Farsighted Fly Girl

There's a voracious vibe hanging in the air. Eyes flicker with the sentiment of more! more! more! It must be Christmas time. It's difficult to uncover the real, charitable focus of the season under all the materialism but you can find it if you decide not to be distracted by all the other nonsense. I don't enjoy shopping at all but I do get a kick out of choosing gifts from my favorite charities.  Instead of trolling through aisles filled with plastic doodads and electronic gadgets, I browsed through vaccines, mosquito nets and water kits for children all over the world. The Unicief  Inspired Gift program allows you to purchase these life-saving supplies on behalf of a friend or family member. They also get a card with a photo and description of the gift. I also perused chickens, rabbits, pigs and goats for the perfect present. Women in war torn countries learn to rebuild their lives through animal husbandry, farming and work initiatives provided by Women For Women...

I've just finished decorating my Christmas tree, which always inspires me to think about the origins of many of my ornaments.  Glittery, beaded, balls from India are favorites, as well as embroidered bells from Italy. But the most unexpected decoration is a pure white sand dollar I got from St. Croix. Sand dollars make elegant Christmas ornaments and are commonly used in coastal areas and the Caribbean. The pretty sand dollar-covered tree above was captured in Eleuthera, with echos of the sea right outside. I never realized that sand dollars are fuzzy sea creatures similar to starfish. The sand dollars that wash ashore are actually skeletons.  Decorating a tree with skeletons gives a whole other perception that doesn't quite fit with the holiday season but I still think they're pretty. Will you be decorating with any souvenirs from your travels this season?

I love tropical fruit, the more exotic, the better.  Whenever I travel to the Caribbean, I make a point of visiting the local markets or vendors for local fruit. In St. Kitts, genips, shown above, are sold on almost every street corner of Basseterre. Genips are like lychees, you peel them and suck out the pulp, around the seed which is slimy and slightly sweet. Figs are what Kittitians call the miniature bananas pictured above. I don't like bananas but I do enjoy figs, which are sweeter and creamier than the bananas grown in the U.S. Sea grapes grow on towering trees that tend to grow near the sea. This sweet fruit is also sold by many street vendors in St. Kitts. There's nothing like nibbling on a juicy bunch, as the sun warms your shoulders. Do you have a favorite fruit that you discovered on your travels?

I am recovering from a chocolate hangover. Like a love hangover, it has no cure.  It all started when I grabbed a Groupon for  Chicago Chocolate Tours . Chicago boasts a long candy history and naturally, I'm very familiar with most of it but my husband isn't ( he just likes chocolate, not sugar in all forms). So we signed up for the Gold Coast Chocolate Tour and met are tour guide Jenny, above in the lobby of Bloomingdale's. Even though I possess a serious sweet tooth, I confess that I was not equipped to down pounds and pounds of chocolate over 21/2 hours. We started at More cupcakes, a tiny gourmet cupcake boutique aimed toward cupcake snobs, which includes me.  As you can see from the display above, the shop carries a dazzling array of flavors, including savory versions like maple bacon, goat cheese basil and blue cheese walnut praline. We sampled a tasting size of the chocolate fudge cupcake that was rich and moist. We planned to head back to stock up on red ve...

If you ever visit St. Kitts, it's an official requirement to visit Brimstone Hill Fortress. Not only is it the island's most recognizable landmark, it's also a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the best place to grab heavenly views. Constructed between 1690 and 1790, the fortress rises almost 800 feet in the air. Which means you must climb the stone path up to monument, way up on Brimstone Hill. Sturdy shoes are suggested. The climb is well worth it because beyond the cannons, bastions and citadel, a striking panorama of  an impossibly green landscape unfolds. It really looks like you could reach up on your tippy toes and touch a cloud or two. Most of the fortress is  built with volcanic rock. I felt like I heard echoes of the centuries of history stored in those rocks. After decades of being passed between British and French colonialists, the flag of independent St. Kitts finally flies from Brimstone Hill Fortress. The fortress is the one of the best ...

Most Americans down mugs and mugs of coffee everyday but I love tea. Technically, I don't drink the black tea leaves that are commonly considered tea but herbal infusions that are really a collection of herbs, flowers and spices. In the Caribbean, this is called bush tea and I always order a cup on whatever island I visit. There's just nothing like fresh bush tea. In St. Kitts, I ordered a pot at the Spice Mill restaurant and this earned me some surprised looks. Not because it was a hot, 90 degree Kitttitian afternoon but because few Americans know about the joys of bush tea and they didn't expect anyone to order it.  After much bustling and questioning, my waitress stepped outside the restaurant and plucked some lemongrass and thyme from the garden. You can see the tips of the plants in the photo above. I savored the spicy smell when she brought the pot out and sipped on cups and cups for over an hour. Bush tea is typically drunk for medicinal purposes and lemon...

I love red snapper. There's no other fish that inspires the joy and anticipation that this mild, flavorful aquatic dish provides for me. I can not resist ordering  fresh red snapper whenever I'm in the Caribbean or Latin America. Served with rice and peas, plantains or yucca, red snapper is the equivalent of  a comforting embrace, spiked with bursts of laughter.  I have a difficult time ignoring it whenever I see it on any menu so I was faced with a bizarre dilemma in St. Kitts. Every single restaurant I visited for dinner, featured a tempting version of red snapper.  So when I sunk my toes into the sands at Mr. X's Shiggedy Shack beach lounge, I just had to order the red snapper grilled with lemon and thyme, above. When I dipped into the gorgeous, sun-dappled Spice Mill restaurant, I just couldn't ignore the spice-rubbed red snapper, topped with pineapple salsa, above. When I joined with the gang  for dinner at the swanky Blu seafood resta...