Holidays, English biscuits and sailing

Thanksgiving has come and gone here on the island. Since it is not a holiday here everything went on as normal. I ran some errands and did some grocery shopping and C.J. studied. In a shoddy and desperate attempt at a Thanksgiving meal I made pork chops with Stove Top Stuffing.

I remember why we never eat Stove Top Stuffing. Because that is some terrible stuff. Just add hot water and let sit for five minutes?? What is that? Astronaut food? It paled in comparison to my mother's homemade cornbread stuffing with sausage. But C.J. actually loves the stuff, so I let him eat most of it.

Friday night I had a potluck with my SO friends and that was much better. Every key Thanksgiving dish was represented including turkey, homemade stuffing, green bean casserole, broccoli rice casserole, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, croissant roles, cream corn, deviled eggs and pumpkin pie. So that made up for Thursday's meal and it was just as good as anything we would get at home.

It was our first Thanksgiving away from our families but it wasn't so bad. Since the weather here is so warm it is hard to really be in the spirit anyway.

Now that Thanksgiving is over, it means we are that much closer to Christmas. We are actually leaving in two weeks from tomorrow. It is going to go by so fast. For me, anyway. For C.J., the next two weeks will seem like an eternity as he studies non-stop for his finals. He has put himself on an Internet moratorium - no Facebook, e-mail, sports, NY Times, nothing - until finals are over. So if you aren't hearing from him, that's why.

Speaking of Christmas, it is big in Grenada. The mall is decorated and everyone is playing Christmas music. There are a lot of Reggae/Caribbean Christmas songs here which is kind of fun. I also hear Dolly Parton Christmas music a lot here which is strange but good for me since I love Dolly.

This year, as in years past, we will not be buying any Christmas gifts for each other or any family. We don't have the money and we don't enjoy the stress and commercialism of selecting gifts for an endless list of loved ones. Once you start, where do you stop?

Omitting gift giving from Christmas has been one of the best things we've ever done. It allows us to focus on all the truly great things about Christmas - friends, family, faith and food (not necessarily in that order). So, a quick note here to remind everyone, please don't get us any Christmas gifts. Our time together is enough and will be the best gift of all for us this year.

Moving on from holiday talk, I've got two new goals for my life here on the island. These goals have just formulated in the last week so I have to tell you about them. First, although the grocery store frequently is out of essentials like milk, cheese, eggs and juice, there is always an assortment of English cookies here.

In the beginning, I didn't even notice all the different cookies. My eyes just glazed over when looking at these unfamiliar boxes on the chip/cookie/cracker isle. Then I met a British couple who just moved here via the US. They said they were actually happy about the grocery selection here - they can get many more British products here than they could get in America.

So I started paying a little closer attention and noticed there are literally dozens of types of British cookies (also called biscuits) at IGA. And most of them are actually cheaper than the American brands. And so I formulated my first goal for the remainder of my stay here - I must try every type of British cookie/biscuit at the grocery store. It fits in nicely with my food obsession and greatly increases the variety of sweet treats we can have at home. So every week I buy a new package or two.

Here's a shot of all the British cookies in the store and you can see they aren't even all in stock here.



Here's the two I got this week. Jaffa Cakes - "soft sponge cakes with a tangy orange filling half coated in plain chocolate" - and Country Snapjacks - "for those classic biscuit moments." Sounds yummy, right?


One great thing about British cookies is that I can't read the nutrition label very well. For example, the Jaffa Cakes have 182 Kj of energy. What on earth does that mean? With this kind of label it's easy for me to pretend these are better for me than say, Oreos.

And a lot of these cookies taste really great. We've had some good ginger snaps and jam filled biscuits and short breads. C.J. is humoring me and happily eats whatever I bring home. Although, regarding the Country Snapjacks he did say they would be considered dog biscuits at home. They weren't very sweet. O.K. maybe I won't buy those again.

My other goal for the remainder of our time on the island is to learn to sail. Maybe not really learn to sail myself but at least get on a sail boat and have someone show me how it works. Obviously, since we are in the Caribbean, there is a big sailing community here and sail boats docked all around the island. I've never been on a sailboat. It would be a shame not to try it out while I'm here.

So to reach that goal I'm helping my friend Jovanna plan a regatta in March. She's being paid as the event coordinator, and I am volunteering my time to write some press releases and other race correspondence for her. I figure this will get me a trip on a sailboat sooner or later. And it is a fun thing to work on.

Regatta planning has taken the place of the radio show. Pirate Jonny left the island to transition back to America, and I haven't had the desire to really keep the radio show going on my own. The regatta volunteering will be a better project for my skills, I think.

So those are my two new goals for Grenada living. Pretty ambitious, I know. I'm really shooting for the stars down here. Hey, not all of us can become doctors.