Fay­ola K J Fras­er

Kim­ber­ly For­rester has nev­er be­lieved that food should feel like pun­ish­ment.

It’s a be­lief that qui­et­ly but firm­ly shapes every­thing she does now, from the way she plans meals for pa­tients re­cov­er­ing from surgery to how she teach­es fam­i­lies to cook one din­ner that works for di­a­betes, hy­per­ten­sion, and every­day life to why she chose beet­root as the un­like­ly hero of her first cook­book. But that be­lief wasn’t born in a class­room or a busi­ness plan. It was forged post-surgery and through the re­al­i­sa­tion that com­pli­cat­ed health ad­vice of­ten leaves peo­ple more over­whelmed than be­fore.

For­rester grew up in Trinidad and To­ba­go, but some of her most for­ma­tive years un­fold­ed in Ja­maica, where she lived from the ages of 17 to 27. She went there to study med­i­cine, step­ping on­to a path many would con­sid­er the ul­ti­mate ex­pres­sion of care and ser­vice. Yet some­where along that jour­ney, life in­ter­vened in ways no syl­labus could pre­pare her.

Re­cov­ery from surgery forced her in­to an in­ti­mate re­la­tion­ship with her own body, one de­fined by an ur­gent need to un­der­stand food not as a vague con­cept of “healthy” or “un­healthy”, but as some­thing func­tion­al. Some­thing that could heal, harm, or hold her steady in be­tween. Af­ter the first surgery, her di­et be­came lim­it­ed. Processed foods were elim­i­nat­ed al­most en­tire­ly, but no one re­al­ly ex­plained what that should look like in prac­tice. Ad­vice came in frag­ments, and la­bels were mis­lead­ing. “Gluten-free” turned in­to a shop­ping guide rather than a med­ical ne­ces­si­ty.

She re­mem­bers even­tu­al­ly cut­ting her di­et down to the ba­sics, eat­ing rice, pak choi, and tu­na, be­liev­ing she was do­ing the right thing, on­ly to re­alise she wasn’t eat­ing enough calo­ries or get­ting prop­er nu­tri­tion.

Cook­ing had al­ways been part of For­rester’s life, even be­fore med­i­cine ever en­tered the pic­ture. She grew up in a house­hold where food came from the back­yard as much as from the kitchen. Her grand­moth­er plant­ed a wide va­ri­ety of crops, and they ate food sea­son­al­ly. Meals were in­tu­itive and root­ed in avail­abil­i­ty rather than trends. There were no buzz­words, no macros, no su­per­foods, just nour­ish­ment.

Af­ter surgery, cook­ing be­came more than com­fort. It be­came a tool. A bridge be­tween what doc­tors said and what the body ac­tu­al­ly need­ed. Slow­ly, For­rester be­gan to un­der­stand that what fas­ci­nat­ed her wasn’t just dis­ease, but how peo­ple live with it, how they eat af­ter­ward, how they cope dai­ly, and how eas­i­ly well-mean­ing ad­vice can col­lapse un­der the pres­sure of re­al life.

When For­rester re­turned to T&T, she en­rolled in cours­es, deep­en­ing her knowl­edge of nu­tri­tion, men­stru­al health, and con­di­tions like en­dometrio­sis and poly­cys­tic ovary syn­drome (PCOS), di­ag­noses she her­self had re­ceived. These weren’t ab­stract top­ics but were per­son­al. They ex­plained years of symp­toms and strug­gles, and they re­in­forced some­thing she had al­ready be­gun to be­lieve: di­et plays a cen­tral role in how peo­ple feel, func­tion, and heal.

When she opened her busi­ness, at its core, it of­fered per­son­alised meal prepa­ra­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly for peo­ple whose health con­di­tions re­quired care­ful di­etary man­age­ment. For­rester worked along­side a reg­is­tered di­etit­ian, form­ing a sys­tem where pa­tients re­ceived pro­fes­sion­al meal plans tai­lored to their needs, whether they were re­cov­er­ing from surgery or man­ag­ing hy­per­ten­sion, high cho­les­terol, kid­ney dis­ease, or oth­er di­et-af­fect­ed ill­ness­es, and then had those plans trans­lat­ed in­to re­al, cooked food.

The di­etit­ian cre­ates the plan based on the pa­tient’s needs, and For­rester han­dles the ex­e­cu­tion, mak­ing meals that are aligned with med­ical guid­ance while still tast­ing fa­mil­iar, sat­is­fy­ing, and cul­tur­al­ly rel­e­vant. In a coun­try where fast food and con­ve­nience of­ten dom­i­nate, and where peo­ple with health con­di­tions are rarely mar­ket­ed to or con­sid­ered, her work filled a glar­ing gap. At the same time, she al­so of­fered ba­sic meal prep ser­vices for busy in­di­vid­u­als, peo­ple who want­ed to eat bet­ter but didn’t know how to cook, didn’t en­joy it, or sim­ply didn’t have the time.

Even­tu­al­ly, she worked with some­one from her gym, teach­ing them how to meal prep. What start­ed as a small, in­for­mal class quick­ly re­vealed a much big­ger need. For­rester re­alised peo­ple weren’t just look­ing for recipes but sys­tems and struc­ture to help them pre­pare meals to suit their needs. Now, her group meal prep class­es are de­signed to get par­tic­i­pants through to at least Wednes­day with­out feel­ing like they wast­ed four hours in the kitchen. The goal isn’t to turn any­one in­to a chef but to make home cook­ing man­age­able.

Look­ing ahead, For­rester plans to ex­pand these class­es even fur­ther next year, reach­ing more peo­ple and broad­en­ing the con­ver­sa­tion be­yond in­di­vid­ual health to fam­i­ly dy­nam­ics. One of the most com­plex chal­lenges she sees is cook­ing for house­holds where mul­ti­ple peo­ple have dif­fer­ent med­ical needs, such as hy­per­ten­sion or di­a­betes. Too of­ten, one per­son feels over­whelmed or sin­gled out, as though their con­di­tion dic­tates the en­tire house­hold’s eat­ing habits.

For­rester’s cook­book–Beets by Kim-100 Be­t­root Recipes–cen­tres around beets pre­cise­ly be­cause no one else was do­ing it. She wasn’t in­ter­est­ed in writ­ing an­oth­er book that al­ready ex­ist­ed in some form. She loved beets, saw their ver­sa­til­i­ty, and recog­nised how mis­un­der­stood they were, es­pe­cial­ly among younger peo­ple who might not know how to pre­pare cer­tain lo­cal foods at all.

The book ex­plores beet­root across meals and moods: break­fast, brunch, breads, pas­ta dish­es, sauces, desserts, and even drinks. Some recipes dis­guise the veg­etable so com­plete­ly that chil­dren–and adults–would nev­er guess it’s there. For­rester knows par­ents are of­ten try­ing to “sneak” veg­eta­bles in­to meals, and she doesn’t judge that in­stinct. She sim­ply of­fers tools.

For­rester was nom­i­nat­ed for the Gour­mand Awards and at­tend­ed the event in Riyadh, Sau­di Ara­bia, last month where she copped two awards. She placed first in Best Sin­gle Sub­ject Book and sec­ond in Best Caribbean Book.

When talk­ing about PCOS or peo­ple with any chron­ic con­di­tion, one of her strongest mes­sages is sim­ple but chal­leng­ing: eat at home. Not per­fect­ly. Just more of­ten. Once peo­ple start cook­ing and prep­ping their own meals, she says, they be­gin to see how much goes in­to store-bought food and how much sug­ar, sodi­um, and ad­di­tives are hid­den in things la­belled “healthy”. She’s seen count­less peo­ple who go to the gym con­sis­tent­ly, drink wa­ter, and try their best, on­ly to feel frus­trat­ed when noth­ing changes. Some­times, the hard­est but most ef­fec­tive step is cut­ting back on out­side food.

Even dur­ing the Christ­mas sea­son, when in­dul­gence feels un­avoid­able, her ad­vice re­mains ground­ed. Plan ahead. If you have mul­ti­ple in­vi­ta­tions in one day, don’t eat every­thing at every stop. You don’t need a bit of every­thing every­where. Put veg­eta­bles on your plate. Prac­tise por­tion con­trol and en­joy food with­out let­ting it con­trol you.

In do­ing so, she has built some­thing rare: a prac­tice root­ed in em­pa­thy, prac­ti­cal­i­ty, and the qui­et un­der­stand­ing that health doesn’t hap­pen in the­o­ry. It hap­pens in kitchens, in fam­i­lies, on or­di­nary days, one meal at a time.

Recipe

Be­t­root rice pi­laf

(Serves 10)

In­gre­di­ents

1 tb­sp. olive oil

3 cups bas­mati rice

2 cups gold­en raisins

1 cup onion, diced

3 cups beet­root, grat­ed

2 bay leaves

1 tb­sp. car­damom

1 tsp. black pep­per

2 tsps. salt

5 cups wa­ter

1 cup pis­ta­chios, chopped

METHOD

1. Thor­ough­ly rinse your rice and raisins un­der cold, run­ning wa­ter. Set them aside in a strain­er to al­low the ex­cess wa­ter to strain out.

2. Place a large stock­pot over medi­um-low heat. Add the oil and al­low it to heat for a minute.

3. Add the grat­ed beets, diced onions, car­damom, black pep­per, and salt, and sauté these for 5 min­utes, stir­ring fre­quent­ly.

4. Add the rice and raisins, and sauté for an ad­di­tion­al 2 min­utes.

5. Add the wa­ter and bay leaves, and in­crease the heat to high. Stir the rice oc­ca­sion­al­ly un­til the wa­ter comes to a boil.

6. Re­duce the heat to low, cov­er, and al­low the rice to steam un­til all of the wa­ter has been ful­ly ab­sorbed and the rice is cooked through. This should take ap­prox­i­mate­ly 15 min­utes.

7. Re­move the rice from the heat and al­low it to sit undis­turbed for 10 min­utes.

8. Then, re­move the bay leaves and car­damom pods. Fluff the rice with a fork, and place it in a serv­ing dish. Top the rice with the chopped pis­ta­chios and serve.