Oildown This is the Grenadian National Dish. A bald description of the ingredients and how to cook it could leave you wondering why. Here’s why. One of the most memorable days out you can have in Grenada is cooking an oildown on the beach, or outside your favourite rumshop with your friends. A great deal of the pleasure is derived from the preparations: deciding where, and who’s coming, finding a suitably large pot with a lid, tracking down all the ingredients you need and harvesting those still on the tree (this could take an hour by the time you’ve got a long enough bamboo pole to get those breadfruit at the top of the tree), gathering firewood (a cutlass is essential), and, last but not least, collecting the three big stones that the pot is going to rest on while it cooks. Then once you have all your materials you have to prepare them – peel and chop the breadfruit, green bananas or bluggoes and potatoes and other selected vegetables, grate and squeeze the coconut to make coconut milk, season the chicken, soak the saltmeat to reduce the amount of salt, make the dumplings, harvest the callaloo, start the fire, get the beers on ice – you get the picture. Everybody has something to do. Once everything is finally in the pot and on the fire it will still need to cook for an hour or so, and once it’s been consumed there’s always a fight to see who gets to the sticky bottom of the pot. It really is at its best when cooked on an open fire as the smoke only adds to the flavours. And even though there were half a dozen of you at the start, when the pot is ready people seem to materialise from every direction. By the time the sun has gone down and its time to leave the beach you’ll find that you have all had a great day together which you’ll still be talking about years later. It seems to me that there’s a couple of hard & fast rules: it’s only oildown once there’s breadfruit, coconut milk, callaloo & dumplings in it; no onion or garlic; and the pot must have a lid, but I have seen banana leaves serve the purpose admirably. Mentioning Grenadian dumplings requires a fuller description. (I’ve heard them referred to as ‘The Prince of Foods’). They are very simple to make: mix flour & water into a thick, quite dry paste and squeeze them into sausage shapes, about 4” long, or flatter discs about 3” across. Some people squeeze them so hard to get all the air out of them that you can still see fingerprints on them after they have cooked! Some people do add some baking powder which does lighten them. The following recipe is for four people and to cook on the stovetop, but with the right pot and half a dozen or more breadfruits and all other ingredients in sufficient quantity you can feed 20 or more hungry people. 1 large breadfruit, peeled, cored & cut into 6 to 8 pieces 8 oz salt meat (salt beef, salted pigtail or snout) 4 seasoned chicken quarters cut into separate thighs & drumsticks 4 green bananas or bluggoes, or a mixture of both 1 cup salt fish, cooked & flaked 2 carrots, chopped 7 cups coconut milk A bunch of callaloo leaves, chopped, including the stalks A dozen dumplings (see method above) Soak salt meat overnight in cold water and drain, or boil for 20 minutes and drain. In a heavy pan line the bottom with breadfruit and then alternate layers of breadfruit, salt meat, chicken, salt fish and other vegetables. Pour in the coconut milk. Put in the dumplings. Cover with the chopped callaloo and put a lid on the pan. Bring to the boil. Keep at a high temperature for 20 minutes, and then simmer for a further 20 to 30 minutes. Before you take the pot off the fire check that everything is cooked and the liquid absorbed. At this point the coconut milk has turned into an oil and has infused itself into the breadfruit, hence ‘oildown’. Remove the sprigs of thyme as you serve. You can add other vegetables of your choice: e.g. okra, christophene, cabbage, & green beans, and an entirely vegetarian oildown is also a successful alternative.

More star-trails! Although this time with the spectacular landscape of the Wakatipu in sight... Matthew and I have had great success this week, capturing scenes that have blown us both away. On this particular night, I revisited a special location from my childhood. We called it 'Golden Beach' which looking back was kind of silly given that nothing there was even remotely gold... Oh well, I wont ruin a good story for the facts! Many years ago, my family would spend many nights there during summer cooking sausages on a campfire, and eating off a table made from a large rock. Alas, as my brother and I grew up and we moved away, Golden Beach was forgotten... Until now! We needed a location where we wouldn't be interrupted, was away from light pollution and offered a good view of the distant mountains. So, 15 years since those memorable childhood days, I was back. At the age of 21 with my camera in hand, I was eager to capture this space in a unique and magical way... -- Exposure time was 2213 seconds, and I opted to leave the automatic noise reduction on as a test to see how good it worked... And although it doubles the exposure time, I feel the smooth result is well worth it. This was taken with my 10mm Sigma, and I'm actually quite impressed with how sharp the image is given the extreme wide angle. -- Please let me know if you like this shot by commenting below, I read and appreciate all the feedback... You can also connect with me on Twitter and Facebook below: Twitter.com/EdenBrackstone Facebook.com/EdenBrackstone