My @Home Attempt at Raggabone's Jerk Pork / Therapy / Trip Report Preview

Just got home from Negril and had my first full day of work today. That was depressing so I tried my hand at this:

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Seems like only a few days ago I managed to catch a bite at Red Dragon, oh wait, it was last Thursday. I gotta say, tonight's dinner was delicious. It's amazing how good food comes out when you are really into it with TLC. I put all my love and longing for Jamaica into it plus took out all of my despair of being back at work into it. Having a great infrared grill doesn't hurt either. I can honestly say that, though not fully authentic (has my personal twists to it), it could hold its own against some Jamaican Jerk. And how bout a dirty banana for dessert (drinking it now) with Sangsters Rum Cream, banana, milk, ice cream, crushed ice and Appleton Extra all in the blender topped off with some overproof (saw this @ Xtabi) and a dab of choc syrup in the glass. It was my first day back to work, and man was I bummed so I needed therapy. Anyone else treat their depression in a similiar way?

As you can tell, I do love to cook. I live in New Orleans, so I grew up with great cajun and NOLA cooking. I'm from Honduras so I definitely have a latin cooking flair, and in the past few years I've been adding Jamaican to my cooking reportoire.

One lesson I've learned from my trips to Jamaica is to bring some of the stuff I enjoy home (not ALL of the stuff b/c you can get arrested). I would always bring a little bit on previous trips. My first trip, I had a bottle of overproof bust in my luggage on my flight home. Before the luggage came out on the carousel, I could smell the smell and knew exactly what happened before any luggage came out. My senses were strong as I was totally hungover from overproof rum punches at Bourbon Beach. Needless to say, everybody was pissed because everyone's luggage reeked of overproof. I always felt bad but was able to blend in because it was everywhere and the culprit couldn't be identified. Oops! On my second trip, I had my hot sauces thrown away by MBJ airport security and then my unopened bottle of rum cream fell out of my fridge and busted all over my kitchen floor. My 13 year old akita (R.I.P. Nina) happily licked it up off the ground and got buzzed. At least she enjoyed it, I let her have at it after removing the glass. But I found that the little bits you get to enjoy at home do help. So this time I did it right. I brought home an arsenal, a liter of Sangsters, liter of Appleton Extra, bottle of JB, few bottles of Jerk, few bottles of scotch bonnet hot sauce and a couple of little Appleton and overproof bottles:

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Now I'm set for a few weeks... As you can see, I've already broken in to some...

I'll follow up with a trip report soon after decompressing and my wife gets through her photos. We stayed 7 nights at Xtabi, went to friends' vow renewal ceremony at BGN, went with newbies, hung at Sunbeach on the beach, got a taste of Jamaican healthcare, saw the Sands at The Caves, went out to Alfred's and Beach Bar at night, hung with the greatest guide/driver the whole time, ate at Kuyaba, Xtabi, Ivan's, Best in The West, Ossie's, Rick's, Just Natural + others, went to Jerk Fest, went to Orange Hill, watched the Saints kick the crap out of the Giants (hehe), took the One Love Bus Pub Crawl, etc... I'll remember the rest in time. I did meet Sprat & husband briefly fresh off the plane with no sleep, met Poolguy Windsor on the pub crawl and said hi to Rob & Lisa again. Also met Sweetness at Westender Inn that was the last stop on the crawl.

More coming soon... Good night, gotta get ready for work in the morning.

Hey NOLanmr! I can so relate to the post negril depression. It's hard arriving back home and then jumping back into a full day of work. We handle it the same way, Makeshift dirty bananas and our best attempt at a Jamaican dish. Usually both fall short, but tastes good anyway!

It sounds like you had a lot of great experiences in Negril and met a lot of awesome boardies! look forward to hearing about the pubcrawl, I regret that we missed it on our last trip, and what your experience with Jamaican healthcare was - Hope you didn't get sick! Xtabi is also on my list of places I'd like to stay. How'd you like it?

I'm really looking forward to your upcoming trip report!

Hey Clarity,

I'm sure your dirty bananas and food are great. It will just come out more to your style and like me, it sounds like you enjoy the process of trying to recreate them. I really enjoyed Xtabi, location is perfect on the cliffs. We had a group of people who stayed in Breezes Grand Negril AI for the ceremony and they sometimes would come hang with us on the cliffs cuz they thought it was more chilled out. I did have an accident in Xtabi's caves and gashed the palm of my hand pretty bad that I had to go see paramedics. I'll cover all bases when I continue my complete trip report at some point soon. Right now I have a week's worth of clients anxious for their holiday advertising and ads to be bought.

Great pics, you truly love Negril .... How was Orange hill????

NOLAnmr.....are you a media buyer?

Gerryg - I really enjoyed the ride & scenery out to Orange Hill. My previous furthest point in that direction had only been Westender Inn so it was cool to see a more residential setting. Of course we did go on the mandatory "farm" expedition. I enjoyed that alot more than I thought I would. Honestly, I was not that excited about it as a couple of guys with us were. I've just never been the type to idolize and drool over High Times magazine centerfolds. But, once there I was very glad I decided to go. I realized that it's not something I see everyday and the aroma was just divine. Plus it was nice to experience the higher grade varieties of the island. I will include pix (maybe) and more info when I write my trip report.

Marley - Yes, media buying is probably the biggest part of what I do. I'm all over the place though. My "dayjob" is Marketing Director for Gardner, Realtors here in NOLA. It's the biggest real estate company in this area and I run the corporate marketing department in which we do ALL of the company advertising as well as produce a bi-weekly TV show, monthly magazine, weekly newspaper spread, etc... On top of that, I'm also this area's Regional Promo Manager for Silverback Artist Management out of Los Angeles. I noticed on your profile that you did some work in the reggae and music industry. Did you ever cross paths with any of the bands on our roster (Slightly Stoopid, Fishbone, The Expendables, Rebelution, The Beautiful Girls, Ivan Neville's Dumpstaphunk, The Aggrolites, etc...)? It's all mostly west coast reggae/rock and we're starting to make in imprint here in New Orleans starting with Dumpstaphunk. Then I do a ton of freelance marketing for live venues and semi-management/consultant to up & coming local groups from here as to setting up a business model, on-line presence, promo, advertising, booking, touring, contracts, licensing, etc... There is no rest for the wicked!

NOLAnmr.....
Yes! I know of Slightly Stoopid and also Rebelution, both play here quite frequently, in fact Rebelution is here (Tampa) next month. Have heard of the others as well.
I just started a new job (Sept.) at a small ad agency, just marketing/advertising in Florida but I am a Media Coordinator training to be a media planner/buyer....I am liking it a lot. Change is good they say.
I really miss working in the music business, and I still do some work for some of the gang, but not as heavy into it as I used to be.

Marley - That is great about your new job and sounds very exciting... I'm glad for you. Seems like a natural professional progression whith what you've done. It seems like the experience we get in music translates and prepares us well for other forms of marketing/advertising. I also use to do alot more in music and did it full-time up until hurricane Katrina threw us a huge monkey wrench and spread most of my people from Austin to ATL. The up-side is that it spread my regional contacts and I gained much more valuable experience than I even realized at a young age. So it helped as I got older and my bills kept GROWING. So now all of that helped me get my stable full-time job at Gardner in which I ended up running the department in 3 years. The sporadic income of the music industry now scares the hell out of me but I'm able to pick and choose more music work that I like and want to do, rather than running like a madman looking for everything I possibly could to put some $ together.

I'm glad you know of our Silverback ( www.silverbackmusic.com ) bands as well. I work with and know most of those guys well. As a matter of fact, Kyle from Stoopid was married in Sandals in Negril in 2009, I was married at CCLP in 2008 and I see you were recently married on the cliffs too (congrats). We also have a big New Years Eve blow out at Hard Rock in Orlando with Stoopid & Expendables. That may be a bit far for you though. Other than that, if you enjoy similiar types of music to those, check out my old band FUEGO at www.myspace.com/fuegoroots . We've been broken up for a couple of years and only recorded a 5 track demo but if anybody is interested, send me your email and I'll email you all of the trax for free. We weren't together but a few years but had moderate succes plus did 3 tours with HR of Bad Brains who are one of my greatest influences. I found I much rathered the business side of music than being a musician and having to be the responsible one in a band.

Looks delish, actually that made me real hungry.

Really looking forward to your trip report Nola. Good luck with the decompression. lol

that looks GOOD! if anyone can prepare Jerk at Home it would be a fellow cajun. Didn't you just LOVE the butt wiping the Saints gave the Gaints! Anyway back to your jerk and trip. Can't wait to see photos!! I WISH I still lived in the Big Easy because I would pay you to make me a serving, I miss Jamaica and jerk anything just that much!