liamsaunt

I love carrots! The only vegetable I don't like is kohlrabi. I'm also not a huge fan of swiss chard but I will eat it without complaining. Nobody in my house likes corned beef, so our St. Patrick's Day meal was fish and chips with homemade tartar sauce and cole slaw. The slaw has finally allowed me to declare victory over the cabbage glut we had in the house from my CSA. Over the past couple of weeks I've gotten the stash down from seven mixed red and green ones to one half of one small red cabbage. Now I have to start working on whittling down the three gallon sized ziplocks completely filled with carrots.

I baked two Ina Garten recipes for other people's breakfast yesterday. A loaf of soda bread that I made for my Dad (I left out the orange zest) Irish soda bread and a blueberry breakfast cake for my niece. blueberry ricotta breakfast cake I haven't tasted either but hopefully they are good.

My niece wanted steak last night so I made that for her and my husband, along with carrots, spinach, mashed potatoes and mushrooms cooked in green garlic butter that I found in my freezer. My sister and I split a chicken breast that I stuffed with a garlic and herb cheese. Neither my niece or husband volunteered their plates for a picture, so here's the chicken.

Bratwurst, potato pancakes, and a new recipe for braised red cabbage with juniper, caraway, apples, and apple cider that Christopher Kimball published in my local newspaper last week. We all really liked the cabbage, and it used up two small heads from my CSA box. I think I am down to only five heads of cabbage now 🤣

Pizza for Pi Day. My niece is home from college for spring break and requested a mashed potato pizza. I'm not a huge fan but she enjoyed it. I also made a margharita one

Teriyaki chicken rice bowl with pea shoots, carrots, and kimchi

Chicken shawarma

spaghetti with creamy butternut squash and bacon sauce

For some reason I decided to make homemade ravioli yesterday. It was kind of a pain and I probably won't do it again anytime soon. These were stuffed with roasted beets, sautéed onion, and parmesan. The sauce was just browned butter with toasted pine nuts, and I put a salad of baby beet greens, arugula, and baby chard on top.

Black bean, sweet potato, and poblano pepper tacos with yellow rice.

I forgot to post this one from the return trip (or maybe I blocked it out haha). American Airlines business class. There were two choices: "golden chicken" or butternut squash with orzo. Here's the chicken. It was of course extremely overcooked, as were the vegetables with it. The vegetable on the side is roasted beets with a spicy remoulade. Those and the salad were fine. I tasted the brownie and it was extremely sweet. I think JetBlue wins for in flight food this trip.

Chicken katzu with cabbage, spicy cucumber salad, and rice

Pan roasted swordfish, sautéed watermelon radishes, sweet potato puree, and kale.

Nut and panko crusted hake, carrot and radish puree, and sautéed pea shoots

A LOT more! Only the crappy stuff was on sale 🤣 We had to be out of the rental house by 10AM yesterday. It was hard to say goodbye to this view and the constant sea breezes. Husband wanted to go to town and have breakfast at High Tide before taking the car ferry back to St. Thomas. I had no preference either way. Menu View from our table. The view is the best thing about this restaurant. That and the fact that they will store your bags for you while you eat. We had to bring our Jeep back to St. Thomas so just left the bags in the car, but normally this service is very appreciated on check in or check out day. The food was fairly terrible, which summed up how we were feeling about leaving! BLT Very sad looking surf and turf omelet View of a small cruise ship offshore. They only anchor off St. John occasionally, and only in the winter. By contrast, there were four full size cruise ships in port on St. Thomas yesterday! The ship in the picture holds about 600 passengers. That's the passenger ferry to St. Thomas on the left. View from the car ferry of the house we rented last summer. There's a good amount of sea glass on that beach. Good bye for now St. John!

The purple potato croquette. It was coated in panic before frying, that's why it's brown. It was bright purple inside. Everything has to be imported. We were supposed to go to Turks and Caicos this trip but had to cancel last minute. I checked the grocery store prices there while planning. Their prices were even worse. I remember that a case of Heineken--on sale for 30% off--was $90! Yesterday we had lunch at Mis Lucy's. It's always nice and breezy here. It's not a place to go if you are in a hurry, but the food is usually very good. Menu is pretty simple. They were out of conch fritters, unfortunately. Husband got his usual crunchy grouper sandwich They had their West Indian fish fry on special, so I got that. We spent the afternoon at Trunk Bay And then went to Longboard for some snacks. Husband's cocktail--I forget what it was. Sea bass seveche. Spicy shrimp tostones Fish tacos Husband's second cocktail-frose I didn't like this meal as much as the one we had at the beginning of the trip. Everything tasted a little flat. Not as spicy, not as limey, etc. Dessert

Yesterday's beach, Hawksnest. Dinner was at Zozos at the former Caneel Bay resort. They went to a four course prix fixe a few years ago. We've done it a few times now, and it's just too much food, so this time we decided to reserve seats at the bar, where you can order a la carte. Pre dinner drinks: husband had a dirty martini and I had my usual club soda with lime. There wasn't a sunset to speak of last night, but I liked the way the sun came though the clouds in this photo Last night's menu. We decided to share an order of the wild mushroom pappardelle to start. This is the full order, we split it at the bar. We both wanted the same entree, so we each ordered the grouper. It was really delicious. Finally, we split to budino for dessert. Husband had a limoncello to end the evening. Goodnight Caneel. Those bright dots in the sky are Jupiter and Venus.

It was a cabbage slaw with chipotle dressing. Very tasty and a good bit of heat. Kids and water can be scary. Once when my niece was very small (4 or 5) we rented a house near Disney with a swimming pool. A friend we had invited along was supposed to be watching her while I cooked dinner and my sister showered. When I came out to check on things all seemed fine at first--he was watching her, and she was standing quietly in the pool. When I looked at her closely however, I saw how frightened she looked, and then I noticed that her mouth and nostrils were under water. I jumped in the pool with all my clothes on and lifted her out, and of course she started screaming. She had started drifting to the deeper part of the pool and was too scared to call for help. I later read this enlightening article: drowning doesn't look like drowning. Everyone should read it! Anyway, back to St. John. Seeing the flamingoes was on the schedule for yesterday. This required a hike in to one of the more isolated beaches and the salt pond behind it, Salt Pond Bay. It's about a half mile walk down to the beach (and then a hike back up after!) When we started coming here, we would always have this beach to ourselves. Not so much anymore. There's a large salt pond behind the beach, and that's where the flamingoes were. I counted 17 of them. Unfortunately, they were on the far side of the pond, so this is the best picture I could get. They looked pinker with the naked eye. It was very cool to see. We continued on to the next beach behind the salt pond, Drunk Bay. The next land after this beach is in Africa! Needless to say, the beach is very rough and swimming is definitely not advised. It's cool to walk around and enjoy the breezes though. After we hiked back up to the parking lot, we went back to look for more sea glass. This was our haul. My husband found the orange piece. For lunch, we visited Skinny Legs, a burger bar on this side of the island. My sister and my niece don't eat burgers, so I figured I would take one for the team and go here with my husband now so we do not have to come back this summer. When we first started coming here, the entire place was decorated in NE Patriots gear, and the roof was an old canvas tent. Everything pretty much blew away in the storms five years ago. The theming is now college sports (with a corner still dedicated to NE sports, plus some Pittsburgh stuff sprinkled in since the new owners are from there). The roof is a new and sturdy actual roof, thanks to country superstar Kenny Chesney. He has a (very large) house on the island and paid for a lot of reconstruction projects after the storms. The restaurant, with new roof The menu Husband had a cheeseburger and I had a blackened mahi sandwich It was pretty late in the afternoon after we finished eating, so we decided to go cool off at a beach, since most people would have left for happy hour. Maho Bay, much calmer than it normally is earlier in the day. Fancy boats offshore Neither of us wanted dinner, so we went to town and had ice cream. Why not? It's vacation!

I just remembered a funny story from the first time we came to St. John, way back in 2003. We tried to buy a round of drinks for the kitchen staff at a restaurant in a remote location after a very good dinner. The chef came out and laughed (nicely) at us and said they got all the drinks that they wanted for free, and then gave US a free drink! 🤣

Yesterday we visited the Lime Out floating taco bar. You have to arrive by boat--no swimming up to it for safety reasons. We were not booking a private boat charter this trip so we opted to take the shuttle service from shore. The shuttle gets you very close to the taco bar and then you do have to swim to your seats. The shuttle makes you wear a snorkel belt regardless of your swimming ability, so I would say it's easily doable as long as you have a basic knowledge of swimming. Here's the taco bar on approach. You can opt to sit on one of the yellow "lily pads" or there are underwater bar stools along both long sides of the boat. I forgot to take a picture of the menu, but it's just eight types of tacos, and then mixed drinks plus non alcoholic options. All drinks are served in reusable Yeti cups and the tacos come in compostable containers. There are no napkins or silverware to cut down on waste and cleanup. The owners of the taco boat own two other restaurants on St. John, and that's where the food is prepared. The boat is basically a "keep warm and assemble" operation. I have to admit that I was very skeptical, but the overall experience was quite fun, and the tacos were tasty too. We opted to try the three fish options. Left to right, there's blackened shrimp with pesto, local greens and tomatoes; jerk spiced tuna with pineapple, cucumber-jicama spicy relish, and chipotle slaw; and grouper seveche with citrus, jalepenos, jicama, chili garlic passion fruit dressing, and chipotle slaw. View from our liliypad. The staff puts your food and drinks into a floating raft and pushes it over to your lily pad when everything is ready. The ceviche taco was my favorite, and husband liked the tuna best, but all were really good. I also really enjoyed the cucumber lime soda I ordered. It was not sweet all all and very refreshing. We are coming back in the summer with my niece and nephew, and I know they will love this operation. Later that night, we headed out to dinner at La Tapa. Menu Husband ordered a dirty martini, and I stuck to club soda with lime (we were the first table seated for the second seating, which is why the restaurant looks so empty--it was completely full five minutes later!) We ordered the tomato bread and a special of tuna tartare to share. We probably should have skipped the tomato bread. It was fine, but we didn't eat most of it. The tuna was very delicious, so we concentrated on eating that. For entrees, husband chose the langoustine pasta. I was surprised as he usually doesn't opt for pasta in restaurants unless it's Italian. He seemed to be regretting it when he saw my plate. I ordered the local tuna with crispy polenta and slaw. It was excellent. We decided to skip dessert as it was getting late. We have no dinner reservations today. Plans include hiking out to see a flock of wild flamingoes that is visiting the island, swimming at one of our favorite beaches in the afternoon, and probably just getting some casual food somewhere along the way.

Yesterday was pretty much a do nothing day. I got up in time to watch the sunrise. Here are a couple of pictures We went out twice to try and find a hiking trail we used to do. It seems to be gone. I think someone built a house where the start of the trail used to be. I did see lots of pretty plants on the walk around. I am terrible at plant identification, but here they are. If anyone knows what they are, tell me! Orange plant Yellow and purple plants This one I know: bougainvillea Green plant with red kernal flower stalk There are often funny signs leading to the homes in neighborhoods. Here's one After our failed hike we just spent the afternoon here Neither of us were in the mood for a big dinner so we went to Rum Hut and shared some stuff Conch fritters. Husband liked them. I thought they were undercooked in the middle Crab bao. Again, husband liked this more than me. Shrimp bao And Irie Pops vegan soft serve for dessert Today we are supposed to visit a floating taco bar for lunch, and then we have a fancy dinner planned, but those plans will depend on how husband feels when he wakes up. If he's sick we won't go anywhere.

Yesterday we went to dinner on Lovango Cay. When you make a reservation for dinner, you also make a reservation for their ferry (or you can arrive via private charter). Here's the ferry. That's St. Thomas in the background to the right. St. John is to the left, out of sight. View of boats in Cruz Bay harbor on the way to dinner We've been snorkeling off Lovango Cay for years, and have always been interested in the possibility of staying over there, but it's pretty isolated if you don't have a boat. Other than a couple of year-round residences and a few rental villas, this eco resort is the first time (that I know of) that anyone has tried to develop the land on Lovango. The owners also run Winnetu on Martha's Vineyard and the Nantucket Hotel on Nantucket. I am sure this place will be successful too. After seeing what they've done on Lovango, I wish they would consider redeveloping the still destroyed Caneel Bay on St. John. I think they would do a great job. We had a nice table on the waterside. View Drinks menu. I didn't notice the aguas frescas on the bottom or I would have ordered one. Husband ordered the Martha's Vineyard Castaway. Dinner menu Husband started with the lobster croquette and I had the tuna crudo For mains, husband chose the lobster schnitzel (I guess it was lobster night for him!) and I had the catch of the day, which was strawberry grouper. Both entrees were excellent. A large catamaran with about 40 guests from the Ritz Carlton over on St. Thomas arrived during our dinner. Everyone on the boat must have eaten quickly because they were all done and boarding before we left. Dessert menu We ordered the Lime in a Coconut to split. This was the only misstep of the dinner for us. The dessert doesn't mention chocolate, and as you can see, the coconut is made from a hard chocolate shell. (the lime curd was inside). Neither of us were in the mood for chocolate. Oh well, we ate it anyway! The sorbet was really good--intensely flavored. Here's a picture of the resort restaurant at night, taken from the ferry as we were leaving (random guests blurred out for their privacy). The glamping tents are up in the hills of the cay, and hidden from sight. Today's another "no plans" day. Husband is nursing a mild cold, so we probably won't do too much.

No, I cannot say that I have really. Almost everyone is adding a "credit card convenience fee" of around 4% if you use a card, but it's stated directly on the menu or at the door. Some places are also now including the gratuity directly. For example, when we ate at the Longboard, a 20% fee was included, and there was a line with options to circle if you wanted to add more, plus another line to add a custom add on gratuity. That was new. But, adding the gratuity is common in lots of tourist areas. Maybe some people are still wary of eating in restaurants post Covid. The tourist demographic does skew older in the winter. There are a lot of retired people here for sure. When we come back in the summer, it will be a lot of young families, and we will be the ones to feel old! We spent yesterday at our favorite beach, Francis. It was crowded (by St. John standards), so we set up on the rocky part by ourselves. We did not snorkel because of my toe injury, but we did swim, and I had a friendly baby fish take shelter with me. My husband got a picture. It stayed with me the entire time I was in the water. We drove into Coral Bay for lunch. The place we wanted to go was crowded, so we ended up back at Aqua Bistro. They got all new cooking staff, so I was hoping for a better meal than we had last summer. Restaurant view. Conch fritters. These were spicy, hot, and very good! I had a mani sandwich. The fish was nice and fresh. Husband opted for shrimp tacos. After lunch we stopped by one of the hidden beaches in Coral Bay so I could look for sea glass. I am obsessed with sea glass. My house is filed with jars of it from all the places I go. The beach: 15 minutes of searching led to a big handful. All the parking at the beaches was still full by the time we came back into the National Park, so we just went back to the villa to talk about, of course, what we wanted for dinner. Neither of us wanted anything fancy, so we just went to see what we could find. The place we wanted to go was closed for the day, and the Beach Bar was packed, so we decided to go get tacos at a new to us place, Greengoes. Terrible name. They make their own tortillas though, and it's cheap, so we figured if it was not good, no big deal. They are famous for a big wall of tequila They also have big tvs, so people come here for sporting events. Husband got a cucumber cooler. He said it was very refreshing. I chose shrimp tacos. I gave husband one to compare with his lunch shrimp taco. He liked this one better than lunch. Husband got mahi tacos Vacation calls for dessert, so it was off to St. John Scoops I got mint chocolate chip and he had toasted coconut in a waffle cone Later today we are taking a boat shuttle to a nearby cay to check out a new eco resort over there and have dinner. We almost stayed over there instead of on St. John this trip, but husband was leery of the glamping concept. Should be interesting! Lovango Resort

Yesterday was mostly a washout. It did clear enough in the afternoon that we were able to walk over and explore the rocky beach near the house. It looks like there might be some snorkeling offshore. We will possibly get over there later this week. Right now I am nursing a toe injury that occurred right after we arrived. I went to open a window in the house, and it popped out of the frame and landed directly on my big toe! It's just badly bruised, but it's swollen enough that I think putting my snorkel fins on might be uncomfortable. I think it will be good to go by tomorrow. Anyway, here's the beach. And the house we are staying in, seen from the beach. The house is by itself at the end of the point. There was another house nearby, but it was destroyed in the hurricanes five years ago and has not been rebuilt. All that is left is the foundation platform and a couple of roof supports. You can kind of see part of what's left of that house's roof behind our house. Last night we went to Morgan's Mango for lobster night. I forgot my reading glasses, so had to rely on my husband to tell me what was on the menu. Of course, then I got home and saw these pictures and saw other stuff I wish I had ordered haha. Drinks. Husband had a margarita and I just had club soda with lime. First course. We split the seveche and the cajun shrimp Mains I chose the coconut shrimp for my entree (but if I had seen the paella I would have gotten that!) Husband had the lobster of course We split a slice of key lime pie We don't have any reservations for this evening. It's interesting--the island is quite crowded, but the restaurants are not nearly as busy as when we were here in the summer. Not sure if everyone is cooking at their rental villas, or brought prepared foods from home...or maybe everyone's on a diet!

One tasty sea vegetable item we have locally is sea beans, or sea asparagus. They grow in the salt marshes near the ocean. They have a crisp, crunchy texture and a pleasing salty flavor. I've harvested them myself when staying on Cape Cod, and sometimes you can buy them in the store too. They cook by just lightly blanching. Here's an article about them: sea beans I found a couple of pictures I took in restaurants. A raw oyster topped with pickled sea beans Wahoo topped with blanched sea beans