From the monthly archives:

June 2009

The Grenada Chocolate Company

June 28, 2009

Given a choice between savory and sweet, nine times out of ten I’ll go for savory. And the tenth time? I choose chocolate. I do like sweets, I just don’t eat them very often. But we always have a bar of chocolate or three chilling in the fridge. Bones claims it’s his chocolate but if Audrey [...]

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Tomato Choka

June 27, 2009

Devica plays fast and loose with her recipes, doling out vague measurements like handfuls, mounds and “as much as you want.” On the other hand, she guards the names of her food like state secrets, not to be entrusted to the likes of us. She’d been making roti for us for years before I learned that the plain breakfast roti are sada roti, [...]

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Grilled Pot Fish and Fried Plantain

June 25, 2009

The last time I saw an old wife or a grunt I was snorkeling. Until this weekend, when I found them both at the BVI Fisheries Department fish market. I was looking for a snapper to put on the grill but, as we say in the islands, “snapper finish.” I looked over the mostly unfamiliar pot fish on offer and didn’t know what [...]

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The Full Monty

June 21, 2009

Happy Father’s Day to all you dads out there. Audrey went to a birthday campout at Trunk Bay last night and it was just us grownups this morning. She usually makes breakfast for Bones on Father’s Day so kitchen duties fell to me this year. Nothing would do but a Full English Breakfast.

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Day Sail on the White Squall

June 20, 2009

One of the best things about having guests come to stay is that it gives you a reason to get out on the water. You wouldn’t think we’d need a reason. But, though we do live in paradise, we have the same demands of work, school and life in general that keep the rest of [...]

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Tepache: Tropical Pineapple Fizz

June 18, 2009

“As the Prada handbag of the 18th century, a real-life, homegrown pineapple was a powerful status symbol, so much so that it was extremely unusual to eat the fruit.” Or so says Fran Beauman in her book, The Pineapple: King of Fruits. The Australians must agree because the government of Queensland sent the future Queen Elizabeth 500 [...]

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Brandywine Bay Restaurant

June 13, 2009

When I married Bones, friends of ours (another married couple) commented that, as animal taming acts go, this one ranks right up there with the best. I don’t have to crack the whip much these days. And Bones and I recently celebrated our fifteenth wedding anniversary. I remembered this one, unlike the one a few years [...]

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The Beach House

June 10, 2009

A funny thing about living on an island is the way you enter a house you’ve never been in before. After saying hello to your host, you go immediately and check out their view. Architecture, interior design, furniture, kitchens…those are all great, but we live for our seascapes. The more panoramic, the better. Given Tortola’s small size, [...]

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Pumpkin Ravioli

June 8, 2009

I was thrilled to get an email from Federica asking if I wanted to join in a series of lunchtime cooking sessions with a few other like-minded women who enjoy cooking and eating. The sessions would be based on “the flavor choice and cooking experience that you want to share with everyone else…each one prepares [...]

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Raw Oysters on the Half Shell

June 1, 2009

We’ve just returned from lunch at the Yacht Club and I am one happy woman. A dozen raw oysters on the half shell does that to me. I’ve always loved fried oysters but I was 30 years old before I was brave enough to try one raw (at my wedding rehearsal dinner). I’d like to say that I’ve been making [...]

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