Mistakes Were Made

Oops, I did it again. I bought a bag of Fritos Scoops.

I don't want to beat myself up about it--that hasn't helped in the past, so I doubt it will help now.

My eating was on the wrong course today ever since I got up at 7 to make Fig's lunch and see her off to school. I was in my short black nightgown until almost 7 P.M., but I was working a lot of the day. I kept meaning to get dressed, but had to shower and wash my hair first, and that didn't happen until 7ish.

"I haven't had lunch yet," I said to H. when I put a slice of turkey on whole wheat.

"Lunch?" he said. "It's a quarter to six."

I'd been emailing a couple of my editors, putting out little fires on articles--details that had to be checked, changes that had to be made.

So when I finally went out to get dinner for the family and Fig's two friends--semolina bread, ham, Jarlsberg Light, a little potato salad, fresh raspberries--I had a Fritos cravings and succumbed.

I would have been the woman you saw sitting in front of Bank of America branch at about 7:45 tonight, eating an entire bag of Fritos in her silver CR-V, with some Marie's Roasted French Onion dip to boot. I am not the least bit proud of this. It troubles me deeply.

I checked the Nutrition Facts. Nine ounces at 160 calories per ounce is 1,440 calories.

Memo to Self
While eating the Fritos, they tasted good. The crunch felt almost powerful, like it accomplished something. I thought nostalgically of the first time I had Fritos Scoops, at a party at my friend Debbie's house in the 1970s. I didn't even know what Fritos Scoops were until then, but thought they were an excellent idea when I found out. Still, they were a rarity; I barely ever had them.

Crunching in my car, I also felt ashamed and embarrassed but very determined. Like no one was going to stop me. I thought about how I should not be eating all that. I thought that I still looked pretty, didn't I, and had nice clothes on, didn't I, even though I was eating all that. I worried about the fasting blood sugar test my doctor wants me to schedule. I wondered who might walk by and see me--my fellow Girl Scout leader from years back, my friends [a married couple] who had gone out for a burger nearby tonight. But no one did. Just the man who parallel-parked in front of me and the man who pulled in behind me.

Driving the short distance home, I felt slightly out of control, almost drunk. I was steering kind of jerkily, and coming up close on the cars in front of me.

My life was spinning out of control. I realized I had eaten 9 ounces of something that could kill me early. All because no one was going to stop me.

So, who really wins in the end? Please let it be me, not the Fritos. Tomorrow is another fresh, clean day. I plan on going to yoga.

But there's an elephant in the room that I'm ignoring. I've also been very worried about a problem someone I love is having. And, is it also possible that I am eating my way into numbness or discomfort or ugliness to avoid intimacy? It's probably easier to focus on feeling bad about Fritos than on not being able to make someone's problem go away, or on not connecting deeply with someone you love. The Fritos give me something to hang my hat on.

That's a big mouthful. I need some time to digest it.

Be It Ever So Humble--Home

It started snowing lightly this morning when Fig left for school ["March comes in like a lion," she called happily from the street], but now it's stopped.

Most-Missed List [Saint Lucia]
1. The giant bed [our house is from the 1920s and the bedroom is quite small]
2. The sea, a short walk from my doorstep
3. Roaming horses, cows, goats and chickens
4. Someone taking my breakfast order
5. The company of Kate, Elly, Nicole, Tamara, Maria, Nerdin--such color, such style, such dinner-table conversation. And Elly knows everything about everything, from grappa to Hollandaise.
6. That smooth-talking guy who worked at The Landings and said "I'm sad today. It's a very sad day. My Princess Alice is leaving." Oh to be young and searching again. How come when you're young and searching, willing guys with big muscles and cocoa-smooth skin don't emerge when you need them? Or do they?

Climb Every Mountain
I told H. all about the trip as he steered the car home--about the Pitons, the people, the sea. He wanted to know how tall the Pitons are but I didn't know. Now I've checked--Gros Piton is 2,619 soaring feet. Petit Piton [its smaller twin sister] is 2,461 feet. Nerdin, from the St. Lucia Tourist Board, told us at Big Chef, over the world's best bruschetta [with a generous dusting of fresh Parmesan], that she climbed the big one at age 15 as a Girl Guide [like our Girl Scout].

I bet H. and his brothers and others would love to take on Gros Piton. They're into climbing mountains in Maine. John, Dave, Bonnie, Lynn and Leah have all climbed to the top of Mount Katahdin, Maine's highest mountain, at 5,268 feet. I'm exhausted even thinking about it.

"Wait," H. said, "What about the cocoa plantation?" He knows me and my chocolate. I told him how you just smell the cocoa when you walk around there. You just breathe it in.

"Yeah," he said. "I looked up how to make chocolate online once and it looked really complicated. I thought it might be fun to make it." That's him--eggnog made from a dozen eggs cooked into a custard sauce first; The Cake Bible waffles, which require some involved steps; chowders made with clams in the shell; his own pickles.

Back in our kitchen, I told him about Sexy Chef's mahi mahi cooked in a little coconut oil, about the seared watermelon rounds.

"I wish we knew exactly how to make it," he said, eyeing the bottle of coconut oil. He's a good, and adventurous, cook.

"Oh, I can find out," I said.

Souvenir--To Remember
He was pleased with the bottle of Chairman's Reserve rum that I brought him and made an ad hoc tropical cocktail at 1 A.M. He had no coconut, no pineapple.....he blended ice, Maraschino cherries, and a banana [NOT from St. Lucia's trees--the island's bananas are exported to England] in our yellow blender....let's just say I didn't even take a sip of the pink drink. Not after Wednesday night's masterful pina colada.

Fig loved the green pareo [the color of an unripe mango]; the hot-pink, decorated Havaianas from the Ladera gift shop; and the loofah mitts from The Landings shower stalls.

I can't exactly wear my white Havaianas with the pretty silvery trim outside right now, but I put them by the front door....a stylin reminder of the faraway terrain I walked this week.

Vanilla Confiscated

My battery is about to die so this will be a quick post from Miami International Airport. I forgot to move my bottle of vanilla extract from the island into my checked suitcase, so it was confiscated in St. Lucia Customs.

"We're taking it," the young lady said, but pleasantly.

It's okay.....my bottles of rum, Baileys and coconut oil sailed right through in my checked bags.

BTW, I still don't want to go home.

Dip

I don't want to go! Don't make me go! I do miss my H. and Fig and fluffy white Sugar dog but it has been very nice to be in paradise for a few days. How different it must be to be surrounded by such natural beauty every day of your life--like Nerdin, Maria, Ian, Randall, Bernard and the other St. Lucians we've met.

I can, however, look up at a starry sky or a fat moon or falling snow back home in Montclair....those are lovely gifts too.

I am about to squeeze in one last swim. I might skip the sunscreen so I get a tiny, tiny tan. Also, I might have the French toast stuffed with mango cream cheese. I haven't tried it yet and Sexy Chef said to try all local ingredients, so mango counts.

Then, I will put on a skirt with some Lycra in it and start the trip back home.

Yo ho ho and a Bottle of Rum

Well, I've found my nirvana, in nature and in sweets.

Mother Sugar
The best dessert I've had on the trip: The Peanut Brittle Ice Cream Sundae at Big Chef Steakhouse in Rodney Bay. Chef Rosie--a tall blonde with pretty earrings and necklace--told us it's made with homemade peanut brittle.

Before I left home, I had seen Big Chef on our itinerary and googled it--a man said he had the best cheesecake ever at Big Chef. I was wary because I didn't know what to think of a restaurant named "Big Chef." But he was right, the Coconut and Malibu Cheesecake was a true tropical treat.

And, drum roll please, the best pina colada after trying four bartenders' versions: The one at Big Chef. Blew me away like an island breeze. It was just so coconut-creamy [not icy or watery] with sweet, crisp pineapple notes.

After dinner, Rosie gave us a rum tasting--about 7 or 8 kinds. I could only sip the coconut one, because it was dessert-y. I don't really like rum on its own too much, and I was full, especially after we all passed around a Chocolate Corvette, made with spice rum, dark creme de cacao, hot chocolate and whipped cream. No more room at the inn. But my fellow foodies loved the Chairman's Reserve and the Admiral Rodney rums, both richly amber-colored.

Well, that will have to be it for me and the pina colada--and filet mignon au poivre, fries with truffle oil and Parmesan, and wine with every meal. When I get back home, it's back to healthy budget dinners like turkey tacos, dishes to wash, boot camp three mornings a week and long walks the other days. I could never eat and drink this way for an extended period of time!

Randall, the driver who took me back to The Landings hotel, told me he ate at Big Chef once but doesn't eat that way too much, mainly for his arteries. Roger that, Randall. But this is a special trip, and that was a very special meal.

Mother Nature
Today we saw the most beautiful sight at the Ladera Resort: the Pitons [pronounced PEE-tons], the two towering mountain peaks, rising tall against the blue sea. Check the photo above. Our lunch table at the restaurant there, Dasheene, was situated with a view between the two. I was dying, it was so gorgeous. Until now, the most beautiful nature settings I've seen have been the coast of California and the coast of Maine. And those are incredibly breathtaking. Now I've expanded my horizon. It will be very difficult to go back to eating a tunfish sandwich in my breakfast nook, or on a TV tray in the living room.

At Dasheene, we had some cooking lessons with the "sexy chef," Orlando Satchell [sharethelovechef.com]. His motto is "share the love" and he's all about using the Caribbean's own island ingredients. We each went up to take a turn cooking with him, even donning a white pleated chef's toque. I helped him bread and cook mahi mahi, and sear rounds of spiced ripe red watermelon to serve with it. Can you imagine? He added a little coconut oil to the pan for frying. At the end, he gave us each a bottle to take home. So I will get to try it as a beauty treatment--some island women say they've used it on their hair.

The sexy chef is passionate about plucking ingredients close to home.

"When you come to the Caribbean, don't order a strawberry daiquiri. Strawberries don't grow here. Order a mango daiquiri," he said.

His dessert was a roasted banana stuffed with caramelized pineapple and topped with vanilla ice cream. It reminded me a little of the Banana Boats Fig learned to make at sleepaway camp--you slit the skin and put chocolate and marshmallows inside, wrap it all up in foil and roast. Both equally indulgent and at least feel less decadent than a wedge of chocolate cake. [After all, you're getting your potassium.]

Oh, did I mention the cocoa plantation. Amazing!! To see the cocoa pod and the young boy doing the "cocoa dance," dancing on the beans in a giant urn, and to sample the chocolate ice cream served in a martini glass with chocolate cake and rum at the bottom. The whole plantation smelled like cocoa. But what a lot of work it is to get it out of the pod. Now I will have no problem paying almost $10 for a really good bar at Whole Foods. The young lady who gave us the cocoa tour said that 95 percent of their cocoa is exported to Hershey, PA and the other 5 percent stays on St. Lucia.

I have to leave my hotel by tomorrow at 11:30 for a 1.5 hour drive to the airport and then two 3-hour connecting flights home. H. said he'll pick me up at Newark after my plane lands at 12:20 A.M.

I don't want to leave...none of us do.

"You can always come back," the Tourist Board reps tell us.

But will we?

I was talking about how lucky we are to be here with Tamara, a writer from Atlanta. I was saying isn't it sad that some people live in awful, unsafe places and never get to see beautiful sights like the Pitons rising up over the sea while they eat expensive grilled shrimp and roasted bananas.

"Yes, but we can communicate about what we've seen through our writing," Tamara said.

Yes, Tamara, you're right.

Postcard from the Edge

Today was a visual slice of heaven. We had a chance to swim in the sea, then sip a pina colata on the lounge chair. The salty water stung my eyes more than the waters on Cape Cod do, but who cares? The sun set by about 6, its last little red crescent slipping behind the clouds after a bold and glorious dance.

I loved taking a bath in the giant tub--just read recently that Uma Thurman is all about hot baths, so was channeling her. If only I could step into the bubbles and emerge as beautiful as Uma.

But there was a knock at the door.

"Hello, housekeeping."

"Hello? Hello? I'm taking a bath," I called out. My brand-new luxury condo [at The Landings] has two bedrooms and three bathrooms, and I had turned the lights out in the entryway to save electricity. So it looked like I was out and that the coast was clear to turn the bed down.

"Hello, housekeeping." The poor lady was probably just as startled to hear my voice emerging from the bathwater as I was to hear hers. I just didn't want to leave my tub, so I asked her to return in 15 minutes, and she kindly said yes. It would have been scary for both of us if I had jumped out of the tub to tell her.

Before that, we went to learn about Creole traditions and see demonstrations--how to make cassava [the traditional unleavened bread made from a starchy root vegetable], how to dance in the island style. [I was a bit shy, so I sat and watched that.] We toured the farm there, where breadfruit, plums, nutmeg, celery and cinnamon grow. We went to the market and saw ripe, soft orange mangoes, heady with fragrance [the color reminds me of Tory Burch orange]; whole, fresh-caught tunas; herbs; tomatoes; and green plantains. Then lots of crafts--T-shirts, dolls, straw bags, wood carvings.

We had lunch and dinner--bite after bite of saltfish, lamb, breadfruit, banana ice cream, rum-raisin ice cream, pineapple crisp, banana carrot cake. We passed our dishes around and sampled them all. The women I'm with love the local Piton beer, but I hate the taste of beer to begin with.

I keep thinking of being in Hawaii with H. on our honeymoon--eating at the special restaurants, hearing the romantic music, walking under the soft lights. You can tell that a lot of older people are here for their significant wedding anniversaries.

I can see horses, cows and goats roaming outside my window. Our host tonight, Ian, told us that the animals belong to farmers but roam, though not in the roads--or the farmer gets a heavy fine of thousands of dollars or months in prison.

We have some time to ourselves tonight, so let me go rest and refresh.

P.S. One other thing. Bumble and bumble hairspray or not, I can't seem to have a good hair day. It must be the humidity. Maybe I will actually pull out the blow dryer tomorrow and give it a shot.

Forgot to Pack Something Very Important

Chocolate. Good old chocolate. Well, maybe MarieBelle. When I've gone on girlfriends' getaways, my friends Anne and Elly always remember the chocolate. Why didn't I think of that? I packed granola bars, unsalted almonds and French Vanilla Special K protein shakes. The handful of bittersweet Ghiradelli chocolate chips that I mixed in with the almonds are long gone. Dumb!

The accommodations are so beautiful. The breeze at night is lovely. I am about to check out the gift shop. Just browsing--but I can tell you they have some really chic sandals in the window.

Up High in Banana Tree

I'm blogging from Saint Lucia!

Not really a big fan of flying--my stomach feels kind of sick up in the air. But now I'm glad to be here.

From Newark to Miami, I noticed a "manlady" with an adorable infant baby girl. I could not tell if the person was a man or woman. The face said man, the boobs said woman. He or she looked to be about 60, so I found it strange that said person was traveling alone with a newborn. Was this a grandparent, a foster parent? The baby was adorable, strapped to Manlady's chest in a baby carrier.

The Miami airport was also intriguing--saw a young brunette with a much older man. She was talking on the cell phone to her mom about finding something in the drawer "where my wedding rings are" and that if any calls came, mom should tell the realtor to show the house.

The older man approached her in the boarding area with a rich pastry in a white paper bag.

"I can't eat that, baby," she said. "I know, but you should sometimes. It's good for you."

They sat in first class--it just made me wonder, what about her husband? What happened with the rings, the house, the marriage?

Saint Lucia is a popular honeymoon destination. Saw lots of couples waiting to board. My favorite sighting was the young woman wearing a white hoodie with ruffle-trimmed hood. The word "Bride" announced her status in silver sequins on the back.

On the 1 1/2 hour drive to our hotel from the airport, another writer and I saw so much native color--banana, orange and grapefruit trees, rainforest, rugged hilly terrain, little kids in school uniforms, and vibrantly colored roofs [aqua, red, pink] framed against the beckoning blue sea.

The dark-skinned, rope-thin driver, Bernard [who turned 55 today, and fishes every night with a fishing pole], stopped at a roadside stand where a group of young men were selling young green coconuts, mature husky brown ones and green plantains.

One man hacked a coconut in two and handed each of us half with a plastic bendy straw so we could sip the thin coconut water. The price: Fifty cents each.

What really interested me was the coconut oil, extracted in a slow careful process right there by the side of the road. It smelled so good!

"You can cook with it, or rub it on your skin," one of the men said. They were selling water bottles full of it. The fragrance was toasty and tropical. I would have bought a bottle, to use as a leg moisturizer after shaving, but I knew I wouldn't be able to use it all up or bring it home on Thursday.

There's a pretty serious drought on the island. At our fancy resort, they're not watering the grounds.

Bernard said his niece, who is a teacher, was planning on making him a cake tonight. I asked about the typical birthday cakes here. Bernard wasn't too forthcoming. "All kinds, yellow or brown," he said.

I like the other writers on the press trip. Tonight I had the world's best pina colata, and the others sipped rum on the rocks with passion fruit juice. We had fresh grouper. Somebody had Pepper Pot.

The conversation was stimulating--about work, cooking, magazines, dating, marriage. Around the table tonight: A writer from Atlanta, working on a new magazine for the African-American audience; a writer/recipe tester from Rachael Ray's magazine; the person in charge of the Weight Watchers website; a travel writer from Florida; the very nice young PR person from Chicago who arranged the trip; and a woman from the Saint Lucia Tourist Board.

Good night.

No Time to Post

Must go to bed, leaving at 3:30 A.M. for airport. See, that's what I mean, when you drive, you just throw everything but the kitchen sink in your car and leave whenever you feel like it. :)

Have not finished packing yet, either. Sigh.

Almost Famous

I'm tired. I have to finish a couple of article assignments before my trip. The one I just emailed in was about a $7 million home for sale in Summit, NJ. I loved a lot of the details when I toured the estate--especially the custom-built, marble-topped dressing room table with 20-plus drawers for your every silk scarf and necklace, and the old wine cellar, with labels dating back to 1931. Oh, if those walls could talk.

But back to Almost Famous. Have you written to famous people? I have.

In elementary school, I wrote to Mary Garber, a sportswriter at the Bergen Evening Record. Women's bylines in newspapers were rare back then. I told her I wanted to be a writer too. She sent me back an encouraging letter. I got all excited when I saw the envelope with the Record return address.

It gets better. At my first real job, working for the magazine's fashion editor [who insisted on putting her dirty coffee cups in her "out" box tray for me], I wrote to Joan Didion. I had read her books of stories, and one was about her young daughter Quintana Roo's birthday party. I loved that it went into great detail, even mentioning the flavor of ice cream served. I felt like I was there.

I was in awe of Ms. Didion's writing, and wrote her a letter to tell her that, citing specific examples. I told her I wanted to be a writer, too, but was working as an editorial assistant in the fashion department of a women's magazine. Somehow, filling out messenger slips and booking Friday manicure appointments for my boss did not seem like a promising route to writerdom--I guess that's why I reached out to a famous writer. So I could keep my dream alive.

The letter was returned undelivered to my desk. I stuck it in a manila envelope and mailed it again, somehow targeting Joan Didion, c/o the right publishing office that time. They forwarded my letter to Ms. Didion--in California, I think.

I got a letter back. I've misplaced it now, but I bet it's somewhere in my piles of paper. It was handwritten, and Ms. Didion remarked on how hard I had tried to reach her. She said that she had worked at Vogue as a young writer. "Keep writing," she said.

And I have.

P.S. I think I've fixed my comment function on this blog so it's easier to comment now--please try it. I would love to know what you're thinking. Thanks!