When it comes to preparing meals on hot summer days, if you can't take the heat, you don't necessarily need to get out of the kitchen. Just turn to no-cook dinners using such ingredients as canned foods and fresh produce.

Alexander's Café in Frenchtown welcomes wine connoisseurs and anyone who loves good food and wine to join them Thursday, Sept. 19, for another in their series of "Informal Wine Club" receptions featuring a prix fixe four-course dinner.

With school back in session, a nutritionally balanced lunch is available to most V.I. students in the school cafeterias, but snacks are another matter. Treats sent from home need to be crush-resistant if they're to survive being carried about in school bags. A snack that's nutritious, delicious, non-crushable and non-perishable is trail mix -– and you can make it at home.

It's sportsfishing season and mango season in the Virgin Islands. What do you get when you put them together? A great entrée! Mango Jerk Tuna is as delicious as it is nutritious.

They are here, they are expanded, and they are hot. The Rotary East 2002 Dining Out coupon books are now being sold and are selling fast. This year’s book has 37 two-for-one coupons from 35 restaurants -- 29 for use on St. Thomas and eight for St. John. Such savings, and for a good cause, too -- the Rotary East scholarship fund.

If you're tired of the same old style of peas and rice, here's a different version that comes from Guyana. It's got salt beef, fresh shrimp and coconut milk among the ingredients and is a meal in itself with a green salad on the side.

Meatballs have been a key menu item in Virgin Islands cuisine dating to the Danish days. But times are changing, and tastes are, too; so, how about trying some vegetarian soy meatballs?

Mango season is late this summer because of heavy rains earlier in the year, but if your trees are now laden with the sweet treats, you may well be looking for ideas on how to use them. This Mango Bread recipe calls for finely diced mangoes, meaning you can use the small ones after they fall to the ground.

Mango season is late this summer because of heavy rains earlier in the year, but if your trees are now laden with the sweet treats, you may well be looking for ideas on how to use them. This Mango Bread recipe calls for finely diced mangoes, meaning you can use the small ones after they fall to the ground.

The month of July is International Month at Alexander's Café in Frenchtown, continuing this week and on to Aug. 3 with Clam Bake Week.