Cook Calypso

Cook Calypso is a culinary exploration of Caribbean delights, flavors, cuisines, and beautiful bites. It also contains recipes which will help you transform your ordinary food into extraordinary culinary works of art.

It’s time for a savory soirée—but something sinister is stewing—in Raquel V. Reyes’s second delightful Caribbean Kitchen mystery, perfectly delicious for fans of Mia P. Manansala. Fall festivities are underway in Coral Shores, Miami. Cuban-American cooking show star Miriam Quiñones-Smith wakes up to find a corpse in her front yard. The body by the fake tombstone is the woman that was kicked out of the school's Fall Festival the day before. Miriam's luck does not improve. Her passive-aggressive mother-in-law puts her in charge of the Women's Club annual gala. But this year, it's not canapes and waltzes. Miriam and her girlfriends-squad opt for fun and flavor. They want to spice it up with Caribbean food trucks and a calypso band. While making plans at the country club, they hear a volatile argument between the new head chef and the club's manager. Not long after, the chef swan dives to his death at the bottom of the grand staircase. Was it an accident? Or was it Beverly, the sous chef, who is furious after being passed over for the job? Or maybe it was his ex-girlfriend, Anastasia? Add two possible poisonings to the mix and Miriam is worried the food truck fun is going to be a major crash. As the clock ticks down and the body count goes up, Miriam's life is put in jeopardy. Will she connect the dots or die in the deep freeze? Foodies and mystery lovers alike will savor the denouement as the truth is laid bare in this simmering stew of rage, retribution, and murder.

Soak up the island spirit, mix up a pitcher of Margaritas, and learn to create fantastic feasts. These fantastic Caribbean recipes take cooks to the Islands--right in their own backyards.

From the land where the hot dish began comes a delicious array of kitchen-tested recipes featuring traditional favorites and modern meals for today's casserole cook.

WELCOME TO HELL The prison ship Perdition, a floating city where the Conglomerate’s most dangerous criminals are confined for life, orbits endlessly around a barren asteroid. Life inside is even more bleak. Hailed as the Dread Queen, inmate Dresdemona “Dred” Devos controls one of Perdition’s six territories, bordered on both sides by would-be kings eager to challenge her claim. Keeping them at bay requires constant vigilance, as well as a steady influx of new recruits to replace the fallen. Survival is a constant battle, and death is the only escape. Of the newest convicts, only one is worth Dred’s attention. The mercenary Jael, with his deadly gaze and attitude, may be the most dangerous criminal onboard. His combat skill could give her the edge she needs, if he doesn't betray her first. Unfortunately, that's what he does best. Winning Jael’s allegiance will be a challenge, but failure could be worse than death… FIRST IN A NEW SERIES!

This is Volume II of two volumes. American Silhouettes is primarily a study in human character in its dealing with the adversity of life. The setting is America during the last quarter of the twentieth century. More specifically it focuses on the struggle of two generations of a small African American family whose destiny encounters more than its share of horrific tribulations. It is a window on life, love, happiness, suffering, and death of the members of this small vulnerable resilient family from the South, that moves to Washington, D.C. for a better life, only to find a very short interlude of happiness, followed by a deep plunge into another cycle of trauma and despair; not death though, that would be too easy; and when death finally does come, it is a liberation of the body and soul. The saga continues with the cycle of misfortune repeating itself in a new age, a new generation with the same finality as if their destiny had been wickedly predefined. From Bridgeville SC to Washington DC, and from Rome to Dakar, their saga brings to light the evil and virtuousness of man in its most natural occurrence, as a part of daily life. The story brings together various individuals of different and sometimes opposite background and describes either the passions of their encounters or the clashes resulting from their conflicts. It analyses the most wonderful passions of love, beauty and happiness, and juxtaposes the horrible ugliness of hate and abuse. It incorporates the duty and responsibility of man within the context of our society and dwells into the aberrations of its marginal sector. It is an interweaved matrix of emotional extremes. It demonstrates that evil has no color, no race, no religion, and that it transcends the social fabric of our society.

The Steelband Movement examines the dramatic transformation of pan from a Carnival street music into a national art and symbol in Trinidad and Tobago. By focusing on pan as a cultural process, Stephen Stuempfle demonstrates how the struggles and achievements of the steelband movement parallel the problems and successes of building a nation. Stuempfle explores the history of the steelband from its emergence around 1940 as an assemblage of diverse metal containers to today's immense orchestra of high-precision instruments with bell-like tones. Drawing on interviews with different generations of pan musicians (including the earliest), a wide array of archival material, and field observations, the author traces the growth of the movement in the context of the grass-roots uprisings of the 1930s and 1940s, the American presence in Trinidad in World War II, the nationalist movement of the postwar period, the aftermath of independence from Britain in 1962, the Black Power protests and the oil boom of the 1970s, and the recession of recent years. The Steelband Movement suggests that the history of pan has involved a series of negotiations between different ethnic groups, socioeconomic classes, and social organizations, all of which have attempted to define and use the music according to their own values and interests. This drama provides a window into the ways in which Trinidadians have constructed various visions of a national identity.

Contains "Records in review."