Just before Easter I learned of the resurrection of Pam’s
Kitchen. I am envious of all of those people who get to taste
my Aunt Pam’s hand.
Pam’s Kitchen, a West Indian restaurant run by my Aunt
Pam and her husband Tony Churaman, is in the dreary city of
Seattle, Washington, in the northwest corner of the US.
People there eat shrimp cocktails made with fat, cold-water
shrimp and steamy clam chowder served with sourdough bread.
Now, Seattleites feast on Aunt Pam’s light and fluffy
dalpuri.
When those yellow split peas seasoned with coriander come
tumbling out of their roti, I’m sure they feel this is
what gold must taste like.
From all the rave reviews in newspapers and magazines throughout
Seattle—even the Seattle Times—Pam’s Kitchen
is a hit.
I told you that I came to Trinidad because I read VS Naipaul’s
Miguel Street, but I stayed in Trinidad because Aunt Pam fed
me cascudura. I think it was her plan. I remember looking
at that plate of black bony fish and thinking: I can’t
eat this.
“Taste it,” Aunt Pam said. “The fish is sweet.”
There was no way to resist Aunt Pam’s curry and I didn’t
want to be impolite, so I ate the ugly fish, not knowing the
legend about never being able to leave Trinidad once you eat
cascadura.
I remember Aunt Pam smiling and laughing the whole time I
ate. What’s worse is that I became hooked on cascudura.
By the time the legend caught up with me through a short story
by Samuel Selvon, I realised I had eaten far too much cascudura
to ever escape Trinidad.
I soon learned Aunt Pam could curry anything, and don’t
even mention her stewed pork. I’d block my ears while
she killed her own pig for the pot.
It’s been nearly 20 years and I can still hear the pig
squealing just as easily as I can still see the blue flame
dancing under her cooking pot.
There’s nothing like the smell of burning brown sugar
rising from a pot in the tiny kitchen of a small board house
in the middle of a cane field.
I can close my eyes and smell Pam’s pot and the burning
sugar cane crackling around us.
Pam knew the secret of blending chadon beni, garlic, chive
and onion in the most tantalising way so that the meat didn’t
even matter.
It was the sauce that counted, thick and pungent with just
enough pepper to perk up the taste buds.
When I first came to Trinidad I lived with Aunt Pam. Her house
had no electricity or running water. We carried water from
a standpipe and we ate supper by a pitch oil lamp, but it
was the best home I ever had in Trinidad.
Years later I moved to town, but I had to go home every Saturday
and Sunday. I packed up my two babies and headed for Pam’s
house.
On the way I’d buy a freshly plucked chicken from Harry’s
chicken farm in Warrenville.
With chicken in hand, I’d arrive worn out from a long
day’s work as a journalist chasing Cro Cro or some other
calypsonian for a story.
While my children, Ijanaya and Jairzinho, discovered the wonders
of sucking sugar-cane stalks and the fine art of dipping sada
roti into curry, I felt all the tension of the week disappearing.
No sleeping pill can match the soporific effect of a Warrenville
breeze sweeping across the Caroni plains.
I’d wake up to the smell of curry drifting from Aunt
Pam’s pot. That was the place where I have best known
peace, only disturbed by low-flying jumbo jets coming in for
a landing at Piarco. They flew low enough to read the name
of the airline.
Every time one passed I thought about my arrival in Trinidad.
I never contemplated my departure on one of those planes.
I knew I was here to stay. How could one give up good friends
and family, a good job and the perfect place to raise children?
It was inevitable that Pam would venture from her own kitchen
and start a restaurant on the Southern Main Road in Warrenville.
Business boomed in Pam’s Kitchen. It was more than a
family affair now. Pam pulled her friend Daisy Pablo into
the family business.
There’s something very heart-warming about seeing people
use their God-given talents and build a business and a friendship
like Pam and Daisy did.
There was as much laughter as food that came from Pam’s
Kitchen.
Maybe Pam’s Kitchen was successful because Aunt Pam and
Daisy always cooked with love. You can sense when someone
throws a dish together or when someone treats food preparation
like an art.
Now, Aunt Pam proudly flies the flag of T&T in her Seattle
restaurant. She brings in steelbands and I’m sure Tony
is playing some Sparrow and David Rudder for the guests.
One of the saddest days of my life was when Pam decided to
leave Trinidad. I guess talent like that couldn’t be
confined to a sugar cane field in Warrenville. I still miss
Aunt Pam.
From her I learned the value of a good laugh and a good meal—especially
if it comes with friends and family. I learned that memories
can evoke a sense of smell.
