St Maarten/St Martin
7 January 2007 Newsletter

Weather: Last week I said that Sunday has arrived with lots of clouds, but no rain. I spoke too soon. In fact it has been rainy all week. Mostly shower activity with lots of sun in between and temperatures up into the low 80's. We just had a whiteout here in Cupecoy on Friday morning, but it was over in about 5 minutes. The sky is gray, but the sun is out and there is a rainbow over our end of Cupecoy, coming down just above the Orient Express project. The rest of the day was fairly nice and so was Saturday, although a bit breezy with whitecaps on the lagoon. By the end of the day, the wind had died off, a green flash peaked through some clouds on the horizon, and the planes were taking off in the other direction. A rain shower floated over Cupecoy in the evening. Sunday has dawned to a lot of clouds, but it's not raining ... yet. All in all, it has been a fairly good week marked by lots of showers but little of the usual Christmas winds. Sunset will be at 5:48PM on Sunday and the moon was full on Tuesday.

SXM-Beaches: There are new photos of Orient and Cupecoy on the SXM-Beaches website.

Beach reading: Check out Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany by Bill Buford . We first read excerpts of this in The New Yorker and now it is out as a book. Anthony Bourdain says: "Heat is a remarkable work on a number of fronts--and for a number of reasons. First, watching the author, an untrained, inexperienced and middle-aged desk jockey slowly transform into not just a useful line cook--but an extraordinarily knowledgeable one is pure pleasure. That he chooses to do so primarily in the notoriously difficult, cramped kitchens of New York's three star Babbo provides further sado-masochistic fun. Buford not only accurately and hilariously describes the painfully acquired techniques of the professional cook (and his own humiliations), but chronicles as well the mental changes--the "kitchen awareness" and peculiar world view necessary to the kitchen dweller. By end of book, he's even talking like a line cook.

Secondly, the book is a long overdue portrait of the real Mario Batali and of the real Marco Pierre White--two complicated and brilliant chefs whose coverage in the press--while appropriately fawning--has never described them in their fully debauched, delightful glory. Buford has--for the first time--managed to explain White's peculiar--almost freakish brilliance--while humanizing a man known for terrorizing cooks, customers (and Batali). As for Mario--he is finally revealed for the Falstaffian, larger than life, mercurial, frighteningly intelligent chef/entrepreneur he really is. No small accomplishment. Other cooks, chefs, butchers, artisans and restaurant lifers are described with similar insight.

Thirdly, Heat reveals a dead-on understanding--rare among non-chef writers--of the pleasures of "making" food; the real human cost, the real requirements and the real adrenalin-rush-inducing pleasures of cranking out hundreds of high quality meals. One is left with a truly unique appreciation of not only what is truly good about food--but as importantly, who cooks--and why. I can't think of another book which takes such an unsparing, uncompromising and ultimately thrilling look at the quest for culinary excellence. Heat brims with fascinating observations on cooking, incredible characters, useful discourse and argument-ending arcania. I read my copy and immediately started reading it again. It's going right in between Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London and Zola's The Belly of Paris on my bookshelf."

Traffic: Not a bad week. Having the Dutch side shut down for Monday and Tuesday (for many businesses) was helpful. On Thursday at 3:40 we went over to MVG in Simpson Bay with little trouble. We got caught in the 4:30 bridge opening on the way back and it was quite short. Friday we went shopping in Pburg making it over and back before lunch. They are towing at the airport. Here is the tow truck and an unlucky victim.

Sapphire Beach Club: For those of you who wish to sell or rent their week or unit, we have opened up the Sapphire Beach Club website for that purpose. We charge $25 per year. If you wish to rent or sell your unit, send us some text (and $25 to esk@sxm-info.com via Paypal) and if you wish to rent or buy a unit without high middleman fees, check out the website. Given the large assessment that Sapphire just levied, there may be a lot of sales. At present, there are 20 sales and/or rentals available directly from owners. Given a 25 to 35% standard rental commission, there should be some bargains in eliminating the middleman and dealing direct.

Passports required tomorrow: This has been postponed once, and once again, but now they are saying that all travel to the USA will require a passport after tomorrow, 8 Jan 2007. If you are coming next year, think about this now, rather than at the last minute. Life is pretty easy if you allow enough time to renew by mail. All the details can be found at this State Department page. You can go away for the holidays and get by with a birth certificate and a driver's license, but after that, Get a Passport!

Groceries: US Import was having a sale on Brillat-Savarin. Yes, this cheese was named after Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, author of The Physiology of Taste: Or Meditations on Transcendental Gastronomy. The cheese, according to Jenkins's Cheese Primer, is meant to accompany sweet desserts (often fruit) and champagne. Now you know why it was on sale just before the New Year. It was 12.90 euros per kg, about $8 per pound - quite cheap for such a fine cheese. It is very rarely found in the US as it should be eaten so fresh that it requires air transport - one of the benefits of an island that has daily direct flights from Paris!

We picked up some Alaskan wild salmon from Cost U Less. It was hot smoked meaning that the salmon retains less moisture, making it flaky and so stable it does not need refrigeration. Moreover, it becomes very smoky tasting. Don't ask me which I like best, but doing away with the refrigeration means that this can sell for $12 per pound.

Small Island Story: We stopped at Cost U Less and Grand Marché in Pburg on Thursday. Neither had yogurt in the large containers and only one had milk.