The festive season
There’s nothing quite like a ferry ride on a warm, calm day to quell a bout of anxiety, and a Beaconite was grateful to enjoy one to Cooper Island on Saturday to cover this year’s Rum Fest. The next day, she had a film fest to cover. Both events saw a great turnout and enthusiastic participation. The reporter thanks organisers for their help facilitating the Beacon’s coverage. This was her first time going to Rum Fest, and she could certainly see the event gaining international acclaim as it continues to grow. Vendors were delightfully enthusiastic in describing their specialty liquors and cocktails, while the sun shone on the nearby beach and live music carried across the booths scattered across the open patio. She was particularly excited to see the “old fashioned” cocktail being featured, as it is especially popular in her home state of Wisconsin. The reporter also wishes the bar luck as it closes in on its goal of breaking the record for number of unique rum varieties in a single collection in the Caribbean. Going from the sandy beaches to the red carpet, the reporter was also highly impressed by the level of filmmaking talent displayed at the film festival this year. She became momentarily verklempt while viewing the “Crack of Dawn” short documentary about fishing, which brought back pleasant memories of fishing with her dad growing up. Cheers to all this year’s entrants.
Health food
A Beaconite has never gone without the bare necessities in life, he must admit. Nary a day goes by that he hasn’t had access to a roof over his head and food in his belly. As he has gotten older, he’s seen the way families can change, losing some members while gaining others along the way. A family is a dynamic concept. It can be bleak and it can be beautiful and it’s almost always chaos for anyone on the inside. And some families come together around this time of year to remember something. It can be anything and it’s almost always different, but the one constant is coming together. That being said, the Beaconite visited five grocery stores earlier this week, pacing up and down aisles of pasta and spices, searching for fried onions in a can. As any good southerner might attest, the correct topping — la finale — for traditional green bean casserole is French’s fried onions in a can. Without these little salty slivers of trans fat, the dish might as well be green beans with a can of Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup. Failing to find this delicacy in processed form will not stop the Beaconite, though the cat-treat-like rattle of sprinkling flaky onion goodness on his once-healthy vegetables will be missed.