Caribbean Potluck: Modern Recipes from Our Family Kitchen - Hardcover

Rousseau, Suzanne; Rousseau, Michelle

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1909487090 ISBN 13: 9781909487093

Publisher: UNKNO, 2014

Synopsis

Throughout the centuries, the Caribbean's warm and welcoming islands have embraced many cultures and races, adopting and adapting the traditions, cuisine and cultural norms of its new residents. As a result, Caribbean food has emerged as an intriguing fusion of different flavors and ingredients. Sister chefs Suzanne & Michelle Rousseau's food offers a glimpse into this diversity of culture, race, and history that makes the islands of the Caribbean a fine place to savor beautiful landscapes, turquoise oceans, hot sunny days, warm sultry nights, urban cities, poverty, wealth, intoxicating music and fantastic food. Taking a walk down memory lane from Jamaica to Trinidad and back, the sisters explore how the flavors, tastes and food memories of their childhood influenced their unique cooking style, which combines tradition with modernity. Broken down into chapters like Fetin' Time: Pickings and Sippings; Ciao! Bella - Wicked Pasta, Island Style; Alfresco Caribbean - Grill Pan and Coal Pot Cooking; and Our Roots - Ground Provisions, Veggies and Sides, the sisters will include over 100 family recipes and classic favorites of the region alongside their own original recipe creations. Start off with a Jerked Chicken and Cashew Spring Roll, enjoy a Caesar Salad with Solomon Gundy Vinaigrette and Hardo Croutons, indulge in Mummy's Roast Pork with Cracklin' or go healthier with Herb Dusted Mahi Mahi Fillet in Banana Leaves and Pimento Compound Butter. A side of Rum Brown Sugar Plantain and a dessert of Matrimony Ambrosia Parfaits would end any meal well. Rounded out with an extensive pantry, glossary, and sources (including substitutes), stunning location photography and mouth-watering food shots, Caribbean Potluck is sure to be the most current and enticing bible on Caribbean food.

About this title

About the Author:

Suzanne & Michelle Rousseau are the official culinary hostesses for the Jamaican Tourist Board. Former restaurateurs, they are currently award-winning caterers who have thrown parties for the Prime Minister of Jamaica, the Prince of Wales, and celebrities like Ewan MacGregor. Both girls have lived and travelled widely in the Caribbean, North America, Europe and Asia. To view their recipes, videos and blogs, visit them at www.2sistersandameal.com

Review:

In Caribbean Potluck, Suzanne and Michelle share an authentic Caribbean narrative peppered with mouthwatering and exciting recipes. This is not a work to be consumed hurriedly, but instead it should be leisurely imbibed, savored and relished in a truly spiritual manner, in the manner that one would break bread around a table surrounded by family friends and loved ones. (Pat Ramsay From The Foreword)

The Rousseau sisters enter a room like a force ten gale—full of laugher, smiles, chatter, and life. That same energy is on display in their whirlwind of a book: Caribbean Potluck. The tome is more than a cookbook; it’s a love letter to the Caribbean of their birth, to their family, and to their region. The book presents classic dishes like their mother’s roast pork with cracklin’ and rum gravy and their own island-inspired inventions like a ginger-thyme risotto. It’s a must have for lovers of Caribbean cuisine and perfect for novices and experienced cooks alike. (Jessica B. Harris, Author of Sky Juice and Flying Fish: Traditional Caribbean Cooking 4/16/2014)

For those seeking a different flavor, Caribbean Potluck: Modern Recipes from Our Family Kitchen (Kyle Books) by Susannah and Michelle Rousseau has a section on grilling Jamaican foods. (Joy Bean, Get Your Grill On: New BBQ and Grilling Cookbooks for Summer 2014 Publishers Weekly, 5/5/2014)

Here’s a chance to bring something fresh and spicy to your next potluck: Caribbean Potluck. Suzanne and Michelle Rousseau, Jamaican-born sisters, former restaurant owners and caterers, present their Modern Caribbean Cooking which, savory or sweet (or savory-and-sweet in the classic Caribbean tradition), would make a fabulous addition to any menu. Islanders have an expression for a diverse mixture and blend of things: “mix-up and blenda.” If your co-hosts are willing, why not make the whole event a mix-up and blenda? You could do worse than start with Jerked Chicken and Cashew Spring Rolls with Peanut Coconut Dipping Sauce, move on to Blue Mountain Beef Stew with Stout, and wrap it all up with Lemon Passion Fruit Squares. Not a Jell-O salad in sight! (Beth Goehring, A Passion for Potluck How to Pickle a Sweater, 5/13/2014)

I know absolutely nothing about Caribbean food or how to cook it. The Caribbean Kitchen 101 chapter likely exists for people just like me. (valmg, NJ Mom From Val's Kitchen, 5/15/2014)

Suzanne and Michelle Rousseau say there's much more to island cooking. They're sisters and cooks based in Jamaica, and their cookbook introduces a new way of thinking about food from their homeland. As Suzanne tells host Audie Cornish on All Things Considered, "We have a plethora of flavors and ingredients that we underutilize, and because we have prepared them for so long in very traditional ways, the world outside of Jamaica has not explored the abundance of Caribbean ingredients and flavors."This means the sisters' recipes pack a few surprises you might not expect out of Jamaica ― dishes like callaloo and ricotta ravioli, or banana and coconut crème brûlée. And when they do turn to jerk chicken, that old standby, they thrust it into unknown territories like lasagna and spring rolls. In all this experimentation, though, the style of the islands still dominates. (NPR, June 10, 2014)

Caribbean cuisine is more than jerk chicken and patties, what Michelle and Suzanne Rousseau refer to as “brown food.” With their new book, Caribbean Potluck, the Kingston, Jamaica-based sisters present a new face for island cuisine: young, sophisticated, and in tune with the region’s complex history and culinary traditions. The Rousseau sisters include recipes for classics such as jerked pork and Guyanese pepper pot, and unexpected fare such as roasted pepper and pumpkin soup and smoked marlin ceviche crostini. Jerk chicken makes an appearance in a spring roll and lasagna. It’s an approach to cooking that the sisters see as reflective of the “everyday luxury” of island living, where eating fresh seafood on the beach is part of daily life. As hosts and producers of the television series “Two Sisters and a Meal,” and a follow-up Web series, Suzanne, 42, and Michelle, 44, have traveled throughout the Caribbean to shine a spotlight on traditional cooking and culture, to highlight the diversity of the cuisine for a Caribbean audience. With CaribbeanPotluck, the chefs are looking to spread the word farther afield. “The best things you can eat is street food and the best cooks are home cooks,” says Michelle. (Michael Floreak The Boston Globe, 6/17/2014)

We can cook sexy Caribbean food, it doesn't have to be heavy duty stews. We don't eat that way. (Suzanne Rousseau Radio Cherry Bombe, 6/04/2014)

Anyone who has eaten many plates of blackened, mangy-looking jerk chicken might get the impression that Caribbean cooking is fairly limited. The cuisine of most of the English-speaking islands is often lumped under the umbrella of stews, dumplings and pineapple-strewn desserts. But Suzanne and Michelle Rousseau say there's much more to island cooking. They're sisters and cooks based in Jamaica, and their cookbook Caribbean Potluck introduces a new way of thinking about food from their homeland. (NPR, 6/10/2014)

Their presentation at this year's Foodie Seminar is still being lauded and their booth at the Food Awards won rave reviews. We're not that surprised really that they left an amazing impression in New York. (Two Sisters Take New York Jamaica Observer, 6/26/2014)

About this edition

• Publisher: UNKNO
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1909487090
• ISBN 13: 9781909487093
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 192