Shipwreck Spiced Rum

For those of you who aren’t familiar, Brinley Gold Rum from St. Kitts is a smooth drinking and extremely flavorful craft rum.  Not to diss another popular Carribean rum out there that currently dominates the market, but Brinley is in a league of its own, a higher spirit that simply doesn’t need mixers to enjoy.  In fact, I urge you to savor their easy sipping line up straight from the bottle first before trying some recipes.  That way, you detect each flavor’s subtle nuances and decide which juices or syrups would best enhance them:

Only the finest ingredients and their 72 proof Rum are blended onsite at their St. Kitts distillery to produce the following:

Gold Coffee Rum: the only coffee flavored rum sold in the US. A robust aroma of toasted coffee, vanilla and butterscotch, this flavor uses a special Brazilian coffee blend that’s sweet and smooth with a long finish.

Tahitian Lime: made with hand squeezed pure Tahitian lime juice and oils, you get a delicious “lime-ade” taste that lingers on your palate making the best Mojito you’ll ever have.

Mango: Brazilian mangos yield hints of peach and a sunny beach-kissed flavor.  I’ll beat you to the hammock!

Tropical Coconut: Using real coconuts really makes a difference!  Silky smooth and tastes like you are sipping it out of a coconut filled with rum. Perfect in a Painkiller or simply poured over crushed ice.

Madagascar Vanilla: Sweet, creamy, natural vanilla…sweet, creamy, vanilla, coffee bean and butterscotch aromas follow through to a viscous moderately sweet, light-to medium-bodied palate with vanilla cream, cocoa powder and toasty coconut flavors. Fades with a slight hint of marshmallow.

And now Brinley has just released a new flavor to add to their mix, a Shipwreck Spiced Rum, the first to use a premium 4 year aged rum infused with natural orange, vanilla, nutmeg, clove, and other native spices. The recipe is based on and dedicated to an actual British troop ship that sunk off the coast of St. Kitts in a 1782 naval battle with the French.

Cacao Tree at Cotton Tree Lodge

This past week was extra special deep in the rainforest of Belize about an hour south of Punta Gorda.  Underneath its gigantic namesake tree nestled between the Moho River and lush rain forest, the Cotton Tree Lodge hosted Chocolate Week along with the Annual Toledo Chocolate Festival held every year on the second to the last week in May.  I’m making it a life goal to attend this one next spring even if it breaks the bank!  Here’s why:

Chocolate at the Source

Did you know that Cacao was used by the ancient Mayans as a unit of currency?  It was ground into a warm, dark drink and seasoned with chili pepper.  Today, cacao is enjoying a new popularity as a cash crop for Mayan farmers in southern Belize.  This hearty tree can be grown organically, prevents erosion, provides habitat for wildlife, and offers an alternative to slash and burn farming.

With its tropical lowland climate, southern Belize has the ideal conditions for growing cacao.  Here, chocolate isn’t merely an academic curiosity or simply an indulgence; it’s a bean to mouth experience in which you’ll get total immersion.  You’ll start by learning the history, politics, and intricate process behind chocolate making.  Daily hands-on workshops guide you through every step of the process, from picking cacao to molding and packaging bars.  Workshops are complimented by excursions to cacao farms in the nearby villages of San Felipe and San Pedro Columbia.

The Toledo District of southern Belize is today home to numerous organic cacao orchards where the red, yellow, orange, and green pods pods are grown and harvested, and later transformed into chocolate.  Each pod contains about 30 – 40 cacao seeds growing along a stem and covered in a sweet gooey white pulp.  You’ll soon learn that farmers turn cacao into chocolate by cracking open the pods and separating the seeds allowing them to ferment. They are then dried, roasted, and ground up with sugar among other ingredients.

Here’s what a Chocolate Week itinerary usually looks like: 

Day 1: Transfer to Cotton Tree Lodge by boat via the Moho River, check into your cabana, and attend a Welcome Dinner and Chocolate Tasting.

Day 2: Visit a local organic cacao farm. Learn about the cacao fruit and pick the pods that you will process into chocolate. Lunch and a Mayan Chocolate Making workshop at the farmer’s home. Return to the lodge, open the pods and begin the fermentation process.

Day 3: Visit the Punta Gorda Farmers Market where cacao is sold. Meet with members of the Toledo Cacao Growers

Cacao Seeds Fermenting

Association and learn about Fair Trade and the politics and economics of chocolate. Optional afternoon excursion to Rio Blanco waterfalls.

Day 4: Free day to spend any way you wish. Choose amongst the lodge’s regularly scheduled tours or enjoy free time on the grounds to go swimming, hiking, biking, kayaking, or horseback riding.

Day 5: Hands-On Chocolate Making Workshop: Introduction to roasting, winnowing, crushing, and conching. Discussion on ingredient storage and recipe formulation. Free afternoon on the grounds.

Day 6: Spend the morning on one of our guided jungle treks, cave explorations, or Mayan ruin tours. Afternoon tour of the Cotton Tree Lodge cacao plantation where you will plant and tag your own cacao tree.

Day 7: Hands-On Chocolate Making Workshop: Introduction to tempering, molding, and packaging. You will make your own chocolate bars to bring home! Farewell Dinner at the lodge.

Day 8: Transfer out, connections home.

Space is limited to 20 attendees.  8 days/7 nights double occupancy packages start at $1,365 per person and include meals, workshops, excursions, and airport transfers.

Resort Location

As much of an obsessed chocoholic that I am, the Cotton Tree Lodge itself is just as fascinating.  Featuring 11 thatched cabanas in six different styles, 10 of them are gathered around a central boardwalk creating a village feel while the 11th is set back a mile into the jungle for more adventurous spirits.  Many have private balconies with hammocks and river views.

Each cabana is hand-crafted with traditional bay leaf thatch roofs yet are fully screened and furnished with ceiling fans, louvered shutters, hand woven Mayan textiles, and private bathrooms with hot showers along with purified drinking water.

The Moho River cuts alongside the resort at 25 feet deep making it perfect for swimming. Borrow one of our kayaks or a traditional dugout canoe and paddle upstream for wildlife viewing.  For avid anglers, machaca, tarpon, and snook can be caught right off the dock.  Best of all….there are no alligators!

This place also has their own organic garden, supplying vegetables to the lodge kitchen.  As a guest at Cotton Tree Lodge you are encouraged to visit the garden anytime. It’s located just behind the Main Lodge via the boardwalk to the Jungle House.  Head gardener, Armando Sam is available to point out some of the unusual tropical vegetables like cho-cho and yampi.

Sustainability

Cotton Tree Lodge’s property is designed to showcase Belize’s culture and natural beauty while minimizing impact on the environment.  The entire property is “off the grid” with power generated by a combination of solar panels, batteries, and a generator.  Although there are flush toilets, wastewater flows into large block vats, lined with several feet of halved plastic bottles, then covered with earth and banana trees.  The banana roots form a dense mat absorbing the water and nutrients from the vat ensuring that the river remains waste free.

Cottonwood Tree is also actively reforesting land that was previously cleared for farming by planting teak, mahogany, and fruit trees around the property creating shade and nitrogen for under-story crops like my favorite…tasty cacao.

photos courtesy of Cotton Tree Lodge

Outside Mobay Uptown

MoBay Uptown is a home cooking fusion of Cajun, Caribbean, Asian and Southern influenced cuisine at 17 West 125th Street in a cozy brownstone on 145th Street in Harlem.  Prices are higher than usual for this type of food, but then again it’s far from being a paper plate takeout joint.  Decked out with cozy booths, snug two-seater tables, and dangling star-shaped lights, the dining area is often caressed with the sounds of live jazz, smooth reggae or R&B on their tiny performance space.

A husband and wife team in the kitchen, each respectively from Jamaica and St. Louis, rustle up a unique flavor stemming from their combination of Chinese seasoning and Jamaican sauces.  Your first bite will undoubtedly be cornbread served with raspberry cream sauce.  Menu standouts include cinnamon packed candied yams; bammy, a Jamaican staple of crisp fried yucca or cassava cakes; meaty, unusually tender baby back ribs dry

Bammy Bread

 rubbed, slow smoked with Mesquite for 10 hours, and slathered in honey barbecue sauce spiked with rum.  My favorites are melt in your mouth fried catfish with grits, smoky flavored collard greens, grilled salmon with a side of sweet plantains, and mac and cheese that’s good enough to be a main dish on its own.

You absolutely have to try their signature and aptly-named Rummy Rum Cake. As light as angel food, this dessert packs a punch that will make you think twice about visiting the glowing red bar for an after-dinner drink.  If you’re visiting on the weekend, praise the Lord with their Sunday Gospel Brunch!

Bammy Bread

Bammy bread, similar in appearance to a traditional pancake, is a 4/12 to 5 inch diameter Jamaican flatbread made from the cassava root, also called Manioc in Latin American countries.  We here in the States know it as tapioca.

If making these cakes from scratch, be aware that grated cassava has to be prepared carefully because in raw form, some varieties can contain cyanide. Your best bet is to buy bammies pre made either online or at a Caribbean market.  Better yet, if traveling to Jamaica is in your future, be sure to pick up this delicacy that was revived over 15 years ago as a national heritage food.

The root is normally grated, rinsed at least once, and then dried before being salted and formed into small cakes.  Similar in appearance to a flour tortilla, these bammies can be served with sweet syrup or as a breakfast food. Yet it is more common to find bammy bread served with fried fish, beef, and cheese.  If you’re curious and want to taste for yourself, gather up the following ingredients:

2 Jamaican Bammies

1 cup milk or coconut milk

½ tsp. Nutmeg

½ tsp. Ground Cinnamon

1 tsp. Vanilla Flavoring

1 cup Cooking Oil

And then…….

Cut bammy cakes into quarters and put in a shallow pan with all ingredients, except the cooking oil. Soak for 30 minutes.  Fry both sides on medium heat.  Drain and cool on a paper towel.

Roti Cooking

Exploring the West Indian restaurants and markets along Nostrand and Flatbush Avenues is like taking a mini vacation to the Caribbean without having to venture further than Brooklyn. This is a world of rotis, pones, macaroni pie, cou-cou and mounds of tropical produce.  Concentrated roughly in a  square mile bounded by Empire Boulevard, Nostrand Avenue, Cortelyou Road and Flatbush Avenue, just take the B or Q subway line to Prospect Park and head south on Flatbush for your excursion.

Head to Culpepper’s, a take-out at 1082 Nostrand Ave. where you can pick up a Barbadian (or Bajan) consisting of Cou-cou, chunks of  cornmeal in a soupy tomato and onion sauce topped with fried flying fish fillets. Peppa’s, a tiny Jamaican jerk joint at 738 Flatbush Ave. serves up a mean $5 portion of roti: an Indian-style flatbread wrapped burrito-style around generous portions of potatoes, chickpeas, and curried goat.

A Grenadian restaurant, De Island at 1199 Nostrand, serves up yard fowl, scrawnier albeit natural and hormone free chicken with more tasty dark meat accompanied by ground food, a variety of starchy root vegetables. Browse carefully further down Nostrand and you’ll find Haitian cuisine at La Déesse  featuring pintade, a guinea hen with traditional Haitian black rice. With a bakery seemingly on every block, you’ll have plenty of choices for dessert.  I recommend  Errol’s at 661 Flatbush boasting a broad selection of bread pudding, cassava pones, and callalloo rolls, soft bread filled with a thin spinach-like layer of its namesake vegetable. Wash it down with a drink made from hibiscus or fresh biting ginger beer.

Beyond food, tons of shops sell Caribbean music and clothing where bargaining is expected.  Or stop by the stalls at the Flatbush Caton Market and patronize the small local artisans, direct-from-the-islands fruit and vegetable purveyors for that special home cooked meal. Better yet, head over to nearby Prospect Park, check out the Botanical Garden, lounge on a bench and give your belly a rest.

Haitian Cuisine

On the Upper West Side at 844 Amsterdam Ave., tiny unassuming Krik Krak Haitan Restaurant serves authentic dishes straight from the island. First off, I bet you’re wondering about the name. In Haitian Creole, Krik means “would you like to hear a story?” and Krak means “yes!” The story at Krik Krak is French-accented Haitian cuisine, a hybrid of Spanish, Jamaican, and African cooking. For starters, I urge you to get “kraking” with some Akra de Malanga, dumplings deep fried to a thick crunchy golden brown served with a spicy dipping salsa. Next dive into their Griot, crisp fried chunks of pork (similar in appearance to oxtail); Bouillon Haitien, a vegetable consomme of beef and crab; or Lambi Creole, diced conch bubbling in a spicy sauce.

Look out for their weekly menu offerings like okra stew (Monday), string- and lima-bean stew (Tuesday), and Legumes Choux, a stew consisting of tender cabbage and flaky codfish (Friday).All entrees include a side salad, rice and beans, and delicately fried or boiled plantains. This place is BYOB but I recommend going for the full island experience pairing your meal with one of their fresh natural fruit juices, especially the passion fruit. Walls lined with brightly colored indigenous paintings, an unpretentious and laid back atmosphere, and friendly service creates an oasis far away from the hustle and rushed service of Manhattan’s dining tourist circuit.

One of the Many Sidewalk Eateries on Roosevelt Ave.

Destination: Queens

 

Want to see the most diverse borough in New York City? Forget about Manhattan, Queens is where you want to go.  Hop on the No. 7 train from Grand Central terminal and you’ll know you’ve arrived as soon as you burst out of the subway tunnel onto the elevated green iron tracks built mostly by immigrant laborers in the early 1900s. Extending seven miles from Long Island City to Flushing, lofty views of Manhattan’s skyline recede as you meander high above six neighborhoods tied
together by Roosevelt Avenue — a bustling thoroughfare packed with street cart vendors, restaurants, markets
and cultural landmarks representing nearly 150 nationalities.

Queens History

In 1900, Queens was a rural area of meadows and marshes, colonial estates and small villages. Although
ferries, and eventually the Queensborough bridge linked Queens to Manhattan, the No. 7 line, then called the
Interborough Rapid Transit, was built in stages to provide the quickest and most inexpensive mode of transit.
Many immigrants moved out of crowded tenements on Manhattan’s Lower East Side seeking a better life.
Dubbed “The International Express” by New York City’s Department of Planning, this train truly takes
you on a trip around the world in one borough. In 2000, the No. 7 line was designated a National
Millennium Trail for distinctly representing the American immigrant experience. Social clubs, parades and festivals
provide a shared experience of ethnic identity between residents while offering a learning experience.

Street Scene Under International Express

Neighborhoods Along the International Express

 

Get off at any stop and head down Roosevelt Avenue., and along some side streets for total immersion. Keep a look out for 45th Road and its Court House Square Station in Long Island City for your next stop.
At the Noguchi Museum, located at 9-01 33rd Road, more than 240 works featuring Akari light sculptures by Japanese artist Isamu Noguchi are displayed.  And if art isn’t your cup of tea, stop at Brazil Coffee House at 48-19 Vernon Boulevard for their strongly brewed house blend BCH Media paired with a slice of yucca coconut cake.

The next stop is Sunnyside, at the 40th and 46th street stops. Once a middle-class Irish enclave, Sunnyside is now home to a mixture of various ethnicities, ranging from Colombian to Romanian. Here, one can stop and
browse through a Romanian grocery store or make reservations for a show at the Thalia Spanish Theatre —Queens’ only bilingual Hispanic theater.

Woodside, a little further down the line at 42nd St., gives that “I’ve been here before” feeling because the row houses here were the setting of “All in the Family’s” opening scene. And true to Archie Bunker’s sensibilities, this neighborhood has retained some vibrant Irish pubs even though many other nationalities have moved in. Not merely places to down a cold one, these social centers spawn an active pub culture where new Irish immigrants can network, find a job, or just chat and watch some Gaelic football or curling matches on the big screen. Donovan’s, at 57-24 Roosevelt Street, serves up what many consider to be the best char-broiled, half-pound burger within the five boroughs. And if it’s a Sunday, you’re in luck because you’ll get to try out their Irish Sunday brunch along with your stout Irish suds.

In Jackson Heights, you have your pick between South Asian and Latin American cultures. Get off at 74th
Street and at the bottom of the stairs you can begin browsing the sari shops, visiting the Patel Brothers
Grocery loaded with South Asian vegetables and herbs, or sampling a wide variety of Indian sweets at Delhi
Palace. At the 82nd street stop, Mexican, South and Central American, as well as Caribbean foods and
music spill out onto Roosevelt Avenue. Restaurants here offer free music shows on weekends and street
vendors slice up pork and dole out beans and rice, tropical fruits and freshly squeezed sugar cane juice.

At the end of the line in Flushing, you’ll need a pick-me-up after wandering around NYC’s largest China Town. Be
sure to stop in at Udon West Noodle House at 137-80 Northern Boulevard and while resisting the inclination
to wrinkle your nose, try a steaming bowl of seaweed soup with your choice of soba or buckwheat noodles.

Even if you don’t get off the train, simply enjoy the ride. You’ll get a good idea from your fellow passengers about
what makes this country so great. All these cultures jumbled together, yet retaining their ethnic roots while
striving to make it in the United States, yield a cultural collage you’d be hard-pressed to find anywhere else in
the world!