Photos by Laine Doss

St. Vincent farmer Erasto Robertson shows us around the Kingstown market.

​St. Vincent and the Grenadines, sometimes known as the spice islands of the Caribbean, lie in the southern part of the island chain. Not as popular with tourists as St. Barts or Barbados, the island has more of a local vibe. There are no T-shirt shops or places trying to sell you a Rolex. The black-sand beaches are filled with fishermen and children instead of sunburned tourists, and the plentiful nature trails are pristine and virgin.

St. Vincent's center of commerce is the sprawling market in Kingstown. Set along the water, the market runs for blocks. Saturday is an especially busy day, when shop merchants sell their wares in the streets to compete with local farmers and fishermen for business.
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All photos by Laine Doss

Remnants of an original sugar mill at the entrance to the Cruzan Rum Distillery.

​Rum is the official drink of the Caribbean. Sure, you can get beer (in fact, every island seems to have its own brewery), Ting, mauby, and sorrell..but the sugar cane distillate is everywhere on the islands, which seem to be scattered with small bars in shacks about every quarter mile alongside every road.

It's thought that modern day rum was discovered by plantation slaves who figured out that molasses from cane could be distilled into alcohol. It was given as rations by both the Royal Navy and pirates.

On St. Croix, the Nelthropp family have been making rum for centuries. In fact, the remnants of an old sugar mill still occupy a place at the entrance of the now-modernized Cruzan Rum Distillery, just outside of the port city of Frederiksted.

We toured the distillery, learning how rum is made in the process (and enjoying a complimentary tasting afterward).  Here's what we saw:
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Joni Williams

​So you went away for the holidays. And now it's time to hit the long road home. Or maybe your home is a wintry wonderland and you're driving down for some fun in the Magic City sun.

Either way, we know how it is. The race to get here can be a real drag. The last thing you want is to make the long road longer by searching for places to fill up fast on food, fuel, and maybe even a little fun.

No worries. We've found some convenient, interesting stops right by Florida's interstates that can get you fed and fueled in no time flat.

Here are a few to get you started:
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All photos by Laine Doss

New York hotdog cart with Chrysler Building.

​In last week's episode of The Layover, Anthony Bourdain showed us what to do in New York City with only 24 hours in the Big Apple (read our recap here). We wanted to do something similar, but with a twist.

We landed in New York yesterday with only three hours in the city, which is really what most layovers consist of.

Tony Bourdain starts his journey on the Upper East Side. We head for the East Side too...the Lower East Side. As the clock starts, We've got doughnuts on our minds.
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Photo by Riki Altman

Wendy Lyn knows her way around Paris--and it's eats.

​Paris wouldn't be the same for American foodie visitors if it weren't for Wendy Lyn. An ex-pat who moved from Florida's panhandle nearly two decades ago, she unpacked in Paris, immersed herself in the local food scene and met all its major players, then never looked back. Today she is the go-to for anyone with culinary curiosity when they visit or move to The City of Light. And for good reason--Lyn gives incredibly informative tours that will not only lead straight to the best eats in the city, but she sprinkles comments with suggestions regarding how to appear less--let's not say this too delicately--American.

She also knows how to get tables at booked restaurants, when to set your reservations, who claims to be legit and who isn't, where to shop, how to decipher the "oyster code," which markets to hit and when, and which eateries are the real deal and which are over-hyped (meaning, where the chefs eat). In the scant four hours we spent together a few weeks ago, we took 12-pages of notes, but we'll share some highlights so you won't arrive as green as we did.
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Photo by Riki Altman

This is the best way to drink your way through Paris.

​Paris is known less for its chocolate than its fromages and saucissons, it's true, but there's one culinary treasure that many visitors unfortunately miss out on only because they don't know to order it: chocolat chaud. Now those of you who took French language classes know that "chocolat chaud" merely translates to "hot chocolate," and that doesn't sound like anything worth hopping a flight for. But served in French style, it is an epicurean experience unlike any other. So on a recent trip, and in an effort to relive past greatness, we hit two of the most popular Parisian spots for chocolat chaud and compared them. Here's what we found.
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All photos by Laine Doss

Making soup roadside. Jamaican men and women sell everything from fruit to steamed fish out of shacks and tents.

​Recently, Short Order was invited to sample the food and farms of Jamaica. In this three-part report, we shared a visit to several farms and the Bob Marley museum. If you missed the first two parts, you can read them here and here. In our last installment, we're going to show you where you can get eat like a Jamaican. Next time you're on the island, step away from the hotel buffet and try one of these local joints for fresh fish, spicy jerk, and plenty of rum.

Prendy's catches its own fish and serves it practically still swimming

​Prendys on The Beach -- This shack located near the docks in Kingston has but one motto -- if it swims, eat it. The seafood is as fresh as possible because Prendy's employs a team of fishermen to go out and catch fish specifically for the restaurant.  This no-frills joint is actually an outdoor lot with a plastic tarp roof to shelter guests from the alternate bouts of sun and rain.  Grab a Red Stripe and let your waiter bring you the catch of the day, which could be parrotfish, snapper, grouper, kingfish, cod or lionfish.  Conch, usually chewy, is tender in a pumpkin stew.  Meals come with traditional sides of rice and peas, bammy (cassava flatbread), festival (fried cornmeal bread with sugar), and yuca.  Prendy's on the Beach, Hellshire Beach, Kingston
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All photos by Laine Doss

Bob Marley eternally give his "one love" salute at the Bob Marley Museum in Kingston.

​Short Order was recently invited to tour Jamaica, where we visited parts of the island not usually on the tourist radar. Yesterday, we shared our experience on a coffee plantation in the Blue Mountains. Today, we'll visit a few farms and the Bob Marley Museum (where we found quite an interesting herb garden).

We head back into the Blue Mountain range, where the land is fertile and the cloud cover helps hide the tropical sun from sensitive crops.
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All photos by Laine Doss

​Short Order was recently invited to join a diverse group of food bloggers to tour some of the more out of the way places in Jamaica. Today, we'll share a visit to a coffee plantation in part one of a three-part tour of the road less traveled in Jamaica.
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Photo by Riki Altman

The answer to "What the heck are those rolled-up green things?" is delivered after the jump.

And last, part three of Riki's trip to Atlantic Canada. Check out part one here and part two here.

In New Brunswick, I recently visited Breviro Caviar, the only captive breeding facility for Acipenser Brevirostrum sturgeon on the planet licensed by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.
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