Bordeaux Cultural Fair and Farmers Market

This weekend we headed for the loooong (island speak for "20 minute") drive out to the west side of the St Thomas for the Cultural Fair and Farmers Market in Bordeaux. The Bordeaux Farmers Market isn't your typical hipster/small farmers gathering. It's a collective of mainly Rastafarian organic farmers who, one weekend a year, go all out to celebrate and share their culture, food, produce, crafts, natural medicines/remedies. There were even several drum lesson set-ups. This event draws looooads of white people. Seriously. Tons. Ask anyone on the island that has been. I like watching all the newbies try to figure out what each food stand is selling. The stands often don't offer menus or prices and the poor first-timer Stateside transplants can't understand a word the dreadlocked guy on the other side of the counter is saying. They end up ordering a styrofoam container of food through a serious of points, grunts, and brief unsure phrases like "that orange stuff" and "a fried thing-y." And a couple trying to order a meal together and share? Forget it. Relationships have ended over less. When one half of the couple didn't understand that just because she asked for soup doesn't mean she'll get it if she wasn't there at the exact time to earthenware pot comes off the hot rocks? And her failure means the other half of the couple is stuck eating some sort of lentil substance and a grey mystery food? Not that I know what that feels like first hand. Nope. I've got it under control.

This isn't to say the food isn't good. It's delicious. Love it. This year we feasted on eggplant, barbecued tofu, potatoes, and black eyed pea fritters (peas balls). And it's good to be shaken up and tossed out of your comfort zone. The fair is a typical island environment. We waited fifteen minutes for a mysteriously absent woman to return to her stand so that I could buy a bag of spirulina, and when I did she seemed annoyed that I was bothering her. But three or four stands down I bought sorrel (the flowers, not the greens) from a woman who patiently answered all my questions about how much I needed and how to make a traditional sorrel drink (recipe to come!). It's the island. Like I said, it's nice to be out of your comfort zone.

Although the weekend fair is only held once a year, the Bordeaux Farmers Market is twice a month on the first and third Sundays. There aren't as many vendors on regular weeks but there is almost always a variety of seasonal produce, stands selling honey, eggs, and vinegars, and the pumpkin soup guy. Oooooh, the pumpkin soup guy. Don't miss him. Trust me. He alone is worth the ridiculously long twenty minute drive.

On Where I've Been This Week...

Last weekend I was telling a new friend blah, blah, I blog three times a week, blah. Lies. (At least if you judge me by the past week.) But I have a good excuse. We have had a rotation of house guests spinning in and out of our home. At one point the guest room, office, and living room couch all had inhabitants. Our guest list contained people of both the work colleague and the good friend variety. So while there were meetings and times of heavy discussions about the toll working internationally can take on employees, brainstorming, and future development the time was also sprinkled with rugby, a St John hike, making good food, other people doing the dishes, softball, lots of beaches, the Patriots game, and reading a book in the shade while watching Seth & Co generally act like idiots. And no blogging. Sorry 'bout that.

My Love Affair With Spray Paint

It's bad, you guys. Somewhere along the line I learned that Rustoleum fixes everything. Ugly picture frames. Rusty mason jar lids. Hand-me-down patio furniture. Relationships. When my world is crumbling and caving in, Rustoleum is usually in the top three of things I turn to. You think I'm kidding? But oh no, joking I am not. Recently I've been having living room melt downs about the state of our coffee table. (I just cleaned it! How is it covered in crap already? What's wrong me me that I can't even keep my coffee table cleared off? How can I combat life's problems with a cluttered coffee table? It's too distracting!) Seth will hold me and let me cry for about 15 seconds, which is about all I need. Then I go on with my life.

Last month while visiting Boston we swung by IKEA. (Ok, no one swings by IKEA. We were there for a few hours and had lunch and tiny princess cakes.) In the deadly "put it all in your bag because it's only five dollars" section, I tried to convince Seth that we needed a tray to corral all the ridiculousness that ends up on our coffee table. His answer was that he'd never heard me mention wanting a tray before and too much princess cake combined with hour three of IKEA overwhelming-ness had me convinced I needed everything. But he told me if I really wanted a tray I could use the surfboard tray he picked out during wedding gift returns. The one that has now been sitting unused in a closet for seven years. (We don't surf. And even if we did I don't think we'd need to tell our friends about our new hobby via a surfboard tray. My guess is we could just tell them using our words.) Only if I can paint it and removed the surfboards, I said. And we reached an agreement.

So last weekend I drug the dusty surfboard out of it's seven year exile. I'm not even positive I'm going to keep it white. I was just so excited to organized the coffee table that I went with what I had.

And I love it. As you can see, another living room staple got an update too. Spray paint is like an addiction. Once you start spraying stuff you see all the other items that need updating. Plus it's a a pain to pull out our drop cloth so I try to get it all done at once. The only thing that kept me from painting our paper towel holder and tape dispenser was the rain that moved in. And the key to not having something look spray painted is cleaning it well before painting (no dust) and to spray several thin layers, allowing drying time in between. Don't try to get it all covered on the first or second go round because then you get drips.

And the tray is doing a great job, pullings it's weight as a member of this family by containing the coasters, candles, books, and electronics that usually get tossed haphazardly all over the table. Seth wondered aloud if the people who gave that chip and dip bowl to my parents as a wedding gift back in the 70s ever imagined it might be used as a cell phone and tiny digital musical device holder. Probably not. Unless they watched a lot of sci-fi movies.

Now, go forth and spray paint. The weekend awaits you. You'll be surprised how exhilarating it is. Nothing says empowerment like deciding the generic box store paper towel holder should be red, and making it so.

Pre-Christmas Weekend Highlights

Our weekend was spent with fireplaces, good wine, a good friend on Boston's South Shore, single malt, Christmas shopping along Main Street in Hingham, eating cheese from Bloomy Rind, figuring out my new flickr app, and I caught the Hats exhibit in the Peabody/Essex Museum in Salem. A great start to the long Christmas weekend. Tonight is a candlelight service at Seth's family church and dinner with friends. Christmas is coffee, breakfast, gifts, dinner in Lexington, and a skype date with my family and my happy little nephew. 

Have a very merry Christmas and I hope you make some cozy memories with friends and family!

Georgia Pride

Ouch. To watch a team you love play as hard as they did and lose the biggest game they've had so far during your lifetime just a few yards (and seconds) from scoring the game winning touchdown. Ouch. Ouch. Ouch.

But I had the honor of attending one of the best universities in the country. Challenging academics. An incredible social and music scene. Rich in history. Grassy quads, beautiful architecture, a campus covered in hundreds-of-years-old oak trees. I didn't know how unique it really was until I left and realized all universities weren't created equal. I meet a surprising number of adults who find out where I went and say, "If I could do it again, I wish I had gone there." Or how many bright talented high school kids I encounter who apply and don't get in. I was lucky. I just didn't know it.

One of the many things we do that makes the school special is take pride in game day. We respect our team and dress up for games. None of this t-shirt, flip flop, cut-offs business. College guys wore collars and sometimes button-ups with ties (in the sweltering Georgia Septembers). College girls wore dresses and heels. Its just how it was done. We're not the only school in the country to do it. But we're one of them. And it's special. I still can't go watch a game and look like a mess. It just doesn't feel right. Even if I'm just going to be sitting in a friend's living room with a couple other people.

Blouse, Nola's Boutique; Shorts, Gap (old); Shoes, Cole Haan (old, similar style here); Bag, BCBG (old, Final Cut;
Necklace (as bracelet) Chinatown vendor, NYC; Sunglasses, Vera Wang for Kohls (old)

A big thanks to my friend Christina who let us come crash her living room for four hours to watch a game she had no interest in. Our Puerto Rico Directv recently stopped carrying CBS. Because they're Puerto Rico and they just decide to do stuff like that sometimes. Seth's also in the process of creating a signature Georgia game day drink. It's good but he's still tweaking it. Today's version included sriracha, although I don't know if it's going to stay in the final recipe. Hopefully he'll have it perfected by our bowl game. Now everyone close your eyes, cross your fingers, and say it with me "Cotton Bowl, Cotton Bowl, Cotton Bowl, Cotton Bowl...

Fall, How I've Missed You

Ten years. That's how long it's been since I've gotten to experience the fall season. I haven't been stateside during October/November since 2002. (And that last 2002 Thanksgiving was spent at a friend's beach house on the gulf coast.) Isn't that crazy? Fall travel doesn't line up well with our work schedule. We stick to summer months or December when we can make longer trips. A few weeks ago we had the rare chance to visit Seth's family for a weekend. New England in October. Candy corn, fall leaves, boots, sweaters, and corduroy jackets. Doesn't get much more fall than that!

I've been so busy since we got back to the island that I haven't had the chance to share any pictures from our trip. While most of our days up there were spent in Boston visiting Seth's dad at the rehab hospital, the Saturday morning of our visit a group of guys came over to help out with some yard work. Lucky us, my always hospitable mother-in-law asked if we could drive over to Russell Orchards to pick up some fresh cider donuts for the yard crew.

Inside the barn we perused freshly picked apples, pumpkins, pastries, shelves of jams. And warm cider donuts of course!

We grabbed a few extra donuts for ourselves and enjoyed them with coffee and hot cider down by the pond behind the barn. The pond's web-footed residents came for a visit hoping for a few bites. When we wouldn't feed them they amused themselves by playing freeze tag with a nearby toddler and terrifying his mom who saw the danger is this but had a newborn attached to her boob.

On our way home we stopped near the salt marsh in Essex to say hello to some friends we hadn't seen in a long while.

When we got home, all the leaves were raked. Can you believe that wheelbarrow? If I only get three days of fall once every ten years, Boston's North Shore is the place to spend it.

By the way, that beautiful quirky building on the right is a town hall and library. Where do these North Shore towns get off being so picturesque? I'm already looking forward to our winter visit this December!