Culinary Adventures with Camilla

Grenada is an island country comprised of the island of Grenada and six smaller islands at the southern end of the Grenadines in the southeastern Caribbean Sea. It's located northwest of Trinidad and Tobago, northeast of Venezuela, and southwest of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Some fun facts: Grenada is also known as the "Island of Spice" because of the production of nutmeg and mace crops of which Grenada is one of the world's largest exporters. Its capital is St. George's. And the national bird of Grenada is the critically endangered Grenada Dove. When I was searching for traditional Grenadian recipes, I kept coming across variations of the Oildown; it's considered the national dish - a onepot meal cooked in coconut milk until all the milk is absorbed, leaving a bit of coconut oil in the bottom of the pot. Some recipes call for a mixture of salted pigtail, pigs feet (trotters), salt beef and chicken, dumplings made from flour along with brea...

The final two countries in our Cooking Around the World adventure for the letter 'D' are Dominica and the Domenican Republic. Yes, those are two different countries. I had to look that up myself. I'm pretty sure that I, ignorantly, have used those names interchangeably. Whoops. But you can see from the map, above, that Domenica lies in the archipelago that begins with Anguilla in the north and ends with Trinidad and Tobago in the south while the Domenican Republic is further west, closer to Jamaica and Cuba. So, first we're traveling to Domenica. Dominica was the last of the Caribbean islands to be colonized by Europeans due primarily to the fierce resistance of the native Caribs, finally falling under French control. France ceded possession to Great Britain in 1763 who, then, made the island a colony in 1805. Finally Domenica gained its independence in 1978. Reading about the Domenican cuisine, they seem to have access to a variety of fruits and vegetables, incl...

Back in the cooking saddle after being completely pampered at Lokal's Supper Club last night, we traveled to the Cape Verde islands via tabletop tonight with two savory dishes and one sweet.   Cape Verde is an archipelago comprised of ten islands off the coast of western Africa. Before being discovered by Europeans in the mid 15th century, the islands were uninhabited; then they became a Portuguese colony and a stronghold in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade.   The Cape Verde cuisine is mostly based on fish, beans, and rice. And in that vein, I selected Jagacida, a traditional Cape Verdean recipe for beans and rice flavored with smoked paprika, and Caldo de Peixe , a one-pot stew of fish cooked with a mixture of fruits and root vegetables. Jagacida (Rice and Beans)   cooked rice 1 can organic kidney beans smoked paprika, freshly ground smoked sea salt, freshly ground flower pepper, to taste Heat the partially drained beans in...