Family Dinner, Caribbean Flavors

Summer #DollCollectionDinner from the island of St. Kitts

Dear Readers and Friends,

I don’t know what your childhood kitchen was like, but I’ll start by saying mine was not the hub & hearth of the home. I am the only child of divorced parents who worked long hours and did well to keep me fed and cared for, but cooking is not their jam. On the many nights when we had BLTs at my dad’s house, I can remember layering paper towels on the microwave dish ridged with a trough on one end for the grease to pool into. Breakfast-foods for dinner was maybe a theme. My dad got a waffle iron at some point and then started experimenting with different toppings. Both my parents raised me to be adventurous and try new things, but blueberry syrup was about as inventive as we got in the kitchen.

My kids are growing up differently than I did, and in particular, we’ve been trying new foods and recipes from all over the world in the last couple of years. We call them “Doll Collection Dinners.” Though admittedly we eat BLTs pretty regularly this time of year, whenever we want a little something outside the normal routine, we take inspiration from a collection of 72 dolls from around the world that my father gave me. It started with a doll brought home from a work trip to Poland in 1978 and ended with a Lenox porcelain figure called “Grand Voyage” the year I graduated from college. During my study-abroad year, I even bought a few dolls myself on my own travels. Others were bought after my dad had remarried and started vacationing with my step-mother.

Part of my reason for creating Wanderlife was to have a way to share stories about our adventures in the kitchen and the recipes we’ve sampled.

If you have missed them, check out:

• Poland, 1978

• Is Making Borscht a Political Statement? (Russia)

• I didn’t go ありがとございました! (Japan)

• On my Instagram a have highlights from places like Serbia, India, and Malaysia

#MyDollCollection Dinner: Saint Kitts

My dad and step-mother visited St. Kitts and Nevis in 1993 and brought home one of my favorite dolls. The dinner it inspired has quickly become one of my favorites for its simplicity and friendly flavors. It’s so good, and such a perfect summer dinner, we’ve made it twice already.

⬇ If you just want the recipe and don’t have time for the stories, I’ll never know. You can just scroll down, my feelings will not be hurt.

Alexander Hamilton is from Nevis

“Our immediate impression, starting with the people at the airport and the taxi driver who drove us to our hotel, was how warm and kind and welcoming the people of St. Kitts were,” my step-mother told me. “School children in their spotless uniforms literally stopped us on the street to welcome us to their island and ask if there was anything we needed or some way they could be helpful. I’ve never travelled to any place where I was made to feel so universally welcomed.”

The Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis is not listed in my 2008 Lonely Planet’s ‘A Journey Through Every Country in the World,’ so I’ve turned to the internet to learn the story.

The islands of St. Kitts and Nevis had gained independence ten years before my parents’ visit and are the smallest sovereign state in the Western hemisphere, by both size and population. The sugar economy on the very first of the British and French colonies had crashed. Once called “The Mother Colony of the West Indies,” the two volcanic islands are two miles apart and a balmy 78 degrees on most days — tropical rainforest, lush mountains, black sand beaches, former plantations, and about 53,000 people whose ancestors were slaves.

In 1626 the Anglo-French settlers joined forces to massacre the Kalinago (the Native population) at a place that became known as Bloody Point, allegedly to preempt a Carib plan to expel or kill all European settlers. Thereafter, the English and French established large sugar plantations which were worked by imported African slaves. This made the planter-colonists rich, but drastically altered the islands' demographics as black slaves soon came to outnumber Europeans.”

- Wikipedia: Saint Kitts and Nevis

Today, Port Zante on St. Kitts can welcome the world's largest cruise ships, including Royal Caribbean's Icon Class vessels. If you have read the May 2024 piece in The Atlanta by Gary Shteyngart about his seven-day cruise on the biggest ship ever built, you might remember that he loved St. Kitts. I am sorry to say the article is pay-walled, so I won’t send you off to read it, but he says that the people he encountered during his hours in the port town of Basseterre, which is the largest city, made him want to abandon ship and stay in St. Kitts forever. (See the summary of that voyage on Instagram here)

Lots of cruise ships visit St. Kitts. An expansion project just before the global pandemic made it possible for Port Zante to host four large cruise ships at any given time. But in the early 90s, that was not the case and my parents spent a week driving on their own. They recall that Nevis was the more affluent and lush of the two islands and that it is home to a fancy golf course and the country’s prison. My step-mother says, “I’m pretty sure we visited the site of Alexander Hamilton‘s childhood home-or the marker, anyway.”

In addition to the kindness of strangers, what she remembers well is the food. She says, “By the end of the week, we were joking that you couldn’t find a bad meal in the country if you tried.” They stayed at a small hotel, where they ate dinner on their first night. All the tables were on the porch, which was lit by candlelight. As the sun set, the Caribbean tree frogs came out and began singing what she describes as a “magical, unmistakable chorus.” She remembers the meal well, so I’ve heard her tell the story many times. It was the first time she’d tried roasted West Indian Pumpkin patties and she’s been wanting to find the variety of gourd they were made with ever since. In her email to me this week when I asked again about the food on St. Kitts, she said, “I have never tasted anything better.”

She bought a cookbook, which is where we got the recipes for our Doll Collection Dinner: Shrimps in Coconut and Lime & Guava Mousse. The cookbook includes recipes from the island’s restaurants. The two we tried are from the Rawlins Plantation Inn.

Not every recipe works

Part of experimenting with Doll Dinners includes some mishaps and fails. My regular partner in this kitchen project is my younger daughter, and together we have very little experience working with gelatin. We were excited to try making Lime and Guava Mousse, but our first attempt cooking the gelatin as the recipe says to do created a solid chunk that couldn’t be whipped and made the kitchen stink.

I also had some trouble finding fresh guava. So we made the mousse with mango. Then I did find some guava, but my daughter and I agreed that the imported fruits were just not ripe and tasty enough to bother with the complicated mousse recipe again, so we called it quits.

But the shrimps in coconut recipe is a real winner! It will be part of regular dinner rotation at our house.

Shrimps in Coconut from Rawlins Plantation Inn on St. Kitts

Ingredients for a meal for four people:

• cooking oil

• 1 pound of shrimp

• 2 large tomatoes, chopped

• 1 clove of garlic

• 1 onion, chopped

• 1 can of coconut milk

• 1/4 tsp or more curry powder

• chili pepper flakes

• fresh lime juice

• salt & pepper

After thawing and peeling the shrimp, put them in a bowl with 2 tablespoons of lime juice, chili flakes, curry powder, and salt. Coat the shrimp and let them soak up the flavors while you chop the onions, garlic and tomatoes.

I like to crush garlic with salt with a mortar and pestle to make a paste instead of mincing it, personally. Also, the second time making this, I had lots of tomatoes from the garden that had a bite out of them, so I added extra. Green beans are also plentiful in the garden, and I knew there’d be enough sauce, so they went in the pot, too. I think you get the idea. This is a basic and welcoming recipe.

Saute the onions until they are cooked, add the garlic and the tomatoes. Pour in the coconut milk. Add any veggies and let the sauce simmer for about 10 minutes until the flavors come together and it is hot enough to cook shrimp. Then dump the whole bowl of shrimp and lime juice in and cook until the shrimp are just pink. That’s it. Salt and pepper and serve over rice or as a soup.

I hope you love it!