ABOUT ME

Hey! I’m Rishi and welcome to my website!

Full disclosure: I’m NOT a chef. I’m a Foodie and really passionate about food. 

I started cooking when I was four years old. I know, it sounds absurd, but it’s true. The dish was tomato choka. I could eat it all day and eventually, I couldn’t resist being in the kitchen when choka was being made and even lending my tiny hands in the preparation. And so it began, cooking occasionally at home, heavily focusing on Italian, French and American cuisine, until it was time to leave for University.

Fast forward to after my university graduation when it all started to come together. I was fortunate that I was able to travel the world on various assignments. As a young engineer, I learned that sharing a meal with people was much more than sustenance. Somehow, identities were shared more through food than through conversation. The most interesting part of the exchange was that there seemed to be a link between all of these global flavours and Trinidadian tastes. This was the moment where my focus changed, turning my gaze inward to the dishes of my childhood, to connect the dots between my heritage: Trinidadian food and what lay beyond.

Fusion is a word used frequently, yet few may realize that what many call fusion, Trinidadians call “trying a thing.” Fusion is in our Trinidadian DNA. Trinidad and Tobago is the ultimate melting pot with over half a millenia of “fusion” from the Americas, Europe, Africa and Asia. Fusion is reflected in our people, in our intermixing of culture and definitely in our food. In all of my travels, I have not experienced any country where a multitude of cultures mix so effortlessly. Pelau, Callaloo and Bake and Shark barely scratch the surface because there is Indo-Trini, Afro-Trini, Trini-Chinese, Trini-Gyros, Trini-Sushi, Trini-Thai and the list goes on.

And that’s why this website was created: to pay homage to our ancestors by archiving those classic inter-generational recipes, to follow in their footsteps by creating as they did using the ingredients that were readily available and to introduce the world to Trinidadian Cuisine.

I hope that you will embark on this journey with me!