stbartshopper
Senior Insider
I drink coffee and my bride loves tea. What are your favorite spots to ‘daydream’ on or off island?
Coffee and Tea ‘favs’ ...
- Thread starter stbartshopper
- Start date
Even though I am somewhat retired, I wake up each morning at 4am. This is due to getting up each morning around that time to catch the first plane or ferry to Nantucket at least 6 days a week for 40 years. Now I go online each morning, check the news and sbhonline, and drink two cups of coffee with a somewhat St. Barts type breakfast. Take the dog for a long walk and either go to work with my brother-in-law or work around our property. We walk at least 8 miles a day in the course of 3 walks and obviously short walks for pee breaks; for the dog not me. I'm a lucky man to have good health, a loving and healthy 3 generation family and the luck of being introduced to St Barts, by Julie Sanford.
I order all of my Bonne Nuit Café Grand-Mère from France. You can buy it at Match/Super U in SBH. The Super U checkout ladies are not pleased when I come through with 20 packages, though.. It is decaf and amazing! (Don't knock this decaf until you try it..) I am happy anywhere I can drink it. It, along with my almond croissant, is the "carrot" that gets me to the gym every day for an hour or 2, and then I get to come home and have my petit déjeuner français. I don't get to have it until after workout...no (ch)eating or drinking before the gym! LOL! The best place to have it is in any Francophone community, but especially in SBH!!
. . . a great life, Kent (not without a lot of hard work, I know)! We’re grateful for your regular contributions to the Forum — and especially look forward to on-Island commentary.
How’s Denise’s recovery coming?
That’s a funny story, davesmom . . . and reminds me of a similar recent experience at Marche U. Wendy & I were on the island, in annual preparation of the Villa for the forthcoming “season.”
There’s a particular private “U” brand of — all things! — toilet paper that we have found & like to stock in the Villa. Seeing a bunch of it on a shelf one day when at the U, I took every package & rolled up to the checkout counter. The young French checkout woman turned to look at the desk just inside the entrance & caught the eye of a guy there. She didn’t say a word as she started scanning each plastic-wrapped package of six rolls of toilet paper. As she was doing so, the aforesaid guy comes up & says, in charming French-accented English, “you like our paper?” I replied, “it’s the best!” He asked if I’d like some more, & when I said “oui,” he was back in a flash with a giant carton of the same —“take as many as you like!” I bought the full carton, & he helped me get all of it to the car.
Marche U offers great service . . . and, while I fully understand the distress related to competition of a “big box” store vs. local business, I’m looking forward to seeing the new Marche U. (In regard to “local business,” BTW, it’s important to know that, facing such competition, other principal grocery purveyors on the island have formed alliances with major French food sources, thus expanding their inventory options & reducing per/item prices. Jojo’s is my favorite in this respect . . . what a pity it would be to lose Jojo’s retail outlet in Lorient.)
I’ll be looking for Bonne Nuit Cafe Grand-Mere at U on my next visit!
OMG, that is the best story! I so "get it"!! I am a bit supermarket crazy when I get to any French area and I totally get the toilet paper thing. And we don't have colors anymore in the US, so sometimes you can find colors in France. I go through there like a tornado, gathering up every Marché U branded cosmetic, bath product, (their U brand is/was really great and totally inexpensive), and a lot of bath gel, especially the ones from Palmolive Tahiti shower gel and Ushuaïa, so keep a look out for those! (Davesdad has put up with this suitcase toting for a REALLY long time, so he knows the drill: fill every corner of the extremely large duffel that we bring as an extra with anything we can cram in there to bring back!) Word to the wise: Bring/get masking tape to put over the tops of anything that can spill and load them into plastic Ziplock bags. I always bring my own ziplocks (multi sizes) as they fill many needs, such as toting wet bathing suits, keeping ice in a bag with canned or bottled drinks, etc. Nothing makes me happier than having real French coffee! And don't forget chocolate bars! Nestlé makes great bars for baking (ok, eating baking chocolate works, too!) with caramel flavors as well as dark chocolate. And if you are marzipan fan, Côte d'Or has some nice marzipan stuffed dark chocolate bars. (OK, Côte d'Or isn't fancy but I like it!)
I am always floored that it is so hard in America to get simply good chocolate at an American grocery store. (La Maison du Chocolate ships me truffles from France via NY but you sure aren't baking with those!) Also, although you can order Côte d'Or from American sources sometimes, you don't always get the same varieties, so buy your goodies when you see them. (That's called the "Moscow Rule of Shopping" from the great, late Suzy Gershman of the "Born to Shop" book series fame..very funny lady.)
What is going on with Jojo's? Are they disappearing? That would be sad. Oh, yeah, don't forget to ziplock your Rhum Vanille and don't pack it in your carry on, like a certain Davesdad did one year...the SXM Inspectors had a great year that time with our Rhum Vanille:laughing-cry:
Marche U coffee, dark brown bag, Columbian I think is what we/I usually get, and the aoli came back with us this year along with 2 bottles of Rhum vanille...Ma Doudou from SXM, keep it in the fridge here. I get this with the tp too. Here we have Publix & Kroger along with Whole Foods & Harris Teeter, the latter 2 are only on Hilton Head so rarely go to them. But Kroger near by 125K sq feet, hate the store but great cheap good coffee so I stock up with 8 tins when on sale. Davesmom, always some Bubble wrap along with the ziplocks !
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So glad that you appreciate the “retail” Jojo’s in Lorient (as opposed to the wholesale business).
Having a Villa in nearby Marigot, Wendy & I have a commitment, not only to the island, but also to local business . . . of which Jojo’s is a “fixture.”
In addition, when we became proprietors of the Normandie Hotel in Lorient, we were enthusiastically & very personally welcomed by island business people — notably, & prominently among them, David Matthews of Eden Rock, Charlie Vere-Nicholl (then of I’le de France), AND Jojo. Each of them selflessly, warmly welcomed us to the business community. They extended offers of help in commercial resources & other business & personal connections that were invaluable to us as non-local, start-up entrepreneurs.. As a result, I have an enormous warmth of community feeling with Jojo (& many others . . . including Catherine Charneau of Le Village St Jean, for example) that bridges years & commercial growth on the island. It would be a material loss for each of us to see the passing of Jojo’s. (And, BTW, I don’t think that it’s disappearing in this generation.)
