Getting Gourmet

You're probably intensely interested in what we eat and cook here in Grenada. It's really not all that intriguing or spectacular, but for blogging's sake, I'll build the suspense just a little more. It is a blend of fanciful gourmet delights for the most discerning of connoisseurs of all things delicious. Sometimes it's just macaroni or take out pizza...gourmet macaroni and gourmet take out pizza. That's a marketing trick for you that I am growing wise of. Throw gourmet in front of anything and it sounds amazing. There aren't any governing bodies to decide once something passes into the realm of gourmet. Even the definition seems a bit subjective. I suppose the trick doesn't work for everything though. I don't think we will see Nike selling gourmet sneakers any time soon - they'd probably still smell like a stinky blue cheese though.

Last week was soup week. That has nothing to do with Grenada, just our apparent eating habits. We made broccoli soup, which was fantastic, with a side of quesadillas. We had that probably 3 nights in a row. Then I made carrot soup, with guidance from the gourmet chef I live with, and we had that for 3 more days (also with quesadillas). It was at the end of the week when we realized that yes, we like soup, but really, we were just using it as our excuse to eat quesadillas. There’s something to be said about cheese melted in a tortilla. I don’t know what it is; maybe it’s “I like quesadillas”?

I’ve been experimenting with our dessert options as well. I got a popsicle maker for Christmas and it really seems to fit the bill here in Grenada. That probably doesn’t sound all that exciting if all you are picturing is a plastic mold you fill up with grape drink and throw in the freezer. No, what I have is the future. It is a technological advancement in the way home popsicles will be made from now on. It’s a game changer. It’s Zoku! I mean gourmet Zoku! It allows you to make frozen treats in about 7-10 minutes. The reason that is so great is because it allows you to make multi-layered popsicles or what I have been making, creamsicles. Wow, how much can one person write about popsicles? Let’s find out.  Here are my tools:

Elaborate Pen Holder

Paper Weights

Gourmet Ingredients

And here’s how it’s done:

Creamy looking sicles

The idea is, you freeze the bathtub shaped Zoku thing for a day and then fill it up with whatever you want. For creamsicles I just had to fill the thing up for a minute, then suck out the excess juice so all I had was a thin shell. Then I poured some melted ice cream inside, and bada bing bada boom, mango creamsicles.

Contracted Model

Deliciousness 

If you’re following my blog for some insight into Grenada, sorry about the soup and popsicle bit. Oil down is a traditional dish that I haven’t actually tried yet. It involves a lot of local ingredients and is supposedly quite tasty. I haven’t seen it served at any restaurants I have been to as of yet. We may have to find ourselves a recipe.

You’d think we would be getting to be chunky monkeys with all the cheese and popsicles we’ve been eating.  Our walks with the dogs have been counteracting the process. Walking at sunset is really quite phenomenal here. Every view seems to be a good one. The island feels like an elaborate botanical garden. One that I hadn't even begun to appreciate enough until we starting strolling through it and exploring our neighbourhood. Flowers seem to bloom year round. As much as we love the walks, the dogs, and us for that matter, have been having a lot of fun at quick dip beach. Each dog has his or her strengths. C-Dog (Sea dog) loves the water and excels at nautical retrieving. K-Dog(…Kinder) can’t be bested on the surf. He hasn’t figured out that he needs to raise his ball filled mouth while swimming or he’s in for a muzzle full of water.

Caribbean Sea Otters

Kinder's figured out you have to run before the ball is thrown. Cammy—not so much.

I’ve mentioned all the things we have been making lately. The dogs have been working on a thing or two also:

Why??

You may have been confused by my usage of  “TIG” at the end of my last post. Or you may not have been. I haven’t had anyone question me on it.  TIG is an acronym of unknown origins to me, but I think it stemmed from students. It stands for “This is Grenada”.  I think it began as a way to complain about life here and perhaps the oddities of the island. Most of the time it just seems like a way to complain because most of their complaints could happen anywhere else on the planet. Like “The store ran out of milk, TIG”, or “I stubbed my toe on a mango tree, TIG”, or “There are too many people on this amazingly nice beach where there is likely to be lots of people, TIG”.  I prefer to go the other way with it. “It’s sunny every day, TIG”. “I have a variety of fruit trees growing outside my window, TIG”. “My farmer’s tan is really turning out nicely, TIG”.  I guess that’s one thing I am noticing more. People tend to notice all the things they don’t have more than what they do. I’m often surprised by how eager some students are to leave this Caribbean island.  I am perfectly content right now with my gourmet popsicles and a view of some palm trees, TIG.

Getting Here Again

It's 2012 now. I guess it's the time for resolutions. I thought one of mine would be to write more blog posts. I think a resolution implies a problem though. Writing often is more of a desire than the means to solving a particular problem in my case. After about ten minutes of pondering what a resolution really is and means I realized my real problem is over-thinking. Maybe my second resolution will be to minimize over-thinking when it's unnecessary. So without further adieu I am just going to kill 2 resolutions with one stone and start writing.

The day we left Vancouver was the only day it snowed for the entire month we were home. I hear it has been a number of degrees subzero since we left. At first I was disappointed about missing the snow on our way out, but there sure ain't (I know it isn't a word, but ain't colloquialisms grand?) anything wrong with thawing out in Grenada. Getting here was a scheduled 22 hours, an estimate that wasn't exactly accurate.

YVR was our first hiccup. This trip we planned to bring our dogs with us. Their paperwork had all its i's dotted, t's crossed, and was thrice checked. We were worried something might go wrong and we wouldn't be able to bring them; it turns out they could get on the plane, but they almost had to leave without me. Overly dramatic pause... It wasn't actually that big of a deal, it came down to space. Sorry, I mean a space. The airline's computer somewhere along the way combined my middle and last name to create one super name. This little space was just enough to refuse me from checking in. Panic! We called the airline and explained the situation and after half an hour we had the ticket reissued and were back in line to check in. When we got there they advised us that yes, in fact my name was changed but now my middle name was my last name and my last name vice versa. Subdued Panic! We were in line at the first class desk this time though. She let us through no problem. They must save the grumpy attendants for us regular folk. We rushed out, dropped our luggage on the conveyor belt, and checked the time—we were still 2 hours early. Good thing we were paranoid enough to come 4 hours ahead.

YVR to LAX was pretty uneventful. It was smooth sailing (sky sailing). We had a full row to ourselves and the flight attendants paid no notice of the dogs on our laps. When we landed we thought the pups might be full to bursting. We went in search for a spot they could go. It seems that the policy is no dogs on the tarmac. Workers at the airport suggested newspaper in the bathroom. I took Kinder, because he is a boy, and my female accomplice took Cammy, because she is a girl. We didn't want to get any strange looks from anyone else in the washroom. Kinder wasn't very much interested in the paper. He preferred kissing the ankles of the guy in the next stall. It was unfortunate that his affection was not returned so kindly. I had no luck with Kinder, so I picked up my paper, and gave a nod to the janitor waiting at the door. We briefly thought that maybe if we went on the paper first, the dogs would take their cue (by the way, we had no luck with Cammy as well). We abandoned that idea pretty quickly though. We were MIA bound and I was just hoping that the pressure difference would have no effect on their bladders.

We had about 9 hours in Miami so we headed to Miami Beach. We've never been and have heard good things. It was pretty desolate at 7AM and we expected it to be a lot warmer than it was, but it was beautiful just the same. Just in case you haven't been or seen it in CSI, I took a couple snaps.

Miami Beach and woman in pink.

Grenada's sand is nicer.

What I didn't get photos of was the public workout equipment. I thought that was a pretty good initiative for keeping fit. At the same time, it seemed to me that ripped muscle bound guys were the only ones glistening in the sun flexing their biceps and showing off. Fair is fair though, girls in their smallest bikinis were playing beach volleyball right next door. There isn't anything wrong with that. But I did find it pretty gosh darn creepy that at least a dozen middle-aged men were taking photos from the sidelines.

After a bit of a walk, both of the dogs were still pretty restless and we took the opportunity to run them out. Being younger, Kinder's energy is pretty bountiful. We took turns chasing and being chased by him.

K-Dog and A Human

He stole my wallet.

When we got tired he went after an unsuspecting Cammy.

"I'm too old for this shtick"

It was a spot of luck that the weekend we were travelling was also an auto show on Ocean Drive. There were plenty of old dolled up cars to ogle over. It was pretty neat to see these old cars from the 50's against the art deco style buildings lining the street. To balance it out they had no less than 80 homemade jewelry booths littered up and down the drive. After a few hours at Miami Beach, we headed back to MIA for our next flight to GND.

We sat in the plane for an extra 2 hours before taking off. The aircraft was overweight by 300 pounds of mail apparently. Considering each one of our suitcases was about 50lbs each, it seemed like it took an awful long time to move the mail. One can only assume the packages must have been a mixed bag of both sphere and pyramid shapes. That's all to say, we got into Grenada a little later than anticipated and we were getting pretty tired.

Things had a large overtone of familiarity to them. From the customs office to cab ride to our rickety gate (sorry to our new neighbours for the racket), it felt nice to come back to our Caribbean home. What wasn't so familiar were the lights that wouldn't turn on and the lack of electricity. Even less recognizable was the oversized petri dish that was our refrigerator. We opted to leave it closed for the night for fear of whatever had evolved in there might escape.

When the sun came up and I was out and about the familiarity returned. The guys from Grenlec (the electric company) came out fairly quickly and remedied our issue post-haste and were very friendly all the while. It was good to hear the Soca on the bus and feel the sun on my shoulders again. I probably should have worn sunscreen.

We've been taking the dogs for sunset walks every night. And more so than ever, we are appreciating the island. T.I.G.