I’m pretty sure she would bite into it. If something hostile spilled out, she would toss it aside and move on. If it were delicious, she would keep eating, find there was a seed, eat around it, and then cease to be hungry.

Granted I’m a little insane when it comes to my mango loyalty. They’re my favourite fruit. And I’m convinced that what Eve really ate in the garden was a pawee mango. (Surely no one would accept disinheritance and eviction all for the sake of a boring little apple. A mango on the other hand…) I know we live pampered lives, but let’s not make them ridiculous. Let’s submit to some experimentation. You don’t have to get as complex as a bullet. Just bite the mango.

Sandra Lee is still cooking vomit

I love to cook. I love to do it, read about it, watch the preparation of it, buy the gadgets, compare endless reviews of the gadgets before buying them, create recipes, try others’ recipes, compare endless reviews of the recipes before trying them. You get the idea.

When I lived in the US and enjoyed the basic amenities – namely, cable – I watched The Food Network constantly. FN watchers all tend to use a similar classification when it comes to shows and their hosts: the good; the bad; the annoying but harmless; the pure entertainment even if we will probably never cook their food; and the bizarre. For me, Ina Garten, Nigella, Giada and Michael Chiarello are pure, perfect genius; Mario is pretentious to the point of distraction which makes him a terrible host; Emeril and Rachael Ray are annoying but don’t quite make you want to peel your skin off and eat it; and Paula Deen is lovely to watch and quite cheery and mellow: probably because she is now made entirely of butter and cream after having cooked with just those two ingredients for the past 150 years.

And when it comes to the bizarre, no one occupies that category more wholly and maniacally than the exquisite Sandra Lee. You know Sandra Lee. She’s the tall, blonde, perfectly made-up, Semi-Homemade host who always looks like she’s seconds away from knocking back a shot of something. And she usually is. Never is a show complete without a themed cocktail and a mad, themed tablescape. But the food! The food is the genius of it. The premise of the show is to combine seventy per cent ready-made products with thirty per cent fresh ingredients, thereby allowing the harried, time-poor cook to create awe-inspiring…..


…..piles of mud and vomit.

What prompted this entry, though, was the rediscovery of Sandra’s famous Kwanzaa cake, tweaked for 2008 from an old holiday episode. Watch it yourself above. To make it, she takes a store-bought angel food cake, hacks it apart, fills and covers it with sludge-dyed, canned frosting, and stuffs the center with apple pie filling. At key moments, she cautions us to be ‘careful’ or ‘delicate’ as if she’s using actual cooking techniques. Lady: you aren’t making real food. You could make this thing with your toes and a cricket bat and trust me, it would not turn out any worse.

Then comes the decoration: acorns, pumpkin seeds and giant candles. And there you are: moist, hair-flavoured and partially-hydrogenated on the inside, the salty crunch of the forest on the outside, with a healthy garnish of cultural insensitivity. Happy Kwanzaa. Here’re some Andrew’s salts.