Pepper Sauce Taste Off, market edition

a roundup of homemade sauce found at roadside stands/open air markets don't be fooled by the kind smile of the woman at this well-maintained stand (on Warren Street, about two blocks north of the East Main Road, Tunapuna - she also sells the areas sweetest mangoes, hands down) - the yellow sauce is the hottest I've ever had. Hot hot hot, burned through my food, my tongue, my lips - I drank water, milk, iced tea and chewed on ice chips for 15 minutes before it faded. HOT. I can't comment on the flavor or anything else, just HOT. Score: 8.75 ('cause I like that)

this stand outside the main market on Hollis Ave in Arima sells the closest thing to perfect yellow pepper sauce I've found. If I was going to be picky, and I can since this is my blog, the color's a little orange (probably pumpkin), and there could be more floaty bits of pepper inside. But the flavor's excellent, it's hot as sin without destroying the food, and it has a nice linger that burns just enough (i.e., doesn't force you to drown yourself under the kitchen tap). Good stuff, Score: 9

the road to Maracas beach

the Saddle Road is an adventurous drive over the North Range Mtns, steep and winding, framed by rainforest on one side and precipitous drops with stunning views on the other (nerve-wracking or thrilling, depending on your tastes), but the reward at the end is more than worth it.

the pothound

pot hound –noun/pɒthaʊnd/(pottong): a local mongrel of hopelessly unidentifiable lineage, usually covered in mange, loves to roll around in frog and toad carcasses, found roaming in packs, sleeping under shady trees, stuck together post-coitus to the endless titillation of small village children, spends a large part of its life dodging traffic, has never tasted Kibbles'n'Bits or Purina and will eat anything leftover from anyone's pots . . . on rare occassion when actually claimed by a human, usually named Spartacus

Fast Food

Today Bones came to visit. The best way to describe our relationship is to say that I do not remember a time in my life when I didn't know her. We're born three months apart and she is my oldest and dearest friend; my god, the memories we share. She came up for us to lime and catch up and for her two daughters to use the pool on by far the worse pool day of the entire trip. The rain was hard and relentless with cracking thunder and faulty flashlight lightening (but I love this rainy season rain more than the sweetest lullaby). Not pool weather. So we decided to go to the mall, and we decided to get something to eat. Rhonda's older daughter went for bbq, the younger got a sub, and I got Helen some lo mein (in Trinidad lo mein is good for toddlers). Bones and I decide to get burgers. We had two options, Burger King and the local joint Beefeaters. For two reasons, I decide we getting Beefeaters: 1. You crazy! You think I come all the way Trinidad to eat Burger King. I don't even eat that nastiness in New York, far less to come and eat it home. And 2. Well Beefeaters is the local joint, right, and everybody in Trindad line up at Burger King so let me patronize the homegrown business. (And 3. The cool gin connection.)

So Bones' rounding up the girls and I place our order, large fries to share and two burgers with cheese. When I ask what kind of cheese, someone starts scrambling to find out and when I realise there's one cheese choice, I say don't worry about it then. I'll eat Beefeater's cheese. And then I wait. After about ten minutes I go over to check on Helen in her pink tutu and ruby shoes. She is covered in noodles, but she's eating and happy. The other girls are tucking in and Bones is nibbling from everybody's plate. Food not ready yet, she asks? Nuh uh, it's not like Burger King, you know, fresh meat. She eats one of her daughter's fries and I wander back to the counter. Ten more minutes pass. I see Toni packing a piece of bbq into her fries box to take and Helen pulling noodles out of her tutu. After five more minutes, a strange man with a weak Trini accent starts asking, 'Where is my food? All I want is a burger and fries. Where is my food, please?' He looks around for support. I ask the woman next to me if she ordered before me. She's number 82 and I'm 80. Quietly, unlike the man, I ask the cashier where's my order. She goes behind and comes back to say 'it comin' now.'

A digression here for the Trini definition of "now" and its close relation "just now". You're doomed when you hear any these words in connection to you and waiting. You might as well have a drink or read something, or take up juggling. "Just now" can mean anything from a few minutes to a few days, depending on the situation at hand. Someone will tell you they coming just now and then go and take a nap or finish plaiting a child's head, or weed a patch of land. And if you complain, well they won't understand why you're so vex - I tell you "just now!". (It's only "now-now" that offers any reassurance that action is nigh.) Grey should write a bit about asking for directions and being told to go 'just so.'

By now the man at the other end of the counter is losing it for real. 'But what is this? I can't understand. Is only a burger and some french fries I order. A burger and fries. Is not like I getting ribs or lamb, is a burger and fries. Come on, please make number 85.' Oh, buddy. He looks around again and I give him a sympathetic face. Number 82 next to me whispers, 'but why he have to get on so? Is not wait everybody waiting.' I look at this foreign person. I have been waiting for 30 minutes for two burgers and some damn fries. Burger King has served one million in the time I've been waiting. Helen is stuffing noodles up her nose and I am hungry. To everyone behind the counter I say, loudly,: 'But this is beyond ridiculous, where's my food? Look at the time on my receipt. I ordered 35 minutes ago. This is fast food. Fast food. Where is my food? I'm hungry. Where is my food, Miss Lady?' The cooks, instead of looking after my order are looking at me from the kitchen. I put both hands up and say, 'What? Where is my food?' Miss Lady asks someone a question and says to me: 'Your burgers are on the grill now.'

Strangling, dying, hungry, I reel over to our table for Bones to give me to go ahead to cancel this joke and go get some Burger King. But Bones is as cool as ever. 'Nah man,' she all but drawwwls, 'we wait so long already, I'm sure it coming now.' I back away from her very slowly, back to the counter. Number 85 comes to stand next to me and wants to know where I'm visiting from and for how long. I tell him five months and he laughs. Turns out he's visiting from Canada for 10 days and says he could NEVER, EVER not in a million years sister, live here. He faces the counter again, 'Nevah! Whe mih food? Ah hungry. Gimme mih burger and mih chips, please.'

My order comes and I put my empty cup on the counter and tell Miss Lady to give me a refill because I drank all my mauby while I waited 39 minutes for a fast burger and fries. She fills it without complaint, and as I'm collecting my tray to go, 85 gets his burger and fries and we part ways.

Love from all of we.

the pause that refreshes

nothing cuts through the stifling misery of being strapped in a baby seat on a 90°F+ day, like a quick dose of coconut water

Gracy with a Y

When Grey set up the blog, I asked him to spell my name GRACY, not graci from my email account or Gracie, whom I've never been. The Y ending harks back to how I spelled my nickname as a child (it's the familiar for Gracelyn, my middle name) and it's how I'm mostly known at home. I will admit though, that I did go through a voluntary respelling phase somewhere in my early twenties and then I got stuck with the teeny I ending, but like Annie says about so many things, you can always press undo. So, Gracy then.

So what does it feel like to be home? On the one hand we've removed our Brooklyn selves intact to a new location, but it's much more than the physical shifting, of course. I left Trinidad at sixteen and I'm living here for the first time as an adult, a married woman with a child and a job (oh, so I've resigned my lectureship at LaGuardia and doing some work at University of the West Indies with a group of visiting students, and trying to sneak some progress on the dissertation). I'm not in the countryside where I grew up, so even now after having lived overseas for eighteen years, there's a bit of the country girl come to town in this experience - what, Trinidad have fancy malls, and look at how tall this building is, and we have a crime-fighting blimp, and crime!

Then there's negotiating this experience with my family. My mother, who has come to stay with us many times in Brooklyn is, not surprisingly, the most adjusted to my adult status. The surprise has come from my second oldest sister (by 6 years) who has resolutely tried to remind me of who I used to be or maybe who she last knew me as. So for example when I tried to share the joke with her of our mother trying to get me to teach Helen to pray (and that is a good joke), she said, 'huh, I remember that just before you went away you were about to become a born again Christian.' This by the way is true(and I also had a jerri curl), but I think besides the point. From her have come constant reminders of what I was and look who I'm pretending to be now. She chooses to insist that the past is the valid image and right now we're in the middle of an 'I'm not ringing you first' standoff. Ridiculous, but I'm not ringing her first.

But then again maybe I am being a bit unfair, because I want so much of what I remember of my childhood to have stood still. We used to call a quarter a bob, our aunts 'tanty,' godmothers 'nenny,' stop whatever we were doing if the national anthem came on and stand at attention, not be afraid to go outside after dark, a dollar used to be plenty money. All of that has changed now and top on the lists of things my nieces wanted me to bring them were Mp3 players, a PSP portable, and denim. This modernity unsettles me. I want them to wear school uniforms and ribbons in their hair and have impeccable manners. I want to call unfamiliar old ladies tanty and get a smile and a bob for it. I want to go for a moonlit walk when current goes without thinking I need pepper spray. I want the dead from these eighteen years past to walk again, and I want all of this to neatly coexist with all that I am right now.

Maybe I should ring my sister, eh?

Love from all of we.

Pepper Sauce taste off

the great Pepper Sauce taste off starts here. Scores from 1 to 10, taking into account flavor, heat, and how long that lovely painful burning stays on the tongue after you've eaten. Results are arbitrary and personal, I'm making this stuff up as I go along, people.
First up, Jackie's Original Paramin Pepper Sauce (avail in most local groceries). good yellow mustard color, plenty of floating bits of hot pepper, looked promising. Unfortunately it has no bite, no lingering burn at all - I kept adding more to my eggs waiting for it to kick in, but nothing. At least it wasn't sweet, but too mild to be called true Pepper Sauce. SCORE: 3.5

Next up, D'original Mudda'n'Law Chunky Pepper Sauce (harder to find, but in some mainstream groceries) this one delivers, full of chunky pepper floating in a sharp vinegar base, put a little of this on anything and you'll know it's there right away! Great flavor and masochistically satisfying burn, intense at the beginning and lingering on. My only complaint is the base is a bit thin, it's more like sprinkling very spicy water on your food rather than a sauce (mother-in-law itself is a local term for any homemade pepper sauce). SCORE: 8

and last, for this round, is West Indian Home Hot Sauce (avail in smaller local shops) this one wins big points for color and semi-napalm consistency, pours out great on the plate and really packs a kick, like a good yellow sauce should. The pumpkin water gives it a slight tang, but not too much to sweeten it or throw off the burn. Good stuff. It carries a Jesus is Lord label above the ingredients, however he couldn't be reached for comment SCORE: 7.5

more to come as we find 'em

the crimefighting blimp

the great trinidad "crimefighting" blimp makes its rounds. It came on the scene maybe two years ago, and was touted as a new force in crimefighting; the opposition party at the time challenged it, demanding to know what powers the mysterious blimp has. In true Trini fashion, the powers-that-be responded "If we told you what it can do, we'd be arming the criminals with vital information."
And so it remains an enigma, not so silently circling the island, ever watchful. Criminals cower, and good citizens sleep peacefully.

Mount St Benedict Monastery

the Monastery sits above the town of St John, set against the Northern range with a panoramic view of the island below. Makes a relaxing daytrip, and has a shop and modest café if you get tired of walking the grounds and taking in the scenery. And they make their own yogurt, which was a big hit with Helen.

current gone

something of a tradition in Trinidad, we've had our fourth blackout (aka "current gone") in a row. Nothing to do but read by laptop light and play with flashlights.

Finally, I'm ready to write. On the one part, keeping a blog is laziness - if I blog, then I don't have to write dozens and dozens of emails, or worse, alter the same one email and send it to dozens of friends. But, I think this is actually a nice way to archive our time at home. And in spite of my eighteen years in Brooklyn (18!), Trinidad remains home (oh, but not without caveats and complications).

Ideally, I wanted to begin at the beginning, from the taxi driver in Brooklyn who showed up late driving the oldest car in Evelyn's fleet with the trunk that didn't latch over our five suitcases and butcher twine for bungees. Oh, but he drove slowly and didn't seem to understand the English words: 'faster, please. our plane leaves at 8 and it's 6:45 and we're on Atlantic Avenue.' Finally, when the bungee twine snapped somewhere close to Mother Gaston Blvd. and the truck flapped open I got out and remembering Helen's Diego sit-n-spin, said 'mucho rapido, por favor.' But that's too far to go back. We made our flight, we're here and so far it's been thrilling.

Thrilling isn't always necessarily good though, is it? Right hand side of the road driving, anyone? I insist on doing most of the driving and I tell Grey I have cradle memory of the streets to tap into. Narrowest roads in the world that have ditches on either side (though to be fair, on most the government is currently erecting twelve-inch high barriers). And omg, Trinis cannot drive. And the maxi-taxis (big-big cabs) are the worse . . .

. . . But we're home and as you can see from the photos Grey posted, happy. The townhouse is great, bare, but great, and Helen Dekker calls it her Trinidad House. It's all her Trinidad everything: see my Trinidad car, my T'dad pool, my T'dad bed (It's actually her best friend Myha's bed, but). She is having an amazing time. She loves her cousins, her aunties, her grandma Ule, having a yard, going to the ocean. We've sussed out a daycare for her, but for now she's thrilled to have the two of us around her all the time. Happy little sweetie.

Okay, so I'll go back a bit in my next post and talk about how we happened upon this five-month adventure. And I'll also make an attempt at sending at least a dozen individual emails so I don't just say, hey go read my blog.

love from all of we.

morne diable beach

we drove down to the south end of the island and spent a day on the beach with a couple of Helen's cousins. A beautiful vista surrounded by rainforest and marred only slightly by the sediment heavy water fed by the mouths of Venezuela's rivers.

local fishermen bring in their catches here, including the occasional freshwater catfish and salmon

settling in

our new home in Trinidad, a great condo in the north of the island. It's taken us awhile to unpack, detox, and get the place sorted, but we're finally starting to feel a bit at home.

Helen's in hog heaven.

welcome to Trinidad

After packing until midnight and getting up at 4am to make the flight, we finally land at Piarco Airport, Trinidad on August 1st.

We circled for over 20 minutes and had one emergency abort of a landing attempt due to blinding thundershowers, but arrived unscathed (if a bit bleary-eyed)

Gracy's homecoming and Helen & Grey's new adventure begins, 5 months and counting.