Thoughts of a minibus traveller

  Pumpkin  Man in the market asks if I want the pumpkin cut at $400 which is the same as 2 pounds of carailla and 2.5 pounds of ochro and I say no, then I see that it dry and look nice and I have not cooked pumpkin for a long time as the price was too much in the oil and gas luxury range .  Visitor to Guyana asks me 'is that grown here?" and when I tell him yes , the man said "wow, that is so expensive"  and I tell him since oil flowing, the vegetables and fruits more expensve and he ask me why  and I say, 'I don't know'.  Kadoo And is a nice pumpkin and I think would be nice to make something else other than the regular pumpkin and the internet throw up 'Borani Kadoo' ..   کدو Kadoo  - is Pashto/Urdu/Persian for pumpkin though the pumpkin might be a different one from the expensive one which growing in Guyana. And 'Borani Kadoo'.. as with food, so many different ways to cook it. All start with slicing the pumpkin into thin slices and dee...

  200 dollar passion fruit  "Why de hell dem aint want buy it if dem asking de price" the market vendor shouted to her neighbour after I asked the price of the passion fruit and she shouted 5 for $1000.. "Write up de price and put pun de basket so nobody aint got fuh ask" the neighbour suggested. Passion fruit more expensive than the imported apples in the 55 year old oil Republic. Nuff oil flowing and being found but only two vendors have the bags of the crushed brownish firmish fruit which I used to eat every day as part of the wellness regime until they were no longer available. I remember a school friend with her land proposal to plant passion fruit on the highway at a time when people were now planting and how she explained you just leave them and they bear , and another friend who had glut and was sharing from her yard, and one time I cooked the leaves as bhajee. Her vine withered up at some point as the seasons changed and like so many other things where pric...

    Katahar seed "I have breadnut seed, you want? the man asked me.  Sun cooling down, Kumaka Santa Rosa on Friday afternoon. Some stalls setting up for the Saturday market.  Last place I expected to hear breadnut seed and thinking that I never really hear anybody in Guyana call katahar.. breadnut. I had come over to check out the oranges. A whole set of oranges spread over the stall. And some other packs of small vials - 'thing for pain.. all kind of pain'. I had asked for one orange. He had peeled for me, one with a rough skin.  I was to make sure the outside of the rind did not come into contact with my mouth as I sucked out the juice. "Breadnut.. you mean katahar ?".. I asked him with orange juice at the side of my mouth and on my fingers .. 'is where you get katahar seed from.. how your katahar get to ripen, when everybody say it scarce." Katahar lil scarce and price gone up and so. People always asking where have, and peeling and frying and freezin...

 Pink grapefruit  "Dem is one fuh 200, 3 for 500, dem is One for hundred" the man shouted at me in the market after I stopped and looked at the two baskets of pink grapefruit. I started picking up the smaller onesit to feel them , he continued 'three for two hundred'  Different sizes, some have the pale yellow skins , others the green skin with splotches of pink.  Teeth and so been giving me some issues and I wonder if something is wrong because in this oil and gas , climate changed economy is rare to find citrus going 'cheap'  and some are not juicy or not 'sweet'   I feeling to see if anything wrong, fingers working the fruit while mind going through all kind of things that .. dis can't be true.. I wonder if exxon people reject them and send them back, or if is Brazillian extras the man get.. or is it stolen property and the man hustling to sell off before police come .. (There was another man who used to sell ortanique cheaper than everybody els...

Sweet potato One of the sweet potato has sprouts coming out and I say right, come on man, get going, do the thing the   recipe which came through on social media. I could plant the sweet potato, but my hand got blight so best to eat. I chip up the shoot to add in the salad as a woman I know uses the leaves to make bhaji. The other salad thing I use is celery - luxury in these oil and gas times, instead of the curry leaves. And I forgot the chilli and didn't worry with mint, substitute eschallot for green onions.   Coconut milk Sunday morning and first thing I do is grate the coconut. I cannot imagine a coconut milk dressing as coconut milk seems too thin. So I say right, will put in fridge, then let cream rise and use that. And garlic on my mind as people telling me how to use garlic to get rid of the wind which seemed to have moved to the chest. I can't find the nice round limes which give the best tasting juice and fragrance.. nine limes for two hundred dollars of the limes ...

Afghani Borani Banjan..  Rough time as body feels the 'year ago' significant events even as calendars and time are just artificial things. But knowledge and opportunity are there to also shift things away and to let bring new memories for the body and soul to feel. And strange things.. listening to a man talking about 'clapping lash on his children' and cussing silently to the man cutting my hair. Thinking of when is good for education to big men who beat their children that they are bullies. But then is a busy day.. no time to cuss up anybody and then try to recover from it.  Every day can be a cuss day. Wondering what else to make with baigan and thanks to the internet , end up  with the Afghani Borani Banjan dish. And thanks to the Internet .. as one of the cooks says, there is no one way to make the Borani Banjan. The baigan is basically sliced, fried (lord that oil!!) first, a tomato sauce is made with garlic and spices, and then the baigan is mixed in. ...

    A foodie Facebook friend shared a recipe for Butternut Squash and Chickpea curry and I bookmarked.  Not sure if I would ever make it as I wondered why would I curry butternut squash which tastes nice "just so' but curious as the recipe invoked 'Thai' curry and the lemon grass and coconut milk mix up. And as more oil being produced in Guyana, I have not seen butternut squash in the market so it was like save and keep. I got one at the oil country prices just around Christmas and but it was still lower than the supermarket so I chopped up and put in the freezer. I went back to the recipe, not sure , and went looking to see if is true that you could curry butternut squash.. and  Google showed a whole set of versions .  I never cooked with lemon grass and I think the lemon grass we use for tea in Guyana might be different from what is used in the pictures.  The recipe asked to 'mince the lemon grass' but the grass did not take cutting. Another chef said to ...

  5am Sunday morning and nice rain and bed is warm.  Tossing and turning thinking of the challenges now and the patient who is protesting at having the early morning sponge bath, I get up and try to add energies to not make it so bad.. come back to bed and thinking of the 'cheap' tomatoes and the baigan and making the maghmour .  and not thinking of just lying down and reading or watching Hallmark Christmas movies and eating nuts and so.. because I have to get up .. It has been awhile as tomatoes have not been at the price where they can be grated and put into a sauce but rather at the price to be eaten raw and slowly .. Body feeling tense as difficult decisions had to be made and justified and trying to move instead to how to chunk up the baigan and put salt on it for a while. Write down sequence of ingredients because I could forget as I try to forget the other things which are present and immediate Too much garlic .. Slice up onions.. , chop tomatoes to grate them .. ...

    Dinner time and thinking what to eat and also thinking of the patient who does not want to eat or drink properly but whose "No' is loud still so that the intentions are clear.  Thinking of the decision and confrontations and challenges and agony over food, offerings made to a goddess which are returned. "What you doing for self care" and I think yeah,, eat, sleep , exercise and so on but I feel guilty thinking of food when the patient does not want any. So looking in the kitchen, channa, garlic, tomato, lil olive oil, salt, eschallot.. put in the food processor and the thing mash up nice and then I think.. it need a lil crisping.. so make into two cakes and put on the tawa on which I had decided to toast the bread because tawa toast different from toaster toast. The tomato didn't really crush up too much thankfully. nice and chunky. Thing start to burn and I take off and scrape the burnings. Nice smell of the garlic too which burn lil bit.  Put lil peanut but...

      Pumpkin Any pumpkin today the young man asks calmly, voice quiet. .. 400 and 500 ..  I check the skin. Snake skin, white and green. Colour though a lil pale. Not sure. Smooth and dry though. Come home and realise there was some in the freezer from before.  Things lil mix up these days, I laugh though, memory things.  Pumpkin has to cook though. Katahar seed , and some channa which was supposed to be curried but .. Cut up pumpkin. Not evenly, I can't do that. But I like when some chunks leave in the final mash. Chip up onion. Geera in the oil. Low heat to 'broil the pumpkin' . Salt - thinking lil extra for the channa and the katahar seed. Some tumeric to add lil more colour. Wiri-wiri. garlic. Decide not to put elaichi. Thing cook, low , while doing other chores which I have not had to do before but which coming up now. Smelling nice.  Think I smell burn, but is not me pot, is somebody else own. Is plenty, could eat whole week.  Taste some wi...

  Dahee with elaichi   The dahee is thick, and light. Almost like ice-cream.  The recipe is to take some old dahee - yoghurt- and put in the bowl with thickish milk. I leave in the sun. On rainy days, the dahee becomes thin.  So I make a set to eat a lil bit each day as a kind of  'sugar free' dessert with banana. I went to market yesterday so there is pawpaw and passion fruit. I leave in the fridge for a bit for everything to cool nicely. Put some whole  elaichi - cardamom- and cinnamon.  There is a mindfulness in the assembly because I want to take a picture to write this blog because I have not written anything for awhile.  Position the bowl in different places to get the light and to see if the dahee could show as the scoops. Passion fruit is smelling nice.  Eat it slowly.. when teeth crunch on the elaichi seeds there is a nice burst of flavour.  Sweetness without shugah.   I would have posted the picture on Facebook but....

  Peanut butter in stew on my mind and I wonder how it would go with ochro and I go to the search engine for okra peanut butter and then find that there is a whole set of stews/soups out there which use okra and peanut butter and other vegetables..  The names .. Domoda, Maafe.. and I get the courage to try a thing though nothing like what is showing in the videos and so.  Ingredients  A handful of small ochro /okra - take off the tops and tails (I think for my hand that was about a 3/4 lb ) Small onion or as much as you want, chopped up  Garlic as much as you want, minced  Ginger, as much as you want, chopped up  2 Tbsp tomato paste  some tomato chopped up to add some texture  1 wiri wiri pepper or any other chilli to add some flavour  Some of thyme, and other herbs and so which you like in your stews A pinch of whole geera/cumin, or a tiny pinch of cumin powder  Coconut milk (or water if you not able to make the coconut milk)...

Thinking of the leftover fry baigan and if it goes good with peanut butter. The Internet says yes and I end up in South Sudan and watching the different ways they make 'Salata Aswad'   Fry baigan in my family is made by peeling (or not peeling) the eggplant/aubergine/baigan/boulanger , chipping up some onions and garlic and so, then chunkaying (sautee) the onions and garlic. We then put the baigan in and let it steam down, adding liquid if necessary. Sometimes other things are added like potato, or so. I watch different videos of Salata Aswad. Deep fry slices or pieces of the baigan. Make a stew sauce of tomato, onions, garlic, geera, and other things.  Put in the peanut butter. Put in the baigan. Put some lime juice or lemon juice. Some have yoghurt and other vegetables. More like a stew rather than a salad. Some people assemble the baigan and sauce like a salad. And so I fry up the onions and garlic, some tomato, and tomato paste and put some water to let it simmer a bit. A...

"Lower the camera let me see.. no, you have to wait until the bananas come out.. then use the remaining flower" the man told. The man, vegan, has inspired me with his resilience, and his creativity in cooking. Hot day. I see a splash of purple from the side of my eye. The backyard is almost wild. I don't know when the first banana suckers were planted. I like the sucker leaves though. I have only touched the suckers when needing the leaves to form the base of the bedi, the ritual space, when doing pujas. Sometimes bananas have come up. I never watched though as the flowers turn to bananas, didn't realise that the beautiful purple/red oval shaped thing would turn into the bunch of fruit of a different colour. The man told me had made his version of the 'vegan fish and chips '.  He used a blossom that was 'destined for a compost heap'. He cleaned the flower, peeled off the petals and pulled out the remaining filaments which did not birth into...

Man asks me nicely.. so what have you been doing , are you working? And I am kind of stumped because he has been working hard even with COVID and elections , and I have been in limbo. But thinking that nah man, be creative with something.  Gratitude for the breadfruit which comes my way, discover that the breadfruit is bountiful. The boil breadfruit taste nice.. but sometimes I think it could be stodgy. Hundreds of recipes out there.. baking, frying and so.  Coconut milk, curry.. all nice. Mash and make pie and so. I go looking to see if there is a thing like hash breadfruit.  Find Chef John from Samoa making 'Ulu hasb brown' Boil the breadfruit, grate it, mix it with other things and fry it. Grating the boil breadfruit is not difficult. It is different from mashing the breadfruit.  I grate it, mix it loosely with  some seasoning, and chip up a tomato. The breadfruit is soft enough, it does not need any other 'moisture'.  Vegan style! ...

Feeling stuck with the writing work to be done. Thinking of doing something else new to take my mind off of the work.  The Sweet Potato roti is on my taste mind. There is some cooked butternut squash in the fridge. The butternut squash has a similar texture to mashed sweet potato.  Can I make something like butternut squash roti?  Nothing too difficult, simple ingredients, and quick. I go to Google. And end up with several suggestions from Kenya for Pumpkin chapoz, chapo malenge, pumpkin chapati. Oil roti But it is not so straight forward. There is a setting time - 30 minutes, and some oiling and so recommended. One person puts on the tawa just so, no oil, another person has each side oiled like how we make paratha roti. Jikoni Magic has a blog about the author's search for the perfect pumpkin chapati. She then has this video.  Mix the dough, let it set, roll out to get the layers, set some more, then put on the tawa. I love the explanation, and the...

The Mauritian woman said that the white sweet potato does not hold moisture the same way. I mash it hot and realise that I need to get it moist like the orange one in the video. I feel like an expert as I try to drop the water in , little at a time. If there was no Covid, I would have been doing some other things related to work. A friend shared the video. First time she trying roti, and she not ordinary, going for the sweet potato roti.  But this is not like the aloo roti which is aloo in place of dhal in the dhal puri. Hot mashed sweet potato.  , with flour and a drop or two of water. It comes together nicely in the basin. I use my hands, the chef said don't knead it too much. I roll in the log, cut the pieces , make the rounds. I roll it out , and it is round, flour there on the surface to stop the sticking. I am rolling carefully , hoping it would not break up. It doesn't I remember my Nanee , back in the days when Burnham banned flour, that she used to grate cass...

Scrolling the Facebook feed and I see something about cooking banana skin and I am like what? I start reading and see all kinds of things.. not too ripe, not too green, soak the skin.. etc etc.  I wonder if people mixing up plantain and banana, I mean we use green plantain skin as stain when making abeer at phagwah time. I social distance from other people and contemplate the cayenne banana which more expensive than sweet fig and I think, arite let me try the cayenne banana peel. Time too cook.  I peel one and eat it, and I peel another one and put in freezer.I don't know how to store peels. I see a recipe for curry... a lot of people talking about a bar b que type thing to put as a burger filling, but well curry anything is always good. I didn't see the point about soaking the skin for 30 minutes. I chunkay the curry, put in the skin. Try a thing with some coconut and ginger and so. Nice smell coming out, kind of sweetish too.  It bunjal down quick an...

Conversation on Facebook with a man I have never met. . Conversations starts with the virus and end up foods we don't normally eat.  He has eaten scorpion and insects and so.. I thinking how to compete. Yard and my hair in need of weeding.  Cracks in the concrete and this year, the pretty weed with the red stems and small leaves and yellow flowers growing.  Pursulane is good for you . There is a local name. I thought the name was karmi bhaj i but karmi bhaji is the one which grows in the trench. I imagine all the animals and so which have walked over the spread. The people say to wash it good.  I pick some, different ages, some with the flowers.  I can't grow anything so is nice to pick things up from the yard to eat. It has a nice smell. There is a  black dust that keeps coming off of the shoots and I get paranoid about dirt. But the black dust particles are the seeds. I eat some raw, clenching my body waiting in case I get some reaction. Ni...

People say stay home so going hunting for plantain chips and nuts and other kinds of crunchies is not an option. Anxiety about essentials and moving quickly through the market and on the road mean forgetting that I will need the plantain chips and nuts and so at some point. The woman who used to sell the golden, thin, crunchy plantain chips has not opened her stall on the days I have visited the market since Elections and then Covid. And I look at other plantain chips and they don't look as crisp and as thin as those which piled up in the cut out bottle on her stall, and also accompanied by nice conversation. And in the anxiety and so when buying and being out to rush back home, so easy to forget to look for plantain chips and nuts. So the crunchies come though. And no pacing can work to ease them. No amount of deep breathing. The tree with the not so nice mangoes is bearing.  Nice when green for achar and mango choka, bland/sweet, soft and stringy when ripe. But gratit...