Shopping. Cooking. Eating.

One of the pleasures of the islands is the adventure of shopping and provisioning the boat for long term as well as the next meal. Every country is quite different in the availability, quality and convenience of everything from meats to fresh vegetables and fruits. In the remote places, you have to make do with a tiny little market that may be supplied once a week or every other week with products from the nearest mainland. On the larger islands, the stores can be quite similar to what we are used to "back home" though the labels on the products may be in a different language. It's all part of the adventure. Plus, you have to determine weights based on the metric system or cost based on the local currency (converted to what you're used to.) So is a box of crackers expensive or cheap? Is that ground beef enough to make a meatloaf? It's all part of the fun and adventure.

In Curacao, there are several good grocery stores - quite large and well-stocked. We've only been to the one that provides a free shuttle bus to the store for the boaters. (You can also drop off your laundry if you ask the driver nicely!) The adventure begins when you don't speak the language and you're trying to determine what something is from the label or the look. This caused some issues aboard Astarte yesterday. There were these lovely tiny red and green peppers that looked exactly like the peppers we bought at the local veggie market in Grenada. They were called flavoring peppers and had a wonderful flavor, aroma and taste when added to dishes. Barbara picked up a pack in the Curacao grocery to add to some curry she was going to make that night. The label was in Dutch - so she wasn't 100% sure what it said - other than she deciphered that it was a pepper (duh!)

She cut a bit of the pepper off and tasted it and it was nice. She threw two in the pot with the curry makings and started to cook it all up. In about ten minutes, her lips began to burn from the bite she tried. It was too late for the curry dish however. The curry, though tasty, was nuclear hot. Thank goodness for rice (and wine!)

The joy of traveling is the adventure. It's the pleasure of trying new things, sampling local products and experiencing all that a new country has to offer. Food is one of the easiest and fastest ways to get a sample of a new country. On the Dutch islands, the names of various dishes are pretty foreign sounding. And sometimes, some of the local dishes don't look all that appetizing. But the fun is in trying. We tried some mighty hot peppers.and will probably be more careful next time (or we'll ask in the store).

It is amazing the amount of US brands in many of these stores. They usually are significantly more expensive than the local brands - but they are available. But on our cruising budget - we go for the local goods. It's been part of the fun.

The one thing we did learn - you can't go wrong with Dutch chocolate! And even if you can't read the label - you're pretty certain it will be rich and tasty!