Mangoes at the Soufriere Market in St. Lucia
Deathrow Chicken - St. Lucia
Chef from Dasheene Restaurant showing us a bakery in the local town.
Coconut water chugging contest - I lost!
View from our room - did not suck!
Distilling rum...
Drinking rum at 10:30 AM - the next step in the process was falling down but didn't get that picture.
View from hotel #2 - didn't suck either.
We finally went on our honeymoon after delaying it for almost a year and it felt long overdue. We had a good time and St. Lucia is a beautiful place. All of the things you would expect were great and the food was tropical with very fish heavy menus that contained Creole, French, Indian and African influence. Meredith was sick the last 3 days of the trip. She wasn't violently ill but her upset stomach kept her from eating. We ate barracuda early in the trip and I was worried it might have been the culprit but there were no more issues after we got back to the States. The sicker she got though it seemed the more she wanted "home cooking". What I realized though is that M now craves things that I cook that are throwbacks to my childhood. The first thing she wanted was my adaptation of my Mom's chicken and rice soup. This got me thinking about memories of food and I thought about traditions in the South. I thought about what I ate and why we ate what we did. Funny thing is that most of the Southern foods that I know are originally from Africa and the Caribbean. Pork, grits, greens, fried chicken all came from far away lands.
Chicken and rice soup - traditionally speaking
cook a whole chicken in stock or water until it very tender
strain from stock, cool and then shred
using the same pot saute a diced white onion in 1/2 cup butter until soft and then add 1/2 cup flour and stir till a light roux is formed
add the stock back to the pot
add 2 stalks diced celery
cook 1 cup rice in this sauce till soft
add chicken
season
serve with biscuits or bread
PS - the version I serve is different but this is how I recall watching Mom make this - she never cooked with onion but I just can't help it - I am pretty sure her Mom used onion.
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