Khara Per­sad

Ever thought of com­bin­ing cas­sa­va with choco­late for dessert? Prob­a­bly not, but you will af­ter read­ing this.Men­tion food and cook­ing to Sa­ri­na Bland, and get ready for an an­i­mat­ed and pas­sion­ate con­ver­sa­tion with one of T&T's pre­mier food blog­gers about ex­per­i­ment­ing with clas­sic recipes, and pre­serv­ing the lega­cy of our lo­cal dish­es.Bland, 36, start­ed TriniGourmet.com in 2006, a Web site where she blogged about lo­cal food and recipes be­cause she felt T&T's unique dish­es de­served to be cooked in kitchens around the world, by Tri­nis and non-Tri­nis alike.Her en­ter­prise has grown and evolved over the past sev­en years, as Bland now gives vir­tu­al cook­ing class­es, writes and sells e-cook­books, tries new and un­think­able cook­ing fu­sions and show­cas­es oth­er cook­ing en­thu­si­asts on her in­ter­na­tion­al­ly-recog­nised blog.

This en­er­getic, out­spo­ken, and self-taught food­ie is on a mis­sion: "To help us re­alise that Trinida­di­an food has a place on the world stage."I don't think Trinida­di­an food has to prove it­self, it just is. But we don't pro­mote it and we don't put it on a world stage in any true, mean­ing­ful way."She said she got the idea of be­com­ing a T&T cui­sine am­bas­sador af­ter chat­ting on­line with an old col­lege friend who lived in the Unit­ed States and was at­tend­ing culi­nary school at the time, and had nev­er seen or heard of a swiz­zle stick be­fore. "It nev­er oc­curred to me that, for true, you know? We use swiz­zle sticks. You don't go away and find swiz­zle sticks," she laughed.Bland, whose all-time favourite lo­cal dish she can't get enough of is dhalpourie, re­alised she did not know enough about her own cul­ture and the lo­cal cui­sine that sur­round­ed her. "It nev­er oc­curred to me that, for true, you know? We use swiz­zle sticks. You don't go away and find swiz­zle sticks," she laughed.

Bland, whose all-time favourite lo­cal dish she can't get enough of is dhalpourie, re­alised she did not know enough about her own cul­ture and the lo­cal cui­sine that sur­round­ed her."I re­alised this could be a fun jour­ney for me, I could learn to make these dish­es and I can share it on the In­ter­net."Bland ad­mit­ted her affin­i­ty for the kitchen came lat­er in life, as she learned to cook at 21, af­ter com­plet­ing her de­gree in film at Smith Col­lege, Mass­a­chu­setts."I was a re­al­ly bad cook. I nev­er had to cook. But my moth­er is one of those peo­ple who was like: 'I'm cook­ing now, get out the kitchen,'" she said, smil­ing.She re-em­pha­sised: "I was bad!"Then she de­cid­ed to em­pow­er her­self, tak­ing ad­vice from oth­er food­ies around her, to be­come an ex­pert cook.

"I was self-taught all the way...That's why when I start­ed I want­ed peo­ple to go on this jour­ney with me. I have my cook­ing dis­as­ters on the blog too. I want­ed peo­ple to know I'm no Martha Stew­art," she joked.

There were times when she tried recipes sev­er­al times be­fore get­ting them right. "Now nine times out of ten any­thing I try comes out re­al good. But it did not start that way."As Bland con­tin­ues to progress, she has not lim­it­ed her­self to the same recipes, but seeks out new ways to use lo­cal in­gre­di­ents."I start­ed play­ing around with in­gre­di­ents...I came up with a ve­g­an choco­late cas­sa­va pud­ding...If you cook cas­sa­va down and blend it with choco­late, it turns in­to pud­ding, and you don't have to add any thick­en­ers.""Peo­ple don't think of cas­sa­va in dessert. But why not? We see cas­sa­va, and we go boil it, and we done," she quipped.While Bland has re­ceived tremen­dous sup­port from an in­ter­na­tion­al au­di­ence, she ad­mit­ted that find­ing sup­port in T&T was dif­fi­cult in the be­gin­ning, and still is to some ex­tent."When I start­ed they (fam­i­ly and friends) were laugh­ing at the idea that I would put lo­cal recipes on­line. They just thought that was so stu­pid. Like it was a waste of time."Bland said while she re­ceives "love­ly let­ters and feed­back" from her lo­cal au­di­ence, most of them come from her in­ter­na­tion­al fans."Those en­cour­ag­ing let­ters mean a lot...It's what keeps me go­ing. You know, when peo­ple say (about her recipes) 'It was just like hav­ing my moth­er with me.' Things like that."

As her smile widened and she be­came misty-eyed, Bland re­called an old let­ter she re­ceived sev­er­al years ago from a mis­sion­ary in In­done­sia (or Malaysia, she couldn't re­mem­ber ex­act­ly), who asked her to help with a pelau recipe to sur­prise a col­league, who was Trinida­di­an but hadn't been home in about 30 years. The mis­sion­ary group used her pelau recipe to sur­prise their col­league with the dish, telling Bland the re­cip­i­ent cried hap­pi­ly when he ate it af­ter so many years."It's just that feel­ing of Trinidad, of home," Bland ex­plained. "I'm proud we have a cul­ture that's so iden­ti­fi­able. This one dish, that pelau, it con­veyed every­thing. It's ours. It's so awe­some that we have these dish­es that are so spe­cif­ic, that you could take it any­where in the world and a Tri­ni will go: 'That's mine.'"She said it's such feed­back that keeps her com­mit­ted to her food blog."At the end of the day it fu­els me to be­lieve in what I am do­ing."

Whether you're a Tri­ni who mi­grat­ed and missed your mom's Sun­day callaloo, or went away on­ly for a few years to study, lo­cal food is a strong link to T&T roots and mem­o­ries. Bland is fa­cil­i­tat­ing that link to nos­tal­gia by mak­ing it pos­si­ble to cre­ate your grand­moth­er's cur­ry aloo your­self, wher­ev­er you are, with a sim­ple click.Just as her blog has grown, so have her dreams. She has her sights set on at­tend­ing Food Blog­ger Con­nect 2014 in Lon­don, to take her pas­sion to the next lev­el."I feel the Lon­don con­fer­ence is key to ad­vance the im­age and the brand that is Trinidad cui­sine. Just for peo­ple to know, to know what we have."Bland has launched an on­line fund­ing cam­paign, where her sup­port­ers can make do­na­tions to help re­alise this dream. She has been try­ing to at­tend the an­nu­al con­fer­ence for the past four years, but nev­er had enough funds.Her "Lon­don Call­ing" cam­paign en­ti­tles each spon­sor to a spe­cial treat from Bland, who is of­fer­ing ac­cess to her e-cook­books or even pri­vate cook­ing class­es on­line."If I ask peo­ple to sup­port me on this, I have to make sure they get a lot back too."In the end, Bland says she is a dream­er who loves cook­ing for peo­ple."I nev­er cook the same thing twice, be­cause I just love to ex­per­i­ment. I don't have a dish that I keep re­turn­ing to. If I re­peat my­self it's be­cause of a re­quest."When asked why she has not opened a restau­rant or start­ed a cater­ing busi­ness, Bland said that has nev­er been her dream, and nev­er will be. She sim­ply wants to re­mind T&T, and show the rest of the world, that our food is le­git.

For more in­for­ma­tion about Sa­ri­na Bland's Lon­don Call­ing project, vis­it her blog at trinigourmet.com or check out her Face­book page, face­book.com/Trinigourmet