We had a great day out on the water and, once again, Pat and Sasha were there to nourish us after our adventures. I must say that one of the best days of my life took us to Kaleidoscope last year, where Pat’s coquilles St. Jacques delighted my palate after we’d swum with a dozen dolphins as we kayaked out to Buck Island the long way.

A couple of my favorite things about Kaleidoscope are the peaceful south shore location. In contrast to many other, air conditioned places, you can feel the breezes and inhale the fresh warm south shore air. You can look up at the unspoiled hillsides just west of the restaurant and know that soon, this land will be national park land. You can look to the southeast and see the lush mangroves surrounding and part of the Great Pond, which will also, with luck, soon be national park land, never to be violated by development.

In addition to the clean, comfortable feel of this place, the food quality is unsurpassed. Pat is an accomplished chef, and her dishes reflect the varied flavors of the different ethnic cuisines she has studied. Besides my favorite, the coquilles St. Jacques, she offers Italian delights such as eggplant rollatini (have I mentioned recently that I love eggplant), and sometimes tiramisu. She often serves a fabulous Asian-style salmon with with wasabi mashed potatoes, and there are always tempura veggies as an appetizer. Soup of the day was French onion, but I love her creamy roasted pepper soup when she has it. The mandarin salad is always fresh and delicious. Michael and I shared a seafood delight plate with mussels, scallops and flounder. It was wonderful! Finish your meal, as we did, with Pat’s home-made key lime pie. Another perfect ending to a perfect day in paradise.

Their menu is not extensive, nor is it expensive. Very reasonable prices make Café Kaleidoscope most inviting.

Call 773-1062 for reservations. Hours are Thursday thru Sunday 6-9pm.

We stopped into the Pickled Greek on our way home from Luncheria last night. The restaurant was about half full and there were a few more folks outside. We sat at the bar to order a couple of drinks, and suddenly, the lights went out!

Fortunately, we’d gotten our drinks first. Phew! But it was still pretty scary. Nikki and Doug and others, got their lighters out and we could see each other for a few seconds until the generator kicked on. Yes! The generator kicked on! Wild cheering could be heard all over the island. It was coming from the Greek. Well….it was quiet……the TV’s island-wide had gone dead……so people could hear better. Okay, maybe a couple of houses in Tide Village could detect muffled sounds coming from the inside of the Pickled Greek, but we heard ourselves cheering. Loud and clear!

They turned off one of the AC units so as not to strain the great machine, a gift to Peter from a friend who’d left island. But every time a compressor on a fridge turned on, the lights dimmed. Finally they turned off the other AC unit and opened the door. We felt it was cool enough and it didn’t stifle anyone (except maybe the kitchen staff – Peter said that the other day, it was 120 degrees in there, but that was not because of the power outage – there’s just way too much equipment running in there and not enough ventilation – but they’re working on making more holes in the walls and roof ).

At one point, the kitchen staff thought they might start the dishwasher, but it got really iffy and seemed like the generator wouldn’t be able to do it’s job, so they decided to wait on that load of dishes. It stayed dark outside, except for the headlights of passing cars, for about 45 minutes. Finally, WAPA came back on and the generator turned itself off.

We went outside with Peter, Nikki, Nicole and Amanda, to sit and visit some more, and watch them smoke. An SUV went by and a woman inside it exclaimed, “Oh my god! They’re open!” So we said, “Yeah! We’re open, come on in!” But she drove on by, hopefully to return soon….

So, hooray for the Pickled Greek! Another hurdle overcome. They will undoubtedly be busy during the coming power-outage season, since so few restaurants have generators. Look at your calenders, folks. Sunday, June first is when you’ll start getting the tropical updates on the weather channel. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that Peter’s generator doesn’t get too worn out in the coming months.

I thought that maybe we could keep up with the falling fruit if we did a batch every other day. But not really. We have to do it every day. At least it’s better than slipping on them in the driveway, though. I always feel guilty about letting all that food go to waste if I don’t have time to process them.

Here’s how we do it. We go out wit a big bowl or a bucket and pick up the ones that don’t have huge gouges or bruises or dents. We bring them in and wash them with dish soap and a little bleach. Some have all sorts of grit, so we need to scrub them well. We rinse them and put them into another bowl. Then we cut them up into 3 or 4 chunks each. Then we put them through our Champion juicer.

A nice, thick glop comes out which has the consistency of pudding. We put it in plastic containers and into the freezer, or we eat/drink it. Sometimes we make smoothies with it. This is the best way to deal with this particular variety since they’re so stringy. The strings just get caught in the juicer and we don’t have to pick them out of our teeth !

It’s a lot of work. The other morning, between gathering, washing, “juicing”, and cleaning up afterwards, I’d been at it for two or three hours (well, okay, I took a few breaks to check e-mail, or fold laundry), but it was a long time. Michael and I did around 50 or 60 of them last evening. Cleaning the juicer (and the kitchen….sometimes globs of mango end up on the cabinets or in our hair) afterwards is the most painstaking part.

We’re going to have to have a mango blender drink party again. Mango daiquiri or margarita, anyone? We’re running out of containers and freezer space!

We were on our way up Lowry Hill Road, when a neighbor stopped us to ask if I could massage his leg soon, since he’s been having trouble with it. I said, yes, give me a call, and we traveled on.

There were a few people there already and Heike sat us at the table she was working at with the reservation book, close to the bar area and kitchen. We saw the usual suspects: Lorine and Diane, Margi and Fran, Joe and Val, Diane Marie, and more friends and supporters trickled in throughout the evening: Peter and Carol, Leonore and Paul, Mike and Barbara, Avalon and Athena, Doug and Isabel, Jenny and Chris, Jeannie and Rick, etc. etc.

We looked at the menu and couldn’t get past the appetizer section! I wanted everything (except for the meat things, but there were only two apps with meat – cool!). We ordered the tzatziki (cucumber, garlic yogurt dip); the melitzanosalata (roasted eggplant, red pepper and garlic dip); the spanakopita (spinach and feta in phyllo); the dolmades (herbed, rice-stuffed grape leaves); the falafel (herbed, fried chickpea balls); the calamari and the tyropita (cheese-stuffed phyllo triangles).

It was all fabulous! Our only mistake was ordering tzatziki, since a couple of the other things came with it (the grape leaves and falafel), so we had an abundance of the delicious stuff. It was the only thing we couldn’t finish. But we didn’t leave much. We shared a bottle of Mitchell’s Pinot Nero and it was a perfect meal.

Nikki was our server and apologized at one point for not paying enough attention to us. It was not a problem, we had people popping over to our table throughout the evening, and we had each other and Biggie to occupy our attention. Besides, we got our wine and food in a very timely manner, and were pretty busy polishing it off most of the time. Oh, and Peter started dancing with Pam and Heike and Cindy twice while we were there, so there was plenty of entertainment.

We were about half-way through our repast, when I spotted Aaron! Peter’s chef was back for opening night! I jumped up and ran over to give him a hug. He’s looking great and he says he’s feeling good, too. What a thrill for him to see the day we’ve all been waiting for! He’d worked so hard for so long before his diagnosis with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, that it would have been a real tragedy for him to have missed it. He’s here for a week and looking forward to coming back when his treatments are finished, and taking over in the kitchen. We’ll surely be stopping in during the week to visit with him and the rest of the gang.

In more good news….Vinnie comes back today from rehab in CA. It’ll be great to see him again as well.

By the time we had finished, all of the indoor tables were full and a couple of the outdoor tables were, too. We are extremely happy that there will be NO SMOKING inside the Pickled Greek. Peter, himself, goes outside when he wants to light up.

They’ve also decided that, for the time being they will not open for lunch. They should be busy enough with dinners, especially if they continue to provide the quality and service we experienced last night. I think they decided that, after two refrigerator malfunctions (and subsequent food losses) over the week-end, that they’d get new equipment before getting overly ambitious.

As for the rest of the menu, the two appetizers we didn’t have were the lahanadomathes (spiced lamb and rice cabbage rolls) and keftedes (lamb and beef meatballs in a tomato herb sauce). For soup or salad, you can have a traditional Greek salad, a warm spinach salad, a village Greek salad, which has the veggies without the lettuce, and Yia Yia stew, a hearty seasonal veggie soup. Mmmm!

For sandwiches, they have the classic gyro, a souvlaki pita (with marinated chicken, beef or lamb), a keftedes (meatball) sandwich, a falafel pita, a veggie pita or a Greek hamburger. All sandwiches come with your choice of fries or Greek coleslaw.

The entrée selections are souvlaki (slow roasted, marinated beef, lamb or chicken kabobs); moussaka (herbed eggplant lasagna with or without lamb); pastitsio (macaroni and ground lamb casserole); a leg of lamb; a NY steak or fresh fish of the day. All entrees are served with seasonal ratatouille and rice.

The prices are very reasonable. Our total for the evening came to $77, not including tip. Truly a bargain for all that food and the delicious wine. Salads are $9 or $10, sandwiches $9-$12, and entrees (except for the fresh catch, which would be market price) $16-$23.

After the feasting, and to celebrate his opening, Peter opened a couple of bottles of ouzo and shared a drink with each table. It was a great evening. The acoustics inside were very loud, but it’s a Greek place, there’s going to be a lot of activity and noise. But it will always be a good time. We had so much fun I forgot about my Greek lesson. So, bon appetit!

Llewellyn signals the start of our wedding

The following is a Guest Opinion, from the Virgin Island Daily News, Thursday, March 13. Written by Todd H. Newman, an attorney who lives on St. Croix. Reprinted by request of Raki (Raquel Santiago-Silver).

On Monday, March 3, St. Croix icon Llewellyn Westerman went home. Every community has one or two persons who are so well known, and so beloved, that they are just referred to by one name. Llewellyn is just such a person.

A famous musician, recording artist and performer – having been crowned the Calypso King of St. Croix – expert chef, man of letters, and one of the best sailors in the Caribbean, Llewellyn can now also be known as Lazarus.

On Friday in the afternoon Llewellyn was doing what he loves best: sailing. As he brought his vessel Charis up to the mooring at the St. Croix Yacht (Club), a squall came up. He and his brother Inglore struggled to anchor the boat and lower the sails. Suddenly, Llewellyn collapsed. The first of many miracles on that Friday was that when he collapsed, Llewellyn became tangled in the sails and fortunately did not fall overboard. He was not breathing and there was no heartbeat.

Mike Webber – originally from the states but who has lived on St. Croix for many years – was on the dock at the Yacht Club and saw that something was wrong. He raced down the dock, got into the Yacht Club whaler, motored up to Charis and somehow was able to lift the lifeless Llewellyn into the boat. He ran the whaler straight on to the beach and immediately began mouth to mouth resuscitation and CPR. St. Croix native Stephanie Malanga came running over to help, as did Lisa Price, who has split her time between St. Croix and Jackson, Wyoming for many years.

The three of them, a white male from the states, a white Virgin Islander, and a woman who has loved St. Croix all her life, worked furiously breathing air into Llewellyn and pounding on his chest. While they were doing everything they could to keep blood flowing through the body whose heart had stopped, someone from the Yacht Club remembered that William Will, who lives in Cotton Valley, had recently purchased a defibrillator. A call was made and miraculously Will was home and raced to the Yacht Club with the defibrillator.

The exhausted lifesavers followed the instructions and placed the defibrillator on Llewellyn. No heartbeat registered. The defibrillator then did its job and Llewellyn’s heart began beating.

Ambulances arrived and the comatose Llewellyn was rushed to the hospital. There, Emergency Room doctors and nurses fought to stabilize their patient. A CAT scan was performed to see how badly Llewellyn had injured his head when he collapsed. At that time, a young Virgin Islands native, Dr. Keldall Griffith – who had graduated from Central High, gone on to the states for his medical training and returned to St. Croix several years ago as a cardiologist – was testifying in Frederiksted in front of the Legislature. Contact was made with Dr. Griffith, and he came to the hospital.

Despite it being Friday evening, he quickly assembled his expert team of specialists and by 7 p.m. he was operating on Llewellyn. By 10:30 that evening – to the grateful applause and tears that greeted him from those of the many Llewellyn well-wishers who had snuck their way into the hospital – he announced that he had repaired the blockages in Llewellyn’s heart.

Our amazement and joy at the fantastic set of circumstances that had resulted in Llewellyn still being alive were tempered by our fears as to what brain damage may have been done due to the long time that Llewellyn was without a heartbeat. The miracle became complete Saturday morning as Llewellyn was weaned off of the narcotics, and we instantly knew from the sound of his voice and the quick humor that indeed Llewellyn was back!

As Virgin lslanders we are many times too consumed with concerns of race and petty politics.

The events last weekend remind us of what a special place we live in, where a community of people worked together to breath life into one of our beloved residents, keeping him alive long enough for a son of our soil to perform his wondrous healing.

I am so happy to be a Virgin Islander and so proud of all who were involved in bringing Llewellyn back – we should all be proud. Every once in a while in the Virgin Islands it all works out.

Todd H. Newman

The latest one is from his companion, Karen who says, “Llew has another week of recovery and then back for a stress test on Friday. He is taking it easy and getting some paper work done. plus alot of ZZZZZ!”

It’s good to hear that he’s doing well. We look forward to seeing Captain Westerman back at the helm of Charis+!

So we (I mean I) did. Well, Michael opened the bottle. He did a good job, too. It was VERY fizzy and squirted out all over the place. And it was lovely. Crisp and dry, just the way I like it. We have been fortunate enough, this year, to have met Tom and Chris Carroll who own the Crossing Vineyards and Winery in Pennsylvania. And they gave us a bottle of their fabulous sparkling wine. Tom’s words as we left were, “Don’t save it for a special occasion, just drink it”. So we did. And it was sort of a special occasion. It was Sunday and we had a day off.

I assembled a salad with the greens, mozzarella, basil and tomatoes, and whipped up a Coquilles St. Jacques over brown rice pilaf. Goliath shared a bit of it with us and gave it two paws up!

We walked/ran the road down to the Great Pond, which we do as often as possible now that we know Paul Golden is hoping to break ground on his “resort” in March. We need to work-out, so this trip kills two birds (but not Yellow Birds…) with one stone. We’ll be the ones to blow the whistle on that illegal project if he tries anything. We go with cell phone and camera so we can call the newspaper, property owner and attorney, and Planning and Natural Resources Department if anything is amiss. Michael took pictures and we talked about kayaking and snorkeling out in Great Pond Bay since it was, once again, really windy and we needed to get out on the water.

We got home after our walk, had breakfast, Michael did a little “rover-tweaking”, we loaded the kayak onto the “Great Pumpkin”, and headed down the road one more time.

The Great Pumpkin Rides Again!

The Great Pond Bay is pretty sheltered by the hills of the surrounding landscape and the large barrier reef to the south. It’s nice and shallow and the most incredibly clear turquoise blue (no Wreg, not tidy bowl blue!) with scattered patch reef and sea grass covered areas between the white sand bottom. We pedaled out in the kayak and found a bunch of East End Marine Park mooring buoys that we could tie up to. Great! We chose one in the vicinity of a couple of larger patch reefs and jumped in. It felt great to be in the water again. We went for a swim last week with the local swimming group, but the water at Ha’penny was cloudy, murky and churned up. We couldn’t see the bottom at all. But here….oh, yes, THIS is paradise!

We swam over to the closest reef and it was a little churned up, but we saw tons of juvenile fish. There were french grunts and damsels and a spanish hogfish, blue tang, etc. We swam some more and came to a tiny patch with a lobster beneath it. A few yards away was another small reef with 3 or 4 of them, and then to the east was another bug. There was also the biggest conch I have ever seen, and an octopus! We could have eaten for a week with all the goodies there. Well, Michael could have. I’m not a fan of octopus. We turned around to look toward the kayak and there were three large barracudas and one larger one! Yikes! They were not, however interested in us, so they slowly swam off. We continued exploring and as I came around the west side of a reef,I spotted a small sea turtle. As soon as he saw me he took off like a flash. I swam fast and he swam faster. He just flew! He was small and pretty far away, so I could not tell whether he was a green or a hawksbill. But he was cute!

After close to an hour in the water, I started getting cold, so we went back to the kayak and pedaled to shore. The pumpkin was still there and I got to drive her part of the way home. It felt more familiar driving on the right side of the car this time. Soon I think I’ll be ready to take her for a real spin.

I met Roger and Kangja shortly after they relocated to St. Croix a few years ago. It was at a rum tasting at the former Cafe Madeleine. That night, the rum was Cruzan Single Barrel, the island’s premier sipping rum. We chatted for a long time and shared stories about how we’d gotten to St. Croix, and life on our island, in general.

Anyway, we talked to Jenna and Tori about it and they were very interested. And when Meredith found out about it she wanted to come, too, even after her long week preparing for the Villa Madeleine Condo Association’s annual meeting. We didn’t have advance tickets, so Michael and I went early to get tickets and seats for the gang. We were REALLY early. Jerome and Viviana weren’t even in their official Yellow Bird uniforms yet when we arrived.

At a little after seven, shortly after Roger started giving us a history of Kangja’s dream to start a coffee company, the rest of our crew got there. Our first taste was of the Crucian Rainforest Blend. It was paired with a mini almond Danish topped with orange butter. Yummmm! The coffee is great. Some of the smoothest and richest-tasting I’ve ever had. Not being a caffeine user, I thought I’d be in BIG trouble later, but I persevered, drinking cup after cup of this delectable dark nectar.

The next round consisted of the Coral Bay Frangelico flavored coffee, paired with a fresh fruit tartlet and chocolate covered strawberry with strawberry coulis. Fantastic!

But I still liked the Cruzan coffee better. The last one would be the Frenchtown Roast. I love my coffee strong and thought this would be my favorite. It was paired with a chocolate and peanut butter mousse cake. Very good, but the desserts were starting to get to me. It was heavy for the last course and, while I enjoyed it, I could feel the sugar and caffeine coursing through my body and I felt heavy with the quantity of the last dessert. I was getting wired and tired at the same time. But I ate it all….

And then they had a raffle. Each of the prizes was a gift bag with a “thank you” card from Kangja and a package of Rainforest blend coffee! We’d put our names on our ticket stubs and Michael crunched them up before Meredith put them in the basket. The first name picked was…..mine! Then Michael’s, then Jenna’s! Crunching up the tickets had worked! We left with some major loot! Cool!

Afterward, we congratulated Roger and Kangja on their new venture (and on winning the battle against the “senators” wanting to shut down their radio station) and went outside to decide on our next step. We thought it would be fun to play miniature golf and Jenna wanted to come, but the others declined. So we set off in the rain to the east end where it had stopped raining, but the place was closed. The others all decided to go home, but we’d just heard that Danny Morris was playing at Chicken Charlie’s so we checked it out and it was true.

We saw Marg and Jim and Ethan and Robin, Millie and Tom, and a bunch of others. After all that caffeine and sugar, we needed something starchy and calming, so we drank a beer or two and had potato skins with cheese and sour cream (Michael ate all the bacon, and there was a LOT of it!). At the break, we paid Whitney , put a few bucks in Danny’s bucket, and headed home. Believe it or not, after all those stimulants, we were able to go right to sleep. I guess it was a burn and crash situation, or maybe the hops in the beer worked really well. But it was a fun and different evening. We’re going to stick with our regular Dean’s Beans organic fair-trade coffee (it not only tastes good, but it’s good for the planet and the people in the coffee-producing villages) but we’ll definitely be buying more Yellow Bird coffee occasionally.