As much as we hate to, we are supposed to be traveling back today. The news reports don't make us too optimistic about a smooth process, but fingers crossed.
Here's to Jamaica and to the Secrets Wild Orchid Montego Bay resort. Thank you for a wonderful vacation.
Dateline, December 26, 2010, 10 p.m.: Still in Jamaica. Not disappointed (ha). It was one hell of a pain in my butt to rearrange things -- four freaking HOURS on hold with USAirways (USAirways is officially on my shit list. Seriously, FOUR HOURS and no one can answer the phone? Even in a state of emergency, that is beyond unacceptable.) I finally gave up (you can't say I didn't try) and got a cab to the airport, where I waited in line for 2.5 hours more -- but it finally happened: The airline tickets were changed. Thankfully, the resort was able to accommodate us for two more nights, noproblemmon.
So much better than sleeping in an airport somewhere.
(Abigail stole the laptop from me and then I fell asleep so I didn't finish this post.)
NOW it's 7:42 a.m. December 27, and look what kicked up overnight:
So the joke is a little bit on us, and I'm still steaming that I lost an entire day in paradise dealing with that damned airline, but it sure as hell beats being caught in that blizzard back home, or worse -- in an airport somewhere in between. Hey, who pissed off Mother Nature? But anyway, in my spa robe on the balcony, this is warm and kind of great, though I wouldn't want to be here in a real hurricane. I clearly won't be working on my tan today unless this stops sometime soon.
Please note the men who are cleaning the pool and raking the sand beach, as they do each morning before most of the guests wake up.
Meet Zeon:
...who brewed me up a batch of Jamaican sorrel this week and packed it up for me. You can buy sorrel juice in the stores, but just like buying apple juice at home in the grocery store -- that fakey pasteurized junk in the stores -- as opposed to buying the most delicious fresh-pressed apple cider at your favorite orchard, the homemade stuff is the only way to go, with fresh ginger and a touch of rum. Here's hoping the customs authorities don't confiscate it or the luggage handlers don't break the jug and soak all my clothing in it. It's.so.AWESOME.
So, there's a Nor'Easter. Not sure what that is going to do to our travel plans for today. It sure would be easier if we had a definite no-go BEFORE we pack our bags, check out, and head to the airport... One thing I do not want to be is one of those poor sods you see on the news, camped out on an airport floor with a mylar blanket on. Can't say I would mind staying here another day week month. (Sugar daddy wanted.)
Christmas Eve 2010, in Montego Bay
I know my Salt Lake City grrls will approve of the hat -- they tried to get me to buy one almost like this in Park City. Abigail approved of it, too, so I just had to get it. It's too bad you can't see how pretty it really is, with a lovely brown ribbon flower on the front.
Oh wait. Yes, you can:
The finishing touch to my outfit for Christmas Eve was the beautiful chocolate silk Annis shawl that Marianne (who sadly doesn't blog anymore) knitted for me. Gorgeous and perfect for the little bit of chill in the Jamaican evening air.
Oh dear. I have fallen hard in love with Jamaica.
Abigail asked me why all the boys here are so cute.
I couldn't give her an answer, because I couldn't get my eyes back in their sockets hadn't noticed.
There were some recent reviews of this resort that were written by people who complained about the "dreary weather." I checked the weather report for Montego Bay, and for all this week it was predicted to be "partly cloudy."
They were right. 79F and partly cloudy. Totally dreary.
Oh, and the view from our room is totally awful, too:
I visited the shop of a friend of mine in Isle La Motte, Vermont, this weekend. If you ever come to Northwestern Vermont, Isle La Motte is definitely worth a visit. There is the St. Anne's Shrine which I've written about before, a historic (now closed) black marble quarry, a fascinating ancient reef. It's an island, so as such, it is right in the middle of beautiful Lake Champlain. It is a lovely, interesting, historic little place, and as I have mentioned before, it is my birthplace.
I took a few snapshots of Evan's shop and some of the lovely things inside. She has such great taste, and even her wonderful shop -- the building itself -- has a fascinating history.
SORRY, THE MOLD IS SOLD.
Evan needs a little breathing space for a few days to get caught up, so for the meantime I've taken down the contact info for a while. When she feels ready, we will put it back up again.
Dear Readers,
Well, hello everyone. It's Mr. Jefferies, World Traveler, here. I'm not gonna lie: It's good to be home where, instead of the go-go-go pace of Alpha's vacation, I can truly lie down and relax:
Man, am I tired, because I spent an awful lot of our vacation doing this sort of thing:
And that plane trip, I'm tellin' ya -- stress city! If that didn't burn some calories and make me almost have a heart attack, I don't know what would.
Here we are on the plane, waiting for liftoff. Alpha is trying to reassure me that it will be OK, but people, SHE LIED. She can kiss me all she wants, but she LIED. It was not OK. Not OK in the LEAST.
It was much better after we landed. Whew.
Everywhere we went in Portland and in Nova Scotia, I was wholeheartedly welcomed: restaurants (on their outdoor patios), art galleries, museums, shops of all types. Well, almost everywhere -- We were turned away from one restaurant in Yarmouth. Most shops even had dog treats to give me! It helps when you have the super-cuteness like I do.
At this restaurant, they let Alpha set out my dishes and they gave me water and the whole nine yards:
And the other tourists (there were hardly any, and when I say hardly any, when you looked at that video back there, you will notice that you can count them on one hand, and this was the largest gathering of tourists anywhere we went) played with me and fed me bits of their lobster and fish. I was a king. A KING, I tell you!
And every time Alpha and I walked anywhere, people would say, "Hi cutie!" and she thought they were talking to her. But of course she was wrong. (But don't tell her -- we don't want to hurt her feelings.)
It was quite surreal, as if we'd entered some special land where everyone claimed to have a Yorkie or three or four or five at home. A pregnant one! One that just gave birth to two pups but they lost one! "My grandmother had one, and he outlived her and we inherited him. He had no teeth; we had to puree his food in a food processor!" "I have a Yorkie who looks EXACTLY LIKE HIM, but I'd never be able to take him into a store -- he'd be too scared and shake too much!" "Excuse me -- where did you get your dog carrier? My sister just got a Yorkie and that's exactly what she's looking for!"
Etcetera and so forth.
But we never saw a one -- not one -- in real life, except we saw one in Portland at our hotel on the way back. He was in the car of some vacationing Canadians, who coo-coo-coooooooooed about me, but when we approached their car to say hi, they warned us sadly, "But he bites," so we backed right off. Who needs a bitey Yorkie?! Ugh.
So this trip was by far the biggest number of Yorkies that we never saw, and the most dog-friendly area we could ever imagine. And three out of three knitters polled agreed: Bringing me along really added a nice dimension to their trip. I'd do it again in a heartbeat. Except ixnay on the plane ride, eh?
Love,
Mr. Jefferies
Gooseberry jam made at the Acadian Museum:
As you can see, I have already - ahem - sampled it. My mom says that her father (who lived in rural Quebec) loved gooseberry jam, which she pronounces GOOZberry, which I assume is the way he pronounced it. He lived to be 95, so I figure it must be good for one's health. (Or it could be that it was something else -- the thing my grandmother believed was good for his health -- which is a shot of whiskey in his tea every morning despite the fact that he claimed to be a teetotaler. Boy, did my grandmother make good tea, he assumed! Nobody else makes good tea like you do, Ma! [that's what he called her] Must be because she was a nurse. Haha. Or it could just be good genes. The longevity genes, I haz them.)
I'd never tried goozberry jam, so when I saw it there I just had to buy some for me and for my mom. The man there who made it said it is made with just two ingredients -- goozberries and sugar. So it meets the Michael Pollan rule of eating nothing that contains more than five ingredients. Good enough for me. And oh, so tasty.
A very special olive oil and a very special vinegar:
On Commercial Street in Portland, Maine, a shop whose name I have unfortunately forgotten had the most wonderful selection of oils and vinegars to sample. A sip of oil, a sip of vinegar, a sip of oil, a sip of vinegar. Yum! It was amazing to taste the differences. I truly could TASTE the differences and put words to the flavors: "This one tastes like grass. This one is acidic and fizzy. This one tastes like cigar smoke."
People do that with wine [and cheese] all the time, but up till now I've always thought, "Oh, how pretentious!" when they go on: "Figgy, with some smoke and a touch of plums; a little vinegar, with a light chocolate finish." Pfffffft.
I think I have a pretty sophisticated palate most of the time, but it all tastes like wine [or cheese] to me. I can say, "Mmmm, this tastes GREAT! I love this!" but it all just tastes like wine. Or cheese.
Apparently I'm an oil-and-vinegar girl, and not a wine or cheese girl. Or maybe I will be all over the wine and cheese subtleties when I grow up or something. We did buy a Nova Scotia wine that a woman in the liquor store highly recommended, and it turned out to be really just too sweet for my taste -- so much so that I couldn't finish my glass. So maybe I'm getting there. However, the local wine that Paula and Sandy bought the day before was much better. They chose it because the label was pretty, which is often what I do, and it just goes to show you...what, I'm not sure.
But anyway, I loved the California Manzanillo oil because it really tastes like ....... olives. Clean, pure, true-young-olivey taste. Yummmmmdelicious! Can't wait to have some on salad. And I love the way they bottled it in the sexy bottles at the shop. And the pomegranate balsamic really hit a note with me.
Then at Maine's Pantry, I went a little bit crazy with the Stonewall Kitchen jams and toppings they had. We get a few of these things in some of my local stores, but not this great variety. I'm just such a jamhead, really. There was some dark chocolate-salted-caramel sauce that didn't make it past me and Sandy, the hotel room, and a couple of spoons. Lucky for my waistline, we forgot the rest of the jar at Paula's. Enjoy it, Paula!
Also at Maine's Pantry, Mr. Jefferies got a couple treats:
The lobster treats are a huge hit. The blueberry ones, not so much. He says we can donate those to the pet shelter if we want. Or the compost pile.
Is it kind of a hoot how he is in the exact same pose for two of these photos, but his octopus has been moved? Looks kind of like I Photoshopped him in, eh? Translation: He wants me to play with him, and I was playing with him in between setting up shots. But he also wants to focus on the activity on the street in case any people-chasing or dog-chasing emergency comes up or something. He is just too funny, that boy.
Show of hands: How many of YOU [mere mortals] have flown on an airline that takes off a half hour early BECAUSE EVERYBODY WAS THERE?!
I have!!!
What a great experience it was to fly with Twin Cities Air Service. Mr. Jefferies begs to differ, but hey, I'm the one payin' the bills around here.
I'm currently making my way back home, but here are a few more random photos from my vacation.
Thank you to Paula for being such a wonderful hostess, tour guide, and chauffeur. Thanks to Sandy for being such a great travel companion. Thanks to both of them, and to Sandy's daughter Bethany, for being such wonderful help and support with Mr. Jefferies. And huge apologies to Paula's cats for having to vacate the house so the terrier could invade it. What a cruel, unfair world.
Yesterday was foggy, a bit cool, and a bit rainy -- an absolutely perfect day to build a fire
lie low, and hang out at Paula's home, watching Lucy Neatby DVDs (right, this has nothing at all to do with being Acadian)
and cooking an authentic Acadian meal.
Sandy had purchased a couple of cookbooks earlier in the week.
We pored over them and decided on a menu, then went shopping for the essential ingredients, like:
and grated potatoes, which, together with perhaps butter and molasses (the four basic food groups?), are found pretty much in every.SINGLE.recipe. Those Acadians, they are/were a simple people.
And the Acadians traditionally did not eat many vegetables. It says so in all the books.
So no green stuff.
This was our menu:
Pork & Chicken Rappie Pie. Being thrifty like the Acadians, we used our leftover pork chops from the night before, supplemented with a couple of chicken legs. This was, as near as we can tell, about four times the meat that ACTUALLY should be in a Rappie Pie. (recipe: "Put [no quantity given] meat or chicken in the pot with 30 cups water.") Get that? 30 cups water, quantity given. Meat? Well, however much you have or don't have.
Pretty much like stone soup, as near as we can tell.
In the Rappie Pie that we tasted at a restaurant a few days ago, we found one tiny sliver of chicken in a sea of grated potato.
San was in charge of the Rappie Pie. If I do say so, it turned out pretty photogenic, next to the fire.
The rest of the meal:
Mashed turnips
Corn on the cob
Buttermilk Pie
-----------------------
So after food shopping, with a few side trips to some amazing art galleries, we chopped and mixed and sauteed and baked.
I was in charge of the buttermilk pie. This, my friends, is my first-ever lard pie crust. And I'm chagrined to say that I am SOLD on lard pie crust. This pie was awesome, if I do say so.
First rule against modern cuisine: Do not cook a monochromatic meal. (This meal was brought to you by the color YELLOW.) Oh, and do not put lard in EV-ERY-THING; minor detail. But the Acadians lived long lives, so this kind of eating apparently served them well enough.
A true conversation:
Norma: Sandy, do you want butter for your corn?
Sandy: No. No butter.
Norma: Lard, then?
And last evening, three out of three knitters polled decided that it was ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS.
The Acadian flag
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