<center>ISLAND NEWS</center> <br><br>Beaches: Cupecoy was in good shape when we left on 11 May, although anyone who remembers walking from Cupecoy Beach Club past Sapphire to the Samanna lava flow will disagree. Nonetheless, things are better than they have been since Lenny.<br><br><br>Weather: We are moving into summer weather. The clouds are increasing, as is the humidity. There hasn't been much rain. However, on 3 May, the first day that the sunset is visible from our back balcony, we watched a large red disk slide into the Caribbean and disappear with a green flash. Can't do that with clouds on the horizon.<br><br>Tourism: - We have heard that the Meridien Hotel in Anse Marcel, the place where the previous President Bush met Miterand a dozen years ago, will probably close. It's gone through a few owners lately. Mont Vernon, which changed to Blue Bay, and then back to Mont Vernon, will now change to nothing. Paradis Caraibes in Grand Case (next to Sebastiano) appears to be closed. <br><br><center>GROCERIES</center><br><br>Salt: Fleur de Sel from Camargue (near the south of France near the mouth of the Rhone River) is available at Magasin Du Pont near the French Bridge on the outskirts of Marigot.<br><br>Food: We got a Cote de Boeuf (essentially prime rib) at Magasin du Pont ($18 Euros per kilo, or about $9 per lb) and added some Pluerottes (oyster mushrooms) for a great meal (see below). For Sunday night, we got a pintade (guinea fowl). Bargain hunters can find half price editions in the freezer.<br><br>Cheese: One of the beauties for France is that you can get raw milk cheeses aged less than 60 days. In truth, you can sometimes find these in larger markets in NYC, etc, but every once in a while the FDA gets a bug up its butt and cracks down. The truth of the matter is that more people get sick from shellfish, fish, and hamburger in the US than from raw milk cheese in France. A bigger truth is that Kraft cannot make small batches of cheese incorporating local bacteria and mold into the process, but I digress. Try some Epoisses or Reblochon or Saint Nectaire on your next visit to the island. Use a good sturdy red wine as a disinfectant.<br><br>Wine: Vinissimo (http://www.SXM-Shopping.com/vinissimo) has some amazing red burgundies. We are "celebrating" our last Saturday evening (usually via a dinner at home) on the island. We told Sylvain about our dinner and he offered a 98 Volnay Champans (a premier cru) from the Domaine Marquis d'Angerville. We had tasted this earlier and knew it was great. Luckily, we only have one last dinner in SXM per year, so the $45 cost won't seriously impair our future lifestyle. For Sunday, we got Bouchard's regular Volnay (not premier cru, but not bad) at about $25. Sylvain worked at Tour d'Argent in Paris. Trust him for pairing great wine with great food.<br><br><br><center>ACTIVITIES</center> <br><br>We went to L'Escargot Restaurant on Front Street to watch the main carnival parade on 30 April. It started up in the hills behind Philipsburg at about 10 AM and made its way to our location at about 2:30 PM. It continued down Front Street and on up to the carnival site on the pond at about 6PM. It's much easier to watch from a pleasant balcony, with appropriate libations, than to participate. The parade consists of large flatbed trucks loaded with amplifiers and bands followed by troupes of costumed (slightly) dancers. The parades are called jumpups because you can jump up on the truck for a break every once in a while. The "dancing" is not highly synchronized, especially after five hours, but I certainly saw several body parts move in highly unusual directions. There are a many photos on the website (http://www.LEscargotRestaurant.com).<br><br><br><center>RESTAURANTS</center> <br><br>The Euro is at a 10% premium to the dollar. In this newsletter, we have made the conversions on French prices to dollars, although the prices really are Euros in the restaurants, and subject to currency fluctuations. As of 27 may, it's up to a 16% premium!<br><br>On May Day we had dinner at Sunset Café (http://www.GrandCase.com/sunsetcafe) in side the Grand Case Beach Club (GCBC). Many places are closed on May Day as the French socialists tend to honor the working man a bit more than most places. Add in the last hurrahs of the Dutch side carnival and you're lucky to get a meal anyplace but in carnival village. Sunset's owner, Pascal, owns Auberge Gourmand, also in Grand Case, and Montmartre in the Dutch Lowlands. The restaurants are similar, serving French cuisine with interesting presentations. My take on the three restaurants is that the food is interesting in all, possibly a bit more refined, complicated, and definitely more expensive in Auberge and Montmartre. Then again, those places are beatifully decorated, while Sunset Café is a deck covered with canvas. Admittedly, it is a deck sticking out over the sea with fabulous views of Grand Case Bay and the beach to the west. Management at GCBC has requested Sunset to serve breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and to keep the costs low for the owners at GCBC. This also means that you get good food with a great view at a low cost, merely by driving to the far end of Grand Case and pushing the button on entry gate to let you into the secure parking. Come to think of it, you also get free secure parking. We had a '99 Chassagne-Montrachet from Bouchard at a mere $35. It was wonderful with the mushroom raviolis in morel sauce. In this case, it was more than morel sauce. There were several morels surrounding several raviolis. Martha had a mahi with butter sauce containing herbs and gherkins (?) with rice, a roasted tomato, asparagus, and leeks. Luckily it was light on gherkins and tasted fine. Our other dinner was a lamb loin in puff pastry with a rich dark sauce, asparagus, leeks, and a highly-carved carrot. The mahi actually stood up to the light Burgundy and the lamb was fine. So much so that we required a half-bottle of the Bouchard La Vignée Pinot Noir ($9!) to see us through dinner. We had more than enough to eat and even passed on the proffered after dinner rum drink. Our total bill was $100 and I challange anyone to dine this well on the water in Grand Case at this price.<br><br>On Cinco de Mayo we had dinner at Le Cottage (www.RestaurantLeCottage.com) in the center of Grand Case. We arrived a bit early after quickly finalizing a website for Cecile Petrelluzzi at the Perfect ti' Pot. (http://www.SXM-Info/SXM-Art/perfecttipot). Our waterview table was occupied, but was soon available, and shortly thereafter, we were sitting at table two, gazing across the street, through L'Escapade, and out at the pitch black water. OK, so the waterview isn't all it could be, but that is reflected in the food and wine prices. Bruno runs the front of the house with infectious enthusiasm and quiet efficiency. Wait staff distributes dishes to the correct diner without having to ask, "Who gets the ???". It seems pretty easy. They even mark up some checks with table diagrams for the memory-impaired, but if you are brain-dead or just don't care, even that doesn't help, but I digress (or rant). Stéphane, sommelier extraordinaire, keeps the perfect wine flowing and Christophe Martinez is doing some of the most interesting cuisine on the island. We started with tasty shrimp in a delicate batter on a base of crunchy wakame sea weed, accompanied by peas, lima beans, baby carrots, and bits of tomato with slivers of fried leeks on top and drizzles of reduced soy sauce on the side. As our aperitif and accompaniment for this course, Stéphane served a very fruity Sauvignon Blanc. We tried for the John Dory special (a truly ugly fish with a flat oval body and a large spiny head, rarely exported to the US, called St Pierre in French), but Bruno said that there had been delays in the delivery from France, given the May Day holiday and Dutch side carnival. The John Dory had gone "directment poubelle", essentially straight into the garbage. Despite its horrible looks, the flesh of the John Dory is delicate and mild, a perfect foil for chef Christophe's flights of fancy. Martha switched to an old favorite from the menu, roasted gulf shrimp on a bed of mashed sweet potatoes with lobster sauce, and I had the special of sesame crusted grouper surrounded by tiny French turnips in a tomato sauce with smoked pork highlights topped with fried leek slivers. Both sauces were intensely-flavored, a delight in themselves, but were just one part of the total range of tastes presented on the plate. Stéphane countered with a 2000 Columbier de Ch Brown, a sauvignon blanc with Semillon added for a bit more austere and intense flavor, capable to standing up to the large and varied ranges of flavors on the plate. Add all this to lovely napery, Laguiole knives, and beautiful plates on a warm evening with a slight breeze on a porch in Grand Case, and one has a perfect evening that ended with Calvados, Cognac, coffee, and tiny chocolate bombs for dessert. The dessert was the petit-four version of the regular chocolate cake with a molten center and ice cream.<br> <br>Actually, it didn't end there because David at Rainbow Café (www.Rainbow-Cafe.com) had asked me to take a new photo for their site. As we were carrying the camera (and computer) from our visit to Cecile, we stopped in at Rainbow for a photo op. Fleur was there and nixed the new photo but insisted that we catch up on gossip as she had just returned from Greece. She called Christine at Sebastiano (www.RestaurantSebastiano.com) who had just returned from Miami. Christine and Fleur had dinner and we sampled a bit of cognac as a major gabfest broke out. Much of the gabbing concerned Fleur's attempt to reconstruct a "ruin" on a Greek island. She's not putting the Parthenon back together, just an old home but it is trying the patience of someone who has lived in SXM for over 20 years. Portofino has reopened but it appears that merely the two bars are in operation, no food yet. Chez Martine has been dark for a couple weeks now???<br> <br>The next night we sat down at about 9:30 for dinner with Spartaco at his eponymous restaurant, Spartaco, (http://www.SpartacoRestaurant.com). Martha started with an arugula salad served with sliced sweet pears, parmesan cheese, in a honey vinaigrette ($10). The arugula comes from his garden and is tiny, tender, and tart, an interesting combination with the sweet pears and a vinaigrette laced with honey. I had the fresh mozzarella with artichoke, tomato and basil ($11). The artichoke hearts make it a bit more interesting than the normal mozz and tomato salad, which is one of my favorites anyway. This led to a discussion of where to get fresh mozzarella now that Maria's Deli has departed. The only answer was from a wholesaler in 24 pack containers, not a very good one. I reminded Spartaco of a pipe dream he related to us and Fleur a few years ago. With a bit of remodeling, the restaurant would open for lunch and sell Italian deli specialties during the day. SXM is at the end of a long supply chain and it gets even longer if one stretches it into Tuscany. Spartaco and I had the pasta special, wafer thin tagliatelle with tomatoes and swordfish (about $20), and Martha had a pasta dish off the menu, home made ravioli lightly sautéed with mascarpone, gorgonzola, and pears ($14, must be on a pear kick). Home made pasta is wonderful and thin home made pasta with fresh swordfish is even better, but I did get to sample from Martha's plate and could understand why there wasn't much left. The wine was a 95 Castello Banfi, a more recent vintage is on the wine list at $28. Our dinner for two would have been about $100 in a lovely restored sugar plantation building partway up the hill overlooking Cole Bay. Alice Waters may have started this before me, but there is something to dining on local, fresh produce. The miracle of air transport can bring many seemingly fresh things to your door, but the taste and texture may have been bred out of them such that they could survive the flight. Spartaco's arugula and home made pastas were fantastic. Some things can survive journey (mozzarella), but even then, some factories will bag up an inferior version (I believe it is laced with recycled plastic, judging from the taste) and send it to your supermarket where it can last forever without losing the taste and texture that it never had in the first place. But I digress.<br> <br>On our last night in Grand Case, we went to Bistrot Caraïbes (http://www.BistrotCaraibes.com) for a visit to the Meziere brothers. They are on the left as you enter the center of town and just on the right, across from Il Nettuno, is a convenient parking lot, even more convenient as Bistrot Caraïbes will reimburse you. We started with a special ap of crab and mozzarella stuffing in three vegetables ($12): zucchini, eggplant, and red pepper. The plate had a layer of a tomato-based sauce and the three stuffed veggies enclosed several bits of crispy fried tomato skins! Our other ap was the best smoked salmon on the island ($13). Dinners were a fish special with mahi, red snapper, scallops, and shrimp in a sauce flavored with truffle jus ($19). Given that Hediard is selling truffle oil for $40 per half pint, one cannot expect too much truffle taste in a $19 dish. Nonetheless, it was good fresh seafood in an interesting sauce. Martha also had fresh seafood. In this case it was another favorite, the whole French seabass (real bass, not at all related to the Chilean seabass which is a grouper, weighing up to 500 pounds). It comes with asparagus in a chive sauce with vegetables. The fish is flavorful, the presentation is beautiful, and a bottle of Jadot's 96 Chassagne-Montrachet (a mere $77 - not every night is our last in Grand Case). The evening ended with a taste test of the 62 vs 69 Laubade Armagnacs. This is probably not news you can use, as there isn't much of this left in the world, but all concerned liked the 69 better. You can do the addition, and given the libations, our evening was not inexpensive, but the main course food prices are in the low $20's and the many of the wines are under $40 per bottle. Bistrot Caraïbes is on the land side of restaurant row, but it does have a great view of the Fish Pot's beautiful and large lobster tank!<br> <br>Annual closings: <br>Citrus - 20 August - 19 October<br>Le Cottage - 9 August-25 September - the chefs are going for a stage in France!<br>Mario's Bistro - 8 June - 15 August<br>Sol e Luna - 15 June-6 July<br>St Germain - 22 June - 4 July<br>Thai Garden - September<br> <br>No closings:<br>Belle Epoque - Marigot Marina <br>Escapade - Grand Case<br>