Cinco de Mayo goodness

I know, Cinco de Mayo was four days ago.  I KNOW, this is a late post, but we were busy ok?  We don’t really celebrate Cinco de Mayo in this house, and we didn’t really celebrate it growing up.  We sort of snickered at the dumb Gringos who thought that Cinco de Mayo was the independence of Mexico and then we tried to educate them. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t. Mean weren't we?

I have been feeling my Mexican roots lately and this has been reflected in my cooking and my blog reading. A has been getting extra Spanish classes and both A and C are eating even yummier food than before. In fact, C has taken to asking if things “pica” before biting in to them. This would include his three morning bowls of Cheerios! Crazy kid. Then again, milk with chiles might not be a bad way to start the day.....

Anyway, we were invited to a Cinco de Mayo party and I was bound and determined to bring something traditionally Mexican that was easy to make and super yummy.  Most, but not all Mexican food is labor intensive. It assumes that you have a muchacha or two working for you and that you can slave in the kitchen all day while someone else watches your kids. I WISH I had that……. Back to the food. Afer tossing around various ideas, I made up a batch of Chilaquiles. I LOVE Chilaquiles. My first memory of this dish was on a Aero Mexico flight from Miami to Cancun when I was studying abroad in Merida, Mexico.  They were amazing, they were hot, had a spicy red sauce, were sprinkled with cheese, and were airplane food!! Can you  imagine? GOOD airplane food???

Since I had decided to make these, I needed to go out and get the essentials. I had fresh local, organic tomatoes and green onions from Sejah Farms, a white onion, a bay leaf(also local), Oregano, salt pepper, and dried chipotle and chile de arbol peppers. I bought two rotisserie chickens, some crappy corn tortillas(they fry better), and the cheeses. I was set to begin cooking, but first I needed a drink - of Horchata (recipe to come) that is.

Here is the recipe I used:

Chilaquiles rojas

500g day-old tortillas, cut into triangles

1 cup vegetable oil, for frying

6 tomatoes

2 cloves garlic

3 stalks of green onion

1 medium white onion

4 dried chipotle chiles soaked in boiling hot water to plump

2 dried chile de Arbol chiles also soaked in boiling hot water to plump

2 - 3 tablespoon dried oregano

1 bay leaf

salt to taste

1/2 cup chopped cilantro

1 rotisserie chicken de meated

100g queso fresco plus 100 g Manchego cheese shredded

finely sliced onion rings, to serve

Frying the tortillas to make the chips.

1.        In a deep pan, heat the oil to around 180 degrees Celsius (or until an introduced tortilla strip fries rapidly). Add about a fifth of the cut tortillas and cook till crisp, repeat with the other 4 batches. Drain well.

2.        Place the tomatoes in a small sauce pan and cover with water. Bring to the boil and simmer for 3-4 minutes. Drain the water out, then puree the tomato, onion, green onion, garlic, chipotle, chile de arbol, bay and oregano together.

3.        Heat 2 tablespoons of the vegetable oil in a wide saucepan, and carefully add the pureed mixture. Add some salt, then fry for 5-8 minutes or until the color of the sauce starts to darken.

Finished sauce.

4.        Add the tortilla chips, chicken, and Manchego (you will need quite a large pan to stir the sauce through thoroughly) and mix gently, trying not to break up the chips too much.

5.        Add to 350 degree preheated oven and bake until the sauce is warm and cheese has melted.

6.        Sprinkle with cilantro queso fresco, and onion slices, serve.

It was super picante and it was great! I totally want to make a batch for breakfast this weekend, but we have a swim meet planned so it may have to be a mid week dinner dish, with less pica for the kids.

photo from delatierra.com

Viva Mexico! Ole!!

Triathlon madness!

View of the harbor as the athletes will see it on Sunday. 

 It's that time of year again.  The roads are getting paved, the bush is getting wacked from the sides of the road, and there are orange spray painted marking on the asphalt.  It's time for the St. Croix 70.3 Half Ironman!!!

Pre race talk.

This is such a great, fun event for everyone - sporty and not.  We get tons of people visiting the island from all over the world in the hopes of securing a spot in a full ironman, there are people at the restaurants, people running and cycling on the roads, and a festive quality to downtown.

When I was younger - high school aged and before, I would volunteer to help in the transition area. in those days, the transition area was held in the old fort parking lot that took up much of the waterfront. We had to report to "work" the day or two before the triathlon to sweep the parking lot, set up the bike racks, set up the barricades, and gawk at all the hot bodies. It was a teenager's dream come true. Actually, some of the older women were in heaven too.  I haven't been able to volunteer since I graduated from high school because I was in college, or once back and married -preferred to stay snuggled in bed with S, but now that A is old enough, and sleeping in is 6 am, I figured we needed to start giving back and doing our part.  That said, if you need water when leaving the transition area, we are your people :)

Pollito - all the triathletes know him
by name thanks to C!

Yesterday was part 2 of the warm up swim, and A and I swam it while C waited on shore with my Mom and his new found friend Pollito(a slowly dying baby chick that we found on the roadside).  THANKS Mom!

We hoped to not only make it around the 750m course in less than 30 minutes, but to also get to rub goggles with Lance Armstrong. Yes, you heard me - Lance Armstrong.  The man himself is here.  I remember seeing him win the "Beauty and the Beast" triathlon when I was in high school. Now he is back and we are wishing him well.  If he does win, and I hope he does, it will bring a boost to our little island next year as more competitors will come.  Right now we average about 300 athletes, but in the beginning we sometimes had upwards of 800! Can you imagine that?

What I saw most of the swim

Anyway, it was fun and it stopped raining long enough for us to want to jump into that cold harbor water.  Yeah, it's still cold for us. I know, I hear the tiny violins playing in the background.  Anyway, I haven't swum in the harbor for YEARS.  The last time I was there it was pretty barren, but yesterday we saw starfish, 2 juvenile French Angel fish, Sargent Majors, Blue Tang, Sea Urchins the size of my head, and many other fish.  It was cool.  We had to swim through seaweed though - and I HATE that.  A did well on the swim despite wanting to turn back at one point, and I did well despite running her over constantly! Once we got out, A said it fine and she'd do it again! Good girl!

Sadly, we didn't see Lance.  I heard he had done a private swim and was biking the island. Maybe we'll go hunt him down?

Hot body for my friend Anna,
who is missing the race this year.

Learning how to be a Gypsy

A Flaming Gypsy that is! The last PE Day that we had for the homeschoolers was a blast!  Kiki and her band of flaming gypsy girls came and showed our kids how to move and groove with hula hoops.  A was super excited to have Kiki, LaurelLee, and Kelly there to work their stuff. The ladies, got all the kids out on the basket ball court and pretty quickly the kids were doing some fun hula hoop moves, using the Poi and basically having fun while exploring a new skill. 

At first the boys and older high schoolers were resistant to hooping in front of others, but Kiki got them into a big circle and we learned how to make circles with our bodies and then we played a quick game of ball juggling where each child had to toss a ball to someone else while calling out their name. Once the first ball was halfway through the circle, another ball was thrown into the mix until there were 3 or 4 balls going at the same time.  After a while, the groups switched, and even the “I’m too cool for this” boys were hula hooping.  I call that success – don’t you?

Probably the best thing to come of Kiki and her lovely ladies visiting us is that they would like to start a kids troupe, so of course A is SUPER SUPER excited!  A few other parents that I have talked to want to have their children join so I predict that if we can keep the momentum going there will be some gypsettes by the next parade.  How fun is that? Even C got in on the action.

If you want to see Kiki in action, she will be at the Comanche Mill at sunset this Friday during Jump Up.  She also holds open practice sessions every Tuesday starting at 7 at Above the Cliff on the Northshore. Hope to see you there some time!

Is it the weekend yet???

All photos from the St. Croix Food and Wine Experience
unless noted

Some weeks living here on St. Croix is just mundane, mundane, mundane. Other weeks, you have to remember to sleep things can get so busy! This past week has been one of those busy weeks where on top of the regular things that we have to do; school, laundry, cooking; we were busy with meetings for the June Swim Invitational, starting a blog for the homeschooling families on St. Croix, going on a field trip, etc. Then there was the best part of this week – the events surrounding the St. Croix Food and Wine Experience.

Volunteers helping in the kitchen at Pearl B.

This is a week long event that consists of famous chefs from all over the US, and some international ones too, who give of their time to bring scrumptious food, wine, and fun to St Croix.  There are private dinners at villas here on St. Croix,  “food fights” where celebrity chefs “fight” local chefs for bragging rights, wine dinners and tasting, BBQs, cooking classes for kids, etc.  I would hazard a guess to say that this event is the BEST food and wine event in the Caribbean for both it’s variety of offerings as well as the caliber of chefs that come to cook for us Crucians and visitors. The biggest event for this week is the Taste of St. Croix, which is held at Divi Carina Bay Resort.  The tickets for this particular event sell out within about 4 hours.  We went to this last year and it was great. Everyone dresses up, dances, and eats scrumptious food from our local restaurants.  The bragging rights for winning this event are tremendous.  We thought about going to this again this year, but decided that with everything that we had been doing last week it would be just too much.  I was sad L

Acting as sous chef with Ana Sortun

This year however, I volunteered to help with the Kids Cooking Classes and the Wine in the Warehouse event. I had never even attended the Kids Cooking Classes event – possibly because last year we were so busy that one more thing was just too much. This year, I was asked to help out and I did so gladly. My background is in event management and I have been wanting to get back into events on a part time basis so this was fun to do.  My part was small, but totally fulfilling. I gather my volunteers and on the day of, provided support to the chefs. 

Let me tell you, the classes were AWESOME! The chefs were so friendly, and it was so much fun to do.  Of course, one of my volunteers was A, and she LOVED it. She loved meeting the chefs, helping to prep the food, set the tables, “work” in the kitchen and then play with her food.  She is so excited about everything that they did, that last night she made the special iced tea that Ana Sortun from Oleana made with the kids during the class for her babysitter! She also got to know Evelyn Paul, another great chef that actually grew up here.  By the end of the afternoon Chef Paul had become Auntie Evelyn! A is so enthusiastic about the whole day that she wants to help next year and do more – like maybe the shopping for the chefs or having them stay at our place so she can be at their beck and call!  She is so cute I could just eat her up J

enjoying her Moroccan sandwich!

The attendees all had a great time fixing food with the chefs. There was laughter, smiles, and best off all full tummies by the time the classes were over.  Everyone that I spoke to had such a great time, and some kids got to try new types of food. Ana Sortun made Moroccan sandwiches which consisted of mashed potatoes with cheese, spices, hard boiled egg, scallions, and salt.  It was very tasty if I do say so myself.  Evelyn Paul made Southwestern Chicken wraps and short cupcakes with buttercream frosting.   Who wouldn’t like a wrap and cupcakes?! The filling for the wrap was so yummy I could have eaten it for breakfast, lunch, AND dinner and still wanted more.  It had black beans in it.  Really, almost anything with black beans in it will make my heart beat faster and make my stomach happy.

After cleaning up from the Kids Cooking Class, I dropped volunteers at their houses, grabbed the babysitter, and got home with enough time to change and walk out the door to go help serve wine at the Wine in the Warehouse. This event is a wine tasting where people come from all over to taste some fantastic top wines and eat great food.  This is our 4^th year helping out at this event and it is always fun.  We talked to people from St. Thomas, Puerto Rico, Chicago, etc…. I was serving wines from the Hoffman wineries and each bottle had such a great story that it made serving and “educating” tasters a blast.  S was helping to hand out water, and empty spit buckets. I am pretty sure I had the better job J There were tons of people at this second to last event, and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves immensely. 

If next year you have a few hours to spare, and you have children I would highly recommend attending the Cooking Classes. They are fun, support a great organization, and you get to meet some wonderful chefs that otherwise you wouldn’t see unless you were watching TV or at their restaurants.  The classes are on time (a rarity here), and just plain FUN! Plus, you don’t have to clean up after your child plays with their food – we do it!

See what I mean? St. Croix is just plain hopping these days and so super busy! If you think our island paradise is sleepy – you would be right. Not, however because there is nothing to do here. But because there is so much to do that we can’t get enough sleep!

Isn't she just adorable?
Photo from Evelyn Paul

Leatherback Turtle Watch at Sandy Point

Aerial photo of Sandy Point taken
from stcroixtourism.com

When I was a little girl, I remember going with my parents to see the Leatherback turtles come and nest on Sandy Point.  I tried to take A about 2 years ago to do the same, but the group we were with decided to leave at 10 and we didn’t get to see anything. So, in the spirit of homeschooling and experiencing the island I decided to give it a go this year. 

Let me just tell you, it was AWESOME, AMAZING, INCREDIBLE, and COOLIO!!!!

This was our group minus a few adults because
taking pictures in the dark is near impossible!

So, here’s the lowdown. Anyone can go see these amazing animals come up on shore and lay their eggs at Sandy Point as long as you have reservations and the turtles cooperate.  You need to get a hold of the Fish and Wildlife personnel to do this. If you have a large enough group (15-30 people) it’s like your own private tour, if you are a small group, they might be able to sneak you into another group.  Oh, and it’s FREE.  Of course if you want to make a donation to a great group you can pay St. Croix Environmental Association to make your reservations for you as they block off certain dates in advance.  Anyway, you need to make your reservations, confirm your date, and then on the day of gather at the Refuge entrance at 7:45 pm. Bring bug spray and PLENTY of it.  I brought drinks and snacks for my kids, but we ended up not needing anything but drinks. 

photo from simonsen.photoshelter.com

This is how it went for us. We got there, all the homeschoolers who had signed up for the field trip were there. We listened to Jennifer from the FWS talk and tell us the rules. We got back into our cars and headed into the refuge. After driving down some amazingly well paved roads, we got to our beach spot.  Then we waited – it was POURING for about 30 mins.  Eventually we got out of our cars and this is what happened according to A:

            When we got out of the cars it was wet and damp and I could smell the wet sand and the sea and it smelled wonderful. Then we went on a path to the ocean and there was a bridge that we had to pass. We went to a spot on the beach and we stayed there for an hour and a half until we got the first call on the radio and there was a leatherback sea turtle! When we got the call I was so happy that we were going to see a turtle nesting.

photo from thew2o.net

After getting the call on the radio, we packed up all our stuff and moved back to the road and booked it to the next parking area where we walked/ran to get to where the turtle was.  All this time, we were only using the light off the moon and the stars to navigate by. It was amazingly cool. We could hear the surf the whole time too because it was a rough night.  Once we got down to the beach were the turtle was, we had to walk along it until we actually found her.  The beach sand was a luminous white with ribbons of black seaweed all along it, so walking was a big difficult, but not bad.  All of a sudden, there appeared before a huge, hulking, black mountain that hardly moved at all but was quite substantial.  It was our leatherback momma.  She was in the process of laying her eggs. The researchers had started to collect her eggs as she was laying then in the area of the beach where the waves broke and could potentially have been washed out to sea if it had gotten rougher.  After being able to touch her carapace(shell), back flippers, shoulders, and even sides we got to see the researchers measure her from the front of her carapace to her back, measure her width, and put in new tags.  She did NOT like the new tag bit – can’t say I blame her. Then she disguised her nest for a bit before “the mother sea turtle clumsily slid into the black ocean.”

The kids named her Friday as we saw her on Friday the 13^th! She measured 164.5cm from the front of her carapace to the back. If you added her head into that she was at least 184 cm long if not longer.  She laid 132 eggs that night. Can you imagine doing that?!

Sadly out of those 132, probably only 1 will survive to sexual maturity and come back to nest. 

photo from youthgo.gov

If you have never been to a turtle watch before you NEED to do this. Email the Fish and Wildlife Service, call SEA, find a group, sell an arm or leg to do this. It is an AMAZING experience. It touches you in ways that you didn’t know possible. It makes an impact on kids. I REMEMBER each and every time we did as a child, I remember helping hatchlings on other beaches find their way back into the water. I remember being so amazed at these turtles size that I thought it was as big as a VW Bug when I was little.  This event only happens between April and Jule/July so if you are here during that time, it is well worth the effort to go and see these animals up close and personal.

Super Hero Arm bands - a DIY

Who can say no to that face?

Apparently, C knows what super heros are.  All day yesterday he was wearing an empty Crayola crayon box on his arm and using his Super Powers!  After MUCH convincing, I got the box off his arm and put the crayons back in it.

From the moment he woke up all he wanted to do was get his powers back.  No idea where he gets these things, but I love it :)  C repeatedly asked me to make him some powers, and breakfast didn't count. So, having finished off a roll of paper towels, I got some inspiration.

Ingredients:

• 1 empty paper towel roll
• Spray paint
• elastic
• tin foil
• needle and thread or sewing machine
• craft glue

How to:

Photo Steps. Sorry about the flash.

• Cut open the paper towel tube and press flatish
• Spray paint the paper towel tube
• Wait... play Ring Around the Rosie, answer the question "Powers done yet?" about 5 billion times
• Once done, cut tube to size
• Figure out how much elastic you need and sew that on to the painted tube.
• Cut out a bazillion little tin foil shapes until you get the right one
• Glue said shape onto the tube and let dry while child destroys house

TADA! Done.

One happy little boy :)

Mangrove/Wetlands Lapbook

I have been much inspired by the recent trend towards lapbooking for homeschoolers. I think it’s a great idea to get your kids writing, drawing, creating, and recording their experiences from various subjects.  We just finished our Mangroves/Wetlands lapbook. It was a project – only because we had so many holidays and breaks during the last few weeks in trying to finish it.

Here it is:

Cover of book

Inside pages, you can see there are multiple pages in the book.

A had to cut, color, paste, write, think, define words, look at maps, etc in order to finish it. I think she did a pretty good job and I am proud of her.  We did pull pictures and drawing from the net where we could, but she also drew some things on her own.

Journaling and a flat diorama of animals in the mangroves.

More photos from her field trip

We are currently working on two others – the Middle Ages, and Sea Turtles – specifically Leatherbacks because we are doing a turtle watch this Friday.  The turtle one is going to be very artsy fartsy and it will require a helping hand from Mommy at points, but will be primarily put together by A.   I will post photos when we are done with the Sea Turtle lap book. It should be pretty cool.