Trip Report: December
3rd - December 7th
by Kara
Brooks
This was a very quick trip to meet the shipment of Paradise Found which somehow made it to St. Barths on schedule. It is not so much of a trip report as a mini "blog".
December 4, 2004:
Greetings all. It was indeed 10 degrees out when we left for the airport at 5:00 a.m. yesterday morning. Half a day later it was a lovely 75 degrees! SXM was an interesting experience. We arrived at the in transit gate and were getting ready to hop on a plane that was leaving in 5 minutes when the Winair person noticed that US Airways had ticketed us for the 4:00 flight on Dec. 4th instead of the 4:00 flight on December 3rd - Handy! Confusion ensued but all is well that ends well and we caught the last flight out to SBH.
Everything is beautiful here - as green as we've ever seen (thanks, unfortunately, to the heavy rains others had to endure). The traffic is better than it was in October as a fair amount of the construction projects have been completed.
We had an amazing dinner at WallHouse last night. We had a "rustic" gamay that was called something like The Original Vine (only in French). The name is derived from the time when the French government made vineyards destroy thousands of acres of vines to push up the price of French wine and the winemakers kept hidden some of their favorite vines and are making wine with them again. It was perfect with Franck's delicious duck and the squab stuffed with foie gras. We met KevinS by chance and saw Tom Rand again (we met him last winter). Denis and Franck were as charming as ever.
Today we will be on the lookout for our books although Rosita was already checking up on Tropical yesterday (she is the best!) and the ship hadn't arrived as of 7:00 p.m. so we may have a day off (and it looks like a beautiful one - very low humidity and lots of sun).
December 6, 2003:
We just heard about the storm that is hitting the Northeast - sounds like a real mess. We head home from St. Barths tomorrow (in theory) - we'll see if the weather calms down.
I am happy to report that there is no snow here. The weather has been great - quite a bit cooler than our trip a month ago which is ideal given the number of boxes of books we've lugged around. Yes - the books did make it to the island and thanks to the remarkable efforts Steve and Lib Troyer who connected us with Forward Air (the only way the books were going to make it to Miami in time given the holiday), Pascal (famous from TMintra's trip report (Susan from Funny Face's husband)), who raced down to the dock at the first sign of rain to get the pallets moved to a covered spot, and Rosita 007, who shepherded us through the entire process (she even went with us to the docks and confirmed everything with Tropical shipping) Paradise Found is now on the island! There are always a few glitches (didn't occur to us that customs might not accept credit cards) but it all seems to be working out and everyone is extremely enthusiastic about the book.
We have not yet made it to a beach (hopefully today) but we've eaten extremely well. A fantastically fun lunch at Andy's (beef carpaccio, escargot and, of course, pizza, wine and rhum) with lots of folks from the site: IV and GregB and their lovely wives, TMinatra, her husband and best friend J and 007. It was a great time and a truly great group of people.
Back Home:
We ate at Francois Plantation on our last night and the food was wonderful. The dining room is more casual than before (comfortable seating areas in the middle) but still as beautiful as ever. IV is right in that the concept was not entirely clear or articulated on the menu. The idea is to order 2-3 dishes per person and they will bring out two or three at a time paired with appropriate wines by the glass. Once you realize that this is the system it works nicely.
We had the thinly sliced beef with truffle essence, Mahi Mahi ceviche, Lobster wrapped in Duck (what a concept!), seabass wrapped around roasted vegetables, and snails in puff pastry. The seafood was paired with a Northern White Burgundy and the meat with a red Bordeaux. We had some sort of molten chocolate thing for dessert which was paired with Sauternes. My only disappointment was the lack of a cheese plate for dessert. (I do not have a sweet tooth and was expecting a sensational selection of cheeses - oh well.) We were told that the menu will change every month. I would definitely recommend giving it a try.
Other noteworthy meals included wonderful dinners at L'esprit and Eddys. The squid tempura at L'esprit is a must have if they are offering it and Eddy's green papaya salad is not to be missed.
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