April Fool's

Today marks the 6th month anniversary of us living on Saba. Well, actually it would be tomorrow since American Airlines screwed us up back on October 1st in 2008 and we arrived a day late.

I wonder what type of April Fool's jokes I will bear the brunt of today but no doubt there will be plenty given the funk I'm in right now.

Oh, the Fun never stops

Saturday, March 28th......

As we are winding down from "high season" here on Saba Paul and I have decided to sit down and take a look at where we want Tropics Cafe to go as we enter into our first low season on the island.

We are talking about making some changes to the menu and "tighten up" the list and offer a limited amount of great quality food and spirits. Not having ever done this before it will be a trial by fire to see whether we make the right decision.

That said, the hotel bookings are quiet going into this week end and our friends, Shawn and Sonya are having their baby's christening today so we decided to close for dinner service tonight and celebrate the event..

The service begins in 11 minutes and, needless to say since we just got home from the restaurant's lunch shift, we will miss the Church aspect of it. Probably a good idea since I wouldn't want the poor child's special day ruined by a lightning strike by my prescence!

We will, however, enjoy the Blessed event at the cocktail party afterwards.....

It is also LeAnna's 25th birthday today. (GOD, THAT MAKES ME FEEL OLD!!) She works with us at Tropics and is a Godsend to us at the restaurant and bar.

Another hotel/restaurant on the island is having a special 6 course wine tasting dinner tonight and Paul and I are treating Travis and LeAnna to dinner there for her birthday.

Cocktail party, wine dinner, birthday celebration??? Maybe I should STOP drinking this Bloody Mary I'm enjoying right now.................

Hmmmmn..............

Murderers!

We are just finishing our lunch shift at Tropics.

Last night we had a young couple who came in for dinner and liked it so much that they're coming back in tonight and requested fresh lobster.

I just got back from the harbor and had one of the guys pull the lobster traps and sell me 2 four pounders for the meal tonight.

Larry the Lobster says his final goodbyes right before the hatchet chops him in half.

Off to the steamer pot!

Paul just pulled a recipe off the web and will "par steam" them first, finish them on the grill and serve "the cockroach of the sea" with a Thai pepper, lime and cilantro sauce.

Bon Appetit from Saba!!

In a Mood

Since Tuesday I have been suffering from a really crappy headache, migraine or whatever you want to call it.

This has resulted in my behavior falling into the Uber-Bitch category

This morning I woke to "IT" being almost gone, almost...........

Hopefully people around me today can bear me.

Our day off today

We had a really nice day off today. Paul and I enjoyed a lazy morning here at the house and then we went to friends Malcolm and Rodney's house for a long lunch on their deck overlooking the pool. They are from England and spend several months each year on Saba. Malcolm is a writer and photographer who has produced dozens of books on floral design, gardening and entertaining and Rodney, also a writer, has dealt in fine art.

They have an amazing garden and gave us boxes full of things to plant in our yard.

It will take some getting used to understanding tropical plants but we were given some awesome things like Bromeliads, Coconut Palms, Crotins and more. Now to plant them all.

As we arrived home the yacht Limitless was sailing by on its way back to St. Maarten. It is a 315 ft. long privately owned ship by the Limited Company owner who owns Victoria's Secret. I wonder how many bra sales it took to cover the $250 Million it cost to build it.

Happy Monday from Saba!

The "Bakery" is in full swing this morning

We offer a bread basket on our Sunday Brunch menu which offers a variety of homemade breakfast breads, muffins and other treats so I will be working at a feverish pitch first thing to get today's things done by the time brunch starts.

Already made is the Pumpkin spice bread with pecans

Next is the Banana Coconut muffins made with fresh picked Fig Bananas from the tree

and finally, puff pastry dough wrapped around cinammon sugar, marshmallows, white and dark chocolate chips and crushed pistachio nuts, brushed with drawn butter and baked. Truly a diabetic's coma!

Movie Stars, Oh, I'm all goose pimply!

Yesterday we had (Well, not WE but others) a Hollywood star sighting! There's a mega yacht anchored off of Wells Bay and it's been told that the guests include Goldie Hawn, Kurt Russell, Kate Hudson, Owen and Luke Wilson and others.

Colleagues of ours that run another hotel and restaurant said that some of them came in for lunch while the others went hiking and scuba diving.

Three things come to mind when I heard this;

#1 I guess the gossip rags are true that Kate and Owen are back together
#2 Why didn't we get invited for cocktails on the aft deck in the harbor

and more importantly

#3 How DARE they NOT come into Tropics for a meal!

The yacht leaves this morning.

Those ingrates.......

Paul's much better

Paul is feeling much better today. He's been down for the count since late Sunday night and we now think he had a nasty little virus or something like that instead of food poisining.

He's back to work today and I don't have to play the role of slop cook anymore, thank goodness.

Sunny and warm here today with high's around 80. Happy Thursday from Saba.

St. Patrick's Day Wrap Up

Well, today the only thing GREEN today is Paul.

So much for a Happy St. Patrick's Day. He ate something on Sunday that didn't agree with him. AKA, food poisining.....

Yesterday he said he wasn't feeling well. Gee, could I guess from the 17 times to the bathroom in under 2 hours????

Well, this morning he told me that he couldn't make it to work and I handled the lunch shift in the kitchen while LeAnna took care of customers in the front.

I knew that the dinner shift was out of my realm of expertise so I decided to close for dinner tonight. I didn't realize that tonight, Tuesday, was our delivery day!!

Last week our supplies arrived from the "boat" at after 10pm so I made the unwise decision to go down to the dock to pick up our shit myself! Ugh.

After wating for over an hour and a half, my stuff got to the dock. No fault of the delivery boat but just a lot of stuff being delivered.

Now I can appreciated Giovanni, our delivery guy, who brings all our stuff up to the restaurant and I promise I will NEVER, EVER complain about what time it arrives.

Home safe and sound now and enjoying a glass of wine. Maybe I should put a drop of green food coloring into it to celebrate March 17th.... Just a thought......

St. Paddy's Day

I celebrated our "cherished" day off yesterday by starting the morning with homemade Dutch Pancakes

topped with bacon, Gouda Cheese and syrup. Strange combination but Oh so Yummy! Paul wasn't feeling well so he stayed home and vegged out on the couch so it was just Wim, Johanna and me.

Then we went down to the school to do our community service by putting together a new ping pong table for the kids. The organization Child Focus bought these tables and we volunteered our time by assembling them. All the instructions were in German though.

Oh Scheiße ist das nicht jeder Spass

After a nice lunch out, a quick check in on Paul to see how he was doing, we headed down to Fort Bay to do some pier fishing. I didn't catch a thing, got bored quickly and then it started to rain. All in all, a great day and I was home early, had a full night's sleep and now am ready for the "work week" to start again.

I wonder if Paul is going to whip up some Irish feast for today. Happy St. Patrick's Day from Saba.

Friday The 13th

Now I am not a superstitious person but Friday the 13th has always had something about it that makes me want to stay at home.

Unfortunately that will not be the case today. Each month we have to pay our bills at the local government offices which include the monthly wage taxes, insurance premiums, liquor license, etc. Of course I've waited until the last minute to do it and since my deadline falls on Sunday, the 15th this month I will be waiting in line with all the rest of the folks who dilly dallied like me.

Not quite the Caribbean life of leisure you all imagine I must have, Huh???

Happy "Bad Luck Day" from Saba.

Now it Looks like I've got "the Bug"

With this nasty cold and flu going around the island it looks like I'm coming down with it now! Ugh.

But I'm doing my best to ward it off by dosing up on high levels of Comtrex, Thera Flu and Hot Tea.

Let's hope early prevention will keep it away and that I won't become a cranky, bitchy, snotty, coughy mean patient for Paul.

Back to the grind

With Paul being sick this week end I decided to close the restaurant for dinner service on Saturday night and for Sunday Brunch. It just didn't make any sense to me to suffer through short handed and provide "less than stellar service and food".

Yesterday was our normal day off and I made dinner at home for us and enjoyed this awesome sunset from the deck.

By the time dinner was over Paul's fever had spiked again and he went to bed, tossed and turned all night and was sweating so I made do on the couch which translates to a shitty night's sleep and a grumpy Chris this morning.

Back to the grind today at Tropics in about an hour or so for a long day on little sleep. Not so Happy Tuesday from Saba.....

Thor

Our friend Travis stopped by the restaurant to say hi while out walking Thor.

Paul and I brought him down to Saba when he was only 8 weeks old in September of '08. He's certainly a big boy now. Pure solid American Bull Dog muscle but he's a real sweetheart!

My Chef Debut

Paul is still down with the flu so I went into work yesterday and worked in the kitchen cooking instead of being in the Dining Room.

Luckily we weren't too busy so everything went pretty darn good. There was no need to send for the paramedics to assist any of the restaurant patrons, thank goodness.

Happy Daylight Savings Day from Saba.

The Heineken Regatta, St. Maarten

The 29th Annual Heineken Regatta is being held in St. Maarten this week end.

Not sure if everyone is there for the week end but our little island is pretty darn quiet right now.

That's OK though because is "down" with a nasty cold. I sent him home from work early last night and finished up by myself. We're having lots of heavy winds right now so the race should be an exciting one!

All Rain and..... No Water? What's Up with That?

We have had a ton of rain over the last couple of days which is good news for our cisterns and water supply.

Yesterday, however, Paul was taking a shower as I was brushing my teeth and the the water supply started spurting and "coughing" out air. I thought "we can't be out of water" and went to check the pump below the house and then the cistern which had plenty of H2O in it.

Our landlord Wayne asked Luke, AKA maintenance Man extraordinaire, if he would go into the cistern to check out the pump valve. Poor guy, he asked is could borrow our wetsuit since the water would be cold. Talk about shrinkage!!! Well, they changed the valve and it still didn't work. Ultimately, the pump had to be changed out and tonight we have water again. Time for a warm shower, a bite to eat and then to bed.

Happy "Almost Tropical Storm Conditions" from Saba and Happy Daylight Savings Time for all you US folks...... Spring is almost here.......

Why I love Saba!

Our car has been acting up lately. When we start it up in the morning and head down the mountain for work it rattles and makes this heavy vibration noise which bugs the crap out of me.
I was convinced that our exhaust system was about to fall off so we took the car down to the local mechanic to check things out. He confirmed that there was some rust on the exhaust pipe and it had separated from the muffler.

I asked him what it was going to cost for a "new system" and he looked at me like I was from Mars.

He said that he would weld the pieces back together and that would fix the problem for (at least) the next year or two.

Paul picked up the car and paid the tab ($65 TOTAL) and things are great again.

I can only imagine the freakin' crooks at the Lexus dealership in DC saying that the repair would be something like $1,400 because our warranty was no longer valid. Hmmmmnnnnn........

My Cysterectomy

OK, I was convinced that I just had this really disgusting pimple that wouldn't pop on my face but after weeks (Ummn, months) of it I went down to the hospital only to have the doctor confirm it was a sebaceous cyst and that it needed to be removed.

So after a little local anesthesia and four fucking shots, he cut it open, dug in and started pulling scraping and gauging away!! 45 minutes later and several stitches it's all gone and I'm back in business. I asked to Doctor to make sure that my scar will be really macho and cool so I can regale people with stories of me getting into a bar fight with knives and shit like that.


Come on guys, I have to live vicariously with the thought of living a cool and exciting life like other people!!

Rain, Rain, Rain

We've had a ton of rain over the last day or two.

At first I thought it was kind of depressing but then I thought that all of our cisterns were being filled at rapid speed so I felt better knowing that I would be able to shower come late March or early April once the "dry season" hits the island.

Thank God for the rain. Hall-A-Lew-Yah!!!!

Carnival 2009

Carnival is celebrated on Saba in late July and this year I've been invited to join the parade group for the big festivities. Of course I jumped at the chance to do it.

I better get online right away to find a super strength glue gun, beads and feathers for my costume!

Our day off

While many of you were shoveling snow off your driveways and scraping your windshields from all the snow and ice Paul and I had a great day off yesterday and celebrated it by having a nice afternoon lunch with some neighbors on the island and then came home for an evening on the deck with Alaskan King Crab Legs (which I didn't eat of course) and a beautiful sunset.

But now it's back to the grind today. Happy Tuesday from Saba!

Sunday Brunch

We got Molly and Donnie off to the airport yesterday morning for their trip home to Annapolis where they were calling for rain/sleet/snow depending on the temperatures. No thanks for me!

Paul and I are gearing up for a busy Sunday Brunch today. We have a handful of reservations but the island is pretty full right now so I predict a strong crowd.

We end our Sunday Brunch at 2pm and we have stayed open in the past through Happy Hour until 6 but we have both decided that it just isn't worth the few extra dollars of bar business so, starting today, we are closing right after brunch and having "a true" half day off which will give us a total of 1 1/2 days off each week.

Looking forward to spending the late afternoon with tapas poolside at another hotel/restaurant today!!

Happy Sunday and Happy March from Saba............