Virgin Islanders are now experiencing peak tourism season, and for many of us, this means friends and family visiting the islands. But as we gather for shared meals, we are likely to find widening differences in diet.
More and more people are choosing to become vegan — which means excluding any form of animal products from their diet. For various health reasons, others are following a gluten-free diet, which means they can’t eat any form of wheat, rye, or barley.
So what’s a host to do? Peas and rice, prepared properly, can meet the needs of those on vegan and gluten-free diets, but is there anything else?
It turns out there are plenty of delicious choices, and if you don’t want to be the one to figure it all out, St. John Veg Head can supply you with an array of meals delivered weekly throughout St. John and now to St. Thomas.
St. John Veg Head is the creation of Erin Durrell, owner of Coral Bay Catering. Every week since September 2022, she prepares a menu that always includes a quart of soup, a half-pint of dip, an appetizer, two entrées, and three veggie patties.
The dishes change every week. This week, the order includes white lasagna with tofu, spinach and mushrooms; a quinoa salad with roasted sweet potatoes, cranberries and nuts; and zucchini boats with savory vegetable stuffing.
The menu is meant to supplement a single person’s lunches and/or dinners for nearly a week, said Durrell. Many of her customers buy her food because it’s healthy and tasty and then add meat to it, she said.
Durrell hasn’t raised her prices since she started. An order costs $75. Customers for the following week can peruse her menus on Instagram and then text her at 340-423-6611 to order by 6 p.m. on Sunday.
“We prep on Monday and deliver to multiple places on St. John for pick up on Tuesday evening,” said Durrell. “And now we put orders on the 7 p.m. ferry to Red Hook for an additional $10.”
Durrell herself is something of an omnivore. “I eat everything,” she said, “but I prefer a vegan and gluten-free lifestyle. I have a lot more energy, but as a chef, I have to taste everything.”
She said people who are not typically candidates for Veg Head food are often surprised how tasty it is. “Vegan food is becoming more mainstream. I’ve learned you can make almost anything, including comfort food — like lasagna and meat loaf — by taking the meat out to make something even more flavorful and healthy.”
Her secret? Using the freshest possible ingredients, which means sourcing food locally whenever possible. “It makes a huge difference in terms of flavor, and people feel better when they eat things that are less processed. We use tons of nuts, lentils, onions, carrots and garlic, and fresh herbs. I don’t open a lot of cans or jars.”
Although she delights in her weekly Veg Head production, it only represents a small percentage of Coral Bay Catering, her main business developed over the years on St. John. She caters parties, memorial services, meals for villa guests, and large events like the Animal Care Center fundraiser on Feb. 8.
Durrell began her culinary career making pizzas when she was still in high school and then became a short-order cook in a diner. After graduating from the University of Maine with a degree in forestry, she began crewing on boats.
She arrived on St. John around Christmas in 2002 with the promise of working for the season aboard a yacht that was on its way down from the States. While she waited, she took a job with KatiLady Catering, and when the boat finally got to St. John — too beat up from the delivery to go on charter — she stayed on.
When Katilady shut down in 2005, Durrell started “slinging burgers and mixing rum drinks” at Skinny Legs in Coral Bay. She then took a job across the harbor in the kitchen at Shipwreck Landing for 15 years and became known as “Erin the Chef.”
Owning her own business was always her dream, and in 2015 she and Amy Starr opened a breakfast food truck, Triple B, which soon became wildly popular. When Starr left the island, Durrell started making breakfasts at Caribbean Oasis, but then Hurricane Irma changed everything in 2017.
Durrell left the culinary world to work with a contractor finishing wood and painting houses, but the allure of food preparation still called to her. She was especially intrigued by the vegetarian food prepared weekly by Lindsay Chabot at Pickles in Coral Bay back in 2015. Those meals became her inspiration for St. John Veg Head.
“The reason I’ve always continued as a chef is I’ve never stopped learning,” Durrell said. She keeps St. John Veg Head going even when her main gig as proprietor of Coral Bay Catering keeps her more than busy. “I do it out of the love for cooking and out of love for the community,“ she said. “I’m incredibly grateful.”
