Sleepy north-coast coves, banana-boat history and Noël Coward's hilltop hideaway at Firefly.
No places listed in St. Mary just yet — new spots are approved by hand every week. Know a local business here? Put it on the map.
One Sunday I faked sick to skip church, ran down to my cousin Nadine's house, and cooked pumpkin soup out of nothing but water and half my grandaunt's cocoa harvest. When church let out, she walked over, stirred the pot, looked inside, and started to laugh.
Read the storyEvery summer my sister and I were sent up to Hamilton Mountain. My great-grandmother was blind, but each morning she watched Naseberry Street on the radio while my grandaunt made cornmeal porridge and cocoa tea, and we ate on the porch as the mist lifted off the valley.
Read the storyFitzy and I roasted breadfruit over a fire, then decided the one place to hold our Bruce Lee battle was my grandaunt's rose garden, the one spot we were never allowed. One wrong kick, and we flattened a rose bush she had babied for years.
Read the storyAfter Hurricane Gilbert tore across the island in 1988, we went out to gather the fruit the storm knocked down. A little tan chihuahua ran up to me and refused to leave. I named her Gilbert, after the storm that brought her.
Read the storyThere was a boy next door who came from America every summer. We weren't allowed to leave our yards, so we talked through the fence, all day, every day. I have a scar from those talks and not one memory of what we said.
Read the storyIn Jamaica, Saturday is soup day. Pumpkin, yam, coco, green breadfruit, all of it simmering since morning. In my family it came with a warning: every time my mother put a dumpling in my bowl, one of my teeth fell out.
Read the storyAt six years old I would march to my cousin's house with a pot and provisions, ready to cook like my grand-aunt. My big cousins would vanish like roaches when the light comes on. It took me twenty years to understand why.
Read the storyI plan my trips to Jamaica around breadfruit season. Years of low-carb discipline, and roast breadfruit is the one thing I refuse to give up. A short love letter to Jamaica's most faithful tree.
Read the storyEvery year when the rains came, the crabs crossed the road by the thousands, and my father would stop the car, grab a duffel bag, and put the whole family to work. One crab got the last laugh.
Read the storyBrand new sneakers, dressed like a doll, my father watching from the sideline, and me running dead last. So I stopped in the middle of the race, kicked off the sneakers, and ran the way Jamaica made me.
Read the storyLawyer. Doctor. Teacher. Then it reached my turn and I said it plain: I want to be a fisherwoman. The whole class laughed, and nobody ever asked me why.
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