Island Time Salad

Happy Valentine's Day/Galentine's Day/Singles Awareness Day/Whatever holiday you're celebrating!

So since I'm supposed to be somewhere warm right now and not in the frigid north east I thought I'd post something we made while we were in the Caribbean (not sure if it'll make me feel better or worse about the fact that I'm snowed in).  I'm starting to think the weather gods have it in for me and my travel plans.  It took us three different itineraries to get down to St John in January (thanks Polar Vortex) and this time my trip was cancelled completely since the earliest I could get to Florida would be midnight Sunday in to Monday and since I'd leave Tuesday it's not quite worth it.



Speaking of the Polar Vortex.  What is the obsession with naming every weather event.  "Ah, yes, today's drizzle Noreen has been reported to have ruined at least two pairs of leather shoes and has resulted in numerous bad hair days."  Either every weather event we've had in the last two years has been abnormal, in which case clearly something in the environment is changing because everything can't be abnormal (defeats the concept of normal) or nothings changing and all of these storms are to be expected and people need to chill out.  And by people I mean the news castors.

Anyway, off my soap box and back to warm weather.  In wines class on Wednesday it was about 8 below out and we were sampling wines from Loire and Alsace and my professor was so worried we wouldn't like them so we had to imagine we were somewhere warm, I chose St. John.  I liked most of the wines so I guess it worked then but it's not working now.  Oh well, this way I definitely won't miss Bordeaux's next week, we have a Chateau owner coming to speak to us.

So this salad, I'm in love with Capreses and so I set out to make one with the really good local tomatoes.  Unfortunately, the grocery store wasn't on the same page as me and didn't have mozzarella that week.  I cannot for the life of me understand restocking policies down there (clearly they don't account for the standard deviation in lead times when they set their target inventory levels).  I guess it all worked out though because we made this salad which I thought was really great and we got to use up some of the 9 bottles of balsamic vinegar that had been left behind by renters.  Seriously, we were giving away balsamic as party favors to anyone that visited us.

Ingredients

• Ripe Tomatoes
• Lemon Basil
• Chevre
• Olive Oil
• Balsamic Vinegar (you don't need nine bottles)
• Salt and Pepper

Directions

1. Wash and dry lemon basil (give it time to dry before you cut it)
2. Slice tomatoes and arrange in one level on a plate
3. Crumble chevre over tomatoes
4. Drizzle with balsamic and olive oil
5. Chiffonade, or just cut, the basil
6. Sprinkle salad with lemon basil
7. Eat and imagine you're somewhere warm, I hope you have better luck with that endeavor than I have had