Belizean Seafood Extravaganza

Belizean seafood directly from the fisherman here has long been one of the most attractive reasons and motivating factors for my continued passion for the culinary arts. This season has proven even better as my 7 years of networking with the fisherman, becoming their friends, earning their respect by looking at the quality of their seafood and being able to identify the plethora of filet's, even when skinless, has made a great variety of seafood available to me without much searching. I am often the first one called , especially when a not so usual catch is made, simply because I know what to do with it.

Fresh Lobster Tails are on the top of the list for most visitors and we aim to please, so I've been buying tails about 4 times a week in various sizes to offer as many choices for customers as I can. I often list our most popular, simply baked with garlic butter and list sizes from 8 ounces all the way up to a 2 pound lobster tail dinner for 2. Other preparation and combinations round out the lobster offerings such as Lobster Coconut Curry, Cuban Style Lobster with Lime and Cilantro butter served over a pool of black bean coulis or a favorite, Belizean Seafood Combination, featuring a fresh fish of the day, a 6 ounce lobster tail and jumbo wild shrimp all cooked with lemon basil butter and served with pasta al fresco.

Fresh fish has gotten to such a wonderful selection for me this year, with snapper and grouper being the a common fish on most menus, like the above prepared grouper baked with pesto over roasted vegetables, but other fish like the Pelagic Wahoo, Marlin and Tuna has become more common for me as fisherman now know when they catch such delicacies, that I am there to pay a premium price for properly cared for fish of this nature. Indeed I've helped teach the locals how to bleed pelagic deeper water fish as soon as they catch them, to lend a mildness of flavor and texture to these denizens of the deep.

Fresh Marlin pan seared in Sesame oil and topped with a spicy tamarind-ginger peanut sauce, Medium Rare Yellow Eye Jackfish with mango salsa and thick medallions of Wahoo topped with shrimp in champagne sauce now are regulars to a menu that can be compared to one of the Fish Grottos of the East or West coast restaurants of old, when a chef would visit the fish market and buy a variety of fresh fish and prepare it in a variety of ways...go Grotto, that's my Motto!

And let's not forget about the ever plentiful Jumbo shrimp, both locally farmed and wild caught, they help to round out a great Seafood selection and offer the shellfish for our menus when lobster season closes on from February 15th to the 1st of June. At that time, restaurateurs are not allowed to feature lobster on our menus and we need to rely on the shrimp to fill the void. Shrimp Cocktails, scampi, curries, marinara's all lend themselves well to this versatile menu staple.

a new favorite combination is fresh Grouper and shrimp Pomedoro, an herbaceous concoction of pan seared grouper fillet finished with marinara sauce with a splash of heavy cream and a generous amount of fresh chopped basil and oregano from the garden, topped with jumbo shrimp and served over a cheesy polenta, it offers what has become known at the Barracuda Bar and Grill as Mediteribbean Fare......it's the freshest available ingredients from the Caribbean, prepared with a Mediterranean flair..That's Mediteribbean.....You'd better Belize It!

November Romance in Hopkins Belize

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November in Belize has it's advantages. It reminds me of springtime in Alaska, something you look forward to all winter long. Here in Belize, November brings the start of the tourist season, but it is a slow and gradual increase in pace, not a floodgate opening, thank god we are still a little off the beaten path for that. Yes November brings the end to the Hurricane and wet season, which really isn't much of a rainy season here in Hopkins. We enjoy moderate rainfall most summers, with a lot of night rains and stomach echoing thunderstorms, which I enjoy. But this morning I woke up to a beautiful sunrise and felt very lucky to be here as I walked out onto the dock and watched the sun come up on a deserted beach. There are few guests in the other resorts nearby, and we have a couple of rooms right now, and the ability to pay attention to each guest is something that is enjoyable for Angela and i and , hopefully the clients as well. I am already planning the 4 course chef's tasting dinner for one couple, here on a 5 day romance package. I've arranged a sunset trip up the Sittee River to Anderson lagoon, which is alive with phosphorescent plankton in the dark nights of November. Then they will return to sit out on the dock, torches aglow, and enjoy a first course of Indian Lamb curry, with a glass of Bolla Soave. Then on to smoked lobster stuffed raviolis with sun dried tomato cream sauce, a rocket salad of my baby greens grown off the back porch, and a little intermezzo with a glass of Melbac. Then, a simple lemon-garlic grouper fillet served over zucchini latkes and my wife has made a white chocolate-cherry cheesecake with dark cherries. We'll let them take their time. Let them savor and converse. let them enjoy the acquiescence of a warm, November evening in Belize. Let them take their time, there is no one waiting for their table. We left those days behind in Alaska, where we needed to do 300 dinners in a week-end in order to make the $4500 a month payment on the restaurant there. We've been there and done that. Hell, let ME savor the acquiescence of cooking a great meal for a handful of people, to take my time and be sure the seafood is cooked to the ultimate perfection. To visit with them over a bottle of wine after dinner. Let me savor the sunrise this morning and wax poetic over it in the blog...........Good Morning Belize.....You'd better Belize it!

Savor: The Food; The view, The Ambiance

A story from Alaska

Well, it's October and I just celebrated my 50th birthday. We stayed down in Belize this year for the entire summer season, closing only in June when we had the roof torn off the main building, our home. we've now remodeled our entire place, the guest roomns first and now our home is finished (last , as usual). The season gave way to a more intimate type of cooking for guests, sometimes we would close to the public and cook just for our guests, buying just enough fresh fish for a few people. It was a way to really get to know the culinary expectations of them.

Often, a four couse dinner, eaten out on the dock with a great wine and the waves breathing the music for the night, it's a very special time, and one that may onlyu have existed at our place this summer of 2011, and we really enjoyed it as we hoped our guests did as well. Many of them left as lifelong friends. We had some folks from Fairbanks down this summer who remembered our restaurant there, Two Rivers lodge and mentioned that I used to write a local food column, flavored with some of the Alaskan local characters. We sat reminiscing about the land of the Midnight Sun and a wonderful likfe we lived there, raising 3 kids, living off the grid at the edge of wilderness while we ran a very busy 125 seat restaurant.

I though folks might enjoy a re-run of one of those articles printed in The Daily Newsminer in the early 2000's. My column ran for 4 years before I got a little too busy to keep writing.

Here now is....THE ART OF MANLY COOKING


“Looks like one-half inch,” I said authoritatively.
“It’s nine-sixteenths, you moron,” said my mechanic friend, looking at the nut on top of my pepper grinder.
And so the weakness of my masculine façade became evident , even to me.

My friends were always hovering over 350 turbos in the driveway, able to discern a 350 from a 302 at a glance, admiring things like 5:1 gear ratios, posi-traction and forged pistons. They were always naming sizes of bolts, whether metric or not, always talking in code about FPS and PSI, while my area of expertise never left the kitchen.
“Looks like one-half teaspoon,” I said, thinking of bread pudding and the amount of nutmeg in it. I only hoped I didn’t say it out loud, for I do make an effort to learn manly things like nut and bolt sizes.
Once, at a gathering with some leather clad, heavily tattooed Harley-riding friends who were discussing flatheads, panheads, knuckleheads and evo’s, I blurted out, “Oh, yeah, well there’s nothing like a pinch of caraway added to pureed beets to bring out the best in my borscht.”
The room grew silent as Jake the Snake stood and walked toward me, big black boots echoing across the cement floor of the garage.
“Say,” he said, “what I really want to know is do you add the sherry to your French onion soup before you sauté the onions or right before you put the croutons and cheese on it?”
“My secret,” I confided, “is to sprinkle the sherry on the floating croutons just before adding the cheese, that way the croutons soak up the flavor.”
“I told you, man,” laughed long, tall Rich, a guy who looked like he belonged in ZZ Top.
And so is the life of a chef—hanging out with mechanics and bikers, carpenters and welders, trying my best to fit into testosterone-driven situations. Yet I ended up being myself, turning the conversati0on about Yamaha’s new four-cylinder, faster-than-fast snow machine into a debate about the difference between copper and all-clad cookware.
After being caught in the charade of trying to fit in, I have decided to stick to areas in which I am an expert: gardening, cooking, wine, and, of course, eating. Finally, I became comfortable with my forte, and realized that although I may be envious of the mechanic who can fix an engine or the carpenter who can dovetail any joint, those experts appreciate the skill of making the perfect soufflé or cooking a romantic dinner for a spouse.
Nothing made this clearer than the summer of 1999, when we were remodeling our kitchen, putting in a wood-burning Tuscan-style oven. This required daily visits from carpenters installing cabinets, a welder forging the frame for the oven, concrete workers, tile men, carpet layers—a veritable bevy of those steeped in their manly careers.
As I went from worker to worker asking how I could help, they gave me menial tasks just to get me out of the way of any power tool capable of de-limbing me (or them).
“Take this jigsaw, and go cut this tin along the lines I drew,” said one worker.
I gleefully went outside with the jigsaw, placed the tin between sawhorses and began to cut. The result sounded like a cross between fingernails on a chalkboard and a thunderstorm. The entire contracting team stampeded out the door to see what the commotion was.
“Who gave him the power tool?” yelled the foreman, watching me vibrate with tin and saw like a cartoon character clashed between cymbals.
“Go make some lunch!” shouted the worker responsible for sending me to near death as he snatched the jigsaw from my hands.
“This New York Steak Diane is seared to perfection,” the foreman said at lunch, “How far from the coals did you cook them?”
“Looks like one-half inch,” I said, glancing at the frill, “one-half inch.”

End..........From Alaska to Belize, at least I won't freeze! Good Cooking!

Lobster deliciouso

The Belize barrier reef, the world's second largest barrier reef next to Australia's, is apparent in it's fisheries regulations, which state that no lobster can be taken during the closed season from February 15 through June 15th. It is also unlawful to possess or sell, even frozen lobsters, during this closed season.



We fill in our menu with lots of shrimp and fish dishes, but hey, lobster is lobster so we're glad to be including these denizens of the deep back into our reperatoir of foodie fare.




This is the first summer season that we have kept the Barracuda Bar and Grill open, largely because it is such a chef driven restaurant, I won't let anyone else come and cook there or attempt to keep the restaurant open in my usual summer absence. This summer we stayed on to complete our 5 year renovation plans, fianally getting our own home above the restaurant in order. I must say that even summer now is bringing the tourist trade and alot of people coming to look at real estate in thier desire to retire in paradise, so the Bartracuda Bar and Grill has been open and though not hopping, it has been a pleasurable pace to cook at , and of course leaves a little time for culinary experimentation and personalized serrvice of our guests like 6 course tasting dinners filled with fresh veggies, seafood and the Italian-Caribbean blend of fusion cooking that we call Mediteribbean.


Avacados are in abundance right now and one of our little Tapas items for the tasting dinners has been a simple lobster and avacado salad, laced with fresh tomatoes, garlic, firm but ripe avacados, fresh basil and tiny slivers of crispy roasted garlic on top to give a crunchy, slightly bitter aspect to the freshness of the dish.
The lobster fisherman are bringing the fresh lobsters right to our dock on an everyother day basis, so keeping fresh lobsters on hand for Lobster Bisque, Lobster Thermidor, Lobster Coconut curry, Lobster Scampi, and even just plain lobster baked with garlic butter and lots of fresh limes for squeezing. Another great dish we prpare using all of our fresh available seafood is a uniquely Mediteribbean dish we call Mediteribbean Seafood Stew. It's somewhere halfway between Boulabaisse and Ciopino, incorperating seafood stock, marinara almost equally, add lots of our fresh chopped herb mix of Thyme, Marjoram, Basil and Oregeno, grown right here on the second story herb garden, lots of garlic and a splash of white wine. We simmer the seafood just until done, adding the larger peices first and the smaller, faster cooking things like shrimp last so that none of the seafood becomes overcooked, a personal complaint of mine. There is nothing worse than someone overcooking seafood, especially of the shellfish variety. So I always pay special attention to cooking times in mixed shellfish ingredient dishes.
If you make it down to Hopkins this summer, be sure to stop into the Barracuda Bar and Grill at Beaches and Dreams.

Touch Down in Belize Lobster Extravaganza

Excuses, excuses! I know....No Blog for 6 months!

Life really turns into a whirlwind when you make the decision to split your time between two far away places. We closed the Barracuda Bar and Grill at Beaches and Dreams Seafront Inn in late June, after having a week-long 40th birthday party for a California girl and her entourage of friends that filled up ourplace and spilled over to some of the other resorts nearby. The celebration was, much to my joy, centered around culinary theme nights, culminating in a 6 course wine dinner which was provided an impromtu intermezzo when a sudden storm blew in our outdoor dining area. The menu was matched with wines and began with a Lobster Bisque, Roasted Duck and apricot salad, seafood ravioli with sundried tomato pesto, mango sorbet and a 12 layer Lithuanian Torte.



The Inn remains open with breakfast all summer until our return in late September after working in a remote kitchen for firefighters in the Alaskan outback. This year, on the return trip to Belize, we decided to take a 2 week camping trip in an area I'd never really explored, the Northwestern US. We drove down the Washington and Oregon Coast into Northern California , then returned through the central portions of those states, staying mostly on 2nd class roads and hitting some phenominal fishing in Oregon.



This gives me an answer for the oft-asked question we get here at Beaches and Dreams- "Where do people that live here go for vacation?"

Of course our camping trip centered around.....you guessed it.....FOOD!

It's nice when you have a passion that you can indulge in daily, and still enjoy doing it ...and make a living out of it, and culinary pursuit is definitely mine. It's my heroin. If I don't cook for a few days, I can have crazy mood swings. The camping trip was started provisioning with kitchen essentials for our little rented van. Every night we built a fire and cooked over it, roasting peppers in our clamp grill and cooking portabellos stuffed with the roasted peppers and cheese. We bought fresh seafood in the little fishing towns along the coast and lunched in mom and pop diners serving fresh crab and oysters.

Fast forward now, back at our home in Belize for our usual pre-season maintenance rush. Painting the main building and completing the last of our room re-models, reseeding a current crop of basil, oregeno, thyme and dill as well as planting a new raised bed for baby lettuces like mesclun mix and getting stocked up to re-open the Barracuda Bar and Grill has kept us busy 16 hours a day since our return and the first of the seaswons guests are here, but we are ready.
We will now go into the operation mode, where life just skips along at a nice Belizean pace and my mornings are filled with buying fresh snapper filets and lobster tails and checking the local vegetable stand for jicama and tamarind.

Daily Hopkins life is full of things to do, most of which I love to do. Buying fresh ingredients for the nights specials board, serving great clientelle who are Foodies and then enjoying a glass of wine with them after dinner while we sit out on the new extended dock as the palm trees dance in the breeze ...and the ocean sings us her lulabye....I'll meet you at Beaches and Dreams.
You'd better Belize it!

Setting Back the Clock....and Moving Forward

For anyone who may not be aware, I am from Italian American decent. Both my parents arrived ont "The Boat" with thier parents as young children, making my siblings and I, 1st generation Italian -Americans. I was the youngest of six and my sister Annette recently sent me the following discertation which I relate to perfectly:

> The Italian Clan ~ > > I am sure for most second generation Italian American children who > grew up in the 40's, 50's & 60's there was a definite distinction > between us and them. We were Italians, everybody else, the Irish, the > Germans, the Polish, they were Americans. > > I was well into adulthood before I realized I was an > American. I had been born American and lived here all > my life, but Americans were people who ate peanut butter and jelly > sandwiches on mushy white bread. I had no animosity towards them, it's > just I thought ours was the better way with our bread man, egg man, > vegetable man, the chicken > man, to name a few of the peddlers who came to our > neighborhoods. We knew them, they knew us. > > Americans went to the A&P. It amazed me that some > friends and classmates on Thanksgiving and Christmas ate > only turkey with stuffing, potatoes, and cranberry sauce. We had > turkey, but only after antipasti, soup, lasagna, meatballs and salad! > > In case someone came in who didn't like turkey, we also > had a roast of beef. Soon after we were eating fruits, nuts, pastries > and homemade cookies sprinkled with little colored things. This is > where you learned to eat a seven course meal between noon and four > PM, how to handle hot chest nuts and put peaches in wine. Italians > live a romance with food. Sundays we would wake up to the smell of > garlic and onions frying in olive oil. We always had macaroni and > sauce (gravy). > > Sunday would not be Sunday without going to Church. We knew when we got home we'd find meatballs frying, and > nothing tasted better than newly cooked meatballs with crisp bread > dipped into a pot of hot gravy (not sauce). > > > > Another difference between > them and us was we had gardens. Not just with flowers, but tomatoes, > peppers, basil, lettuce and 'cucuzza'. Everybody had a grapevine and > fig tree. In the fall we drank homemade wine arguing over who made the > best. Those gardens thrived because we had something our American > friends didn't seem to have. We had Grandparents. > > It's not that they didn't have grandparents. > It's just they didn't live in the same house > or street. We ate with our grandparents, and God forbid we didn't > visit them 3 times a week. I can still remember my grandfather telling > us how he came to America when he was young, on the 'boat.' > > I'll never forget the holidays when the relatives would gather at my > grandparents' house, the women in the kitchen, the men in the living > room, the kids everywhere. I must have fifty cousins. My grandfather > sat in the middle of it all drinking his wine he was so > proud of his family and how well they had done. > > When my grandparents died, things began to change. Family gatherings > were fewer and something seemed to be missing. Although we did get > together usually at my mother's house, I always had the feeling > grandma and grandpa were there. > > Its understandable things change. We all have families of > our own and grandchildren of our own. Today we visit once in a while > or meet at wakes or weddings. Other things have also changed. The old > house my grandparents bought is now covered with aluminum siding. A > green lawn covers the soil that grew the tomatoes. There was no one to > cover the fig tree, so it died. > > The holidays have changed. We still make family > 'rounds' but somehow things have become more formal. > The great quantities of food we consumed, without any ill effects, are > not good for us anymore. Too much starch, too much cholesterol, too > many calories in the pastries. The difference between 'us' and 'them' > isn't so easily defined anymore, and I guess that's good. > > My grandparents were Italian-Italians; my parents were > Italian-Americans. I'm an American and proud of it, just as my > grandparents would want me to be. We are all Americans now...the > Irish, Germans, Polish, all U.S. citizens. > > But somehow I still feel a little bit Italian. Call it culture...call > it roots...I'm not sure what it is. All I do know is that my children, > grandchildren, nieces, and nephews, have been cheated out of a > wonderful piece of our heritage. >

Now, here I am in Belize, and the clock has been set back. Abundant tomatoes grow in my own garden. A second story balcony in a more protected area grows my herbs such as basil, dill oregeno and mint.
Two times a week the pineapple and lime guy comes. He's the grower. Another truck arrives with Francesco, another vegetable salesman. He's not the grower, but he travels around and buys from local farmers and brings a variety of fresh produce. I talk with the farmers and let them know what I'll buy. Now there are a few more lettuce growers and instead of going for the giant zuchini for weight, I can get smaller more delicate ones. The very fisherman I buy my fish from now know how I like my filets and actually what type of filets I like and we are on a first name basis. The Country Foods truck brings local eggs, of which all are fresh brown eggs (white eggs are illegal to sell here) and dried beans and flour produced in Spanish Lookout by the Mennonites.

The Dairy truck comes once a week as well, with cream, milk and yogurt. To me it is as close to the food as a chef can be without being the farmer himself, (which wouldn't give one enough time to be a chef). A local farm not 5 miles away now has a meat processing plant and I can go to the butcher himself and again give him my specifications on various cuts of Beef and Pork.

Another farm on the Hopkins road is now raising quality ducks, quail, lamb and Guinea Fowl and one only has to pick up the phone and order for a next day pick-up.

When a few of the fisherman go out to Glovers Reef, they know to bring me my Tuna and Wahoo whole, as I like to cut the filets myself and the palagics keep better that way after proper bleeding, perfect for a rare seared Albacore Tuna over spicy Bok Choi with ginger lime reduction sauce.

All in all, maybe its not the days of yesteryear for most people in the States, but here , the clock has been set back to a more direct interaction between chef and suppliers, and as a first generation Italian American- Belizean, I can only sit back in the evenings when the cool tradewinds blow and reflect on anther Culinary day of buying and cooking and sharing and enjoying and think that this is the way it should always be....close to the things that sustain us.........Belize it or not, its a step back in time, and in my opinion, a step in the right direction!

Colorful Caribbean Cuisine

Colorful Vegetables
I am never ceased to be dazzled and amazed on a daily basis here in Belize. Dazzled by the extra dose of optic stimulation consisting of stunning contrasts in hues. It occurs in nature all around me at all times, and it occurs by human hands daily as well, perhaps inspired by natures infinite palette. It occurs in the personalities here as well. I can't help think that it becomes cause and effect that is self perpetuating. What ever the reason for this colorful cornucopia here in Belize, and the Caribbean, I love it.
In fact, I was born to participate in a colorful scheme of life, and this of course bleeds into my kitchen and the resulting creations that emerge from my culinary playground. Even a simple medley of vegetables becomes a kaleidoscope of color. I seek out the red, yellows and green peppers from the veggie stand. I prefer the smaller locally grown thin skinned peppers that sometimes come in half green and half red with a bit of purple streaking through them. The larger varieties with thick and often bitter meat are available in perfect colors, the result of grafting for more volume per fruit, but are far less sweet than the un-grafted peppers. Add some zucchini and yellow squash, purple eggplant and white onion and the result is a visually stimulating Caribbean Vegetable Blend that is its own garnish.


Colorful Crabs


Colorful Chairs








Colorful Everything!

And so it goes, surrounded by a
plethera of colors everyday from the
beautiful flowers to the colorful personalities
to the clothes and the food and the flora. It's
like Las Vegas without the electric bill.
Even the uderwater world of the reef is alive with colors.
The fish and the coral all echo the theme:
We are alive! Alive with Caribbean Color.
It says : Have fun. Be happy. Enjoy.
All of the ramifications that I would like to think my food exudes. Enjoy, have fun eating and cooking, be colorful, like the flowers and the birds. Like the Spanish and the Mayan and the Creole and the Garifuna......and like the Chef in Belize ...........You'd better Belize it!