Paradise in Utila
Utila is an island in Honduras, where people from all over the world travel to scuba dive the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef, the second largest reef in the world. My friends, Scott and Stephanie, who live in Utila manage an Air B&B called Paradise Revisited, where they host people from all over the world. Stephanie asked me to come teach cooking classes to their friends on the island, and I couldn’t pass the opportunity. Utila only has about 3,500 residents, and many of them are ex-pats who have built houses or started small businesses that mostly cater to tourists.
I arrived on a single engine plane from the mainland of Honduras. I was met by Stephanie and Scott in their golf cart. The Utilans get around the island by golf cart, tuk tuk, motorbikes, or walking. They drove me through the town toward their guesthouse, while Scott explained the area and navigated me through the different markets and food stalls where I could get the food for my cooking classes. It had been raining, and the road to Paradise Revisited was flooded. But we picked up our feet and drove on to arrive at the most stunning view of the ocean and the house built on stilts.
I soon realized why it was named Paradise. There was a lagoon in front of the house separating it from the ocean, and Stephanie told me they often saw octopus and large fish swimming through. Once, they rescued a five-foot whale that had gotten trapped. Scott and Stephanie live on the upper level of the house, and my room was on the lower level with a view of the ocean. There were several other rooms, as well as a ‘tree house” room that has a large shower with rock walls and windows with views of the sky. Stephanie had made arrangements for me to teach six classes during the four days I was visiting the island, so after dinner we drove back to town for my first load of groceries.
The first night of my stay, I was woken at 2:00 AM to the sound of scratching on my door screen. I was terrified for about ten minutes, but realized there must be a giant crab trying to climb the door, I could hear his claws clicking on the wooden deck while he attempted to climb…for an hour! He came back every night I was there except one, despite the “fort” Scott built in front of my door to keep him away.
My first morning, I taught a jewelry class for a group of women Stephanie knew. Three of them were business owners on the island, and the others were American and Canadian who live in Utila part time. I had brought bags of beads with me, and we made earrings for several hours while we talked about what it’s like to live in Utila.
It rained heavily all day, flooding one of the rooms of the guesthouse. Despite the rain, three boys arrived in a tuk tuk taxi for a cooking class that afternoon. Jaden and Collin were brothers, and Mathew was their friend from school. They were so excited when I gave them each a knife and showed them how to cut an onion. We made sausage ragu with pasta, guacamole, and salsa with chips. Matthew already had skills in cutting avocados, so he showed the other boys how to do it. I told them it was important to go home and practice what they had learned, and cook for their families. They promised to return the next day to make bracelets. Thankfully, the rain stopped by the end of the day and Stephanie and Scott took me to the restaurant, Mango Tango, where we ate a delicious steak and fish dinner outside near the ocean.
The second day of my visit, we at breakfast at Muchies. I had the traditional breakfast called Plato Tipico, which included scrambled eggs, beans, plantains, and rice. Later, I taught a cooking class to the same women who had come to the earring class the day before. We made gnocchi with two sauces, sausage ragu and browned butter. I also made them a salad from lettuces I’d found in a local market with roasted chicken and maple dressing. Dessert was an apple galette with pastry I rolled out with a drinking glass. That afternoon the boys returned, and Mathew brought his sister and cousins. They all made two or three bracelets. The boys made them for their moms and girlfriends.
Stephanie and I took Jaden and Collin home, and then went on a ride in the golf cart to the end of the island where we saw the public beach and visited Jade Seahorse, a unique hotel with mosaics and painted art by the owner and designer, Neil Keller. We had to pay two dollars to walk through the gardens to see the colorful sculptures and pathways that connected the guesthouses. We visited with Keller, an eccentric guy who wasn’t too eager to explain his reasoning behind his artistic endeavor. Even so, it was worth the $2 to see the intricate work Keller and his artist friends had done in such a small space in the middle of town. It’s definitely a place I would visit again.
Stephanie had arranged for ten chefs on the island to come to cooking classes on the last two days of my visit. I was intimidated when she told me I would be training restaurant chefs, but she assured me they were really excited to learn something new. Despite the rain, eight chefs arrived and we made gnocchi with browned butter and tomato sauce. We also made Indian chicken curry with rice. The following day we made stuffed tomatoes with the leftover rice, zucchini ribbon salad, and jerk chicken pasta. Both days were a great time of visiting. Many of the chefs didn’t know each other, even though they all lived in the same small town. By the end of the second day, they had become good friends, and were exchanging phone numbers. When I returned home I got an email from one of the chefs expressing her appreciation for bringing chefs together in a neutral environment where there was no competition.
One of the chefs was Laura Bagby, from Florida, who runs the Coco Rio coffee shop with her husband. They use coffee beans from the main island of Honduras, and Laura prepares pastries, sandwiches, and salads that can be eaten on the dock overlooking a beautiful bay. Since 2004, they’ve been exporting coffee beans from Honduras to the U.S., where they roast and sell them in their coffee shops in Florida. The profits from their coffee business are used to fund a school called Project Ezra, near the Coco River on the Nicaraguan border.
I also met Lisa, who owns the Utila Chocolate Factory. She and her partner create delicious chocolates and ice cream using ingredients from Honduras. They stone grind the cocoa beans and use raw sugar to make their chocolates. Lisa makes her own peanut butter, and harvests salt from the ocean for the Sea Salt Chocolate Bar, my favorite of the 12 bars I got to sample. It was a warm day when I visited Utila Chocolate Factory, but Stephanie and I still indulged in a tasty cup of chocolate tea.
Although I spent most of my time in Utila teaching, it still felt like a vacation. I loved the rain, even with the mosquitoes that followed. I got to snorkel with Scott and Stephanie over the reef in front of Paradise Revisited. We snorkeled for an hour, and saw a spotted eagle ray and an eel. The sunsets were magnificent, and the new friends I made were worth all the effort.
One of my favorite moments of the trip was when Melissa, one of the chefs, presented me with a chocolate heart she had made for me. It was filled with cream and topped with a chocolate butterfly. She told me how much she appreciated me coming and including her in the classes. She later sent me a photo someone had taken when she gave me the chocolate. She said, “I can’t tell you how much emotion is in this photo”.
