One of my best friend regularly reads my blog for tips on cooking and to try my recipes. He recently told me he's noticed that I haven't written anything about me and that getting personal with my readers will help create a connection with me. So, here I go, spilling all my beans.
I grew up in a Caribbean house hold. Both my parents are from the island of Trinidad. My dad is the best cook I know and my mom is the best baker I know. So, you can imagine my parents' house during the holiday season: a never-ending feast of Trinidian food.
My dad is the master creator of flavour. There were times when we didn't have meat and he would manipulate ingredients to make whatever we were eating taste like chicken. I was (and still am) impressed at how he does this. And all without a recipe book. Crazy, right? He inspired me to be the cook I am today. I fuse my Caribbean background with the North American traditions to make my unique dishes.
My love of cooking goes all the way back to when I was 9. I had watched my dad cook for many years and one day I decided to help him. I was boiling water to help him make a macaroni pie and I decided to dump the macaroni into the pot of boiling hot water. Bad decision: the hot water and oil splashed up onto my chest and it burned me! Later, as I ate my piece of macaroni pie, it gave me so much joy that I forgot about it. The hot water burn left a scar that reminds me that cooking can be painful but it brings so much pleasure.
After high school I, starting a career in the hydraulics field, fixing hydraulic hoses for heavy machines. I enjoyed my work but something was missing. So, even though I had a full time job, I decide to go back to school part-time to become a Chef. I learned so much in a short period of time but sadly I had to put school on hold for a while because my job kept taking me out of class. The passion for cooking remained and friends who had tasted my food started asking me to cater for their events. A light bulb went off in my head: start my own catering business. To promote the business I went all out and threw a party to showcase my appetizers. It was huge success with my best friend DJ Tony Blaze spinning the tunes. I raffled off a free dinner and got tons of feedback and suggestions on my food. Business grew after that party.
Feed Your Thoughts is still growing and I'm still growing as a person and as a Chef.
On the January 25th I had the privilege to cater for the Western Caribbean Students Organization (CSO) cultural show event. This was my first time catering for the group of 150 people and overall it was a great success.
A few months before the event, I invited the executive team over to my house to taste a variety of Caribbean food. After eating, they had the opportunity to select their menu for the event. The menu consisted of: Heavenly Crunch cookies, cupcakes, Sweet Potato Puffs, grilled peppers and zucchini, macaroni pie, meatless lasagne, rice and peas, and jerk chicken.
I'm very anal about serving fresh food so, I cooked everything the day of the event (except the cookies). The day started at 8am with my sous-chef helping me with the prep. By 9am the chicken was in the oven ready to begin it's slow bake. Once that was out of they way, my cooking schedule was in full effect: prep vegetables, rice and peas, lasagne, macaroni pie, and finally, grilling the vegetables. I finished cooking all the food by 4pm - right on time.
I love the food at Tony Roma's, especially the beef ribs. I have friends from Detroit that will drive down to London to "see us" but really they comes to get Tony Roma's beef ribs because it's the closest location. So, to make us the real reason for the regular visits, I made a promise to him that the next time they came down, I would make him beef ribs at home. And me being the competitive person that I am, I made a bet with them: if my beef ribs don't taste as good or better then Tony Roma's, then I would personally take them out to Tony Roma's and pay for their dinner. 
