WORDS FROM THE KITCHEN

SARAH KIRNON, EXECUTIVE CHEF

I was cooking before I was tall enough to reach the stove. I grew up on the island of Barbados, spending summer vacations in Antigua and Trinidad. As the youngest girl in a large family I helped my grandmother and great grandmother cook. These two multi-tasking matriarchs also happened to be the head cooks on two of the oldest sugar plantations on the island. The experience of being taught by them never left me and inspired a life devoted to Caribbean Creole food. Even when working in restaurants in Europe and North America, I knew I was to return to my first loved cuisine. Hibiscus is my modern homage to Caribbean Creole flavors. For me the words Caribbean and Creole go together. Due to the region's ethnic diversity, the food is a patchwork quilt of colors, textures and flavors, woven from the cuisines of Africa, Europe, Asia, India and South America. This far-reaching blend puts the food in the realm of gustatory extravagance with our mouth-searing hot sauces, fragrant marinades, fiery spice rubs and perfumed preserves.

Words from the Kitchen would not be complete without the region's culinary history: CARIBBEAN CREOLE: A CULINARY HISTORY (DOWNLOAD PDF)