Nom Nom

Every night it's the same question - not "What's for dinner?" but "Do you feel like eating anything?" 

Don't get me wrong, we love to eat. It's just that sometimes it too hot to eat or cook so you don't take having a meal for granted. Compared to here, back home we cook much more. Sometimes, like today, we will have eaten lunch out so we wouldn't eat a second larger meal. If we skipped lunch we might be into a more elaborate dinner. Maybe one of us cut up some fruit and put out some nuts and we've been picking at that. There is no rule, not like one of us cooks all the time, or one of us HAS to do anything. We just kind of do it, whenever we're hungry. If one of us gets an energy spurt and made a pot of rice and beans or George is into his mushroom veg "sludge" sauce,  we'll have that for a couple days. Mangoes ripen into soft, sweet, tasty fruits you wouldn't know from the grocery stores back home. Delectable!

It doesn't mean we're not eating right. Homemade food here is basically preservative free, often organic and if you choose well, can nearly always be vegetarian. It's made by hand by a person standing in front of you on hot stove. We aren't vegetarians, but I tend to choose a non-meat meal over a meat one. It's all in the balance. 
Wine is made from grapes, right?

  


Which reminds me.... George is on a quest for the best beer cooler. This is the latest. THE FRIDGE. You keep it in the freezer.
 'nuff sed.

So I was saying - before The Fridge was plopped down in front of me - Maybe we eat out often here because not only are there so many good places to go and get no frills home cooked meals, but it's just too danged hard to cook here on a BBQ propane cooktop. And even if I wanted to cook, the ingredients might not be available. I've had a plan, gotten some of the stuff, not been able to get the rest, and had the first stuff spoil. Remember the 4 days it took me to get the lentils for the stew? Well, it did! So we let others cook for us. They do a great job! 

There is no shortage of interesting and different places to eat. We have our favorites and we make the rounds. Unfortunately, eating out is kind of a sticker shock. A pound of tuna salad is $8.00. You can't get out of a place like Shipwreck or Aqua Bistro for dinner without having dropped $80 easy, with wine or a drink. Everything has to be shipped here and the cost is high. That's why finding a reasonable well made home cooked meal like Miss Vie's or the Tourist Trap is such a treasure. 

 It's all in what we're in the mood for. One thing that's easy to do here is find delicious local foods. Menus stay the same at each restaurant and they have their specialties. If we're in the mood for a good fish - Shipwreck.  Light snacks - Island Blues. Pizza and breakfast - Donkey Diner. You get the drift. The decision is made before we pick the place. This is just in Coral Bay, it doesn't count going into Town, there's a whole other list of good places there. 

We tend to eat well. There's plenty of fruit, fish left over from last nights dinner (Blackened Grouper! Citrus Mahi Mahi! ).  I can't say I like Conch Fritters, or I'm drawn to the idea of the stewed goat. I can't bring myself to try either.  Island Blues has a great chicken cheese steak sandwich , depending on who is the cook that day, and a new tofu Thai noodle plate I really like. If the cook is drunk or hungover, you could be disappointed.

SOME ISLAND SPECIALTIES ...... You Decide.

Pate:  Said "Patty". Yum! They're like a British pasty or our apple turnover without fruit. A flaky baked dough envelope filled with beef, conch, veggies, or  salted codfish.

Fish & Fungi: "Said "Foon-ghee". A fish like Red Snapper or Old Wife, is pan fried or broiled served whole (they say the eyes are the best part ) . The side is a mix of cornmeal, water and butter stirred into a mashed potato consistency. 

Kallaloo: Spinach, Okra and greens cooked into a stew. Conch, crab, salt beef or smoked pig tail can be added for extra gusto.

Dumb Bread: I love Dumb Bread! Olivia cooks it the traditional way Tuesday-Friday 10-2pm at the Annaberg Historic Site, serving it up with mango jam and a slice of sweating cheese. White flour dough sweetened with coconut is placed in a skillet and set over hot coals. More hot coals are placed over the lid to cook the bread from above and below, until it's toasty brown. I think you could make this in a cast iron skillet in an oven, but I've never tried it. 

Miss Olivia Cooking Dumb Bread

Goat Water: Primarily goat meat in a thick, savory brown broth.  This is eaten for breakfast. 

Whelks and Rice: Said "Wilks" . A real delicacy, we see people gathering the whelk snail off the spit in front of the house. Sizzled in garlic butter and folded into white rice. L'escargot, anyone?

"Wilk"

Johnny Cakes: Basically fried bread - round balls of  deep fried dough, served with chicken or honey. Not as sweet as a funnel cake. Another YUM.

Roti: This is like a flat tortilla with stew ladled on top, but it's more often served as a burrito, or wrap. Thin flat bread is wrapped around a mixture of potatoes and curried chicken, conch, or seafood. A real treat! 

Bullfoot Soup: I don't have to tell you what this is made from. Yucko! It's a "garbage " soup of leftover provisions - yams, carrots, potatoes, peas, whatever, tossed into a very spicy (it would have to be, right?) broth with You Know What.

Top it off with Soursop juice, passionfruit, guava or limeade. Wow!

Desserts are fruity rather than cake-y or sugary. There are breads - banana bread, ginger bread, carrot bread with pineapple and cinnamon. Fruit tarts are popular - pineapple, coconut, papaya and mango. Plantains are both a side dish and a dessert.

And this is an interesting factoid that I always suspected but didn't think about much - STJ small businesses don't like change.  Coins. Starfish Market routinely rounds the checkout price down to the nearest nickel. If the register says $56.72, the checker will say $56.70. Seriously. Imagine THAT Whole Foods!  And when that register drawer pops open, you’re likely to see maybe one very unwelcome penny in there. Whether or not this is actually a formal store policy, I don’t know. They don’t ever round UP, so they’re not making it up over the course of the day.

I know they’re just pennies, but in the course of a year at a grocery store, that’s got to add up to some sort of large figure.

OK well, it's getting late. I had my anti-itch remedy of iced Rex Goliath CRW (Crappy Red Wine) for medicinal purposes. That itchy, suppurating rash can only be subdued by certain drastic means. I'll probably need a second dose just to be sure. All this talk of good cooking is making me hungry.

By the way, look back up at the photo of Miss Olivia cooking at the traditional stove. Now compare with this photo of the ruined kitchen at Francis Bay. Same design to a "T"! Or a "D" for DUMB BREAD!