Tuesday

Today was a short day. We were done with the conference at noon. So I called Essie and we went to lunch. Actually, she wanted me to show her how to make the wontons I make, so we went back to Cap Julupa. She didn’t know where to get the wonton skins, but her cousin, the chef had some. He gave us a package of them, then insisted that we have lunch at his beach side restaurant. The food was so good. We ordered the fish burger and the creole burger and split the two. They were both so good. Then we went over to Shoal Bay East, which is supposed to be the best beach. It was nice, but it was so crowded. I’m used to the beach at my hotel. There are at most, a dozen people on the whole beach. There were restaurants all along the beach and beach chairs everywhere. We only stayed for a bit then we had to get the ingredients to cook. I was going to do some homemade teriyaki sauce, so we decided to try to get some fish. We went back to the same dock near Scilly Cay (Sunday). The men were just coming back from fishing. We got some local fish and Essie decided to ask if anyone had lobster. Some men had just pulled up in a boat and were unloading sacks of fresh lobster as we were talking. After getting 4 or so fish, maybe about 3lbs or more worth for $7, we went over to the lobster boat and spoke with them. For about $60, we got 3 huge lobsters and a very active stone crab. These things were so fresh, that when Essie carried them to the car in the bag, they were trying to climb out by climbing up her let. Luckily, Lobsters here do not have claws. When we got back to the house, one of them crawled onto the kitchen floor and was trying to have a stand off with us. She didn’t want to be cooked last night! It was some of the best lobster I’ve ever had, and I’m not really a lobster person. I much prefer a good fish or even crab. But we split the lobsters down the middle and stuffed them with a combination of the crab meat, the meat from the lobster’s legs, breadcrumbs, garlic, olive oil and some other spices. Then we threw them n the grill. They were so good. At the store, we didn’t find sesame oil, so we scraped the teriyaki idea. Angie, who lives with Essie and takes care of the house when Essie is in the US, fried the fish, and I made fried rice with some leftover shrimp they had and whatever else I could find. As we ate, we watched American Idol. It was the first TV I’ve seen since Thursday. I actually haven’t missed it that much, except of course for FoL and PR.

After AI, Essie drove me back to the hotel. On my way to my room, I was passing the bar and the bartender called me over. We chatted for a while and he asked me where I’ve been. He was telling me how every table was full and it was a crazy night. I was shocked because they had a pretty small menu and every other night, they have only had 7 or 8 tables the whole night. No one was at the bar, so we just sat and talked for a little bit. Then the manager showed up dressed in a suit. The bartender was joking about how first the manager ruined his alone time with me, then he had to roll up in a suit, trying to impress me. Those two are a trip. They both openly hit on me and talk about the other constantly. Someone was asking me how it felt to be loved. I said ‘Well, since all of the men on this island are related to all of the women on the island already and there aren’t many black tourists, I’m not special. I’m just new! After chatting with them for a while, I went off to bed. I think I’m starting to get a bit run down. Very tired…