Ahh! Puerto Rico

The Norwegian side of my wife's family and their spouses descended on San Juan, Puerto Rico for the wedding. One of her cousins was marrying a fellow a from Puerto Rico that she met while in medical school. The gathering took place over the New Year's holiday. It was a wonderful time. The image of staid Nordic types trying to learn to Salsa and getting into the Latino vibe caused more than one of us to comment on what a great "News From Lake Wobegon" segment it would make on "A Prairie Home Companion."

The picture above is the view from our hotel room at the Marriott Hotel on the beach in the Condado section of San Juan. This is a beautiful hotel right on beach. Great service, wonderful beds and amenities, a fantastic pool, perfect weather. It doesn't get much better than this.


The first evening the entire clan (more than 50 of us) gathered at Restaurant Barrachina in Old San Juan. This restaurant advertises that it is the birthplace of the "original pina colada", which it is not. I would advise that you stay away from this restaurant as it is a tourist trap.

Old San Juan is really beautiful. It is free and a must visit. Four cruise ships were in port the night of our visit to Barrachina, so the streets were crowded. We headed back the next day without the crowds and I spent some time getting some beautiful pictures of the streets, the vistas and the fort. Earlier that day, I was in the mood for some local Puerto Rican food. I asked a cab driver where he ate and he directed me to the pool grill in the Dutch Inn. This rundown hotel across the street from the Marriot is where the Greenhouse Restaurant is located, which gets a descent amount of the tourist trade. The grill in the pool area is great and local, local, local. Two women who speak no English give you menu with the food for the day. The menu has English translations. I had the roasted pork with rice and pink beans. My wife had the chicken in garlic sauce with rice and black beans. The senoritas ladled the food from large iron pots on the stove. The portions were generous and the the food was very tasty. Puerto Rican food is savory but not necessarily hot. I very much enjoyed it.

The last day were in Puerto Rico, we rented a car and traveled through the El Yungue Rain Forest. This about an hour drive from San Juan. We saw a little place called the Isamar Bakery on Route 26 right across the street from the turn off for the rain forest. We had a great inexpensive, home cooked meal there.

We met the owner, Cookie, who is from New York City. She returned to Puerto Rico and opened this bakery and has been doing very well. Cookie is a devout Christan lady and told us God told her to come back to Puerto Rico to help with the Baptist church that is just down the street from her bakery. Everything at the bakery is homemade and as you can see from the menu, very inexpensive.


Unfortunately the roast pork was sold out, so we had a Choripan and a Bistec Sandwich. Both were served on good homemade Puerto Rican bread. The Choripan was especially tasty. It is eggs scrambled and served with fried chorizo.


Since were were eating at a bakery we had to sample some of the tasty pastry. My wife had a a piece of flan. The folk we were with had guava cheesecake. I had a guava filled cheese danish. Yum.
Now that I am back in Jersey experiencing snow and nearly zero temperatures, remembering my few days in Puerto Rico are making warm all over. I can't wait to go back.

Enjoy!

Downtown Toms River Farmers Market--Toms River, NJ

Christine and I took some time yesterday afternoon to visit the Downtown Toms River Farmers Market. It is held at Huddy Park in Toms River every Wednesday from June to October, from Noon to 6 p.m. Besides being a great place to find locally grown produce, it is a great place for a nice stroll along the river on a lazy summer afternoon. The number of vendors is not huge, but there is a nice variety and the folk are displaying their wares live, work and farm right in our own backyard.

Being the pickle lover that I am, the first stop I made was to the Pickle-licious stand. Their booth is an homage to all things brined or pickled. They offer a large variety of pickled cucumbers, fresh sauerkraut, green tomatoes and olives. Grab a toothpick to sample a taste of any or all of their products. My favorite were the half sours which are crunchy, briny and garlicky almost fresh cucumbers. The other favorite were the citrus olive. This was was a medley of Greek olives, kalamata olives, and various green olives with slices of lemons and oranges in a spicy brine.

In addition to Pickle-licious other prepared food purveyors at the market include The Lithuanian Bakery, Italian Treasures, and the Peanut Man.

We purchase produce from several of the stands. We made arrangements with Krowicki's Farm in New Egypt to get a half bushel of cucumbers for the bread and butter pickles we are going to do later this month. We purchase a giant bunch of basil from Fresh Pick Farm in East Windsor, NJ for some pesto that I will be making this evening. Our favorite stand though, for the sheer variety of produce and quality of the products was E. & R. and Son Organic Farm from Monroe Township. The picture above is of some of their products. Each of their bins has a picture of the field from in which the produce was grown on the front of it which was interesting.

A really fun stop was to the Herbertsville Honey Company stand. The Bergs are award winning beekeepers who produce their honey from apiaries located at various organic farms and other properties located around central NJ. Mr. Berg was kind enough to give me jar of Herbersville Heat, which is chili pepper infused honey. This honey won the hot pepper award at the 2007 New Jersey State Beekeepers Association Show. I can't wait to experiment with it. I'll be doing about post about my fun their product.

With summer winding down, you can take a walk along the Toms River on a Wednesday afternoon and have fun cooking with changing bounty of nature's harvest. It's worth a trip.

Enjoy!

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Heading to New Hampshire

The family is getting on the road early to head to New Hampshire today. We are dropping my son and his friend off to Camp Spofford were my youngest son will work on staff in the kitchen.

We usually stop and eat on the road but with the high cost of fuel we are going on the cheap. I picked up a bag of Manhattan Bagels. They are not quite the real thing, but they are the closest thing we have around here to real New York bagels unless you head to the Hasidic section of of the town next to us.

Have a great day everyone!