After almost three years of no traveling I took a last minute vacation back home on Aruba. A lot has changed on the island, the city is decayed, screaming economical recess. But then again in the hotel area it’s blooming full of restaurants, shops and malls. Tourist have no reasons to leave the hotel area other then exploring the island nature.
And Aruba keeps getting more American, we now have TGIF, Quiznos, Hard Rock Cafe. Starbucks is opening soon at Seaport Market Place. Plus all other fast food joints we already have of which all have several locations on the island. You know this 30km long island, and they all get more then enough customers.
In any case I’m enjoying the restaurants more, I went to this place Mathew’s at Casa Del Mar Beach where I had a delicious chicken quesadilla. I like the Mexican food here better then in the Netherlands. So I try to eat the food I don’t get there.
Tomorrow I’m hoping to go to a seafood restaurant for dinner, Caribbean seafood that is.
I went to the beach also after my lunch at Mathew’s, the water was heaven, just the right temp. It has been such a long time since I took a swim in the sea. And to think when I still lived here going to the beach was as normal as grocery shopping.
The weather is another thing, global warming sure is evident here on Aruba. 12 -15 years ago it was hot, but the wind was cool, when the sun was at it highest it would be around 31 degrees Celsius. But now the high is 33 Celsius everyday, the low is around 26. The wind feels dry and warm, it’s just unbearable. It rains more often then before but it adds nothing to cool the atmosphere, but at least the nature is always green while back then in the summer time it would be brown due to no rain.
When I’m back in the Netherlands and it’s winter I hope I don’t have to get complaints that is warm(because I’m always cold) and they want to open a window. Because that ain’t nothing, if you are warm in the winter you haven’t felt what warm is like.
Hopefully I will have some decent photos soon to upload on Flickr. I only uploaded photos taken with my iPhone so far. I have the Nikon D70 and the Ricoh GR with me. But no Photoshop on my netbook so I will only upload low quality photos edited with Flickrs online tools.
Since I became a renal patient four years ago I have changed my way of eating gradually. Excess salt was the first to go out of my diet, keeping a check on the amount of protein I eat and making sure I eat enough vegetables. It’s not always easy keeping all those things in account and occasionally I forget all those.
But being obligated to really look at what I eat has inspired me more to delve deeper in cooking. Always when finding recipes online or in books I change them removing and replacing the less healthy ingredients. For example I never add salt when cooking because a lot of products already have salt, like canned tomatoes, cheese, canned tuna, etc. When using butter I use unsalted butter but 90% of the time I use olive oil to cook.
Eating this way requires frequent trips to the grocery each week, also more expenses. Buying everything fresh costs way more then buying canned vegetables or frozen products. Buying fresh fish at the fish market isn’t the cheapest either. But eating healthy(and delicious) is a must so it’s not like it’s wasted money.
In any case having to watch out what I eat has stimulated me to try more different kind of food, I now like mussels and clams. Years ago I wouldn’t even tried them.
And I’m convinced that keeping salt to a minimum amount in your diet is better for your taste of food. After adjusting to less salt you start to taste more of the food, different spices and so on. I never put salt while cooking pasta and rice. And me this amateur cook, who never took a cooking class will tell chefs like Jamie Oliver who always focuses on putting salt in pasta, don’t do it! I did it months ago to see the difference and pasta with no salt tastes much better, especially if you use good quality pasta.
It’s just a matter of losing the excessive use of salt habit. Just give it at try, go by seven days without putting salt in the food. And start using more fresh spices, think about rosemary, thyme, coriander, basil, garlic, etc.
In the picture above you can see my usual grocery shopping. Note the Uncle Ben’s Rice Express. It’s pre cooked rice with Mexican flavors. Normally I don’t buy anything pre cooked or with added spices. But it was already past 6 o’clock and I was too hungry for cooking more then 30 minutes. I ate that rice with Goya black beans with Goya Sazon seasoning. The Sazon spices are low on salt and in small bags to use one at a time.
This was dinner the day I did those grocery. It tasted nice, although the rice was too salty for my taste. Just to show that processed food contains more then enough salt so adding more to your food is a big no no.
