This man reminded me of the men back in Turks with his and cotton, short sleeved button up.

My girl Yolanda jamming to Jill Scott

2 a.m. dessert and coffee

Card reading in the bayou, anyone?

This guy sells organic ice pops with interesting flavors like strawberry~basil and pineapple~polenta. Plus he’s a sharp dresser I staked him out to get a picture

There’s a few more… BRB

Conch Calling ~

I slinked sheepishly up to my father who had taken his place next to the table with all the food at the party.

“Daddy what are those?” I asked pointing to a plate of conch fritters.  Dad wasn’t fooled. I knew those fluffy, fried-to-a-golden-brown balls of batter stuffed with steamy, muscular morsels of shellfish all too well, and he knew it.  I was jonesing for a taste of the mollusk’s deep fried meat.   We had to act fast.  He’d have to hand it off before mom could catch us or it would be the end of our scheming. I grew up in the Turks and Caicos Islands, a leading exporter of conch and the location for the world’s only conch farm.  Conch was served at almost every special occasion—conch chowder, conch salad, cracked conch, conch fritters, conch and rice, steamed conch.  I wasn’t allowed to eat any of it.

My God-fearing Seventh Day Adventist, Jamaican mother raised me on the strict no pig, no birds with webbed feet and no shellfish diet of the religion’s prophet Ellen G. White.  To her, conch was unclean, bottom feeding sea vermin, unfit for human consumption.

“You’re body is a temple,” she’d say. “The Bible says you mustn’t eat those things.”

My father is a fisherman’s son from North Caicos, turned politician and workaholic real estate developer.  Growing up, his after school chores included diving for conch, beating the meat and drying it on my grandparents rooftop before sending it off to Haiti to trade for fruits, vegetables, household goods and sweets.  He converted to Adventism before he married my mother, but conch was in his blood, he just couldn’t quit it.

Like father like daughter, I was hot for conch.  As a child, I wanted to taste conch more than I wanted to find fruit roll-ups in my lunch box.  I looked forward to the rare social gathering when my dad would slip me a fritter inconspicuously, in the absence of mom’s watchful eye.  I’d quickly shove the hot ball in my mouth, sucking in air to cool my tongue in between ecstatic chomps and find a corner to perform my victory dance, swaying my head from side to side, my cheeks stuffed with our yummy secret.

When I was nine I left the Turks and Caicos Islands, the conch and my dad behind. My parents divorced and my siblings and I moved to Florida with our mom.  Back then, I was young and fickle-hearted.  Easily seduced by American delights like the Whopper and the Chicken McNugget, conch became a distant memory.  After graduating from a Seventh Day Adventist High School I moved to New York City, lost my religion and opened my mouth to all the foods that had once been forbidden.  Shrimp and mussels were new ocean pleasures that intrigued my tongue and throat, but they were no substitute for the cartilage texture and slightly rind-like flavor of conch.  By the time I moved back to the Turks and Caicos in July 2007, I was a pig ingesting; shrimp swallowing; duck devouring Badventist.  With an open mind, I made it my secret mission to eat conch whenever I could.

I slurped deep burgundy, tomato-based, rum-drenched conch chowder on rainy days.  I ate dried conch in my peas and rice at special dinners at my grandparents’ North Caicos home.  I lapped up lime-soaked conch salad after long days at the beach and stuffed my face with piping hot conch fritters dipped in spicy aioli while reciting my victory dance in my seat.

On a bright Sunday afternoon, in a patch of shallow water with soft grassy sand just off of Little Water Cay, we were reunited on our quest for conch.  It was my first conching trip with my dad and living in New York had made me a little squeamish.  I raised my flippers high and I sloshed through the sticky sand searching for the smooth horns of conch shells poking out of the green algae growing on top of them. While I sheepishly approached my first prey, I turned my head to see my father’s trunk-like legs splashing their way back to the boat, his arms filled with conch.  By the time I grabbed my catch and popped back up holding it upside down and far away from my face, he had headed out for more.

I watched my dad return to the boat.  He breathed heavily as he carried another armful of conch, close to his body.  The sun caused him to squint and he exposed the gaps in his white, gapped teeth.  Dropping his new pile onto the boat and sorting through the good conch and the ones lucky enough to return to sea with their bodies in tact, he laughed the kind of breathy laugh that accompanies hard work, ending with a long raspy sigh.

He was enjoying himself.  He was relaxed, transformed into the conch diving, fisherman’s kid from Bottle Creek, who I had never known.  I watched him crack holes in the tops of the conch shells with a hammer and pull the snaillike body out of its home by its giant claw.   He peeled the dark outer skin off to reveal the smooth, pearl white, meat, which our boat captain chopped and tossed with onions, peppers, lime juice and salt, before shuffling it into little plastic bowls.

My dad handed me my portion and I let the fresh, chewy meat slide traces of scotch bonnet and lime down my throat.  I licked the salt from the ocean off my lips and smiled a squinted smile at my father, revealing the similar spaces in my teeth.   He slapped my thigh with his big, rough hand and followed it up with a tight squeeze of my shoulders, the way he’s always done when he’s tried to connect with me.   And for the first time in a long time, we had connected.  We were partners again in our pursuit of conch.

I have returned to the U.S. after living in Turks and Caicos for a year and this time, the conch has remained with me.  Living in New York City, where I can find everything to eat at almost any time, my thirst for my native mollusk is unquenchable.  I confess that I haven’t searched the city high and low for conch sashimi or carpaccio, because I know it will not be the same as digging my toes into the sand at Da Conch Shack in Blue Hills, listening to a live band and biting into fluffy conch fritters dipped in spicy aioli or sitting on a boat, in the shallow waters, near an uninhabited cay scooping up fresh-off-the-boat conch salad with potato chips, leaning on the shoulder of my fellow conch-quistador, my dad.

My girl Amber Votel just styled these commercials for novelist Sherrilyn Kenyon’s “Born of Night” and “Born of Fire” which her dude Chris Roth directed and created all of the graphics for.  I call them a power couple.  Hova & B come to mind. HA.

Peep the beginning of the story Here.

Check out the rest of the story here. And keep up with all the cocktail scene in NYC at the Dizzy Fizz.

This is what Ekene’s Wearing

Jacket: Top Man / Shirt: American Apparel / Pants: Uniqlo /

Shoes: Vintage / Belt: Uniqlo / Tie: Ralph Lauren / Glasses: Cazal

This is what Ekene Does

Good times! My comments to come later… I’m tired y’all!

On Tuesday, Compton asked me to skip a really dope show at South Paw in Park Slope BK with Grand Puba and U God put on by Frank151 to go to IMPOSE Mag‘s showcase at Don Pedro’s with Ninja Sonik.  We played rock paper scissors and I submitted to the agony of defeat (U God reference) when her scissors slayed my paper and went to DP’s.  As I was lamenting missing the show at South Paw, two young boys stepped on the stage and made it all better!  They’re called Dub Defender and they’re drawn out spacey beats, and sax and melodica playing put me into a rub-a-dub stylee big time.

Here’s a link to DD’s “Change is Great“.

This is my official friend request to Dub Defender.  Lets be friends so I can pimp you on Bobbiworld.

Some more pics of Dub Defender & Ninja Sonic and the cute kids at the show after the jump. 

Enough with your pipe dreams about going to Africa this year. It’s October 9th and your rent isn’t even paid.  Since you can’t make it there, why don’t you help Katrina get there!  Better known to her crew as “teach,” Katrina is heading to Rwanda to volunteer as an English teacher for a year, through nonprofit org World Teach.  You can get involved in her project on Monday October 19 by showing up at No. 7 and having a raucous time.

A $20 donation gets you in the door.  The beers are as cheap as they are at your neighborhood bodega and instead of sitting on the couch watching reruns of “Family Guy” (which I acknowledge is a totally legitimate way to spend your time), you can be helping some school kids in Rwanda learn a common denominator language, all in a Monday night.

Her music is just as filling as her BBQ y’all and she’s playing tomorrow night at 169 Bar in the LES/ChiTown. The show starts at 9:30.  Go see her!

In case you can’t make it tomorrow.  There’s a listing of her upcoming shows after the jump.

October 23, 2009
Day: Friday
Time:11:00pm

Where: Parkside Lounge
317 E. Houston st
@ Attorney St.
(212) 673-6270

November 8, 2009
Day: Sunday
Time: 7:00pm
Damage: $10

Where: Little Field
622 Degraw St
Brooklyn, NY 11217
(718) 855-3388

November 11, 2009
Day: Wenesday
Time: 7:00pm
Damage: 35$ per person includes dinner

Where: Green Spaces NYC
394 Broadway
New York, NY 10013
(646) 783-8616
www.rabbitmafia.com

November 12, 2009
Day: Thursday
Time: 9:00pm
Damage: tba

Where: Brooklyn Masonic Temple
317 Clermont Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11205-4605
(718) 638-1256

Photo re-cap after the jump. Hard Fest photos stolen from RCRD LBL, Photographer Loren Wohl.