Bake and Shark, or Shark and Bake — what­ev­er you call it — is ar­guably Trinidad and To­ba­go’s most fa­mous food. It’s the first stop you make at Mara­cas be­fore even putting your toes in the sand. And that makes to­tal sense.

There’s noth­ing more com­fort­ing than a big bowl of creamy, cheesy pas­ta. So luck­i­ly for you, this recipe tastes ex­act­ly like your fa­vorite restau­rant-style pas­ta Al­fre­do — ex­cept we added a few more in­gre­di­ents, so it’s burst­ing with sa­vory sun-dried toma­to and herb fla­vor. Be­cause of the toma­to, this toma­to Al­fre­do sauce turns slight­ly pink, which is dif­fer­ent to the tra­di­tion­al white Al­fre­do sauce we’re used to. Best part is you don’t have to leave your house to en­joy it.

Sim­mone Ed­win, one of our res­i­dent chefs at Propa Eats, is fa­mous for fus­ing in­ter­na­tion­al in­flu­ences with the foods and flavours we love most lo­cal­ly. Chef Sim­mone takes in­spi­ra­tion from Japan and cre­ates the ul­ti­mate Tri­ni break­fast ra­men. Her mas­ter­piece is made up of toma­to cho­ka broth, cur­ried dev­iled eggs and geera-and-cin­na­mon-spiced ba­con. Are you drool­ing yet? Be­cause we are.

Par­faits orig­i­nat­ed in France and it trans­lates to “per­fect”. That on­ly seems fit­ting, since that’s ex­act­ly what this dessert is: per­fec­tion in a glass. These lay­ers of plump, soft berries, whipped cream and crunchy streusel are easy to as­sem­ble and sat­is­fy all your sweet crav­ings.

If we can think of men­tal health and well­be­ing in terms of pre­ven­tion it will serve us well in our lives al­to­geth­er but, even bet­ter now, as we be­gin to rein­te­grate af­ter a pe­ri­od of iso­la­tion and work­ing from home. Our emo­tion­al health, while tra­di­tion­al­ly dis­re­gard­ed or placed sec­ond to oth­er health is­sues, re­mains equal­ly im­por­tant as our phys­i­cal well­be­ing.

They start­ed in ear­ly April, blow­ing up so­cial me­dia with their videoed ren­di­tion of Heal the World dur­ing the ini­tial stage of the pan­dem­ic’s glob­al lock­down. In­cor­po­rat­ing 15 of their male and fe­male lo­cal and for­eign sea­soned pan play­ers, re­spec­tive­ly, BP Rene­gades Steel Or­ches­tra would present to the world a sooth­ing, first-rate re­pro­duc­tion of the 1992 re­lease from the late Michael Jack­son.

The names Quin­cy Tay­lor, age 29 years, and Justin Eligon, 27, may have been known in their liv­ing com­mu­ni­ty as good, bad or in­dif­fer­ent youths, but at some point in our grow­ing, we all were a bit of each, and ei­ther mere­ly grew and ma­tured or grew and ma­tured “well.” While grow­ing/ma­tur­ing, the fa­mous ques­tion posed to many chil­dren is: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” and most times, we are clue­less or state a ca­reer that we on­ly know of su­per­fi­cial­ly. Tru­ly fun­ny, though, very few of us evolve in­to what we re­al­ly want­ed to be.

When the first In­ter­na­tion­al Pan Ra­ma­jay Com­pe­ti­tion is staged in June, more than US$16,000 will be up for grabs to the win­ners in three cat­e­gories—So­lo, Duet, Quar­tet. Pan­nists from around the globe are be­ing in­vit­ed to reg­is­ter to com­pete in the first vir­tu­al pan com­pe­ti­tion of its kind. With com­pe­ti­tion days set be­tween June 13-June 27, reg­is­tra­tion clos­es at 6 pm, on Wednes­day, June 3, via email: ex­o­dussteel­band@gmail.com

When a teenag­er is di­ag­nosed with can­cer it is a hard­er pill to swal­low. They are ex­posed to more of life and there­fore their knowl­edge of what can­cer is makes it hard­er for the en­tire fam­i­ly to cope. JBF talks to Ane­sha who beat the odds, and is now a part of the health­care sys­tem in a very pos­i­tive way.

Like the Span­ish Flu a hun­dred years ago, se­vere acute res­pi­ra­to­ry syn­drome coro­n­avirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), or as it’s more wide­ly known as the nov­el coro­n­avirus or COVID-19, re­mind­ed mankind of its in­signif­i­cance in the uni­ver­sal or­der of things. In the health pol­i­cy world, we of­ten use the phrase “dis­eases know no bor­ders” and COVID-19 can at­test to this.

As we con­tin­ue to adapt to the mul­ti­ple changes in our lives, we rec­og­nize that the im­pact on chil­dren and ado­les­cents has been sig­nif­i­cant. Re­cent ar­ti­cles have iden­ti­fied teens as a group of “un­sung he­roes” of these times, as they have had to rapid­ly ac­cept an abrupt end to their school year, missed mile­stones in­clud­ing grad­u­a­tions for which they are griev­ing and changes to their re­la­tion­ships with friends.

None of us can de­ny the fact that pre­scrip­tion drugs are on the rise. Note I am not against pre­scrip­tion drugs as it has its place and can save lives for a num­ber of folks. But what if you want to live a med­ica­tion-free life? Which begs the ques­tion is it pos­si­ble to be healthy and live a long life with­out the aid of pre­scrip­tion drugs?