RUDOLPH — For Kim Thomas, cooking is so much more fun when each recipe tells a different story.
That’s certainly the case with her Cook’s Corner offerings today, recipes inspired by a friendly
restaurant owner in Puerto Rico during a memorable three-generation family vacation.
Pasta y Pueblo was the name of the 16-seat “shack restaurant” where “chef-owner Freddy invited me into
the kitchen while he prepared our Christmas dinner.”
That was the first time she and her family tasted coconut rice and it was love at first bite.
“The coconut rice was just the biggest hit when we went as a family in 2009. I was determined to figure
out how to make it taste the same. It took two years!” but she finally felt she’d pulled it off after
hitting on the right combination of ingredient substitutions available in local supermarkets.
Chef Freddy used coconut milk in the recipe, Thomas witnessed in his kitchen. “But his was straight from
the tree” which may account for why it had a fuller flavor and more oil-like consistency that gave the
rice a golden-brown look and a different flavor.
She wasn’t getting the same effect until one day, on a whim, she tried using Coco Real creme of coconut.

“My husband tasted it and said ‘that’s really close!’”
You can find it in the liqueur section of the grocery store “but it doesn’t have any liquor in it.”
Actually, the coconut juice is the hardest ingredient to locate in Bowling Green.
“I found it at Meijer and Kroger both. It’s just that they don’t know they have it!” she discovered, when
asking store employees in vain for help locating the product on the shelves.
The tradition of vacationing in a different Caribbean country each year goes back to Thomas’ parents,
Marilyn and Tom Glenn.
“For years Mom and Dad had talked and dreamed of surprising our families with a Christmas gift” of a
family trip to Jamaica, Thomas recalls.
Their idea was to “revisit the past of 40-some years ago when they first took us as children to the
island. Dad died before he could realize their dream. The lesson learned was don’t wait to follow your
dreams or your dreams will follow you. Mom took us on our first Christmas vacation in 2005.”
After that first vacation, “Mom saw how much closer family travel brought us and how much she enjoyed
watching us receive her gift. A tradition was born. Each year since, a new Caribbean destination is
picked,” with Thomas acting as travel planner for the clan, “and we all spend the year looking forward
to our next Christmas gift together.”
This year’s trip, their seventh, will be St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands and Jost Van Dyke, British
Virgin Islands.
Back in Puerto Rico, chef Freddy paired his coconut rice with a fresh pan-fried fish and a very simple
salad.
Once home, Thomas decided to ramp up the salad by adding ideas she found from delving into a Puerto Rican
cookbook.
Hers calls for chayote, a bright green Caribbean fruit that looks like a pear, but with a double-sided
clam shell appearance.
Chayote is available locally. “Usually they’re by the tomatoes. Right now, they’re by the asparagus.”
Her best stroke of inspiration was the dressing. In Puerto Rico the salad is usually served with passion
fruit dressing but Thomas has never been able to find passion fruit pulp locally. Happily, she
discovered that Marzetti’s pomegranate dressing creates a very similar flavor.
Thomas is so in love with all things Caribbean that she is now setting up a side business as a personal
travel planner for groups of 10 or more people. She will budget the trip, make all reservations, offer a
detailed itinerary booklet and packing list.
It’s something she first did as leader of her daughter’s Kenwood Girl Scout troop, when the girls visited
Jamaica and Yucutan while in high school.
Thomas has a long history of both paid employment and volunteerism.
She first worked for seven years at Mid-American Bank, moonlighting at her parents’ downtown Bowling
Green craft and needlework store, The French Knot, teaching craft classes.
As she notes on her blog, “I was struggling having children, so I changed to a less stressful work of
managing the store. After eight long years of pills, shots, procedures, and surgeries, my two little
miracles, twins Shawn and Chelsie, arrived.” She dialed back to part-time at the store, but four years
later started a third career as a free-lance craft designer and author of 15 craft books.
Since 2006 she has been a Close to My Heart paper-crafts consultant. It includes card-making,
scrapbooking, “and paper jewelry is coming next.”
Many in Bowling Green know Thomas as a 30-year member of Beta Sigma Phi women’s sorority. She was 2011
Woman of the Year for her chapter, Eta Beta.
Whenever she’s the chapter president she starts the year by serving an international theme dinner for
Beginning Day. In late August she served the Puerto Rican theme dinner featured here today, to rave
reviews.

Pasta y Pueblo’s Coconut Rice
2 cups jasmine white rice
2 cups coconut milk
1 3/4 cups coconut juice/water
2 Tbsp. shredded coconut
1 teaspoon salt
2 Tablespoons sugar
Coco Real cream of coconut
1 cup halved grape tomatoes
1 cup asparagus – cut into bit sized pieces
Place rice, coconut milk, juice, shredded coconut and salt in pan. Stir over medium heat until liquid
comes to a gentle boil. Reduce heat to low, tightly cover and let simmer about 15 minutes until all
liquid is absorbed.
Halve grape tomatoes and cut asparagus into bit size pieces and saute in coconut creme until tender. Set
aside.
Mix sugar and coconut creme and pan fry prepared rice from above until specks of golden brown. Toss in
asparagus and tomatoes and serve.
Pan-fried whitefish
Fish: 4 – 4oz. Whitefish, haddock, Tilapia or orange roughly fillets
1/4 cup butter, melted
Lawry salt
dried tarragon leaves
dried thyme leaves
grated lemon peel
Dash cayenne pepper
Heat pan over medium heat, brush both sides of fish with melted butter. Place fish in pan and sprinkle
with all spices listed, flip and repeat on other side. Fry each side until golden brown. (Approximately
10 minutes, turning once. Cook approximately 5 minutes longer if you start with frozen fish fillets.
Puerto Rican tomato & chayote lettuce salad
2 medium chayotes, peeled and quartered lengthwise
2 large ripe salad tomatoes, thinly sliced
1 head leaf lettuce (Iceberg or romaine)
Marzetti’s Pomegranate Dressing*
Fill a small pot with enough water to cover the chayotes. Bring to a boil over medium heat, lower
chayotes into boiling water, cook until soft (not mushy) about 20 minutes. Drain and cool. Remove seed
and cut into bit-size pieces.
Divide leaf lettuce and tomato slices between plates. Arrange Chayote over top. Drizzle dressing over top
and serve.
* This is usually served with passion fruit dressing, however I cannot locate passion fruit pulp locally.