Skip to main content

Doubles

Image
By
This is a chapter from my third book called Love letters

I love doubles. Every morning I eat one doubles. Some might say that is an obsession or an addiction and not love. The cynical among you might say I am just too lazy to prepare breakfast. Truth be told it is all of the above and more. For me doubles are a healthy, convenient, tasty and inexpensive breakfast option. I do not want to be a bad influence on anyone and encourage you to eat an unhealthy amount of doubles but for me, a doubles a day keeps my mind at bay. It is my cup of coffee. It is the familiar start of a good day for me. Consult your doctor and dietician to determine the dosage of doubles that is right for you. Maybe in the future we will see baked multigrain bara as an option.

My aunt asked my mother if I do not get fed up with the doubles and my quick retort was simply, "No. Not at all." When you are as expert as I am in the taste of doubles you figure out that the doubles taste differently everyday. No two baras are the same and no spoon of channa is the same and condiments are different all the time. The permutations are endless. Sometimes I get slight pepper that is not so slight. Like one time the doubles man had to warn me that the batch of peppers they got that time was extra hot because of the weather. Some days the doubles cooks are having a bad day and I can tell by the quality of doubles that day.

Sometimes I get surprised by a doubles that has the perfect hotness (as in temperature) by the time I reach home. That is when you say that the doubles lash that day. Life is like days with doubles, you never know exactly what you are going to get. Antigua says they have a beach for every day of the year and Trinidad has a doubles vendor for every day of the year and more. You could spend an entire year sampling all of Trinidad's doubles varieties. Doubles is a culinary orgasm that has you seeing double. This simple street food originating in the history of Trinidad's humble beginnings has been celebrated by food connoisseurs from around the world.

Anthony Bourdain described the doubles as, "the perfect street food: portable, affordable, and delicious. The chana is perfectly spiced and the bara is soft and chewy. It's the ultimate Trinidadian comfort food." Doubles is loved by many and so many people cannot be wrong. Show your hands if you bought doubles on the black market during the doubles drought of the pandemic. My love affair with doubles can be summed up in a poem I once wrote: The price is right, Gimme two with slight, Made in a flash, It does lash, Nutritious and fulling, When the wife not cooking.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mental health matters

By
It is 547am and I have decided to write. I have been living with a mental health diagnosis for more than 23 years. I am differently abled. Mental illness sometimes presents itself as a non-visible disability. A person with mental illness may look and function normally. Added to that we do not get to see the struggles happening internally. After 23 years I could say that I have much experience with my condition and may be able to offer words that may help others. There is plenty of stigma associated with mental illness. People think that the mentally ill are bad people, weak, or somehow less deserving of dignity and the treatment of the illness sometimes feels like punishment and is dehumanizing at times. There is plenty of good intentions and well meaning as well (do not get me wrong) but things could be better. And it happens at the highest level. A leader once said, "Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad." As the saying goes, who knows it feels it. I started a pr...
2 comments
Read more

Drums of freedom

By
It is 401am and I have decided to write. This Saturday, Trinidad and Tobago observes African Emancipation Day. It is a day to celebrate the journey to freedom and to honor those who sacrificed so much so that we could enjoy the freedoms we have today. Yet the journey is not over. As we celebrate how far we have come, let us also ask God to open our minds and hearts to the struggles that continue. Freedom is never something we should take for granted. Every day, we witness powerful interests around the world attempting to stifle freedom in pursuit of their own agendas and self-aggrandizement. Too often, they seek to divide in order to conquer. May we resist division with wisdom, courage, and compassion. May unity triumph over hatred, truth over deception, and love over fear. As we remember the past, may we also commit ourselves to protecting the freedoms of the present and building a more just future for generations to come. Happy African Emancipation Day. May God continue to guide us o...
Post a Comment
Read more

Love and joy

By
It is 230pm and I have decided to write. I have no topic but I want to write. I am thinking about God. I am thinking about life. I am grateful for God and life. I need a writing prompt. My friend Chatty gave me a pretty verbose prompt. Sit quietly for a moment and imagine that God asks you only one question: "What have you noticed?" Don't answer with theology. Answer with your life. What have you noticed about joy? About fear? About the way people love? About silence? About time? About your own heart? Where have you sensed God—not in miracles, but in ordinary moments? Where have you struggled to find Him? What has life been teaching you that you were too busy to hear before? Write honestly. Don't try to reach a conclusion. Let the page become a conversation rather than an argument. I immediately noticed the light streaming through the window that allows me to see the world. My first thought was how much we take things for granted. It is easy to feel lacking. To feel s...
Post a Comment
Read more