STT carnival: food fair and j'ouvert

If reading this article doesn't make you hungry, something's wrong with you! OMG I would devour a plate of local food right now...and top it off with the coquito that sounds onnnnnnn - and takes 4-5 hours to make!

Wednesday was Food Fair - one of the best parts about Carnival. I haven't actually been to Food Fair in forever because I'm never home :-(

This year's honoree was actually one of my friend's mother. She looks gorgeous (as usual) in the pic.

Yesterday was j'ouvert - an early morning tramp down the street. Basically it's a block party/parade where everyone comes down to the main part of the island and dances down the street behind big trucks with live bands or sound systems. Good times :-D

Ok so today's *big chunes* are obv. inspired by J'ouvert...I'm sooo made I can't find the song "Granny" by Jam Band on youtube!! But here's a funny j'ouvert song by Singa Band...i think yall will recognize the beat lol


Of course you know i had to put a Destra song in here...the video is bad quality but i couldn't find another with this song...and i HAD to include this song:



Ugh there are soooo many big chunes but I can't find good quality videos online :-(

Oh well!

:-D
  

you may be a food network addict if...

...you and your sister refer to the chefs by first name only...and talk about them like you know them


email from Nix: "Btw giada is making trinidadian chicken stew...OMG"



:-D


P.S. speaking of Nix and food, this weekend (in honor of her BDay lol) she made some BOMB diggity chocolate molten lava cakes....just like Mommy used to make :-)


Then, we mixed the leftovers with my leftover german chocolate cake icing and made crazy scrumptious german chocolate cakedrops!!!! A heavenly combo, let me tell  you ;-)

bacchanal again for 2010

It's that time of year again...

Throughout the year every (i think?) Caribbean island holds its own form of a carnival celebration. In St. Thomas, we hold our Carnival in April...with activities throughout the month leading to a final big week of Food Fair (today!), the opening of the Carnival Village (earlier this week!), J'ouvert (tomorrow!), two parades (children and adults this wknd), and various other activities. This year's theme is Bacchanal Again for 2010. 

Side note: I was curious about the origin of the word bacchanal, so of course I looked it up :-) The word comes from bacchanalia, which were wild and mystic festivals of the Roman god Bacchus (or Dionysus). According to wikipedia, it has since come to describe any form of drunken revelry...lol. I guess that's pretty accurate...though you definitely don't need to be drunk to have fun during carnival. 

Here's a little snippet about our Carnival:

The first carnival was staged in 1912 during the final years of Danish occupation and lapsed during World War I. Revived in 1952, carnival has become the second largest festival in the Caribbean. A month-long series of dazzling pageants and talent shows is held to choose royalty to rein over the festival. Calypsonions offer satirical commentary on the state of the islands, oftentimes mocking the shenanigans of politicians. Other popular events held during Carnival are j'ouvert - a morning jump up - a food fair presenting the islands’ best traditional eats, and a competition to crown the King and Queen of the parade troupes. A children's and adult’s parade close the lively month with brilliantly costumed and decorated troupes and floats. 

 Throughout the rest of the week and weekend I'll be posting about my past carnival experiences and memories, as well as this year's carnival celebrations.


Of course today's big chune has to be...the quintessential carnival song...aptly titled "Carnival" by my favorite soca artist, DESTRA, and Machel Montano...This isn't a VI Carnival song, so I feel obligated to give yall a double dose of big chune and include a VI (albeit Crucian) one as well ;-)





UMB and Pumpah "Boom bye bye"



:-D
 

bad hair day

As part of my going-natural process, my bad hair days are on the rise :-/ On a day-to-day basis, I never quite know how my hair is going to turn out. The funny thing is, that is one of the things that a lot of long-time naturals (on the blogs I've been following) cite as being among their favorite parts of having natural hair. I think it's just more frustrating for me because I'm still transitioning and I haven't quite gotten my hair routine down.


I have a black tie event tonight for work and I'm not feeling great about how my hair is going to look in a formal setting. I co-washed my hair night before last so I kinda assumed it would be alright for today with a simple re-wetting via spray bottle...not so much. It looks/feels dry and frizzy :-(


This morning I've been going back and forth trying to decide whether I can justify (financially and practically) going to the hairdresser this weekend...it would basically make it my 3rd trip in like a 6 week period...way more than I usually go. And I'd have to drop $60+ just to cut off a biiiiit more (b/c I don't want to totally BC yet...at least i don't think i do but you never know!!!) of my relaxed ends. Sigh. At the same time, I'd rather spend the money and feel good (better) about the way I look lol. And for those of you thinking "Oh just go to Super Cuts" or one of those cheap walk-in salons....Never again!! I did it once and it was not smart...at least not for someone with my texture/cut.


Guess I'll go ahead and give Perry a call....




Today's *big chune* isn't new or anything but it just popped into my head and it's a really pretty reggae duet...and shockingly (for a caribbean-artist) the music video is actually pretty good lol.
Taurus Riley and Alaine: Forever More





:-D
 

my back-up plan

Right around the time that I was graduating from Gtown I wrote a facebook note about wanting to be a housewife. At the time I was actually semi-serious about this aspiration, but really it was more about what came with being a housewife...the husband and children. I also hadn’t really found a “calling” yet...I didn't feel passionate about any specific career or line of work. Hopefully now I’ve found the field in which I’m supposed to be working -- or else the next 5 years of my life will be for naught lol (but seriously) -- but that's another story.

Nowadays, even though i still have aspirations of being Suzy Homemaker, I’m starting to think that I can do that with or without a man…lol...Anyone seen the new JLo movie (or ads for it)? I saw it yesterday with a friend. In a nutshell, she decides she's ready for a baby, but hasn't met the right person yet. She takes things into her own hands by undergoing artificial insemination. This is where plausibility diverges into "only in a J.Lo movie" (see "Maid in Manhattan", "The Wedding Planner", "Monster-in-Law" etc) land. She meets the perfect guy, they fall in love, he stays with her despite her being pregnant (not by him)...and they live happily ever after. It's a total chick flick so while it won’t be winning any awards, it was entertaining.

It also got me thinking a lot more about something a former flame and I have been seriously joking (yes i realize this is an oxymoron but just roll with me) about...

Let's just say that in about 6-7 years if I’m single and ready for a baby, I’ve got someone in line to be the baby daddy. Sounds crazy right? Ok, now put aside society's expectations... I know only a few people who are in loving, faithful, happy marriages anymore. Would it be that weird for me to have children with someone with whom I have a good friendship, but not necessarily a romantic relationship? I realize the whole situation could get kinda messy and would be hard to explain (to my family, my kids, etc.) but I don’t think it’s as off-the-wall as it sounds at first. And while I do know that two-parent households are touted as being optimal for a child's upbringing, I feel like if I had to choose between not having kids and being a single mother, I'd be able to do a pretty darn good job at the latter.

The older I get the less interested I’m becoming in the whole marriage thing. I do think it would be nice to have someone special with whom to share your life and raise children, but I just don’t know if I buy into the whole “one special person you’re meant to be with forever and ever" thing.


Ok let me put it in terms of Sex and the City characters….I used to be 60% Charlotte, 30% Carrie and 10% Miranda….Now I’d say I’m 75% Miranda, 20% Carrie and 5% Charlotte.

But, Miranda ends up happily (by the end of the first movie at least) married with a son. So maybe my SATC character mix won’t end up too badly after all? haha

Thoughts?

Today's *big chune*  is a super old school Whitney jam...this is like a hidden gem you only know if you had her actual albums...man i used to be straight obsessed with Whitney...at one point or another I've had every one of her albums...and this is one of my favorite songs of hers. I can actually remember my sisters and I singing and dancing along to this song! lol





:-D


 

i'd rather be...

...sitting in a bookstore/cafe reading a new book and catching up on all my unread blogs :-/


But alas...I sit at work instead! (By the way, I'm super thankful for my job because I know times are hard...just sayin...)

Seriously, the bolded unread items in my Google Reader are killing me! I've even started resorting to "marking all as read"...but who knows what fascinating articles, important news items, juicy gossip, cool events, and scrumptious recipes I'm missing out on?!


I really don't want to be here...(luckily) my days are winding down. From next Monday I have 5 full weeks until I leave my job and head home to the VI. Then, I really can spend (part of) my days doing what I love...surrounded by the ocean, basking in the sun. Ahhhhhhhhhh can't you picture it!


No? Well here's a visual:

That's the GORGEOUS Lindquist Beach on St. Thomas. Definitely a (if not, the) fav. of mine.

Here's a great friday *big chune* that always makes me think of chillin on the weekend. Apparently this was Aaliyah's first video? RIP



:-D Happy Friday Y'all.
  

what i cooked (and did to my hair) this week

I've been slacking on the food blogging this week. So here's a recap:


This past Saturday I made cornmeal banana pancakes from a Food Network recipe (thanks Emeril!) This particular recipe called for egg whites which gave the pancakes a nice airy texture. It also called from both milk and yogurt, which made them nice and moist. The cornmeal flavor wasn't as pronounced as I was expecting but they were overall quite delish. I definitely plan to incorporate egg whites into some (or all) of my future pancakes.

By the way, have I mentioned that we don't use syrup? Instead, we use a different topping (in the Fall/winter we used a yummy pumpkin butter spread from TJ's...recently we've been using fruit preserves/jam) and always have fresh-made (in Nix's VitaMix) apple sauce. PURE MAPLE syrup is fine but for those of you who use Aunt Jemima or those other "pancake syrups" you may want to check the ingredient labels. Syrup isn't even listed as an ingredient in some....so you're basically consuming high fructose corn syrup. Enjoy!


I also made those muffins I mentioned last week. I just tweaked my quinoa banana bread recipe by adding the following:
- whole wheat flour
- oat bran
- a dried berry mix from TJ's
- walnuts
- yogurt (obv!)

I think that's all I added....they came out really nicely I think. Forgot to take a pic tho! I actually wanted them to be heartier...more like a bran muffin, but I'd definitely need to add much more oat bran for that effect and Nix wasn't really feeling the idea. Next time perhaps.

Nix did lots of baking of her own this week as well! First up, she whipped up a chocolate bread pudding to use up a loaf of french bread that had been in the freezer for weeks. Though she was nervous about it, the end result was quite yummy. With a few tweaks, it will be even yummier!

And the day before yesterday she made her own granola bars! They were great!!! But no pic because I totally forgot...so I'll put one up next time she makes them (hint hint Nix).

We also had to eat real food at some point during the week but nothing too exciting on that front this week. We did have salmon one night with a great marinade from TJ's called Island Soyaki (or something). It was really good!

Ok that's all for food this week. Here's a pic of my hair lol:

No particular reason why...just felt like chronicling the process. I'm a big fan of part- or not-rinsing out the conditioner when I co-wash (condition wash...gettin the lingo down haha) it. It really gives it a better curl and seems to last better throughout the day. Aside from that I've been using the Carol's Daughter hair milk, a gel my stylist suggested (whose name I forget), and.....olive oil. haha

Yay Thursday...and it was actually nice and sunny today!

Today's *big chune* is from my girl Fefe Dobson. I'm generally not a big fan of rockish music, but she just does it for me...and (coincidentally i swear!) she's a fellow Mixie (a Canadian one)...white mom and Jamaican dad. She has a new album coming out this June.


:-D