Ukutastic Ukuinisms

So I took up playing the ukulele 2 years ago...How does one get to a point in one's life to say one day..."I want to play the ukulele?"

A friend of mine, Mike Marcuzzi, who sadly passed away a year and a half ago, lent me a little green pineapple ukulele, hoping he would someday start a ukulele band.  I spent a couple months ukuoodling around with it, then it sat in it's cardboard case until...

...one of my newly retired BFFs, Judy, told me one summer day while we were sitting on the patio at the boat club drinking too much boxed wine, that on her bucket list was to learn how to play the ukulele.  Of course I said it would be ukutastic if I could teach her the basics.  "Really", I thought to myself in an egotistical tone of voice,  "how hard COULD it be after playing the classical guitar all my life, to play the ukulele...?" 

I then started ukutroducing myself to new people as "Hi, I'm Jen, and I play the ukulele".  Seems like a ukureffic place to start off that awkward first moments of meeting new people.  Most people chuckle and ask me if I play "Tip Toe Through the Tulips" - that would be a ukueforic "no".  Then I point out that a ukulele really isn't just a toy, it's a pretty ukucool instrument.  Now, I'm not an expert, or prodigy by any stretch of the means but I can play some pretty ukutastic jazz tunes.  I also rock pretty hard some Radiohead, Green Day and George Michael tunes.

Why have one ukulele when 12 will do?  So here's my ukulele line up:

Green Pineapple (summer 2009):

Lanaki Tenor (summer 2010):

Banjo (October 2013):

Electric Gretsch (December 2013):

Lanaki Soprano (January 2014):

As far as I'm concerned - playing the ukulele is ukueriffic.  When I play a tune for someone they are ukually surprised at what can be done.  I can't say I'm not totally self taught, I did attend ukulele camp for a couple days in Toronto in 2011 with Judy and watched a lot of UkuTube, signed up for cool ukulele websites like Ukulele Underground and Ukulele Forum for hints and tips.  I guess you could call me a ukulele nerd but I wouldn't kick anyone out of bed for playing the ukulele. 

Good Morning Sunshine

You get rudely disturbed by the clock radio, hit the snooze bar a billion times, just 10 more minutes before sticking out your feet into the dim light of our basement apartment wondering what the weather holds today.  The soft carpet is replaced by hard tile on my journey to the bathroom.  I sit my bottom down on the toilet seat and rub the sleep out of my eyes.  I listen to my boy fill a pot of water to boil in order to make the elixir of my morning in the plastic white French Press someone gave to me long ago.  I toddle into the bedroom opening drawers, digging through the piles of clothes on the floor trying to decide what kind of fashion statement I should make at the office today and if anyone really notices, hearing the laptop start up and the talk radio whine away in the background of my mind.  I pull out a shirt, a pair of pants, socks, underwear, bra, wrestle to put them all on in the correct order. 

 

A minute later in the kitchen, I pour the oatmeal into a little Ikea pot with water and put the burner on medium and stand watching it slowly come to a bubble.  The coffee is settling in the French Press and I grab a couple of mugs waiting...waiting...waiting.  The weather, once again says it's ass snappin' cold out with no chance of wonderful warmth in the near future and I sit on my stool at the kitchen counter watching the oatmeal bubble away in the pot hoping it doesn't burn this morning, my head resting in my hands.  A pleasant conversation flows naturally, easily between me and my boy and we laugh and make jokes about the upcoming day and what adventures the next 10 hours may bring us. 

 

I stir the brown sugar into my oatmeal, pour the frothy hot coffee into my mug that has a Z scrawled across it.  Taking a sip my boy reminds me that of course it's hot and I burn my tongue, just like all the other mornings before this one.  I fill the empty oatmeal bowl with water to let it soak all day, where it will patiently wait for me to come home to make it all sparkly again later tonight.

 

Pulling my carcass off the bar stool, I meander into the bathroom, brush the sleep off my teeth, apply make-up to one eye, swish the mascara brush in the almost empty make-up holder then apply to the other eye.  My boy is tidying up the kitchen while I make myself beautiful for the office.  My hair needs cutting but there's nothing I can do about it at this moment so I shrug my shoulders and put more goop on the parts that won't lay flat. 

 

Looking at my watch and realizing the time, grab last night's leftovers from the refrigerator for today's lunch, my coat is on, zipped up, should I wear my big heavy winter boots, might as well, they were expensive.  Then a kiss on the lips, a nice smile and an "I love you babe" and out the door, purse over my shoulder, knitting in my lunch bag and into the cold sunshine of this never ending winter.

Life is full of awesome adventures

I haven't blogged in ages, but thought that I might get back to it.  A lot of cool and not so cool stuff has happened in the 2 years since I last posted.  So as not to make a long boring blog, here is everything in a nutshell from the past year:

April 2013: sold house in Toronto
April 2013: moved to Chateau Lake Louise to work as a pastry chef
June 2013: decided the Chateau Lake Louise wasn't for me
July 2013: flew back to Ontario and moved in with my dad and stepmom in Bobcaygeon
July 2013: my niece was born
September 2013: joined the Barrie Yacht Club
October 2013: moved to Barrie and got a legal assistant job (again...sigh)
November 2013: met a tattooed, Harley riding guy named Mike

Yup...my life in the past year summed up in 8 lines.  However, I'm happy as a clam in shite, if indeed a clam can be happy in that situation.  This past winter has been a long slog as far as the weather here in Ontario, last Thursday was the first day of spring and of course it's snowing today, and last weekend, this is what it looked like on Georgian Bay, less than a week away from the first day of spring:

My boy Mike spent the winter in Florida (insert groans here...) and I was able to visit twice and met some really great new friends while I was there.  I even had my first ride on a motorcycle and loved it (and no screaming, just big smiles):

This summer will be full of sailing on Lake Simcoe (I have been assured that you can navigate Lake Simcoe with a road map...), riding on the back of Mike's Harley (I will require new outfits) and spending some nice, not so quiet weekends in the Muskokas in Mike's camper (Gawd help us all...).  In the fall who knows, right now I'm just itching for the weather to suddenly spring into spring so that I can get out of the house and get some fresh air that won't make my nostrils stick together. 

 

The Sailing Chef has new adventures on the horizon that may even include a change of the name of my blog to the Travelling Chef - so stay tuned sports fans...

Brining, burning, dropping and drinking!

How to make the best turkey by brining, catching on fire, dropping on the floor and carving drunk…

I wanted to brine a turkey for Easter.  Never done it before, only seen it done before and never had the pleasure to taste one before, so what the hell…Then I got it into my head that I wanted to BBQ this brined bird, but alas our gas grill is kaput so the next best thing, my charcoal grill and the 3 huge logs of cherry wood someone gave me last fall…I’m a genius I think to myself with an egotistical smile spreading across my face.  I call my friends and there are now 5 coming over for dinner.  Too bad my hubby is going to miss the fun!

What to do first? Obviously put a call into my butcher at Black Angus and have them set aside a small fresh turkey, about 10 pounds.  I’ll pick it up Saturday morning.

I get the turkey home Saturday morning and I realize I don’t have any salt for the brine…duh.  I have celery salt though…here’s my brine recipe for a 10ish pound fresh turkey.

2 cups celery salt

10 bay leaves

10 whole cloves

10 whole garlic cloves, smashed

2 large onions cut into large pieces

A handful of coriander seed

A handful of fennel seed

5-10 Star Anise

Some pepper corns

Some juniper berries (optional)

Some chicken stock

Water

Mix all ingredients and warm the liquid until the salt dissolves.  This liquid must be cold before pouring over the turkey as you don’t want to warm the turkey, which could cause some nasty bacteria to form.

I split my turkey down the back and pressed it flat so it would cook faster on my BBQ but you can leave it whole.  Remove giblets and set aside to make the gravy.  Place turkey in garbage bag and pour in brine, pour in enough water to cover the bird.  Place bag in bucket, then in fridge for 12-16 hours.

Remove turkey and rinse thoroughly so the bird isn’t salty.  Discard the brining liquid.  Put the bird in the fridge uncovered for at least 2 hours so the skin can dry out (makes for a crispier skin if you are roasting in the oven).

Now my story gets interesting.  I traipse down into our basement and find 2 hatchets.  Roll one of my huge chunks of cherry wood out the back yard and start chopping away.  I was doing a pretty good job too.  Although one chop got a little violent…Let me set the scene:

I’m rather little, so I swing my axe pretty high and it comes down with a lot of weight or else the axe will bounce off the wood like a rubber ball against a dog’s forehead.  So I give her a swing, miss the wood, the axe goes in between my legs and slips out of my hands, flies up and across the yard and ends up wedged in the neighbour’s fence…fortunately there wasn’t a cat or squirrel in the vicinity at the time.

I decide after about 30 minutes of chopping I have enough wood to host a Burning Man party.  I fill the bbq with newspaper and set it on fire, cover with charcoal then light the paper on fire again, and again, and again… finally the charcoal catches so I start to stack the cherry wood into the fire.  Then have to go into the house to get more paper and more matches, this goes on for about an hour.  Finally I have a roaring fire and the neighbourhood is full of smoke.  The grills go into the bbq and I throw on the turkey, not thinking that maybe I really should have waited until the fire went out and coals just kept the place warm.  I close the lid go in the house and fill up my wine glass and 10 minutes later decide to check on the bird – well it’s on fire.  Yup ON FIRE.  So I pull it off the fire and am able to put out the flames, well the skin sure looks nice and crisp, and I remember then and there that I have to let the flames go out before bbqing.  I take the bird into the house and put it in the oven and go and deal with the bbq.  Finally the flames are out and it is perfect for cooking.  I have to then refill my wine glass because it ended up on grass when I realized the turkey was on fire…

I take the turkey out of the oven and as I do so, I realize there is a hole in my oven mitts, the tray is pretty hot and burning a hole through my index finger and so I had to drop the turkey on the floor.  All I can say is I’m glad I just vacuumed 5 minutes previously.  The cat comes in and helps me lift it back onto the tray and cleans up the floor.  Thanks Goober for being so helpful now go refill my wine glass!

Finally the turkey is on the charcoal, I then decide to sit in the back yard, wool blanket on my lap, warmth from the bbq and study for my chef exam when it starts to rain – sigh.  One hour later the turkey is done.  I roast some carrots, make a Tarte Tatin  The rest is delicious history and one of the best turkeys I have ever eaten!  Even the dog Jack and the cat Goober stood patiently side by side while I was drunkenly trying to carve the turkey.

P.S.: Here’s my recipe for LOTS of Gravy:

Put in a sauce pot all the giblets, cut up carrots, an onion or 2, I used the tops off fresh fennel, you can also use celery, some red wine, bay leaves, thyme and finally cover with water.  Bring to a boil and turn down to medium.  Let simmer away, when the liquid has reduced by half, add cold water, do this 2, 3 or 4 times, the more times you reduce by half and add cold water the richer your gravy.  To thicken, mix together equal amounts by weight of butter (no margarine) and flour, add a little at a time until your desired thickness!  mmmmmm

What do you do when you are waiting for your hair to turn blue?

No really, I am having a mid life crisis, but it's fun, I do have blue hair.  So what does one do when they are perking up the blue, waiting for the dye to kick in before you can rinse it out?  Why try a new chocolate chip cookie recipe of course!  

You are probably thinking to yourself, please who can surpass the one on the back of the chocolate chip package you have been making with your mom since you were a kid?  I agree, but when it comes to cookies, is there really any mistake, or harm in trying a new recipe?  I thought this particular one was interesting, chewy chocolate chip cookies made with molasses.

So here I stand in my almost new kitchen that I'm renovating myself (next blog) with hair dye setting and all the ingredients laid out in front of me.

Alas, first rule of making a new recipe, read it thoroughly BEFORE starting, so I had to scoop the sugar out of the flour, no mean feat that.  

I'm used to weighing out my ingredients for baking, it seems like a chore for most people but once you get the hang of it, it's easier and more accurate, trust me a cup of flour weighs different every time.  However, this recipe calls for cups and tablespoons so I found my measuring cups shoved in the back of the drawer, happy to see the light of day after so many years.

Now, most people don't have Cuban chocolate left overs, but I do, after all I can't just use any chocolate, it has to be top notch and interesting so that's what I used, was Cuban chocolate.  Don't fret, you too can use awesome chocolate, any specialty food store will have some interesting chocolate and even the Bulk Barn has Callebaut chocolate.

Always use the bast vanilla too:

The formula says to let the dough rest in the fridge for 20 minutes before baking, but honestly, it's 9:30 p.m. and I still have hair dye to deal with so in they go, and 8 minutes later, out they come....

Chewy Molasses Chocolate Chip Cookies

8 ozs unsalted butter
2 cups plus 2 Tbsp bread flour
1 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/4 cup plus 1 tsp dark molasses, not blackstrap
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
2 cups dark chocolate chips or chunks

Method:

In a sauce pan, melt the butter and set aside.

In a medium sized bowl, mix the granulated sugar and molasses until no large molasses clumps remain.

Pour the melted butter in the mixer’s work bowl. Add the sugar mixture. Cream the butter and sugar on medium speed for about 3 minutes.

Add the egg, yolk, and vanilla extract and mix until well combined. Slowly incorporate the flour mixture until thoroughly combined. Stir in the chocolate chips.

Chill the dough for about 20 minutes, then scoop onto nonstick baking sheets. 

Bake for 8 to 10 minutes or until golden brown, checking the cookies after 5 minutes. I like these cookies to be just a bit under-done. Rotate the baking sheet for even browning. Cool completely and store in an airtight container.

Big, Fancy, Expensive Kitchen Store

I got a great gift this year - a gift certificate to a big fancy, expensive kitchen store!  What did I get with my gift certificate:

What is it you ask?  Well - it's a terrine mold!  Wait, what is a terrine you ask?  Well a terrine is basically layered meat, usually pork or some kind of game meat in either a pastry crust or a bacon crust or a...wait, yes meat wrapped in bacon.  

New Year's Eve is my chance to cook a multi course dinner for my friends.  One of the courses is always Charcuteire (see blog dated October 30, 2011).  I decided to make a Rabbit terrine.  <gasp> you say, well suck it up buttercup!  Rabbit is tastier than chicken, lower in fat than chicken and better for the environment than chicken!  Alas, it's about 5x the price though...sigh.

I chose my flavour profile, in this case, blood orange and cranberry.  I deboned my bunny, keeping the tenderloins intact and marinated them in blood orange and Limoncello.  I then took the rest of the rabbit and processed in my food processor with fennel, caraway, salt and pepper, 1 egg and a splash of cream.

I then seared the rabbit tenderloin in a hot cast iron pan and the marinade followed the tenderloin into the pan to create an orange limoncello syrup.

The terrine mold was lined with bacon and layered with the processed rabbit, sliced tenderloin, cranberries, blood orange slices, the limoncello orange syrup and then more processed bunny.

The bacon was then folded over and a pretty little sprig of fresh thyme garnished the top:

Finally the terrine press and lid were on and the terrine was placed in a water bath and baked in a 300 F oven for 2 hours:

The finished product was served cold with olives, sweet gherkins, cheese galore and lots of wine.  Of course it was totally yummy and the left overs were eaten in a sandwich New Year's Day for a quick dinner!

Happy New Year's everyone and happy eating!

Sharp!

A chef's most important tool is a knife.  There are many kinds of knives, each with their own special job:

boning knife - for boning say a chicken

chef's knife - for pretty much every job

filet knife - fileting fish, fine cutting

paring knife - fine cutting, small cuts

carving knife - for carving meats

sashimi knife - for cutting thin pieces of fresh fish

Left to right: paring knife, boning knife, chef knife, carving knife, filet knife, serrated knife.

There are many more kinds of knives but the above knives can all be found in my collection.

The other most important knife is a SHARP knife.  I know, I know, most people are afraid of a sharp knife, they think they will cut themselves.  Well I have news for you, you are more likely to cut yourself with a dull knife than a sharp knife.  Why you say?  Think about cutting into a lemon, a dull knife will slip off that thick rind, a sharp knife will grab and cut right away, quickly and cleanly.  Even if you cut yourself with a sharp knife, it's a clean fine cut that heals cleanly and quickly, a cut from a dull knife results in an ugly cut that will leave a scar and take a long time to heal.  Then there is the tomato, ever tried to saw through a tomato with a dull knife...a sharp knife will leave a clean cut, no damage to the fruit whatsoever.  A sharp knife makes a lot of work go faster and believe it or not, less tears from cutting an onion.

I'm sure most people wonder how to keep their knives sharp or how to take those dull 'knives' in their drawers sharp.  There are places to take your knives to bring back the edge if they are really bad, I go to a place called Knife (www.knifetoronto.com).  Those guys love a sharp knife.  

In November I took a knife sharpening class, just to see how much better I can do with sharpening my knives.  So here's the scoop:  buy yourselves 2 sharpening stones a 1000 grit and a 4000 grit, you can buy these online from Lee Valley or when you drop in at Knife you can buy your stones there, they may seem expensive but will last you pretty much forever, so it's a great investment.

Left to right: 1000 grit and 4000 grit

Wet your Whetstone, 1000 grit, take 3 pennies and lay the knife on an angle and that will determine the angle to sharpen:

Sharpen following the curve of the blade, if you are right handed 70% of the sharpening should be on the right side.

For the other side of the knife, use 2 pennies to determine the angle:

Polish using the 4000 stone the same way as above.  VOILA!  If you just polish with the 4000 stone once or twice a week you will never have a dull knife and a sharp knife makes life so much easier.

SMOKIN'

I learned how to cure and smoke my own bacon.  Yup, the food of the gods...BACON.

For those of you who don't like bacon, well honestly, I'm really sorry, really, really sorry.  So along with my bacon I decided to throw on a few beef short ribs...hehe

So why do we smoke food?  Besides the obvious - taste - it's a really old way of food preservation.  The meat is cured in salt and possibly spices, and other flavours, then smoked to dry out the meat.  There are 2 ways to smoke - hot and cold.

Hot smoke:

Hot smoking exposes the foods to smoke and heat in a controlled environment. Although foods that have been hot smoked are often reheated or cooked, they are typically safe to eat without further cooking. Hot smoking occurs within the range of 165 °F (74 °C) to 185 °F (85 °C). Within this temperature range, foods are fully cooked, moist, and flavorful. If the smoker is allowed to get hotter than 185 °F (85 °C), the foods will shrink excessively, buckle, or even split. Smoking at high temperatures also reduces yield, as both moisture and fat are "cooked" away. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoking_%28cooking%29)

Cold Smoke:

Cold smoking can be used as a flavor enhancer. The item can be cold smoked for just long enough to give some flavor. Smokehouse temperatures for cold smoking are below 100 °F (38 °C). In this temperature range, foods take on a smoked flavor, but remain relatively moist. Cold smoking does not cook foods. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoking_%28cooking%29)

 Last week I hot smoked a pork belly in maple smoke - yummy.  Today I did a cold smoke.  It took 1 week to cure the pork and 6 weeks to smoke it.  It also took about 1/2 pound of charcoal, 1/2 pound of maple chips and a whole lot of cherry wood.  The wood is all soaked in water so it smokes rather than burns and you have to keep a pretty close eye on the entire process.  I checked every 30-60 minutes.  It was actually fun tweaking the chimney on the smoker to control the heat and finally, it was done - and it was yummy.

Most of the bacon is going into the freezer because there is a lot of it.  The short ribs will go in the pressure cooker tomorrow night and I'll call that dinner!

So why am I so excited about having smoked my own bacon?  Well it certainly doesn't taste like the saline laden stuff in the grocery store!  No nitrates.  What are nitrates, well: in this day and age, it's mostly for preservation of colour.  I plan on freezing my bacon and cooking it before I eat it, so there's no worries of any kind of spoilage happening.  Nitrates are not good for us, they are a proven cancer causer, and I know there are enough other chemicals around us that cause us cancer, this is one less.  Most grocery store bacons are heavy in saline solution so you are paying for water weight that gets cooked out.  When I fry up my bacon, there is no water in the pan (just the fat).  So here is the story in pictures:

My lil' ol' smoker

Maple chips soaking

Cherry Wood Soaking

Short Ribs from the butcher shop before...

 Pork Bellies just starting to smoke

The lovely hot box filled with cherry wood

Short Ribs 2 hours in

The smoker - smokin'

After 6 hours

The finished bacon (and it was awesome)

What exactly is charcutiere?

I'm starting a new professional cooking class next week - Butchery and Charcutiere.  Many of you may know that I worked as a butcher for 2 years and loved it.  Alas, I never was able to talk the owners  of the butcher shop into letting me make artisan Charcutiere.

It took me 5 minutes searching the web to figure out how to spell the word, so what exactly is it?  It's a general term for prepared meats, pates, terrines, foie gras, pickled vegetables, dried fruits and cheeses.  It's such a huge subject that the region I want to concentrate is Alsace, France.  Why that region of France? My ancestors on my dad's side come from there and I love that style of food, lots of beer, lots of sausage and foie gras, potatoes and cabbage!  Great food for our climate from October to April.

This is a veggie terrine that I made years ago with spinach, roasted red pepper and butternut squash.

This is a chicken pate en croute - it is a pate baked inside pastry and is heavenly!

I'm sure there will be a lot of fun stories coming from my new class and a lot of my followers will be able to sample, simply because what I make I can't possibly eat all myself.  

A little history?  Alsace has been passed back and forth between Germany and France for centuries.  It is on the border to Germany and after the end of WWII Germany had to hand it over to France once again.

To ease you guys into the joys of "Alsatian" cuisine, here's my favourite recipe that I'm going to make for dinner tonight.  This recipe has just a few ingredients and is super easy to make.

Braised Pork Belly - Serves 4

6 lbs of Pork Belly
Apple Cider

Caraway Seed

1 large onion, sliced

2 apples, peeled, cored and sliced

White vinegar

salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 250 F.  Put pork belly, fat side up in deep casserole pan.  Put in pan, around pork belly onion, apples and caraway seed, pour in enough apple cider and a couple splashes of vinegar (and maybe some of your favourite beer) so that liquid is 3/4 of the way up the side of the pork belly.  Cover with foil and put in oven for abut 4 hours.

After 4 hours remove from braising liquid (keep this!!!) and let sit for about 10-15 minutes.  After resting, cut into 2" x 2" pieces.  Heat broiler in oven.  Place pieces on cookie sheet and place under broiler to crisp up the top of the pork belly.

Serve over mashed potato or braised cabbage with the braising liquid and a large stein of dark beer!

Next week I hope to have pictures of my first day of class if it's not too gruesome...hehe!

Burgers

So the past 2 months I have been across Lake Ontario, flown to Las Vegas, driven to the Grand Canyon, Hoover Dam and the Windsor Casino.  It's been a fun couple of months and I finally found something worthy to write about.  BURGERS!!!

When I was in Las Vegas with my 3 girl pals, we had the best burgers ever!  This is the only story I can share from Vegas because technically we weren't in Vegas when we had our burgers...

We are driving back from the Grand Canyon in our Mustang Convertible, starving.  Hoping that the rumour is true that in Boulder City, Nevada there is a diner that was featured on Guy Fieri's Diners Drive-ins and Dives.  We pull into a side street, park the car and peel ourselves off the black vinyl seats.  We have no idea where we are...so I stop in a local real estate agent and ask some guy sitting in the waiting room if he knows what we are looking for.  Apparently the place closes after lunch and it's 5:30...Our stomachs growl in disappointment. 

Suddenly a cute blonde 20-something guy pops his head around the corner and directs us to the hole in the wall next door.  Apparently they have great food, and he gives us a raving review.  We bite.

Dillinger's it's called, in Boulder City, Nevada!  

It's small, nothing fancy, dark but quirky.  We pick a table near the front and are greeted by our waitress Amy, she was awesome:

On the menu tonight, well we want burgers.  There are a lot of burgers, but the patties are made fresh, and so are the buns and are toasted perfectly.  I go for the chili cheese burger (the chef boasts no beans in his chili because he doesn't like beans, me neither and in the immortal words of my travelling companion, what's wrong with beans is they get in your mouth...):

So Dawn chooses the pulled pork burger, even though she tells us she doesn't like bbq sauce...

Judy goes in for some kind of triple cheese thingie that dripped 3 kinds of cheese all over the place.

Terri went in for a Reuben on Sour Dough Bread, perfectly toasted.

Beers - a local gem but alas, I forget the name...but I loved it!  

Next time I'm in Vegas and get a chance for a side trip in the desert, I will make a point to go to Boulder City and have dinner at Dillingers - cheers for making great food to remember!!

On the flip side of the burger world is the most horrible "burger" my pal Terri and I had on our way to the Windsor Casino last weekend...I don't know why I wanted to stop for fast food, seemed appropriate, I hadn't had fast food in years, possible 10 or more years!  I totally regret it.

Let's start with the bread - white, soggy, tasteless, gluey.  The pattie - gray, dry, cooked from frozen, thin and tasteless, the tomato was under ripe, the tiny piece of onion, not even worth the effort, the pickles were at least something but they were drowned in the ketchup and mustard (I think I heard one of the pickles asking me to rescue it).  

People, why do we eat fast food WHY?  It's so not worth it when there are restaurants owned by regular people, rather than corporate America. Run by people who love their job, love to make people smile and care.  The fast food employees are there to make money, get home as soon as possible and their skills include opening plastic bags full of frozen burger patties, fries and emptying vats of ketchup into a large pump.

Taught me a lesson - no more fast food for me EVER!  Ask the locals if you don't know where to eat, apparently they don't lie...hehe

The Emerald Isle

I just came back from a place I never knew could exist in our modern, wasteful world.  I was in a place where there were no McDonald's, no Walmarts, no strip malls.  You can't just go to the grocery store and buy a TV dinner.  The crime rate is sooo low people don't lock their doors or their cars, and it's encouraged to pick up hitch hikers.  It's a place where restaurants are run by families, not corporations.  Their ingredients are from their own gardens, from the neighbours' chicken coops.  Everything is handmade, the bread, the roti at the People's Place and the fruit juice.  "Eat from the Land. Not from the Can" - small billboards read all over the island!

It's a place where you drive down the road and there isn't a stop sign or a stop light anywhere.  You can park pretty much anywhere without fear of getting a parking ticket.  Someone will politely ask you to move your car if it's in a bad spot.  It's where people live life, they embrace family and friends no matter if you are black, white, poor or rich or a tourist.  There isn't even a movie theatre, although John Watt's homemade ice cream is to die for!

There is no air conditioning and people are hang outside with friends and family - not locked in their 'castles'.  When you wave at people you don't get a blank stare, you get a wave back and a smile and most of the time a welcoming 'alrit mon'.  When someone beeps their horn, it's a friendly greeting or a form of a thank you.

It's a place where the environment rules the people, it's respected, it's enjoyed.  The watershed and rain forest are off limits to any kind of development and home to all kinds of unique birds, lizards, frogs, insects and plants found nowhere else.

Most of you know I just came back from Montserrat in the Lesser Antilles, about 48 kms southwest of Antigua.  It's the only island in the Caribbean with an active volcano and it's impressive!

I have been to a lot of places in the Caribbean and I have to say this is the first island where a natural disaster like the volcano stopped development for good and most of the locals are thankful.  Unfortunately 2/3s of the island are uninhabitable right now and the capital was buried under a pyroclastic flow in 1996 but they are slowly rebuilding.  There are problems with the roads and with the new airport.  The British government is slowly helping but can't be counted on.  I think this is a mistake as this seems like a perfect place to rebuild using our brains rather than our money.  To give priority to the natural world and our planet.  We might all well learn a thing or two about our greed and what it does to harm our planet.

So what did I do all week?  I made new friends, listened to local musicians, went to the Cudjoe Head festival, saw some of the devastation from the volcano, visited the Montserrat Volcano Observatory and drank in all the green, all the quiet, felt the peace, watched the boats go by and found a place where the smog, stress and anger of our modern world don't exist.  The history is rich and I want to learn more about slavery, the sugar trade and the volcano.  Thank you Montserrat!  I will be back!

 View from our villa

 Park anywhere

 Our fav eating place - The People's Place on Lawyer's Mountain - John is a total cool guy and a great chef!

 All roads are on a pretty steep angle, our driveway was about a 25 degree grade...

 Looking to the Northwest on the windward side of the island.

Montserrat at one time had a lot of Irish settlers and is nicknamed "The Other Emerald Island"

This is some of the new island created by the volcano!

There are more pictures on my Facebook page and a lot of pictures on Paul's computer, he's coming home tomorrow so check on Facebook later this week if you want to see more of Montserrat.  I can hardly wait to go back, hopefully for the St. Patrick's week celebrations - one week long party!