📜 Traditional recipes don't preserve themselves. Here's who does.

Dear Reader,

A few months ago, I stood at my stove stirring pelau and felt my father in the kitchen with me.

No rush. No recipe pulled up on the phone. Just seasoning with care and tasting with joy, the way it's supposed to go.

Every Carnival Sunday, he made a large pot. Enough to carry us through Ash Wednesday.

When I left Trinidad for college in the US, he handed me a folded piece of paper. His pelau recipe. Handwritten. I still have it. It's laminated now.

There's something about a handwritten recipe from a parent that a YouTube tutorial will never replace. It carries the weight of every Sunday he stood at that stove. Every time he fed a house full of people without ceremony, without fuss. Just food, just love, just presence.

That's what Trini food is, at its best. Not a performance. A relationship ❤️

Here's what that pot reminded me: true flavour lives in memory, not metrics. The dishes that mean the most to us weren't perfected through technique alone. They were repeated with love, adjusted with instinct, and passed down with care.

Your action for today: Cook something your parent or guardian made for you, whether it's written down or lives only in memory. Don't worry about getting it perfect. Worry about getting it made.

June is full of reasons to gather in Trinidad. Corpus Christi. Labour Day. Father's Day. Three different tables, three different kinds of gratitude. And at every one of them, food doing the work of holding people together.

Cooking is cultural storytelling. Every dish has a history, and every cook adds a chapter. Caribbean food tells the story of resilience, migration, and adaptation. When you cook Trini food, whether it was handed to you by blood or by belonging, you're continuing something that spans generations.

If you want to go deeper into Caribbean cooking, into the relationship between technique and memory, between heritage and confidence, I'd love to work with you privately.

"Her knowledge as a travel writer and food editor was exceptional. I am honoured to have had the opportunity to work with her. I highly recommend her." — Client Testimonial

TriniGourmet has been called "an essential guide to Caribbean cooking at home" by the New York Times. That standard is what I bring to every private engagement.

​Explore ways we may work together​

Best Wishes,

Sarina

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🔥 IN THE SPOTLIGHT

🧑🏽‍🍳 CURATED FINDS

Explore my top Dad-friendly picks this month, curated to help you bring the flavours and warmth of the Caribbean into your kitchen with ease and style. Your purchases support the site at o extra cost to you.

Instant Pot Duo Plus Speed meets tradition. Make everything from pelau to stews in a fraction of the time. A weeknight lifesaver if you want fast, flavourful meals made with love and ease. Take A Look Motherland: A Jamaican Cookbook A loving shoutout to my mother's birth country. This publication belongs on the shelf of anyone who wants the technique and the history of Jamaican cuisine in the same book 26% Off

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The Culinary Heritage of Trinbago If you want to understand why Trinbagonian food tastes the way it does, this is where you start. It traces how African, Indian, Chinese, Indigenous, and European influences layered into our cuisine. The more you know these stories, the more intuitively you’ll cook. 15% Off Fresh Banana Leaves Wrap your seasoned fish or meats in fresh banana leaves before steaming, or grilling, and watch what happens: the leaf does the work, locking in moisture and adding that deep, earthy flavour no foil can touch. Explore Now

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Thank you for being part of the TriniGourmet community. Here’s to another month filled with vibrant flavours, warm moments, and culinary joy. Until next time, keep cooking and sharing the spirit of the Caribbean!