Yesterday I was asked if I do much cooking. I love to cook. I have all sorts of equipment and tools for cooking, But I had to answer, “No.”
There are two grocery stores within walking distance of my apartment in Vieques, Supermercado Morales also called ‘Little Morales,’ and Family Market. On Wednesdays, the food trucks come over on the ferry from the big island and stock these stores. So the only worthwhile times to shop are Wednesday afternoons and Thursday mornings. Everyone knows this.
“Good luck” is the phrase most offered to a newbie to the island who takes a shopping list to the grocery store. That’s because the locals refer to shopping as “hunting.” Shopping here is all about taking advantage of opportunities. If I see something that I usually like or that I think I might need, I have to grab it right then. Since both stores are small, by stateside standards, they sort of rotate their stock. There may be some rhyme or reason to it, but what it is escapes me.
Little Morales always has three colors of bell peppers that look fresh. I suspect they have a source that grows them on the island. Family Market carries no bell peppers. Morales also usually has apples, and on Wednesday or Thursday may also have grapes and strawberries. Family Market has salad greens, and they are always a week or more past their sell-by date and looking rotten around the edges. This week, I was able to find a bunch of asparagus there for only $6.00. If you really want fresh veggies, you have to turn to cabbage. It has to stand in for all the rest. Usually, there are at least one or two cabbages available, almost always purple.
I had found some gluten-free noodles months ago and last week decided to make an Alfredo sauce. By great good fortune, the store actually had sour cream. I got busy finding the rest of what I needed and discovered there was not a bulb of garlic for sale in either store. I had thought that fresh garlic would be nearly always available. I still have the other ingredients around.
I’ll look for garlic again next Wednesday and hope the sour cream holds up until then.
There is a restaurant nearby, on the main street of Isabel II, Buen Provecho. It is mostly a deli that serves sandwiches, but they have a breakfast menu too – and salads. Their chef salad is the closest thing to a keto meal I have found on the island. Where they get fresh greens is a mystery to me, but I try to eat a salad there at least once a week for the sake of the chlorophyll and the vitamins. Typical island food is rice and beans and fried plantains – lots of plantains. Grocery store freezers have extra large bags of frozen plantains prepared in different ways.
I feed my dog Mijo, when I can, raw chicken, but it is not always available in either grocery store. But Mijo has a solution for that. In the vacant lot, next door are seldom fewer than two dozen chickens and roosters of all ages. If he can manage to get away from me for a minute, he goes and hunts a chicken or two and kills them and sometimes eats the smaller ones, feathers and all. Now, this is not an occasion to say or even think, “Oh, the poor chickens.”
I mentioned Mijo’s prowess at Buen Provecho last week, and instantly I had people wanting to borrow my dog to reduce the chicken population near their homes. The entire pueblo is seriously overrun with fowl. The roosters are loud and continuous from about 3 A.M. on, with encores and reprises during the day. I’d let Mijo provide his own dietary needs if he didn’t run into the street after chickens. He simply is not street smart.
Almost all the coffee for sale here on the island is espresso. Fortunately, I actually like a dark roast. Tea is harder to find, but I did, at last, find Lipton tea. ((Sigh.)) The favorite tea company I used to order from does not ship to Puerto Rico, and I’ve used up the last of my Honey Black and have only a few servings left of Black Jasmine Pearls.
I can find nothing but imitation vanilla in the stores, almost as if they have never heard of the real thing here.
Organic? No.
No sulfates and sulfites? No.
Sugar-free, gluten-free? What’s that?
I broke down and ordered vanilla from Amazon.
So, now you understand why I don’t do much cooking in Vieques. It’s due to my ‘hunting grounds.’ I guess I’ll keep eating too many mixed nuts.