On the left is a painting (Haitian) won at the Quatre Paws raffle. It is quite large and has little extra canvas so I am leaving it of Carol to decide how to best mount. (BTW: you can click on pictures to enlarge them or right click for options)No holiday here for Memorial day and it seemed quite busy with a number of activities on campus. Finally we have been getting a break from the rain and it seems that quite a few flowers have decided to bloom. My botanic knowledge is atrocious and so it is pretty hard to identify the species though the Flora of the West Indies web resource is quite helpful. The difficulty with the plants of St Maarten is having any idea if theses are truly native or if they are domestic species that have just gone wild, or, in the case of some trees, just ended up on abandoned property. I will put some examples in this post.
Got a good tip on making crepe-style pancakes using flax seed meal to replace flour and butter: actually, I have been making pretty nice ones with 50% brown flour and throwing in olive oil instead of butter. At least for the cooked part, I taste virtually no difference, but the a bit of marmalade on it covers up many sins. I can't do much interesting cooking since we have no adjustable oven. It is just boiling hot and when I tried baking bread, the loaves came out as charred bricks and only a small amount survived at all edible in the middle of each. I have been less ambitious since and have become a pretty dab hand at sardines with cooked onions and tomatoes as well cooking salmon fillet in a frying pan. Most experiments have been in getting the yogurt to do well which is very satisfying task for a microbiologist. It is very easy to make yogurt on the island since milk comes ultrahigh temperature treated and in boxes so you can just mix it with a bit of a yogurt in some jar that has been cleaned and scalded with boiling water. No preboiling of the milk is required or need to find a warm place. Then you just place the whole lot outside in a black bag and leave it for about a day. The main variables seems to be the types of starter yogurt used and the fat content of the milk. The result makes super drinks with a bit of raspberry/currant syrup and some thinning with milk.
Some plants: please comment if you know what these are named. (English and/or Latin names)
