At the Flatbush Central Caribbean Marketplace in Brooklyn, the scent of freshly grated nutmeg mingles with the jars of cloves, cinnamon and cocoa balls stacked on the counter of MintPorch Cafe. It smells like Christmas.
Chef and owner Isra Gordon pauses, taps the microplane against her palm, then leans back over a pot of lentil soup simmering gently on the stove in the narrow kitchen. Gordon cooks alone, taking and serving orders among a maze of other Caribbean vendors in the market.
And she doesn’t compromise on spices — she says they infuse everything in her vegan alkaline cooking, a diet she believes promotes better health and pH balance in the body. The menu is entirely plant-based, centered on vegetables, fruits, herbs, spices and roots, all designed to nourish the body while honoring Caribbean traditions.
Naturally, she insists that some spices have to be imported from the Caribbean.
“There’s something in the soil,” she said. “That energy comes with it.”
Those ingredients — nutmeg, clove, turmeric and cocoa — anchor MintPorch in place and time. For Caribbean customers, the flavors offer familiarity. For others, they bring a novel warmth.
“Back home, you don’t need warmth,” she said. “Here, people do. So I bring warmth.”
It is December 17 — one week before Christmas Eve — and for Gordon, this is the real beginning of the holiday.
Instead of traditional Caribbean black cake soaked in rum, Gordon is making a pudding from sweet potatoes, beets and carrots. It will be slowly steamed for hours and seasoned heavily with Caribbean spices.
These dishes draw from Gordon’s upbringing in Grenada, where Christmas centered on preparation, sharing and community.
In Grenada, the chef says that Christmas begins long before the day itself. Families cleaned and cooked together. Children pounded spices and helped pick produce. Recipes were informed by the season — the food that would show up on your plate was the food that was growing in the ground – and in Gordon’s case, it was often from her family’s farm.
That early relationship with farming and understanding food seasons shapes her holiday cooking now. At MintPorch, she recreates the flavors of a Caribbean Christmas while optimizing recipes for health. Pigeon peas are paired with chickpeas for added protein. White sugar is replaced with dates or agave.
“I don’t want to compromise health just to say this is culture,” she said. “I think our ancestors would want to see us live long lives.”
A philosophy shaped by the land
Gordon’s journey to this Brooklyn kitchen began in 1981 when she arrived in New York from Grenada at age 17. The transition was harsh.
“I wanted to leave because it was just so hard,” she recalled. “No parents here. People seemed rough on the street. Nothing was easy.”
When Gordon first arrived in the United States, the holidays were marked by isolation and scarcity. She worked low-wage jobs under the table. Some days there was very little to eat. On better days, she made a small pot of pigeon pea soup, a dish she knew how to stretch and rely on. It was a taste of home, something familiar she could return to. She described it as “magical.”
She recalls her first Christmas here as a teenager, undocumented and alone. “I cried the whole day,” she said. There was no cake, no ginger beer, none of the foods that had defined Christmas back home in Grenada.
Her path to opening her own cafe was long and deliberate. She trained at the New York Restaurant School, spent 27 years at the Glorious Food catering company, and taught at the French Culinary Institute. She worked her way up in the kitchen, led her own team and studied functional and holistic nutrition to explore food as a healing practice.
Her emphasis on nourishment comes not only from tradition but from watching elders struggle with chronic illnesses. As a child, she wondered why diabetes, high blood pressure and dementia were so common in her community.
“My calling is to bring wellness into the community by way of food,” she said. “It’s how I care for people.”
Gordon has been part of the Flatbush Central Caribbean Marketplace since 2013, first as a vendor and later as a permanent business owner when she committed to MintPorch Cafe. Along the way, she faced closures, redevelopment and relocation, at one point losing all the equipment and money she had invested.
Over the years, Gordon developed her own spice blends, formulated recipes based on holistic principles and she built a practice around teaching others how to cook for health optimization. She offers classes on making soups, stews, and healthier Caribbean dishes, and uses her kitchen to educate customers about nutrition and wellness.
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Customers now come daily to her booth which is open from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Some customers seek her out for her vegan alkaline options. Others come for their favorite holiday eats.
你知道吗？非公民办理驾照时的这个错误可能会导致选民欺诈
Sorrel, a hibiscus-based drink common across the Caribbean, is always available. Ginger health aid flows freely. Spiced nuts recall childhood treats. Pigeon peas stay on the menu year-round.
This holiday season, as she packages her steamed pudding doused with a spiced coconut sauce, Gordon says she is offering more than desserts. She wants to create holiday memories where celebration and well-being coexist, and where the taste of home can point toward a healthier future.
“Every day I stand knowing that I’m serving in my calling, that’s a win,” she said. “Success is the accomplishment of the thing that you desire. I desired to have a way to serve people something healthy and build it into others.”
