Question .... on food you can take.

[philbetm]

We will be heading over in 14 days!
I have never taken any food items on our trips,
just always gone to market when we get there. I
have read often here that alot of you take your
meats...spices etc. So this trip there will be
another couple with us and we plan to take things
along from home to cook. is...can you
take fresh produce with you if it is in
a check on bag. Things like red/green bellpeppers,
baking potatoes, big sweet onion and such??
Or are they a NO..NO that would be taken away?

Thanks, Sherry

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[ApitoSTJ]

We went down a few weeks ago and they confiscated our peanut butter (a gel) from our carry-on bag...

[khud]

We always bring food and for the most part put in our checked bag. For our upcoming trip I found a cool business that sells single servings packets of all sorts of things. I ordered condiments, cereal, and some travel size toiletries. I hate to waste bottles of mustard, mayo, ketchup etc. when we only need a small amount when we are cooking in. The website is minimus.biz.

[Connie]

Sherry, I don't think I would take peppers, potatos, onions, things like that.

Just take your spices and your meats, or chicken, anything like that and buy the other stuff on STT or STJ.

It's too heavy for you to carry and you can easily get those things on Island.

[liamsaunt]

I would not try and carry on any food other than stuff that is solidly frozen and cannot defrost to be a liquid or gel. So, basically, nothing other than meat or cheese in carry on. I know you can bring other items, but I think it trips up the TSA people. Checked, you can bring whatever you want down. BUT, not coming home! Don't try and bring any fruits, veggies, etc home with you, it is against the law.

[philbetm]

Thanks everybody

If I take produce items it will be on a checked
bag. Tom has some kind of priority status with
USAir and gets to check 2 bags for free.
I will wait to buy my greens for salads on
STJ...and fruits! Anyone know of a good
place to buy fruits other than Starfish?
More questions coming as the days countdown


Sherry

[emmilu]

When you bring meat with you- how do you keep it cool in the suitcase for 9 hours? Thanks

[philbetm]

Gosh Emmilu ! I don't know...our flight is
non-stop out of CLT and is only 3 hours. Hope
someone has an answer for you! DryIce, maybe?
I don't have any experience using it...but our
grocery market sells it.

Sherry

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[Terry]

Frozen meat will keep. Pack it in newspaper in a ziplock. Ours was still part frozen when we arrived.

[Lindy]

Emmilu - When we bring meat along with us we freeze it solid in large zip lock bags first, then a day or two before the trip it gets wrapped well in styrofoam packing wrap (my husband gets it from work) and then several layers of newspaper. If you can't get the styrofoam packing wrap I don't think you'd even need it as long as you use several layers of newpaper and put the frozen meat into a checked bag or cooler. The area of the plane where checked luggage goes is not heated so the frozen meat stays extremely cold. We've traveled for a whole day and our meat is still frozen solid when we get to our villa. The insulation of the wrapping holds the cold in and keeps the meat from thawing. Just make sure you take it out of the wrapping when you're ready to thaw it or it will take forever! If you can, leave the meat in large chunks and cut it into individual servings after your thaw it. For example, we bought a whole New York strip and cut it into individual steaks after we thawed it. The larger the mass, the longer it will stay frozen. My husband also debones turkey breasts and freezes two or more in a large zip lock bag and they're fantastic on the grill and they cook in less than an hour! Last year I also made a huge batch of Italian meatballs for our group of nine, prebaked them until almost done and then packed them into a large zip lock bag and froze them. They were wrapped in newspaper like the other items and they traveled extremely well. Then one day we simply planned ahead for dinner and put the meatballs in the frig in the morning to thaw before we went to the beach then picked up a couple jars of premade spaghetti sauce, a couple boxes of pasta, some bags of premade salad and a couple loaves of french bread on the way home. We plopped the meatballs in the sauce to heat them up while cooking the pasta, slicing the bread and throwing together a salad. We had a fantastic dinner for 9 in about 30 minutes, not to mention some great leftovers. Just a little effort pays off big time.

[jimg20]

When you bring meat with you- how do you keep it cool in the suitcase for 9 hours? Thanks

Our habit is to use a Polar Bear cooler and Techni ice. We freeze the meat in a freezer set at the lowest temperature. We load the cooler, meat and techni ice into the freezer the night before. When we carry the cooler on, we pack the techni ice at the bottom of the cooler. TSA will look inside, and some think the ice is not allowed. Others are OK with it. We have checked the cooler also and avoided the potential controversy.

Everything in the cooler was frozen solid after a 12 hour trip from our freezer to theirs. I'll bet it makes it just fine withoout the techni ice.

Enjoy your trip and relax.

JIM

[stjohnjulie]

For produce on St. John, check with Dolphin Market first. They are cheaper (sometimes even 1/2 the price) than Starfish. They usually have a pretty good selection of fresh produce. For really basic produce, onions, garlic, potatoes, green peppers, you can get the best price at Pine Peace. They have a very limited selection though. I usually start at Pine Peace when I shop though because they are the cheapest on everything. Then I go to Dolphin for produce and anything else I couldn't find at Pine Peace.

[FinsUp]

We just returned from a glorious week on STJ!! We took frozen meat with us this time and would most certainly do it again. We froze it a week before and just before we left, packed it in a soft sided cooler and placed that in our checked luggage. When we arrived 12 hours later on STJ, everything was still frozen solid. Nothing had started to thaw. It was a simple as could be, nothing additionally wrapped, freezer to cooler to freezer!!