What's for dinner?

     Good question. A better question is, what’s in our fridge? Or, what is bearing in the garden? Or, what has been dropped off lately by a benevolent community member?
     I do try to alternate what we have every night: Jamaican dish, non-Jamaican dish, Jamaican dish, non-Jamaican dish. This non-Jamaican dish almost always originates from a Moosewood recipe, my all-time favorite cookbook series. (I’m not sure how many Moosewood cookbooks I own in total, but I think it’s somewhere close to 15. Of course, I couldn’t leave country for 26 months without at least one in tow.)
     Cooking is a favorite pastime of mine, and I’ve especially enjoyed it since coming to Jamaica, even despite all the adjustments I’ve had to make (i.e. access to ingredients, lack of storage, new foods, limited appliances/no oven, etc.) However, I feel that some of these ‘adjustments’ have also granted me more grace from my hungry recipient (a.k.a. Matt), as he knows what I have to work with.
     Juicing is another kitchen activity that I spend a lot of time on. Coming from Alaska, we didn’t always have fruit readily available, much less growing on trees right outside our door. I’ve definitely taken advantage of the abundance of fruit here, through juicing. I take great pleasure in grabbing june plums from our tree, immediately bringing them inside to make juice with…whenever I want. Because they’re right there, just waiting to be plucked for consumption. It’s wonderful.... Anyway, some of the juices I’ve made so far include: mango, papaya, orange, banana, pineapple, cucumber, sorrel, june plum, guava, soursop, and passion fruit. And there’s more that I would like to add to my repertoire. Akeliah, one of the neighborhood girls (also one of my students), and I have plans for her to teach me how to make peanut juice and breadfruit juice next.
     Akeliah and I have also spent some time making jam. So far we’ve made june plum and guava jam, both very good, and I hope to experiment with some other fruits as well.
    I’ve decided to include a slideshow of some of the dinners we’ve had over the last couple of weeks. You’ll notice that it’s pear (avocado) season, and we have them in abundance. We also were given ‘nuff’ pumpkin recently, both foods have been augmenting many of our dishes.
Last but not least, I have to give a shout out to my multi-talented husband. No, he is not a 'bump-on-a-log' when it comes to the kitchen. Our arrangement (as it was in Alaska, and continues here) is that he cooks breakfast and I cook dinner. The highlight of Matt’s breakfasts are definitely the chocolate tea (Jamaican name for fancy cocoa) he makes for me every morning -made from the very cocoa pods he harvested, fermented, dried, roasted, pulverized, froze, and now makes into the best cocoa I have ever had in my life. Trust me, if you ever get the chance to try this stuff, you’ll agree that it is the best way to start off every day.
     And that’s how we start most days, individually reading our respective books, Matt with his self-roasted coffee and me with my delicious cocoa.