112110 TRAVELTRAVEL ++ LEISURE LEISURE / JANUARY 2017 / JANUARY 2017
(Its name refers to the watershed that runs
from the farm’s 134 acres toward the sea.)
Here, owners Nate Olive, who grew up in
Georgia, and his wife, Shelli Brin-Olive,
who is from St Thomas, grow vegetables
and raise livestock, lead educational tours,
and off er off -the-grid lodging and
wilderness-survival workshops, in
addition to supplying organic produce to
schools. But they’re best known to visitors
for their Slow Down dinners, for which
local chefs use the farm’s bounty to prepare
all-organic, all-local meals for upwards of
60 people. Many guests build their entire
trip to St Croix around the Slow Down
schedule. When I stopped by, Nate was
away at the University of Georgia
defending his PhD dissertation on whether
eco- and cultural tourism alone could
sustain the island. “Nature versus casinos,
basically,” Shelli said, as we walked
through a bamboo grove.
The farm’s bounty was making me feel
like I’d stepped through some prelapsarian
wormhole. Shelli pointed out an Antillean
crested hummingbird, the only bird that
can fl y backward; a ‘painkiller bush’
known for the anti-infl ammatory qualities
of its leaves; and a Moringa tree, a handful
of whose leaves could be enough for a day’s
nutrition. Ridge to Reef was hosting 39
young Danish volunteers—a crowd big
enough to warrant an unscheduled Slow
Down dinner—and I was invited to stay.
Michael Matthew, who cooks at the Eat at
Cane Bay restaurant on the northern end,
braised a Ridge to Reef lamb in a stock
made from bones and herbs. He served it
alongside Ridge to Reef farm greens tossed
with a dressing he’d devised by shaving
down and puréeing a ball of cactus fruit.
The dinner talk was about pelicans, terns,
and the reappearance of a certain
mockingbird after two years of drought.
The food was worthy of seconds (and
thirds). At some point, Shelli’s phone
buzzed. It was Nate, texting from Georgia.
He had passed.T
hat young man can fi llet a
20-pound tuna with a machete by
the light of an iPhone,” said Susan
Kraeger, proudly, as we walked
through La Reine Farmers’ Market,
already humming shortly past dawn on a
Saturday morning. Kraeger, an escapee
from New Hampshire, had picked me up
at 5am for her weekly visit to the market,
which is located not too far from Sejah
Farm. Any later and all the good stuff
would be gone.From top: Bread
pudding with
guavaberries at
Balter, Stridiron’s
Christiansted
restaurant;
Christina Gasperi,
the co-owner of
Art Farm; Chef
Digby Stridiron
picking yucca
fl owers on one of
his foraging
missions.