Shopping Around

I cannot believe how much money I end up spending every month on groceries. I’ve been tracking my grocery spending and I’m frustrated. The reason I am spending more money is because I cannot find a one-stop shopping evironment. The large supermarkets boast about their abundance and range – uh uh. Not so.

So, I end up sometimes going to 3 supermarkets to get what I want and you know what happens…? Invariably when you walk in, your eye catches something that you don’t need but think you should get and before you know it, you have many more things in your trolley on the way out than you need. Aaaaggghhh!

Agrofest

Barbados’ Agrofest (Agricultural Festival) opened today at Queen’s Park. Fabulous! Lots of goodies – vegetables, produce, herbs, craft etc. A foodie’s haven.

Oh Loss – solution?

According to this story in the Nation Newspapers, a clearing house for farm produce could be a solution to farmers getting their produce sold.

Loss Indeed!

It was a shame to read this story in the Nation Newspapers on Tuesday, February 13. A farmer with more than 4-thousand pounds of tomatoes and no buyers! No supermarkets, no hotels, no wholesalers. Farmers are being called on to produce more, plant more local foods so that we can cut down on the food importation bill and yet, there seems to be no system in place for their produce to get to the consumers.

Culinary Alliance of Barbados – can you all help?

Going Home?

I found this interesting article by Nalini Mohabir in which she writes about the last ship that left the Caribbean for India to return ex-indentured labourers. It looks at the question – where is home?

Missing home

People talk all the time about missing home, especially when living abroad. I’ve often been asked if I miss home and my answer usually is: “not really”. I go on to explain that that is so because my family comes to visit me often and I get to enjoy some of the foods from home.

However, since I’ve started writing my column, Tastes Like Home, which focuses on food memories, I have an instense feeling of missing home. I guess it is only natural given the nature of what I write about – food memories that are connected to family, friends and good times.

What is real?

Today as I sat writing my weekly TLH column I realized how much food, all our food is influenced by each other. Take for example, India, their food is also influenced by the Portuguese among others, our food here in the Caribbean is in itself a fusion of so many cultures – French, Spanish, British, Dutch, Chinese, Portuguese, African etc. Food is truly a universal language.