Conjoined Twins
January 31, 2008 Posted by: ERIN

Two fully developed grape tomatoes, one stem. Just for you, Mere!

Portrait of a Preggy Pup
January 30, 2008 Posted by: ERIN

She's doing really well. It's no surpise that she gets tired easily and is ravenously hungry all the time, but her spirts are high. Her roly-poly belly doens't stop her from wiggling and wagging herself into a frenzy of excitement several times a day. It's one of my favorite sights to see. Now we're just hoping that she stays healthy and has a managable number of puppies, say maybe 4 or 6. Cross your fingers that the litter stays in the single digits.

More Recipes!
January 29, 2008 Posted by: ERIN

Erin's Vegetarian Chili
From the kitchen of Erin

This is one of the few recipes that I've actually invented myself. It was inspired by a kick-ass veggie chili that the dining hall served when I was an undergrad. I find it is best eaten with crumbled corn muffin and copious amounts of shredded cheddar.

3 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
4-5 cloves chopped garlic, chopped
1 red bell pepper, chopped
2 green bell peppers, chopped
4 carrots, peeled and chopped
1 can (28 ounces) diced tomatoes
1 can (28 ounces) crushed tomatoes
2 cans (16 ounces each) black beans, rinsed
2 cans (16 ounces each) red beans, rinsed
2 cans (16 ounces each) corn, with the liquid from one of the cans
6 tablespoons chili powder
1-2 tablespoons cumin
2-3 teaspoons salt
Pepper to taste

Add oil to large stockpot. Over medium heat, sauté onion, garlic, bell pepper, and carrots until onion is translucent. Add tomatoes, beans, corn (with liquid from one can) and spices. Simmer, stirring occasionally, for approximately 1 hour. Serves 8.

Erin's Notes:
I recently tried substituting dried beans for the canned beans. I simmered one pound of dried beans for one hour before adding them to the chili mixture. And when feeding those who are more carnivorously inclined, 2 pounds of ground beef or turkey (browned and drained) can also be added.

Baked White Fish with Sausage and Potatoes
Adapted from Real Simple Magazine

It may sound like a strange combination, but this one-pot wonder is deliciously savory. I made it for Tom for the first time just last week, and he spent the remainder of evening proclaiming the culinary prowess of his wonderful wife.

2 tablespoons olive oil
8 ounces smoked sausage, such as kielbasa or chorizo, thinly sliced
2 pounds potatoes, peeled and sliced
3 leeks, halved, rinsed and sliced into half-moons
1 cup low-sodium chicken broth
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
2 pounds white fish fillets, such as cod or grouper
1/2 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves, roughly chopped

Heat oven to 400 degrees F.

Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in large ovenproof skillet over medium-high heat. Add the sausage and brown on both sides. Add the potatoes and cook, stirring often, for 10 minutes. Add the leeks, broth, 3/4 teaspoon of the salt, and 1/8 teaspoon of the pepper. Bring to a boil.

Meanwhile, rinse the fish fillets and pat dry with paper towels. Season with the remaining salt and pepper. Place fish on top of the sausage-potato mixture and drizzle with the remaining oil. Bake until the fish is the same color throughout and flakes easily, about 20 minnutes. Sprinkle with the parsley. Serves 6.

Erin's Notes:
Any white fish will generally do, and onions can be substituted for leeks.

Frijole-Mole
Adapted from Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, by Barbara Kingsolver

This tasty dip is a play on guacamole, but made with fresh green beans and basil (both of which grow in our garden) instead of avocados. I think I may be addicted.

1/2 pound fresh green beans, trimmed
1 onion, coarsely chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil
3 hard-boiled eggs
2 cups fresh basil leaves
1 tablespoon lemon juice (optional)
Mayonnaise or plain yogurt
Salt and pepper to taste

Steam green beans until tender. Meanwhile, sauté onions over medium heat unti they become slightly transparent.

Combine beans, cooked onions, eggs, basil, and lemon juice in food processor and blend into a coarse puree.

Remove puree to a bowl and combine with enough mayonnaise or yogurt to hold mixture together. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Erin's Notes:
The first time I made this, I forgot to sauté the onions ... but it was still delicious! We love to eat it on tortilla chips or crackers.

Creamy Mustard Chicken with Grapes and Couscous
Adapted from Cooking 'Round the Clock, by Rachel Ray

My personal thanks to Rachel Ray for this one. So fast and so good. I'm actually making it for dinner tonight, and just in case you're wondering how we get some of the more specialty ingredients here on rural San Sal: we requested that some visitors bring couscous, we special ordered a case of stone-ground mustard, and red grapes do occasionally come in to the local stores. Last time I bought some, I froze half just to have on hand for this recipe.

3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon olive oil, plus a drizzle
2 tablespoons butter, cut into pieces
1 1/2 pounds chicken tenders, chopped
Salt and pepper
1/3 cup white wine
1 cup half-and-half
1/4 cup grainy stone-ground mustard
1 cup seedless red grapes, halved
2 cups chicken broth
2 cups couscous

Place flour in a shallow bowl. Place a large skillet over medium to medium-high heat; add 1 tablespoon olive oil and the butter. Dredge chicken in flour; season with salt and pepper. Add chicken to skillet and cook until browned, 7 or 8 minutes. Add wine and scrape up browned bits as wine comes to a bubble. Cook the liquid down, 30 seconds to a minute.

Combine half-and-half and mustard and pour the mixture over the chicken. Add grapes to the pan and shake to coat chicken and grapes in sauce. Reduce heat to low and simmer 3 to 5 minutes more.

Meanwhile, to prepare the couscous, bring chicken broth and a drizzle of olive oil to a boil. Add couscous. Remove pan from heat and cover. Let couscous sit 5 minutes, then fluff with a fork.

Serve couscous with chicken and grapes alongside or over the top. Serves 2-3.

Erin's Notes:
I like to give the chicken a bit of a chop before cooking. If you like extra sauce with your couscous, double the white wine, half-and-half, and mustard. Also, chicken broth and milk can be substituted for the wine and half-and-half, respectively.

Alexis and the Bee
January 27, 2008 Posted by: ERIN

This is Alexis. She is nine years old and in grade 5. Her mother, Velda, works in the field station office.

For the past several weeks I've been Alexis' spelling coach in preparation for the San Salvador, Rum Cay, Cat Island Regional Spelling Bee Competition. The bee was held on Friday here on San Sal and included 13 competitors from six schools. Alexis was the youngest participant, but she is very bright and we had been practicing the list of words inside and out. I knew she would do well as long as she didn't rush herself. She spelled beautifully through the early rounds, but then got caught in a nerves-induced mistake. Both 'tycoon' and 'typhoon' were words on the spelling list, and when Alexis was given 'typhoon' she spelled 'tycoon' instead. Of course she spelled it prefectly, but was understandably eliminated. Still, she certainly held her own against a bunch of teenagers and I couldn't be more proud.

There was another field station daughter competing in the bee as well. Eranisa is in grade 8, and her mom, Vendella, works here in the snack bar. I had met her a few times before, but had no idea this soft-spoken young lady was such a fierce speller. She was calm and collected through 33 rounds, and ultimately clinched victory with the correct spelling of 'nebbish'. (A nebbish is a person who is regarded as pitifully ineffectual, timid, or submissive ... I had to look it up.) Congrats Eranisa!

Here are some of the spellers waiting for the bee to begin. Not sure why poor Sidney got stuck with such a short name tag.

The top three contesttants will go on to compete in the Bahamian National Bee in Nassau. From left to right: Ashley in third place, Eranisa in first place, and Eunice in second place.

The champion and her loyal supporters glady posed for a post victory portrait.

But watch out, because Alexis will be back next year. I expect her to make nebbishes out of everyone.

Almost five months later
January 16, 2008 Posted by: ERIN

We finally got our profressional photos from the wedding! A few months ago it was starting to look like our photographer had gone AWOL (literally) which would have been devestating, but he eventually resurfaced with our pictures in tow so I was able to breath again. The last few weeks of delay have just been us waiting for the photo CD to make its way here to the island. And now, finally seeing the pictures, I can't even say I mind the long wait because it was like I suddenly got to relive the day all over again. They are beautiful. I cried. The photographer did a wonderful job of capturing the atmosphere and feeling of the day, and it made me so happy that there were images of every single person that attended. I hope you love the photographs as much as I do ... although I don't think that's quite possible.

More than you'd ever want to know about my vegetable garden
January 11, 2008 Posted by: ERIN

There is a reason that Bahamians don't eat zucchini and yellow squash ... they don't grow here! Correction, they grow to be about the size of a breakfast sausage and then rot right on the vine. I guess my first clue should have been the dubious looks I got from locals whenever I mentioned having them in my garden. But I was clouded by my temperate climate upbringing, where zucchini plants are so prolific that people have been forced to invent breads and cookies and relishes in order to use up their overwhelming harvests, in addition to giving the fruits away to everyone they've ever met. So I was suprised and disappointed when all my vines started to look like this:

You can actually see the progression of how they get more rotten with age. I didn't include a scale in the photo, so to give you a size reference, the squash on the far left is about 3 and a half inches long. We tried eating some of the immature squashes before they began to rot, but they ended up being a little bitter and given their size, didn't produce very much for comsumption. So since the vines were really starting to take over the boat garden and we weren't really getting anything from them, I decided to pull them all out. It was kind of sad, but adding them to the compost pile made me feel a little better (cue The Circle of Life). I haven't chosen what to replace them with yet. I'm deciding between planting more of what is already in the boat (green beans) or trying something new (cantaloupe or peas or beets).

I've been picking green beans for about a month and the plants are producing well, although they seem to do so in waves. The offical bean count is over 500. Yes, I keep track. Maybe one day I will really bore you with lots of plots and statistics about my green beans, but for now you are spared. There is a population of bean leafrollers inhabiting the plants, but I read that unless they are consuming more than 30% of the plant foliage they don't really interfere with yields. We are well below the 30% threshold, so my strategy has just been to pick off the eggs and squish the caterpillars whenever I see them.

I began to pick cucumbers just this week. I would have had a few more last week as well, but several of my biggest were stolen off the vines in the dead of night. My best guess is that it was rats. Don't freak out, the rats here aren't big disgusting city rats that lurk in your sewers and want to bite you. Think of them more as the Rats of Nimh. They look like chubby mice and do the same kind of garden damage as squirrels and rabbits. So we had to move the cucumber containers to a different location where the rats would be less likely climb up and get them. Unfortunately, the new location is more exposed and the leaves have taken a bit of a beating from the salty winds we've been having. But the plants still seem to be producing and the cucumbers are quite tasty. I'm enjoying the funky shapes many of them grow into. I've started to notice what I think might be some aphids on the plants though, so I need to look into what I might needs to do about those. But so far, the fresh-from-the-vine cucumber sandwiches are spectacular.

Last month I transplanted several tomato and sweet pepper seedlings into what I will refer to as the "refridgertor gardens". They are basically stainless steel shells of two industrial sized refridgeration units that were tossed at the dump by Club Med. Given the generally poor soil on the island, raised beds are a must, so we're always on the lookout for good garden containers. The seedlings took the transplant well, but in the following days, I would often go out in the morning to find one of the plants with its stem chewed through entirely, right at the surface of the soil. While it puzzled me for several days, I finally determined that I had a cutworm problem. Cutworms are moth larvae that live in the soil and chew through the stem of small seedlings at night. The most frustrating thing about them is that they only eat enough of the stem to saw it off and then move on to another plant. So they are very inefficient feeders that can do a lot of damage. Luckily, they are fairly easy to thwart. Some foil wrapped around the base of the seedlings, and there have been no casualties since. Although it would have been nice to figure it out before I had lost half of my tomato plants. The tomatoes that survived are now enjoying a trellis that Tom helped me make from the wire supports out of a discarded mattress (another dump find!). We went with the horizontal design so that the plants would spread more laterally and not have to fight as much against the wind as they grow.

My lone broccoli plant is still hanging in there. It was starting to get overrun by the zuchcini vines, but with their removal it has been able to stretch its leaves once again. It is a bit behind schedule with developing a head, but one is starting to grow now, so better late than never.

The herb garden has been coming along in sort of hit-or-miss fashion. The mint has taken off like crazy, but the chives and oregano went no where. Despite having many parsley seedlings, only three actually reached maturity. Although those three are producing more than enough to meet our needs. Several of my basils also fell victim to cutworms in the early stages, so now I have taken to growing the seedlings inside on a sunny window sill before transplantig them outside. I'm doing the same with cilantro, because none of my earlier seedlings reached maturity and Tom is dying to make salsa.

The grapes tomatoes aren't ripe yet, but they are really tall and have lots of green fruits and blossoms. I'm very proud of the sturdy cages I built for them from scraps of wire mesh. (I learned how to make them here.) I think the grapes tomatoes are the only plant, besides mint, that I haven't run into some kind of pest or problems with so far. I'm hoping it stays that way.

So while I'm having some successes, there have also been some setbacks and faliures. I guess much of what I have been doing so far is trial and error, just to determine what plants will thrive and be the most productive in this environment. The gardener here at the field station, who has been farming on San Sal for over 50 years, has been a wonderful source of advice and encouragement. Even so, I'm finding that gardening not quite as effortless as my grandpa made it look, but maybe I just need to get a few more years under my belt. Overall I'm finding the garden very enjoyable and rewarding. I like being out there watering and working in the soil, and there is something really satisfying about growing food for yourself. It may be a small, sometime struggling garden, but I'm proud of it.

Yesterday I did a mini photo shoot out in the garden, so take a look!

You like the new look?
January 8, 2008 Posted by: ERIN

So in addition to making a new banner, I also did some overall redesign of the site. I guess the biggest changes are with the color scheme, but I've also added some other small things that give it (I think) a smoother, more cohesive look overall. See if you can spot them.

I realize our posting has been pretty light since the holidays. We have over 180 people at the field station right now, so everyday is a pretty hectic. There have even been two emergency medical evacuations in the past week, one for appendicitis and another for possible kidney infection. This is the first that Tom has had to deal with the air evacuation process (the office staff couldn't remember the last time there had been one, and then we got two in one week!), so as you can imagine it was rather stressful. But everything ended up going smoothly, and both people received the medical care they needed in Miami. Moral of the story: if you have been experiencing abdominal pain for a few weeks, do not travel to a remote island in the Bahamas, where there is only a clinic, without first seeing your doctor. Seems like common sense, right? Apparently not.

In other news, it is highly likely that Coco (who now belongs to Tom and me) is pregnant. Yes, Zipper is the father. Obviously it is not something that was planned by us, but there hasn't been a vet on the island in over a year so neither of them has been fixed. Given Coco's prowess at digging herself out from under fences, we weren't as successful at keeping them separated for the two weeks she was in heat as we had hoped, and well, you know ... the forces of nature prevailed. I feel pretty awful that it happened because Coco is so sweet and so young, but rather than place blame on ourselves and spout the evils of teen pregnancy to the dogs, we're doing our best be responsible and supportive of the situation. Hopefully, Coco will come through it just fine and we'll find good homes for as many puppies as she may have. Anybody want to adopt a Potcake?

New Year's Resolution
January 3, 2008 Posted by: ERIN

To make a way cool banner for this site. Its current lamesness is driving me a little nuts. I guess I better brush up on my Photoshop.