Backyard Living

 Don't you just love the warmer months when you can enjoy getting together with family and friends, especially for outdoor cookouts. Some of my most memorable experiences are of doing simple and enjoyable things outdoors. Whether it was sitting in my backyard in my hometown eating mangoes and  guineps, playing a game of dominoes with family and friends or even enjoying a meal that was prepared outside, these simple times are treasured.

I loved it whenever I heard someone say they were going to "run a boat" this meant they were going to do some cooking, not at a time that was  the usual meal time. I loved it even more when this was done outdoors. Anything cooked outside with firewood, or on a charcoal grill tastes better to me. I love that smoked flavor you get. I don't do much cooking myself so I was very surprised when I came across smoke in a bottle. "Liquid Smoke", imagine that! I had some soup from a backyard cook out once and I haven't tasted anything better since. I'm a soup lover, so my taste buds were watering with excitement while waiting for it. I can still visualize the casava, breadfruit, yam, potatoes etc, cooked almost too soft but was just right. I enjoy soup exactly like that. I will have soup every single day and not get tired of it. Last year while on a visit back home  in Jamaica, I was served coconut rundown with wheat dumplings, boiled breadfruit and bananas. God bless the hands that prepared it. It had been years since I've had rundown and it was delicious! Rundown is made with salted mackerel and coconut milk seasoned perfectly with a custard like finish. This should be a bit runny hence the name "rundown".

There was a local eatery close to the airport we would go to on Fridays to have steamed fish with pak choi. It was right on the ocean front  and such a great place to be on the weekends. We would sit on logs or any other thing you could find that substituted as a seat and had great conversations. It was not your traditional restaurant but had a backyard ambience and people loved it just the way it was. More and more people would show up from around the island and even visitors from overseas eventually. Conchs, crabs, oysters and other seafood dishes were also available. Someone got the idea to fix up the place because of all the attention it was getting. They would soon realize that people were coming there because of the simplicity of it. That backyard vibe was very inviting.

After its new look, it was never the same. It lost what made it special. Traditional chairs replaced the logs. Your steamed fish was no longer served in foil but on plates. The entire experience in my opinion was ruined. I've seen this happen so many times over the years. Someone decides to make changes to something that was already working well, which ends up ruining the good thing they originally had. Change is good but not for everything.  There's nothing wrong with making the most of the simple things in life.

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