Last week two brilliant American women provided me with much needed inspiration. Davia Nelson & Nikki Silva better known as The Kitchen Sisters came to London to speak about their award-winning radio series Hidden Kitchens and their other radio projects.
Hidden Kitchens is primarily broadcast on National Public Radio (NPR) in the US and explores the world of secret, unexpected, below the radar cooking across America - how communities come together through food.
The series gave rise to their first book, Hidden Kitchens: Stories, Recipes, and More from NPR’s The Kitchen Sisters. The book is ‘unputdownable’ so it’s no wonder it was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year for 2005 and got nominated for a James Beard Award for Best Writing on Food.
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You’d have to be living on another planet not to know that the world is in the throes of a food crisis. From England to Egypt, there are shortages of staples like rice and flour, while the rising price of wheat has sent the price of meat soaring.
The head of the UN World Food Programme (WFP) called the global food shortages, “a silent tsunami which knows no borders sweeping the world”.
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After all the culinary gymnastics and trumpeting of molecular gastronomy and other mystifying cooking methods, simple cooking seems to be the theme for cookbook writers this year. This is a smart move, because then they can capitalise of a huge market of time-poor people who want to cook delicious meals.
One of the best books I’ve seen in a while is One Perfect Ingredient: Three Ways to Cook It by Marcus Wareing. I haven’t had the opportunity of eating at his Michelin-starred restaurant Petrus, but I have tried his recipes, seen him at work at food shows and on television. I enjoy looking at him cook because he’s one of the most technically proficient chefs on the box these days.
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There’s always something to put you off when you plan to cook an ambitious meal. A few weeks ago, I wanted to treat some friends to a really lovely Indian dish to commemorate Phagwa and so to pay homage to this vibrant festival, I put together a menu of Caribbean Indian delicacies and North Indian inspired dishes.
My guests would be treated to saheena, kachowrie, pitod ka saag (chickpea flour dumplings in yogurt sauce), subz miloni (seasonal vegetables in spinach and garlic sauce) and gulab jamon.
It all started so well, waking up early to make the saheena and the kachowrie and moving quickly on to the chickpea flour dumplings which needed to be rested and done just before serving.
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The weather’s been very yucky in these parts lately. It’s been cold, wet and windy, not the conditions for going out and enjoying the nightlife.
On nights like this, there’s nothing to warm the bones like a bowl of steamy, comfort food. I had planned to cook a traditional oxtail soup in the style of Port of Spain’s Breakfast Shed with some meaty joints I got from Farmer Sharp at Borough Market but then I saw a tempting recipe by Nigel Slater in the Observer Food Monthly that made my mouth water.
Slater, one of this country’s best food writers is a lover of comfort food and this recipe for Braised oxtail with mustard sauce shows why he is so loved.
To give the dish a bit more kick, I seasoned the oxtail with a little bit of jerk seasoning and put some chadon beni sauce in with the onions. After two hours of cooking, the result was tender meat dropping off the bone that was flavoured enough by the seasoning and the wine to eat at that point. The creamy, tangy and delightfully rich mustard sauce isn’t going to help any weight loss efforts but who cares, it was an absolute revelation.
It’s made for a marriage with mashed potatoes and I’d strongly recommend this combination as a simple main course for a small dinner. Oxtail is rather inexpensive so the money you save on meat can go into a buying a good wine or an upmarket cider for you and your guests.

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It’s St Patrick’s Day and there’s wild carousing, loud singing and gallons of Guinness being drunk - and that’s just at my local pub! If those are the scenes at my local, then it must be an absolute riot in the streets of Dublin - and Chicago!
In honour of St Pat’s, I tried my hand at Soda Bread, a famous Irish classic. I usually pick up very good quality soda bread at the supermarket but never tried making it.
This bread is quite versatile and moreish. It’s excellent with jam or mature cheese and also goes well with stews because it’s great for sopping up these delicious juices.
I urge you to have a go at making this bread, it’s not difficult at all. I used a recipe from the ever reliable Handmade Loaf by the master Dan Lepard.

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Earlier this month, my Chinese friends ushered in the Year of the Rat. It’s supposed to be a time of hard work, activity, and renewal.
In terms of hard work and activity, it makes this year no different from any, but I’m eager to see where the renewal will come, as change is the only certainty in life.
The Chinese community in the Caribbean is small, but their achievements are quite significant and certainly, the region’s culture would be poorer without them.
In food terms, Chinese food in the Caribbean - particularly in Trinidad and Cuba - has become ‘creolised’ and I can safely say that chow har lok in Port of Spain tastes totally different (or better) from chow har lok in London, even though the same basic ingredients are used.
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Do we buy enough from each other in the Caribbean? Sometimes I wonder.
There’s no reason why fruit and veg from Chiquita and Dole should be flooding our supermarkets when we should be engaging in Fairtrade to give the farmers in places like St Lucia and Dominica a chance to get a fair price for their products.
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One of my friends has as his instant messaging tag: Sometimes, simple is the most difficult.
It’s a sentiment that I totally agree with right now.
I had a look at a recipe for salt crackers and thought it would be easy, but unfortunately, it’s one of the trickiest things I’ve ever made.
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Keep the Hershey’s, forget the cheesecake and don’t even bother with the ice cream, they are nowhere as tempting as a dish of sugary, crispy kurma!
Kurma is a sweetmeat that’s usually served at Indian weddings in the Caribbean and it’s a huge favourite among the non-Indians as well.
In Trinidad, I used to buy kurma in the supermarket that was nice and gingery but it was literally rock hard. It was so hard that you had to suck on it first to avoid damaging your teeth.
I then found what I thought was the best kurma in the world from an Indian lady at the San Juan Market but then about three years ago Bonnie came back from a holiday in Trinidad bearing her Mom’s amazing kurma.
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