Barracuda Bar and Grill Re-Opens with a bang!

The Restaurant at Beaches and Dreams , The Famous Barracuda Bar and Grill re-opened on October 9th to a nice mixture of tourist and local residents who missed the fare for the past 3 months. The first order of business was to fire up the smoker for our house smoked items:    

Smoked chicken for our Chicken Adobo, Smoked Sausage for Pizza and Jerk smoked Pork Tenderloin, which we serve over a Cuban style Black Bean Coulis. I always throw on fresh vegetables to use as a flavor enhancer in  my daily vegetable, on pizzas or for roasted vegetable polenta.  Another great use for the smoked items is to bake with our popular Belizean Clay Pot Paella. all of our fresh seafood like snapper, shrimp, lobster and conch, smoke chicken, pork and sausage all baked over saffron rice and roasted vegetable in a clay pot for 2. 

The next order of business is to let the seafood suppliers, the local fishermen, know that i am back in business and ready to buy. during the busy times, I can easily go through 10 pounds of fresh fish filet in a night and the same amount of fresh lobsters so it takes a community of local fishermen to keep me supplied. This sea to plate relationship with my neighbors is one of the things I love most about cooking here in Belize. (Read the earlier post "The morning fisherman)
Next, I needed to get with the other suppliers, Country Meats supplies me with a nice young beef tenderloin for my Tuscan Beef Tenderloin, a filet seared and served in a pool of balsamic and garlic reduction. Pork loin makes the menu this season with medallions of pork with fig sauce. One of the local farmers now supplies me boneless Muscovy duck breast, which we prepare with a brandied apricot demi-glace. For vegetarians, we've added vegetarian wellington. A tower of fresh vegetables, a little smoked vegetables and cheese encrusted in a polenta crust and baked. We serve this in a pool of our house marinara. All in all, we've got the ball rolling to create some great dishes this season at our small 30 seat restaurant on the Caribbean Sea. Serving the freshest ingredients with an italian flair, now that's Mediteribbean.....You'd better Belize it!

Fishing Days are here!

Fishing in Belize is one of my favorite leisure time activities and in fact one of the reasons that I came down here. I've become expert at setting up fishing trips to the Belize Barrier Reef after cutting my teeth attempting various fishing methods in the wonderfully diverse fishing habitats that are available in a 7 mile radius of my front dock.
The Sittee River flows into the Caribbean Sea less than a mile to the south, providing a plethora of fishing opportunities both at the mouth and up the river. Incoming tides carry all types of the inner reef denizens like Snapper, Jacks and of course the namesake of my restaurant, the Barracuda Bar and Grill .
Up into the river and fishing the low mangroves form the river mouth upstream, you are likely to encounter monster Snook eager to hit soft baits or better yet, live bait. Also often under the mangrove overhangs are juvenile Tarpon, Mangrove Snapper, and Yellow Eyed Jacks. Through a cut in the mangroves, you can access Anderson Lagoon, home to Tarpon and Snook and also a great place to go on dark nights to see the phosphorescent glowing plankton that inhabit the lagoon,especially during the dry winter months when the salt content is high. There is nothing like a night time visit to Anderson Lagoon spotting crocodiles and Kinkajous while sipping a nice Chardonnay.

Coming out of the Anderson Lagoon Bar Mouth and heading south a mile, will bring you to Sapodilla Lagoon. At Sapodilla Lagoon at first light after a full moon phase, the Tarpon are voracious and hit anything that hits the water for about an hour after sunrise.

Trolling out to the reef and the inner reef is always a smorgasbord of fishing activity. Big Barracuda, King Mackerel, Jacks, Wahoo, and all varieties of Snapper are common catches along with the occasional Cobia. Once at the patch reef, you can change to some lighter gear and drop fish sardines for the smaller Yellow Tail and Silk Snapper, Grouper and amazing array of other fish. This is always great for kids as the action is almost omni-present and everyone on the boat can try at once. bring your snorkel gear and when it gets a little warm, jump in for some world class snorkeling .


Don't filet all those small snapper yet though, if its a calm day. you can head out through one of the cuts in the reef and find yourself drop fishing with larger gear with the live snapper in 200-400 feet of water where you never know what, or how big, of a fish you will catch.

Also with in this 7 mile radius of fantastically diversified fishing are the flats. World renown for its permit and bone fish, fly fisherman come from all over the world in hopes of getting the fly fishing grand slam in one trip. the Belizean Grand Slam consists of Bone Fish, Permit, Tarpon and Snook.

Come back to the Dock at Beaches and Dreams and ask to borrow one of our ultra light poles and cast out to the 2 O'clock position for grunts and small snapper that hang in the small patch of reef there and a full day of fishing is complete.


Well , almost complete,but not until you got a plate with pesto baked snapper filet over roasted vegetables and a glass of Pinot Grigio in front of you! From your fishing chef in Belize.....You'd Better Belize it!

Morning in Paradise

 As the sun rose over the Caribbean Sea

this morning, our catamaran, The Watuna, bobbed gently as I sipped my freshly brewed cup of Guatemalan coffee on the front porch. The catamaran has stayed moored out front for easy access for our Belize fishing, snorkeling and sailing trips. It can take up to 12 people and it was awaiting a tour this morning for a trip to the Barrier Reef, which lies just 5 miles off the coast of Hopkins, Belize. The guests were still mostly sleeping while my wife readied her usual breakfast delicacies for their enjoyment before heading out for a day of snorkeling the fabulous Belize Reef, which still teems with a plethora of colorful coral and fish.

    An Herbaceous Frittata

was on the menu this morning as the warm Caribbean Breeze and cacophony of birds are the usual alarm clock for slumbering guests at Beaches and Dreams. A few will meander out to get  coffee and head out to the dock to bid the day good morning and possibly contemplate how they can make the  vacation last.

      Fresh Fruit and Yogurt

help to round out every morning's menu. Caribbean fresh fruit from the markets and farms all across Belize are a must and once you've tasted just picked ripe bananas, papaya and starfruit, the at home supermarket varieties will never compare again. The yogurt is made at the Mennonite Dairy near Spanish Lookout in Northern Belize.[

           Freshly Baked Pastries

are always a must to fortify vacationers for various trips into Belize's Jungles, like the 2 nearby National Parks, Cockscomb Basin Jaguar Preserve and Mayflower Bocawina
National Park, both great hiking destinations and a Bird Watcher's paradise. That's the great thing about Hopkins, we have all that Belize has to offer within just a short radius. Hopkins is bordered on the East by the Sea, with the best beach for swimming in Belize and to the west lie the Maya Mountains with a fabulous Savannah in between. The wetland Savannah is full of  birds like the Jabiru Stork and the Roseatted Spoonbill, Whistling Ducks, Tiger Herons  and Pigmy Kingfishers.

 Yes, I feel lucky to live in a place

where Scuba Diving, Snorkeling the second Largest Barrier Reef in the world, Fishing, Fly Fishing, Bird Watching, world class hiking and jungle experiences, Mayan Ruins, River Cave Tubing, Zip lining and of course just hanging out on a great piece of beach are all at my finger tips, and contemplating the days activities over one of Angela's great breakfasts is always a great way to start the day in Hopkins Belize.................You'd Better Belize It!

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.