Halloween

I was talking to my almost-3-year-old niece the other day about Halloween, and it seems she's totally got the right idea.  When I asked her what her plans were for the holiday (which she pronounces "haah -aah-ween", I think just to manipulate us - and it works, gah, how cute is that?), she just said "candy".  Well, actually, she repeated the word "candy" over and over.  And man, she is so right.  I've been craving a Reese's peanut butter cup (without question, the holy grail of trick-or-treating for me) for the last couple of weeks, so I went ahead and made some, because they're super easy.

This took me back to working at Harrison St. Coffee Shop, where we'd have to make dozens of pb cups every day. they were vegan, and loaded with crisco, and people loved them.  These ones do not have crisco in them (I used a little bit of peanut butter in the chocolate instead).

Fingerprint on top because we couldn't wait for them to set completely.

Leah's mouth is blurry because it's moving. Also, she is so good-looking.

Speaking of Leah, I am the author of most of these posts because she is studying all of the time - like, really, seriously, all of the time. How amazing looking are her notes?

And this weekend I finally got myself to a "hash" - there's a running club on the island (I think it may be an international thing, though) called the St. Kitts Hash House Harriers, and every three weeks, they organize a run/walk somewhere on the island, usually up into the mountains. What's unique about the runs is that the runners don't know where they're going - it's like mystery dinner theater for athletes. The leaders of the run, called "hares", mark the trail with sawdust - a pile of sawdust means you're on the right track (and fellow hashers will yell, "On, On!" to let the rest of the pack know to continue); an "X" in sawdust means you've gotten yourself on the wrong trail and you have to turn around ("On back!").  People love these runs - you get to see parts of the country that you never would, it's a really fun crowd, and a great opportunity to meet cool locals. The St. Kitts chapter of the Hash Harriers has a reputation for being really inclusive too - so it's a fun thing for families (and dogs! A lot of cute dogs, wheezing up the mountain) and people of all fitness levels. Also, when you've finished the run, there's a barbecue and they make you chug beers. It's awesome. (Thanks to Sam and Diedre for remembering their cameras!)

rainbow at the end of the trail

After the race, down on one knee, waiting with the other first-time hashers to be "blessed"

this "blessing" turned out to be getting beer poured on one's head.

And one more thing about running - sorry, this isn't very exciting, I know - I completed my first ever double-digit jog: I ran 10 miles! In a row!  I couldn't have done it without these shoes, which my mother-in-law (almost) just sent me:

I almost didn't want to wear them because they are the most perfect things I've ever seen.

Really cool/gross consequence of that ten-miler - my toenail fell off! I've got it covered with a band-aid right now and I'm just going to avoid dealing with it for as long as possible.

Butternut Squash Ravioli

Autumn-envy has set in, pretty hard. I'm seeing pictures of friends' fall foliage tours and pumpkin-spiced facebook status updates, and I'm starting to feel really homesick - New York is at its most beautiful now, I think, when the sky is impossibly blue and clear and everyone is wearing cardigans. Oh, man, do I miss cardigans, and layering clothing in general.  And Autumn is when you can still drink beers with your friends on decks and patios, but you don't get too sweaty when you ride your bike home. That Christmas carol has it totally wrong - this is the most wonderful time of the year. I mean, look at tomorrow's weather forecast for Brooklyn:

But I guess the grass is always greener - or the leaves are always more vibrantly red, yellow, and orange? Har.  One thing I associate with autumn, though, St. Kitts has in abundance: nutmeg. It's one of the few things that is produced locally.  A neat thing about the way nutmeg is sold here is that they don't remove the outer shell - that's mace, right? -before packaging. So it's a total deal, two spices in one. [edit: I was wrong, this is not mace. see Anna's comment below - what mace actually looks like is waaay more awesome.]

mace, brainy nutmeg

Winter squash is consistently available at the grocery stores, too - always calabaza, but sometimes there are other varieties. So I added a bunch of nutmeg to roasted and mashed butternut squash and used the leftover potsticker wrappers to make ravioli, fried some sage in browned butter and we sat next to the air conditioner and ate the hell out of it. It felt almost like Fall....but alas, definitely sweatier.

toaster roaster 

we roasted these too, uh huh.

Pie Sale

When I first signed on as a volunteer at Ade's Place (the organization I mentioned here), I agreed to work a couple of days a week focusing on fundraising and marketing, and I have done a bunch of work so far towards those broad goals - I've started a website for them (my first! It has been humbling - no, humiliating. The "user-friendly" wordpress template continues to confound and frustrate me).  Mostly I've worked in the office doing tedious administrative stuff, and I've also made many really shitty flyers with hilariously bad clipart.  This week, though, I've been completely consumed with organizing a pie sale to benefit the center. [One thing to note, here: the term "pie" in St. Kitts refers to not only the round, crusted, possibly lattice- topped confection we know, but also to any kind of casserole. So, for example, lasagna is called a "pie". Macaroni and cheese is "macaroni pie".  Totally weird.]

To say that we received more orders than we expected would be a huge understatement. We thought that we would make a few pies - maybe twenty? Maybe we'd get just an overwhelmingly positive response and have to make, let's say, thirty - but we could do it! It'd be fun, even! Well, people were awesome and kept calling and emailing orders until we finally decided to cut it off when we reached 107 pies. We were freaking out a little and Michelle, a younger staff member, was discussing ways we could cut corners: the chicken pot pies, for example, didn't need a sauce - you could just throw the chicken (thigh, not breast!) in there with some (frozen!) mixed vegetables (with corn and lima beans!) and some (gasp!) bell peppers and make a "short crust" with flour and water! Now, a normal person would have maybe thought the above sounded pretty gross but oh, well, and then - I don't know, thought about something else. I couldn't behave like a normal person, of course: I was obsessively horrified and blurted, "I can do the pot pies! Yeah, it'll be no big deal, I'll do them."

So, I made 26 chicken pot pies in a dorm kitchen, which sucked as much as you think it would. I borrowed pots from friends, made chicken stock from chicken necks (they sell those everywhere here) and I cleared off the desk downstairs for rolling out the pastry.  I used Ina Garten's recipe, substituting butter for the shortening in the crust because shortening is gross.

I shouldn't talk too much about how, when I thought I was finally done and baking the pies off at the center, Michelle went to rotate the many tins on the bottom rack of the oven and TIPPED THE WHOLE EM-EFFING RACK OVER,  and then I had to go home and spend four more hours doing the whole thing over again. No, let's not get into that (suffice to say rage is a good motivator for the "faster runs" of the race training schedule, and that the almost entire bottle of wine since getting back from that run has helped, too).

two of four giant pots of filling. i rouxed the day.

I had to sit outside the student union three times this week to collect money for pie orders. 

half of 'em

Sardines and Skype

After talking so much shit about Deb for slacking on her blog, we'd be hypocrites not to make this a regular thing. But we haven't taken any pictures since the last entry, and what's this blog without pictures? Just a bunch of witty, fascinating words? 

It's the end of a lovely weekend of drinking in the ocean, studying, and sweaty eating - all sadly undocumented.  We got home from Shipwreck last night around dinnertime, hungover from day beers, and Laura made a pasta masterpiece with capers, hot sauce, breadcrumbs, garlic, onions, and sardines: as gloriously Claus Ravenish* as it sounds, and twice as delicious. (Is there any appropriate way to talk about how I ruined sex this morning by sneak-eating the cold leftovers after breakfast? No? Okay.) Then we tried to watch some newly-legal-in-the-Caribbean Netflix, but discovered that everything our $8 can buy down here streams either dubbed into Spanish or subtitled in Portuguese. ¡No hay problema! Laura's just getting into the WTF podcast, so we listened to the one where Sarah Vowell talks about her Hawaii book. 

We were Skyping my parents tonight when I suddenly realized how to snatch a blog post from the fishy jaws of defeat: 

"What an age we live in!"

* My grandfather, Claus Raven, was once busted at customs coming back to New York from Austria with his ski boots filled with Landjägers. 

I wanna dip my dumplings in it!

A couple of really important and exciting things have happened in the past few days:

1)Deb Perelman hasn't published a new post in TWO WEEKS.  She is a professional blogger, that's what she does - or is supposed to do, rather.  Her last post was a       Rosh Hashana recipe for apple and honey challah - sounds good the first forty times you refresh the site, sure - but it's weird and annoying to be wished a happy new year for fourteen days in a row. I don't have an oven, I don't have access to apples, and I'm not even Jewish -so yeah, I was feeling pretty bitter every time the page reloaded with the same picture of that glossy knotted loaf. I went through some less-dramatic (but don't worry, still dramatic) versions of the stages of grief: there was disbelief, a lot of disappointment, some miffed-ness, then resentment, and finally, acceptance.  I've moved on, Deb.  Heidi Swanson  (I know, you guys are friends, whatever) is really doing it for me lately. She just seems so...good. She has blonde hair and only eats whole grains! But best of all of her attributes, she updates her blog frequently. Today I made the golden potstickers she wrote about a few days ago and while she has posted prettier pictures on her site, I will post mine here, anyway:

I found all those stones  on the right while sorting the split peas! I have a special jar  for keeping the stones I find in pulses. This is...not normal, I realize. 

crazy delicious.

2)We found an apartment for next semester! Alas, although we've started to really get used to dorm-living and toaster-cooking, only first semester students are allowed to live on campus.  The school  very conveniently lists "Ross Approved" housing on its website, with pictures and contact information and a checklist of security features and amenities. Next semester's apartment was the first we looked at from the site, and we went with a check because we're just stupidly impulsive and apartment searching is the total worst.  It's a modest one bedroom in a small complex that seems like it was once an economy vacation rental situation. The whole place is charmingly run down in ways that don't matter to either of us - that is, none of the fixtures are new and the furniture inside the apartment will definitely need to be covered (Leah: "How much you wanna bet I never sit on that chair?"). It's cute and has sloped wood-slatted ceilings and it felt good in there. Most importantly, it's only a mile from campus and there's a backup generator for when the electricity (inevitably, and regularly, on this island) goes out. There's also a swimming pool on the grounds! The landlady said we were welcome to take the fruit from the avocado tree and the date palms that are on the property, too, which made me squeal.

patio with ocean view

sweet bacardi poster, huh?

poooool!

3)I went to Nevis today for the first time - I had a staff development thing for Ade's Place at the vocational training facility for their special education unit. It was neat, really informative and the teachers were super great - but that's boring stuff so I will only talk about these  most amazing flying fish I saw on the ferry ride over there: they burst out of the water, with their giant fan-like fins spread out, and fly, fucking fly!!! for like a long time! before diving back into the cobalt blue water. Watching them was pure joy.

on the ferry returning from Nevis

Z-moss!

A brief addendum to Laura's post: today we took a friend to the grocery store, and because we didn't need anything - Laura had just gone to all three grocery stores on the island the day before - we bought something we didn't need, but really, really wanted: an 11% alcoholic beverage ("for adults 18 years and over") called Z-moss Booster. The ingredients are: Sea Moss, Alcohol, Milk, Sugar, Coconut Flavor, Ginseng, Spices, and Sodium Benzoate. The taste was: salon conditioner, baby food custard, mythical creature semen, burning. The verdict: we're totally buying it again.

Scrimp Scrampi

Leah's been school-working like, every minute.  She gets up, has class until the late afternoon, goes to a review session or two until the evening, and then studies all of the things she learned until she passes out. This is a pretty sharp contrast to most of my days here, which usually involve waking up, pointless internetting for a couple of hours, and maybe some drifting off to sleep while trying to read. Sometimes I do the crossword.  I have a pretty strict granola routine throughout the day, too: I open the fridge, grab a fistful of granola, sit down in front of the computer, throw it as close as I can get to in my open mouth. Then I get up - I usually wait a few seconds, but sometimes I'm still chewing when I rise -  and repeat the process several times, and I do this until I have oats stuck to my shirt and sometimes cheeks, my jaw hurts from the chewing, and I feel as ashamed and disgusting as a person should.  These are mostly jokes (it's funny 'cause it's true!); I do some other stuff that doesn't make me feel like I'm pizza the hut. Today I ran 7 miles, the scheduled weekly "long run" as part of my training for the Nevis Half Marathon on November 27th. I run along a new road called "the bypass" which, as its name implies, bypasses the busier streets of Basseterre and allows traffic to go around the city.  I had an interaction at around 6:30am, in my first mile, with a youngish Kittitian man who seemed like he was not an early riser, but a stay-out-late-r, whom I had to pass:

Me: "morning"

Him: some sort of a grunt/grumble, then: "Watch your bag"

Me: "my bat?"

Him: "your bag! there are teefs about"

Me: "my teeth? my fanny pack has teeth?"

Him: "TEEF! THERE ARE MANY TEEFS ABOUT"

Me: "ohh...thieves?...it's okay - I only have my mace in here."

So - was this guy warning me that he was a teef and would have robbed me if he felt more like it? It was creepy and strange and I didn't forget about it until around mile 6, when all I could think about was how much running sucks and maybe I don't want to do this stupid race anyway.  And thankfully, the roads are well-trafficked, with many cars passing (Ross University security vehicles passed me five times that I noticed), and plenty of other exercisers and day-seizers.

Besides the running and volunteering, I keep busy by doing the annoying stuff like laundry and cleaning and prospective landlord calling (more on that later! I'll let Leah tell you about it). One of the tasks that is all mine that I am very grateful for is the provision procuring - I've always loved grocery shopping (being a grocer's daughter, perhaps), and I delight in the challenge of being as frugal as is possible here. There was a 50% off sale on shrimp at the IGA this week, bringing the price down to just a little bit more than we would pay in the states, so with an "I'm not going to ask why" enthusiasm, I grabbed a bag and dreamt of a Caribbean shrimp scampi, with local beer in place of wine, cilantro for parsley, and lime for lemon:

you can't waste the sauce in the pan. it's a sin.

this particularly excited, joyful face is reserved only for lizards and delicious food

superficial digital flexors and brownies

This afternoon I helped Leah and her lab partner, Katie, study for their first big anatomy test. The anatomy lab is this giant, sterile-looking room with metal desks and plastered animal skeletons (did you know that all four-legged animal skeletons look like dinosaurs? they do). It stinks of formaldehyde and sanitizing solution in there, and it was really busy - there had to be like a hundred white-coated students cramming for the exam, buzzing around their preservative-dripping, peeled-apart dogs.  I think to be sensitive to me, we stayed away from the stumpy carcasses (the dissected dogs have their legs removed for easier storage)  and looked at a horse skeleton.  I had a stack of prepared note cards and was quizzing Leah and Katie on muscle attachments - each card took a few minutes because they had to go back and forth with the "are you sure?" and the "lemme check the book" and then the "ohhh, the supracondylar crest! i thought it was the distal palmar epicondyle tubercle!" and etc. It seems like an amazing amount of information and I admire them and wish them luck, but I didn't stay long because I was a rare combination of too grossed out and too bored.

articulated skeleton of a horse

So I waited for the repulsion to subside and then I made these brownies - I think my greatest toaster-oven-baking success so far. I've been substituting rum for vanilla extract in all of these recipes, by the way, because the rum here is like $5.  I also think adding the teeniest bit of cinnamon to cocoa-based things makes it taste chocolatier, like how instant espresso powder is sometimes called for in a chocolate recipe (but I just...I just can't buy instant espresso powder).

brownies in our cheeks make us strong and happy

Naan pizza!

Without getting too regionally chauvinist about it, I hope we can all agree that there is pizza,

and there is non-pizza.

But what about NAAN PIZZA? (Sadly, not pictured. We ate it too fast.) 

This smitten kitchen recipe was a staple of ours in Brooklyn; it was hard to buy winter squash, arugula, or gorgonzola and make anything else with it, in fact, and the two of us could easily kill the entire pie.  A lesser fresser might have let the lack of key ingredients (arugula, acorn squash) and equipment (an oven, a pizza stone) on St. Kitts change her habits, but not Laura! Tonight she made naan dough, fried it, and substituted broccoli for the greens and pumpkin for the acorn squash! Now we never have to go home!*

*Not actually true.

Sugar Cake

The spouses and significant others of students at Ross Veterinary School are unselfconsciously referred to as VIPs (Very Important Partners).  A few VIPs are certified teachers in the States and are qualified to work for Ross at the preparatory school here on campus, but the government of St Kitts does not allow employment outside of Ross University for any non-citizens. So, most VIPs do, uh....a bunch of nothing. Well, that's not entirely true: some are completing masters degrees online, but many more of us fill our days with housewifery, countless hours on facebook, and sometimes beach volleyball or book clubs...yeah, it's tough life, I know.  I never thought I would say this, but - not having anything to do?  It gets old, quickly.  Around the beginning of Leah's second week of classes, I started to become near-despondent with boredom.  I was flailing around, anxious and sullen, picking arguments for no reason and having temper tantrums at the gym. I don't like people watching me exercise, okay? And yeah, I'm going to cry about it.
So I began looking for something to do with my time here, to save my and Leah's sanity. I found a volunteer opportunity at Ade's Place, a day facility for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Ade's Place focuses on independence and life-skills training, and the organizers also work out individual vocation training plans for the attendees (called "trainees").  I was nervous at first, having limited experience with volunteering and none at all with mental disability, but everyone at Ade's Place immediately welcomed me warmly.  It is a very light and fun environment; every person, trainees and staff, seems sincerely happy that he or she is there.   More than anything that we do, we laugh. There is always so much joking and poking fun and silly nonsense, some days my cheeks ache from it. Josephine, the executive director,  told me that I would fit in nicely there because of my booming cackle: "it's quite like a black woman's, isn't it? the way you tip your head back and everything." (oh, picture that with a British accent - she was raised in England.)

On Mondays, Michelle (a staff member) teaches the trainees how to prepare a snack.  Today we made sugar cakes. Which, as it turns out, are not baked cakes so much as they are like coconut pralines, made from cooking grated coconut in a simple syrup with a demerrera sugar to water ratio of about 29:1 (truly ungodly, terrifying amounts of sugar) until all of the water has boiled off and you're left with a sticky batter, which you then spoon into small piles on a clean surface to let cool.  The cooled cakes are hard and crumbly, very molasses-y, and blindingly sweet.

I got to drink that coconut water!

handmade grater 

coconut + sugar water + patience

cooling the candy

Michelle 

Travis washes up.

Spiced cocoa-rubbed fish!

So Laura cooked pretty much all day, and I waltzed in around 4pm and took a (third) shower and then sat by the air conditioner and studied until we ate. What I mean is that if anyone was actually sweating during this meal, it was Laura.

Check out this spiced cocoa-rubbed tilapia (with scotch bonnet peppers instead of cayenne, and fresh onion and garlic instead of powdered), okra, black beans, and rice she made!

This window provides very arty light around dinnertime.

...aaand macro.

There were also some toaster-baked LEMON POPPY CAKES with cream cheese inside, but they weren't up to Laura's exacting aesthetic standards, and so you'll have to take my word for it.

And one more thing: just as we were starting to despair of any wine here not tasting like grape juice with poison in it and costing four times what it should, we found this totally delicious one in the duty free store at the port for US$7.50! JOY!

HOARD HOARD HOARD

st. christopher children's home run

Leah and I are going to try to use this blog to document our experiences in St. Kitts, particularly those that involve sweating, eating, and sweating while eating (which happens...quite nearly every meal).  Today's heat index was 101°F; I ran a 5k that started in the mid-afternoon, on a golf course without any shade.  After the race, I ate something food-like on a bun. 

races make me so nervous. 

mr. x warming up our muscles and spirit. that sounds like i'm being sarcastic - and i am, of course - but he was a soul-stirrer, no doubt about it. just look at how much that guy rules!

can you see all the little kids? yeah, there were many people running who were under the age of 8. and some of them finished before me. there was one girl who was doing the little kid sprint/walk thing and whenever she saw me plodding on up behind her, she would sprint again.  i hated her, truly.  

yup. i ate that.

this was sweating, so i didn't eat it.