Sacha Walters, Staff Reporter

Minnie Phillips dices red onions to add to the broad bean stew. - Photos by Norman Grindley/Deputy Chief Photographer

Minion Phillips does not like to be known as a chef to the stars, although those who have dined in her restaurant or have "just eaten from her pot" have included personalities such as Denzel Washington, Gregory Issacs, Third World, the Grateful Dead, the late Bob Marley and Dennis Brown.

Sister Minnie, as she is usually called, has always looked at food from a different perspective. "There is just more to food than just eating and filling your belly," she said. She opened Minnie's Ethiopian Herbal Health Food Restaurant in the '70s where vegetarian meals, then a unique restaurant theme, were the speciality. Other locations followed. Her restaurant was always a place where people could come and have camaraderie and even solve their problems. It was never about who you were. Pictures of the famous never hang on her restaurant walls; she said oftentimes they would leave before she recognised who they were.

Relocated

Sister Minnie now lives in Ghana. "I'm just sharing myself between my ancestral country and my birth country," she said. There she runs a restaurant with her nephew, Joel Smith.

Food caught up with her in Kingston where she is visiting her son, politician, and Flair guest editor, Mikael Phillips. The master cook shared her recipe for broad beans and rice, and prepared it for our team. She has always been committed to not only using unprocessed foods but supporting local markets.

Her secret for this dish is adding finely chopped ginger to prevent the stomach problems usually associated with beans.

Always on a mission, she has just completed a cook book called Stir It Up with 300 recipes to be published in August.

Her next mission is to get Air Jamaica to set up a direct flight from Ghana to Jamaica. An effort she believes will open up a lot of opportunities for Jamaicans to package much of the abundant foods in Ghana.

Recipe

Broad beans and rice, a colourful vegetarian dish prepared by Minnie Phillips.

Ingredients

1/2 quart broad beans

Juice of 1 coconut

2 doz string beans

2 carrots

1/2 tomato

1/2 tsp pimentos

1 small red onion

2 stalks scallion

2 cloves garlic

2 sprigs of thyme

1/2 tsp chopped Scotch Bonnet pepper

2 cho choes

1 small sweet pepper

2 inches chopped ginger

Method

1. Boil broad beans until tender.

2. Add coconut milk and boil until slightly thick. 3. Add vegetables and allow to simmer, ensuring vegetables still have a crunch.

(Serves five)