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Catherine's Kitchen

Catherine Manning

My apologies for missing the December issue. I feel somewhat like the Queen when she said that she had had an 'annus horribilus' (spelling) but she meant she had a horrible year. When you think about it Latin can look quite rude, but since I haven't done it for about 40 years, I've forgotten most of it. However, I can claim the 'horrible month' instead, though it had its good points.

The bad points were that my ex-husband who had been living in England for the last eight years, took a turn for the worse and we had three weeks of phone calls on what to do, but eventually he solved the problem! The next problem was what to do with him, as even though he was English, he always wanted to return to Barbados and be buried at sea, as was my father.

So, after solving all the problems both ends, we brought him back and had a burial at sea, which went very well, except for the fact that I didn't take a cooler with beer. I would have done had I realized that it was going to take more time than expected, but instead of going three miles off the port which is usual, the tug took us down the west coast till we were offshore from our house. Then we went three miles out and buried him. The good part was that my daughter and stepson came over for the funeral.

Actually he would have been happy with the way it went, as he designed the concrete slab that is now used for burials at sea and it worked really well. There was police outrider from the burial home to the port, so all traffic was stopped for us to get through with no problem and it was a lovely day for a boat trip. All in all he would have been happy, strange as it may seem for me to say so. We played the Finale of Les Miserables and the 1812 Overture which were his favourites and then had a family lunch at an old watering hole.

Days later, the girls and I decided to go into town and use Fleur's ticket to get some duty-free. I bought three pairs of shoes and on the way back to the car park stumbled in a pothole on the pavement and busted up my knee pretty badly. I'm still limping after ten days, but the good news is that I couldn't possibly have osteoporosis or I would have broken many bones! Then my brother-in-law fell off a ladder and broke his heel in two places, my sister-in-law tripped on her carpet and broke her ankle, my cousin slipped and fell on a step and broke her wrist and my uncle died suddenly on Wednesday! They say things come in threes but that's five. I trust there's not another to come.

This is all true by the way! Actually it's six as my mother suddenly decided to stop eating and drinking and we had to put her in hospital and call my sister down from Canada, but we threatened to leave her in hospital so she's been making an effort and is back home, but we have to keep behind her all the time.

My uncle wanted to be cremated and his ashes scattered at sea from Blue Jay, a cabin cruiser he built twenty years ago. Since our crematorium is not functioning yet, my two younger brothers took him down to St. Lucia to have the cremation done there and brought his ashes back in a box marked Columbian Emeralds! They came through customs at the airport with hand luggage and this box and the lady customs officer asked three times what they had to declare and three times they said "nothing." Finally, she asked "What's in that box?'" and my facetious brother said "My uncle" and opened the box to show her the ashes, the lady took off at high speed as he offered to sprinkle some duppy dust around! The ashes were scattered this morning off Blue Jay.

On a lighter note, I have the family Christmas party here at Faraway, much to my surprise. It seems that we're all coming which is good. We haven't been all together for a Christmas party for a while as we all have different responsibilities now. In fact the last "together" Christmas party was here four years ago.

By the time you read this Christmas will be over again for another year, one which I hope will be less crisis-ridden this end, but one can never be sure of anything.

Apart from barbecuing (!) I can't think of any recipes for this column at the moment, except maybe

RUM PUNCH We have a rhyme to remind us of proportions, as follows: 1 of s, 2 of w, 3 of strong and 4 of weak, the weak being ice and/or water 1 part sour lime juice 2 parts sweet simple syrup or sugar to taste 3 parts strong rum 4 parts "weak" (water and ice) Mix all together, pour in glasses and add a few drops of Angostura and grated nutmeg with lots of ice. Depending on how strong you want it, you can reduce the water. A popular Christmas drink is Egg Nog or what we call Egg Flip. Every island has their version and drink it hot or cold but my version is: Egg Flip to Serve One 1 egg 2/3 cup cold milk Sugar to taste, vanilla 1 TBS rum Ice Nutmeg Bitters. Blend everything except nutmeg and bitters in blender. Pour in tall glass, grate nutmeg over the top and a dash of bitters and enjoy.

I hope that everyone has had a great Xmas and can look forward to a happy and prosperous New Year.

Cath