A Taste Of St. Croix

On the way to visit family in Florida I received a phone call from a lady named Peg Heetmann, telling me I have won a Food & Fantasy trip to St. Croix for both myself as well as a guest. I know, let the skepticism begin right... what's the catch?! I remember entering the contest on The Daily Meal but... I won... really!? Yep, it was for real and here's the tale of my adventure in St. Croix:

My husband was unable to go with me so I brought along the fabulous Julie, a friend from work. We arrived in St. Croix on April 17th. When checking in at the San Juan airport, they asked us how much we weighed and they also weighed our carry-on bag. We had no idea what we were in store for until we walked out of the building to board the plane. I've been on a few small planes but never a plane this small. I could touch both interior walls of the plane at the same time. On the plus side, being in a smaller plane meant that we flew under the clouds, instead of above the clouds, so we were able to see a lot of the Islands as we flew over them.

A representative from the Department of Tourism for the U.S. Virgin Islands met us at the airport, along with her sweet daughter who was holding a sign with my name on it. This was completely unexpected and I definitely felt like quite the celebrity.  While we waited for our luggage, we were poured shots of Cruzan rum... they don't mess around with their rum!

We checked into the fabulous Divi Carina Bay All-Inclusive Beach Resort & Casino and settled into the room where we had a personal note and gift waiting for us. We ate dinner at the Starlite Grille at Divi. They recently started an event called the Star Rok Dinner. You choose your meat and it is brought to you on a lava rock, which is heated to over 750 degrees. You slice your meat, one piece at a time, and let it cook on the rock. The outcome was the most succulent piece of meat I have ever eaten!

We met Jackie Burton, the PR person for Divi, and we were introduced to Andreas, the General Manager of Divi. Together, along with the rest of the staff at Divi, they made sure our visit was on St. Croix was amazing and made us feel very welcome. We spent our mornings attempting standup paddle boarding, with the instruction of Sean, at Divi. We snorkled in the Bay in search of a pair of sunglasses that were lost during the paddleboarding adventure. On other days we went out in the kayaks to take full advantage of the beautiful aquamarine water.

Now on to the food:

On Wednesday, we explored Christiansted before going to the Food Fight at Eat@CaneBay. The Food Fight event consisted of 6 chefs on two teams competing against each other (Evelyn Paul, Leslie Gumbs and Roberto Trevino versus Merlin Verrier, Sue Zemanick and Mathayom Vacharat). There was a lot of media present for the event and one of the sponsors was Captain Morgan. The pirate himself, along with the Morganettes, proved to be quite entertaining. The competition consisted of a blind identification of various ingredients, a Q & A and cooking challenge at Eat@CaneBay and finished off with a cook-off on the beach. In the end, Evelyn, Leslie and Roberto took home the honor of winning the event.

On Thursday, we attended the 12th Anniversary of A Taste of St. Croix, a food and wine event at Divi. This is THE event to attend. Over 60 local vendors (caterers, restaurants, wineries, etc.) were in attendance. Where else can you try food / drinks from 60+ vendors in a single evening! My favorite was the Slow Roasted Asian Pork Lettuce Wraps w/ a Thai Green Papaya Salad & a Cilantro Lime Aioli from Dashi ~ simply delicious! Afterwards there was a Moet & Hennessy Dance Party at the Starlite Lounge at Divi that went until the wee hours in the morning.

On Friday, we attended the Sunset BBQ at Fort Frederick. This was a more casual event complete with live music and fire dancers. There were food & drink stations with a combination of celebrity chefs (Govind Armstrong, Evelyn Paul, Ana Sortun and Leslie Gumbs) and local culinary students. Afterword, we strolled along Frederiksted and found a quaint décor shop open so we stopped in and had a fun conversation with the owner.

On Saturday, we spent an hour on the beach, checked out of Divi and had lunch (along with a pina colada) by the beach before taking a taxi to the airport.

To see who won in each category at A Taste of St. Croix visit: http://www.stcroixfoodandwine.com

St. Croix is definitely an Island I will visit again. Oh, and don't forget to drive on the left and watch out for the Mongoose!