When Martha Stewart asked the founder of gourmet meat purveyor D'Artagnan about the hearty French dish of duck confit, garlic sausages and tarbais beans, Ariane Daguin responded in a thick Gascon accent that imparted culinary authority.

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Corn, sweet potato sprinkled with cinnamon, rice and beans, garlic, avocado, and codfish all get whipped into ice cream, as well as what seems like almost every available seasonal fruit, including quenepa, which only exists on the island.

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For dinner, Karzai joined the first family for some all-American fare: fried chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans, cheese and garlic biscuits and pineapple upside down cake.

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Whether it is avarai uttakka - local beans cooked with potato, tomato, onions, garlic and tempered with mustard seeds, or sandagai - roasted tomato sauteed with small onion, garlic and coconut ground to a fine paste - the "masala made carefully after dry-roasting 17 spices and not bought off the shops" is the key, Indira says.

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