From the monthly archives:

October 2009

Love and Monsters

October 31, 2009

It’s 1750. You’re riding through the woods of northern Lazio in central Italy, a stranger to the area. Suddenly, a massive, moss-covered stone ogre appears in the fog. If you have the nerve to go inside, you find a central stone table encircled by carved benches. It’s dark, damp, eerie. A site for macabre dinner parties? Ritual sacrifice?

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A Surfeit of Salmon

October 30, 2009

Food is very expensive here in the BVI. And I do understand why, to a certain extent. Almost everything is imported from somewhere else, primarily the States. Given the price of fuel, it can’t be cheap. And there’s a lot of wastage from food going off, though that’s due at least in part to poor storage on [...]

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Real Hardwood Charcoal

October 28, 2009

I’d never given much thought to charcoal until recently. Charcoal to me was the briquettes in the bag marked “Kingsford” that Dad poured in the grill, squirted with lighter fluid and used to cook lovely summertime burgers, chicken and steaks.

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Kebabs on the Grill

October 25, 2009

Are you smarter than a sixth grader? I, apparently, am not. I do not know how abiotic factors affect biotic factors. I cannot explain estimation strategies used to determine reasonableness of solutions to real world problems. In fact, I cannot estimate at all. Whatever happened to long division? I’m definitely not smart enough for sixth grade.

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The Spa at Peter Island

October 22, 2009

Thanks so much, but I don’t do spas. Maybe you can use it. So said my friend Tracey when I gave her a spa gift certificate for her birthday last year. Apparently, Tracey had a bad facial once and it put her off spas forever. I think it was the extractions. Well, a few months [...]

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Lovely Leftovers

October 19, 2009

It’s St. Ursula’s Day here in the B.V.I. so there’s no school for Audrey, which means a lazy day for both of us. She’s been reading all day and I’ve been working with the blog and listening to the go-fast boats racing in the channel (damn they’re loud).

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La Buscadora

October 16, 2009

I’m very lucky to live in the Caribbean. I know that. But sometimes I forget. It’s October, stinking hot, humid, half the good restaurants are closed, there’s no produce in the markets and I haven’t to the beach in months. I’m finding sixth grade to be really hard (and I think Audrey is too). Summer vacation seems a [...]

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Fusilli with Sausage and Cream

October 13, 2009

Audrey never ceases to amaze me. I was in the kitchen last night putting this pasta sauce together and she said, “Can we have it with penne? It tastes better when the sausage gets inside the pasta.” Hmmm. I was well into adulthood when I moved to New York, started eating in Italian restaurants, got a subscription to Gourmet magazine and began [...]

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Oven-Baked Ribs

October 12, 2009

It never fails. If Bones leaves Tortola, I will get a flat tire or run out of propane or break my leg. None of these things ever seems to happen when he’s around. I think my neighbor, Julian, knows more about my car than Bones does. After all, he’s the one who always seems to [...]

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Quick and Easy Shrimp

October 1, 2009

I always like to have a few dishes like this shrimp in coconut oil in my repertoire. Quick, easy, delicious, pretty. And made from pantry ingredients I always have on hand. Or almost always. We’re rarely without a bag of shrimp in the freezer. Who doesn’t have black pepper? And the curry plant in our garden reproduces with rabbit-like speed. Anyone need a curry [...]

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