Squeeze & Suck, Slice & Dice or Total Body Commitment?

Take your mind out of the gutter! I am asking how you eat your mangoes! That's what this week's column is all about, the methods some of us employ when eating ripe mangoes. Read and tell me which of those techniques you employ when devouring a succulent mango, known in Hindu Mythology as the "Food of the Gods."

This week I am not going to tempt you with Mango Milkshake with Ice Cream, Stuffed Chicken with Mango Guacamole, Mango Souffle, Mango Salsa, Mango Chicken with Red Peppers or Blackbean, mango, Lime & Cilantro Salsa. But you click on the links and surrender to the temptation. I'm only presenting mangoes in the next best way I enjoy them, as a sorbet. I used David Lebovitz's recipe from The Perfect Scoop. You can also check out and send all your mango creations to Chris of Melle Cotte's Cinco de Mango event. So whether you make a mango mousse, margarita, martini, custard, cake, curry or chutney enjoy the mango season!

Elle & Ben, thank you both for the Excellent Blog award, I am chuffed. Will wear it proudly on the blog soon.

"I find it unnerving to see how stubbornly people -mainly women- stick to the idea that a male child is superior to a female child." Want to know what this quotation is all about? You'll have to read Bee's post this week at Forgive Me My Nonsense..."

Nothing so Sweet as Sour

You may have heard me mention Sour before when I've written about snacking with goodies such as the cassava balls, egg balls, phulourie, channa etc. Bee asked me a couple of weeks ago what is a Sour. Well, a Sour is a cooked chutney we make in Guyana and it is served as a condiment. Tamarind, green mango and most famously, souree (bilimbi) is used to make a Sour. And that's what this week's column is all about.

There's nothing quite like souree in a sour. I had not seen or eaten this fruit for many years; so you can imagine my pure, unadulterated joy at discovering it here in Barbados and at the home of one of my fellow country-men! Go read the column and share in my excitement and the ways in which we use souree.

Some of you may be very familiar with souree as it is said to grow wildly in Kerala and other parts of Asia.

I am submitting this picture as my entry to CLICK, the monthly photography event hosted by Jugalbandi. The theme this month is Au Naturel.

Tamarind is in season and the trees all across Barbados are laden. Bliss! I made a tamarind relish from this book and absolutely love it.

Here's the recipe.

Tamarind Relish
Use this relish as a dipping sauce on raw or cooked veggies. It can be served in place of the regular chutney that usually accompanies a curry. You can stir it into a seafood curry to give that sour flavour.

Yield: 1 cup

Ingredients
2 tbsp oil
4 shallots, finely chopped
2 tsp grated fresh ginger
1 large red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tsp brown sugar
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp coarse sea salt
8 fluid ounces thick tamarind water (this is made my steeping the tamarind in hot water and then rubbing it to remove the flesh from the seeds. Strain and discard seeds)

Method

1. Heat oil in a wok or saucepan
2. Add shallots and fry for 2 minutes
3. Add ginger, chilli & garlic and stir-fry for 2 minutes
4. Stir in sugar, coriander & salt. Continue stirring on low heat until the mixture becomes sticky
5. Add tamarind water and simmer for 5 minutes, stirring often
6. Taste and adjust the seasoning, adding more salt if necessary
7. Simmer, stirring, until the relish has become quite thick
8. Leave relish to cool completely, then transfer to a jar with a tight-fitting lid and refrigerate until needed.

Many of you, I am sure have been following the news and feeling the pains of the continuing high cost of food. Drop by Forgive Me My Nonsense... and share your thoughts on the subject.

Golden Apple Love

This was one of those weeks I drew a blank as to what to write about. I set about making some stewed guavas, you know, to get the creative juices flowing. Nothing. Nada. Then I went to work, first day of the semester and in chatting with a colleague, inspiration struck. You'll have to click here to read how it all unfolded and to learn more about this fruit we call golden apple.

I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. And if you need anything, you know what you have to do. Email me.

Oh to be a kid again & MEME

Gooseberry syrup

Fresh gooseberries

Today's column is all about small days - that's what we call it - those happy childhood days . The games we played, the things we ate and all the mischief we got up to! (lol)

Green mangoes with hot chilies and salt

I invite you to take a trip back in time with me, I am sure that some of you will identify with some of the things and have your own stories and memories to share. I'd like to hear them. So, click here to read the column and do come back and share some of your own childhood memories of playing in the sun or rain, especially during summer. We call it the August holidays :) told you we are a practical people when it comes to naming things.

Tamarind balls

I think that you might enjoy seeing some of the fruits we have in season at this time of the year as well. You'll probably have different names for them and I'd like to know if you do. Also, some of these fruits I have only ever seen in Guyana, don't know if they exist in other islands so if you're from other parts of the Caribbean, I'd like to hear from you . Click here to see the fruits and here for the column.

We'd eat these to get the seed (marble) to play a game we called, you guessed it, marbles :) or as I'd hear others say, gam.

Kuru

Sugar cake

Ginip

We'd take the tops off of the ginips and called them bulbs on a bunch.

These, I did not make, I bought them while I was in Guyana recently.

Jalabi(s)

After running around all day, there is nothing quite like a snocone to cool you down. We'd hear the bell or the horn of a snocone vendor and rush outside to get one of these ice-syrup treats.

Snocone

Click here if you want the recipe for the gooseberry syrup, sugar cake or tamarind balls.

********************************************

• MEMEs are everywhere in the blogsphere and I have received my fair share of tags, I cannot remember everyone that's tagged me but I want to thank all of you and apologise for only now getting around to doing it. Then last week, Elle of Feed My Enthusiasms also tagged me for another MEME but this MEME has rules! However, the principles are the same – to share information about yourself so I’ve decided to combine Elle’s as well as the 7-random facts MEME. Here goes.
  
  The MEME tagged from Elle works this way:
  
  You have to post these rules before you give the facts.
• Players, you must list one fact that is somehow relevant to your life for each letter of their middle name. If you don’t have a middle name, use the middle name you would have liked to have had.
• When you are tagged you need to write your own blog-post containing your own middle name game facts.
• At the end of your blog-post, you need to choose one person for each letter of your middle name to tag.

Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

My middle name is Anita.

A – Autumn is my favourite season of the year. Though I do not live in North America or in a country where there are 4 seasons, I have found myself visiting the USA on more than one occasion and experiencing all 4 seasons and the best for me is Autumn. The sheer beauty and riot of colours bring tears of joy to my eyes and I’m mesmerized at the splendour of it all. There is something in the lighting at that time of the year against the background of the kaleidoscope of colours that speaks to my soul, it’s as if I am in a whole new world.

N – Nana Mouskouri is one of my all-time favourite singers. I grew up listening to her music. My mother owned several of her albums and I now own a few of her CDs but not enough! My favourite album is the one titled, Over and Over. Christmas for me would not be the same without Nana’s Christmas songs playing in the background.

I – Insincerity is a quality in people that I abhor.

T – Three. That’s the number of children my parents have raised and I am the eldest. I have a sister, Patricia and my brother is Eon. He’s also the youngest.

A – Advertising is an exciting field in which I’ve worked in the past. It is also one of those jobs where you constantly have to massage peoples egos, smile politely because they are the client and sell people on notions that are not the whole truth. I guess you see why I had to leave this field of work given my feelings about insincerity (lol).

I now tag

Kelly-Jane of Cooking the Books
Mansi of Fun and Food
Toni of Daily Bread Journal
Sirisha of Amrbosia… Indian Indulgences
Ann of Montego Bay, Day by Day