That farmer next door and his magic fertilizer

I'm sure I've mentioned the farmer next door who came looking for his pigs in our complex one day? Yes, he farms a plot of land over there which I view each time I go in or out of the complex. It seems to have the power of the legendary beanstalk that Jack climbed. I tell you, it is growing at such a rate that I simply MUST know how he does it. How is it that just a quarter mile away in my own little garden, everything was chomped, stolen, destroyed overnight and his plot flourishes so, leaving me green (cheesey pun entirely intended) with envy?

Well, I have some options. I could a. go over and ask him in my broken French how he does it and if I can have a plant, or b. stare longingly at the plot each time I go by, make some guesses, spend some time online, and try once again to make a garden at our house. A is a lot of courage for me to be honest, but B is a whole lot of work which could just be stolen again in the night. Wait a minute...maybe the pigs took my garden? Maybe they ate it. Which would mean they would have returned home to their lush plot and 'fertilized' that plot, making some of that plot rightfully mine, right?

Maybe I'll start with finding out what he's doing over there. It's a veritable farm and I'm jealous. I'll keep you posted, as I'm pretty determined to be a gardening success at some point. 

Facts about refrigerators and cheese

Contrary to popular (I can only assume American, since it's my experience) belief, cheese in fact does not need to be refrigerated in order to be consumed without falling ill in the way of something similar to Montezuma's revenge. This I learned during our Experiment: no Frigo. I admit it: I bought cheese anyway. I wanted it. I figured, like so often in the past, I would simply sit down with a block of cheese and a knife on the sofa, watch tv, and it would be bliss as usual. 
Yah. Not so much.
First let me clarify about the cheese not needing to be refrigerated. Apparently, according to my French (read:Guadeloupean is an entirely different breed of French but I have yet to determine exactly how to call it) boyfriend, he knows people - French people - who live in France - who keep cheeses in a fridge that is not plugged into any electrical power thereby rendering it not cold. The saying goes, "The cheese isn't ready to eat until it has moved at least five millimeters."  Remember, nobody's moving  the cheese. They wait for the cheese to ... fester...until it shifts...and then, and only then is it ready for consumption.
Alrighty then. When it comes to cheese, I'll try almost anything. So I bought the cheese and kept it in an airtight container, sans refrigeration, and nibbled at it for a few days. It's hot here. And humid. And I began to realize that the cheese moving-waiting people probably live in a climate that, I don't know, gets SNOW?! Or at the very least is not a climate like this, where, if left standing still for any tiny length of time, food and humans alike attract various bugs like LA does wannabe movie stars. Holy sweaty cheese, Batman. After the taste began to go in a direction that didn't really work for me, I left the cheese there just to see if it would in fact move.
It didn't. Well, it didn't move left, or right, or up. It sank a bit in the center and crusted a little on the edges, but I'm not sure this is enough to consider it as in the running for being consumed by a hearty French elderly in the countryside.
After a few days I opened the box to receive the gift of old non refrigerated cheese. Read: on a tropical island. Not. Good.

In conclusion, I'm keeping my cheese cold, or room temp for now. Hot cheese needs to be on pizza or fondue. That being said, I dare say that I relish the idea of visiting that person on the farm with the non operating fridge full of moving cheese and tasting a few bites. What could go wrong?

What's that? Who's calling for me? Monty? Montezuma? Ah yes, no, no I'm not taking that call.

The things you say

I realize that there are statements in my day to day vocabulary now that weren't there before. This is normal, I suppose, as life goes on.  I mean, one wouldn't use the term 'my ex' until it applied, right, but I'm talking about regular every day statements, things I say often, that I definitely did not say often before.  Previously, something I said daily was, "Hi, medium latte with whole milk, please. No, I don't need a gift card. No, thanks, I don't want a muffin, they're fattening. No, no I don't want a low fat one that is twice the size of the full fat one..."
Nowadays, some of the every day statements strike me as funny or just odd, especially taken out of context, for examples:

"Yep, that's a road. Just get into first gear, yeah yeah it's fine."

"There's a friend in the hall. I killed him, but you can pick him up and dispose of the body. I'm just not there yet."

"No, I don't feel like going to the beach today."

"Ok, we are looking for the big palm tree. That's where we turn."

"Who smells like kaka? Come here. Let me look in your underwear."

"Close the window in case a bat flies in."


"Allo? Je ne parle pas Francais. Desole."

"Je suis Americaine.  .....No, je ne sais pas pourquoi. C'est un dommage."
(I'm American....(in response to where are you from)..No, I don't know why, it's a pity" (in response to people asking why all Americans only speak one language...)

"My lime tree is gone."

Inspiration from a quitter

Our refrigerator, 'frigo' en Francais, decided to quit three days ago. Or maybe since I'm in a department of France I should say that he is on strike. That seems more fitting.

Frigo is saying nothing, doing nothing, holding nothing but a few scraps of stray dry lettuce leaf and strawberry flower, a dried up spill of apple juice. Now, a few things come into effect here. First, there is Gwada time, which is lengthier by the hour than any other time on earth.  So the time it will take to have this repaired is two days normal time=three weeks Gwada time.  Then, there is the fact that I'm actually enjoying the small challenge that is living without Frigo. In fact, I'm finding that the challenge is different than I thought.

I assumed that the difficulty would lie in not having anything in the fridge: what do we eat? What can I cook? What about all that stuff that's always in there, and even the stuff we end up throwing away, even though we have a perfectly good place to keep it until we want to eat it....
I realize now that there is opportunity in this seemingly unfortunate event. I've been meaning to get to the big outdoor markets that happen all over the island, but have only managed to get to Carrefour and to stop at some of the trucks on the roadside selling produce. Now, I have to go to the markets, a few times a week at that, if I want veggies, fruit, and fish. The climate on Guadeloupe is humid, and bugs are a plenty. Everything is open air. No Frigo in that setting, well, you do the math.

At the same time that Frigo went on strike, I came across my cousin's latest updates. He's embarking on a great adventure with his girlfriend: they are quitting their jobs in San Franciso, arguably one of the best cities in the world, and going to southeastern France to mind a farm for half a year or so. A working farm, with chickens and growing food. How cool is that?! And so I was reminded of just how interested I am in food. What I mean by that is actually how far we can be from our food sources. Many people, myself included at one point, have no idea what happens between the cute yellow baby chick and the boneless skinless breast in plastic packaging.

Without beginning some sort of big ripple at this time, I'll just leave it here for now. I've been thinking about food and what's involved with food: farming, hunting, production practices, waste, cooking, ingredients, processing - for quite some time now. As a suburban raised American, I have my own perspective, and I'm just a regular 'joe'- no special degree related to the environment, or food, or animals. I've read a few good books that I think would spark interest in any average joe. They're not books for experts, but they hold information that makes you want more. I'm trying to gain knowledge as a regular joe. Living in a new place adds to the desire to find out more. It's fun to explore. I'm looking forward to having enough French to go talk to the guy who was looking for his pigs in our apartment complex the other day. He works an enormous piece of land right next door, all by hand, and grows a variety of trees and plants. ...and occasionally loses his pigs.

And so, a big focus of the blog moving forward will be the entity of food. Of course, I can't resist posting about half eaten frogs that were thrown up on the patio by the cat because well, that's just gross and kind of funny. French cat throwing up frog legs?? Come on, there's something there. I'll keep reviewing restaurants and things to see on tripadvisor, but right now, I'm going to cook up some French green lentils and veggies and rice and drink some sun tea - all without the help of a fridge. Oh, and I need to clean that half eaten frog off the patio....awesome!

Ti-punch, when fruit punch just won't cut it.

What's that? You can't understand the Wiki definition of ti-punch because it's in French?

Welcome to my world, all day, every day.

..well okay I'm improving, but if I lose focus for two freaking seconds in a conversation, it's like trying to follow a philosophy lecture...'yep, yep, got it, totally, okay...I'm good. Uh-huh, okay...wait. Wait a minute. No, really stop, just hang on a second, I need to go back to - what? Wait, that's what you're talking about? No. No! No, I....oooooohhhh ohkayyyyyyy, I was right with you all along after all! I totally get it! Wait, what? ....what the hell are you saying right now?!! Dammit!"

What can I say, I wanted you to share the experience for a moment. And now for the good stuff: Ti-punch. The chicanition (that's a definition by chica, btw) is:

1. Grab a small glass. I mean small like your Gramma used for prune juice. Trust me.
2. Throw a couple of spoonfuls of pure cane sugar in the glass, give or take some.
3. Squeeze juice of one lime in to the glass, more or less depending on your guts/rhum taste tolerance.
4. Mash sugar and lime juice together extremely well.
5. Take some space shuttle fuel Caribbean rhum (I recommend Pere Labat, but Bologne is common at restaurants)and pour about three ounces into the glass.
6. Take note of the proof - it will be 50 or 59 proof. Consider this for a moment. Take a sip.
7. Enjoy the __________
(insert whatever it is you're enjoying, i.e. the view of the sea, the silence of the lambs as the children sleep, the card game, your friends face since he thought s/he was about to sip something mellow, like punch, regular ol' giant-red-pitcher-mascot punch.)

You won't know how to get there unless you've gone the wrong way at least twice.

I have decided that there is a phenomenon in Guadeloupe (and I might guess on many islands with a similar setup) which is: giving directions by giving every direction aside from the ones you actually need, thereby sending a person precisely where they need to go.

An excerpt of conversation between me and the pirate proving that this exists:

Me: (driving the 'woods' road through the island) "See? I know my way around. I'm good now , huh?"
Pirate: "Yeah, and now, since we took that turn, do you know where we are?"
Me: "Ummmm, yeah, okay, that house over there looks like the back of the house across the street from the little house by the other beach that we didn't rent, but it's not, but it reminds me of it, and makes me remember that I'm not there, but here, after the kind of main road, and before the big part of the woods, and so I know that this is where I stay left to get to that other part of the woods road where the guys live instead of going right because that makes me go to the top of that hill with the school with the white fence near where we went to your friends house that night, and I don't want to go that way."
Pirate: "Exactly! I'm impressed."