TriniGourmet’s Amazon Hotlist is a compilation of -your- most clicked (and purchased) items on TriniGourmet.com
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1. Modern Caribbean Cuisine
Description: Modern Caribbean Cuisine demonstrates the new directions into which Caribbean cooking is now moving.
For this and other Caribbean Cookbooks check out the Caribbean section of my Veni Mangé Amazon Store!

2. Corelle Hearthstone Stoneware Square 16-Piece Dinnerware Set, Service for 4
Description:
* Corelle Hearthstone Square 16-piece set, service for 4
* Includes 4 each: 11-1/2-inch dinner …

This post was originally published on November 5, 2008. It has been updated once since then.

Mmm pone. A sinfully sweet childhood memory. Not a pudding, not a cake, but something somewhere in between. Pones are usually made from root vegetables. You can also make them with carrots, sweet potatoes and pumpkin. This time around I decided to try my hand at a popular local version made from cassava. Cassava is intriguing in that although it appears excessively dry when in its raw state, once baked it melts and morphs into …

Reader’s Question: I came across your recipe (for Trinidad Black Cake) just last month. I baked the cake and by a turn of events I gave one to a colleague who is getting married in June. Her fiance tasted it and is now hinting that he wants me to make his groom’s cake and a sheet cake to feed 250 guests. I have no problem baking the cakes, it’s the frosting and decorating. I don’t do that. I live in New York City. Do you know of anyone in Brooklyn …

This recipe for Ciabatta-Wrapped Striped Bass just caught my eye and is definitely a novel and creative way to use ciabatta bread!
Combining the flavours of a saffron sauce with a tomato-fennel stew, and easily adaptable to kosher restrictions, this will definitely be gracing my dinner table in the near future (I’ll probably be leaving out the capers though, can’t stand those! )

Ciabatta bread is still relatively unknown here in Trinidad however gourmet stores and bakeries are increasingly including it in their offerings (I personally buy mine at Peppercorns …

Image: Sarina’s Coconut Rice With Lentils and Cashews (recipe here)
Not that I need any encouragement, nor am I sure do many of my regular readers, but the BBC ran an article last year touting the benefits of regular curry consumption. Among one of the findings was that a key component in curries (curcumin) can help to prevent the onset of Alzheimer’s disease or dementia.

Excerpts:.
Curcumin appears to prevent the spread of amyloid protein plaques – thought to cause dementia – in the brain.
Professor Murali Doraiswamy, of Duke University in North …

After the frenzied crescendo of Carnival Tuesday all merriment and debauchery ends (or is supposed to end) with the ushering in of Ash Wednesday and the start of the Roman Catholic observance of Lent. My father tells me that ‘back in the day’ all sound stopped at midnight and no calypso would play on the radio with the end of Carnival Tuesday. Things have definitely changed since then! Although you still see many individuals with ashes on their forehead heading to work, you are also equally as likely to …

Sitting here on a Carnival Tuesday night, watching Brian MacFarlane’s opening presentation for his band this year “Resurrection the Mas”
By this time tomorrow we should all know if he has been able to achieve an unbelievable 4 consecutive “Band of the Year” titles. MacFarlane is currently my favourite band designer. I am not a fan of the generic beads and feathers style of mas, it doesn’t capture my spirit or imagination, and the half-hearted attempts by bandleaders to give their thongs and headpieces some kind of …

Dessert, Valentine’s Day Dinner 2009 – Chaconia Inn
Last year, J and I stepped out in style (or so we thought) to the Chaconia Inn for what we hoped would be a romantic Valentine’s Day dinner. Boy were we wrong. Unfortunately we ended up leaving as quickly as we could (the planning was horrible, seating was cramped, tables too small, lighting bright, music system so loud we couldn’t hear ourselves). It was a real shame too as the food, what I can remember, was well done.
This year, with Valentine’s falling …

This post was originally published on February 18, 2009. It has been updated once since then.

Prior to last year I had never heard of Yu Sheng (also known as Yee Sang), indeed I only became aware of its existence thanks to research done for a blogging event. As this year the Chinese New Year falls on Valentine’s Day it seemed only fitting to repost this recipe, which is one I’ve fallen in love with
According to Wikipedia:
Yusheng , yee sang or yuu sahng (simplified Chinese: 鱼生; pinyin: yúshēng) …