Chive N Thyme

Nesta with me and Darnell

One of the (many) things that I am falling in love with in Grenada is the cooking. I'm having a blast trying out the local dishes on my own. Thanks to our friend Nesta, a Grenadian AND a fantastic cook, Darnell (s/v Island Dream), Carolyn (s/v Moondance) and myself have been having a ball learning to cook Grenadian style.

We took a trip to the fruit and vegetable market in St. Georges, with Nesta at our side to help make sure that we are charged the local prices. Just buying the vegetables is a pleasure, as you walk through the market, you see the lady washing her beautiful heads of lettuce in buckets and bagging them for you.  The tomatoes too were picked that very morning. I just love the sight of a well stocked vegetable market.

My bundle of chive n thyme

One thing you can never leave the market without is your chive n thyme. It's basically a bundle of seasoning goodness that you can be sure will include chive and thyme, but it's even better than that. You will almost always find a few extra goodies such as local basil, celery, or, if you're really lucky, a few leaves of chadon bene (pronounced shadow benny, it a local herb that tastes like cilantro). It's fun to cut the string on your chive n thyme and see what you find inside.

I decided to try my hand at pumpkin soup.  I used a big hunk of local pumpkin that I bought at the market and added  my bunch of chive n thyme, some fresh ginger, garlic, coconut milk and a few other goodies and let me tell you - Campbell's will be calling me for the recipe any day now! 

Nest week Nesta is making a visit to Storyville to teach Darnell, Carolyn and I how to make bakes. One hint about what makes bakes so good - they're fried!

Pumpkin soup, ready for the heat

This is some yummy soup (I grated a little nutmeg on top, just because I could

My chadon bene, growing in Storyville's cockpit