If you know New York City, you know it’s got energy and excitement all its own but with the first Super Bowl in 42 years just four days away, the buzz is even more palpable.  Broadway between 34th and 47th Streets has been transformed into a pedestrian-only thoroughfare, called Super Bowl Boulevard, where football fans who have registered, can join in the revelry which started on Wednesday. Even though I...

If you’re in Manhattan this week, it’s difficult to ignore the increased activity in the city as New York and New Jersey get ready to host this year’s Super Bowl with the Denver Broncos and the Seattle Seahawks at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. The Super Bowl was not on my mind as I walked through midtown yesterday but as I got to Bryant Park, I noticed trailers...

With its lumpy peel and lopsided shape, the UGLI® is the ugly duckling of the citrus family. But don’t let appearances sway you. The ugli proves the adage: beauty is skin deep, ugly goes to the bone, or in this case, the core. Peel back its yellow-green skin, which is soft and surprisingly easy to remove, and the ugli reveals several light pink pegs bursting with an unusual amount of...

With so many Jamaican homeowners embracing modern design, I’m always pleasantly surprised when I see gingerbread houses, especially ones that seem relatively new. Gingerbread houses probably came to Jamaica around the turn of the century. My friend and I spotted this gingerbread house in Trelawny. We had spotted some lovely green bananas and stopped to buy a bunch. The house was directly across the street from the farmer and the...

Tamarind season runs from roughly January to March in Jamaica. The sour tasting fruit grows four or five in a pod, each with a small, flat black seed. When ripe, the pod becomes a light brown brittle shell that breaks easily to expose the sticky fruit. Tamarind is indigenous to Africa and likely came to the Jamaica and the Caribbean with enslaved Africans. It is high in tartaric acid, B...

Like most bloggers, I get two, sometimes three times as many spam as I do relevant comments. Spam is so annoying, I usually hit delete without even a second look. But late last year one caught my eye. The phrasing made me smile and I decided to keep it. And as I gathered more, I tried to imagine the individuals behind these comments. I mean, even if the spam is...

Like a lot of people, I can’t believe 2013 is over. While it wasn’t a bad year overall, it presented a major personal challenge that forced me to change course, literally and figuratively, early in the year. As many of my regular readers know, I’ve been exploring Jamaica, my home country, since late 2011. I’d hit most of the places I wanted to see but there are still more that...