RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

An­tho­ny Daber­am still re­mem­bers the ad­vice that changed the course of his life.

In­side the walls of the Car­rera Con­vict Prison, where he was serv­ing a five-year sen­tence af­ter be­com­ing in­volved in crime, an­oth­er pris­on­er told him: “Don’t make no buck­et jail.”

The phrase re­ferred to pris­on­ers who spent their years car­ry­ing a sin­gle buck­et of wa­ter each day for bathing, wash­ing clothes and every oth­er ne­ces­si­ty, on­ly to leave prison with­out any plan for the fu­ture.

For Daber­am, it be­came a chal­lenge.

“I said when I came out of prison, I would make some­thing of my­self,” he re­called.

Fif­teen years lat­er, the for­mer pris­on­er has trans­formed that promise in­to a ca­reer as one of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s sought-af­ter pri­vate sushi chefs. To­day, he is us­ing his culi­nary skills and his own sto­ry to en­cour­age oth­ers, even for­mer pris­on­ers, to be­lieve that life can be­gin again.

Grow­ing up in El Do­ra­do, Daber­am said he spent most of his time at Harlem, Fred­er­ick Set­tle­ment, Ca­roni. Look­ing back on that time of his life, Daber­am de­scribed him­self as a de­ter­mined young man who lacked di­rec­tion.

“The trou­ble got big­ger as I got old­er,” he re­called.

Al­though he came from what he de­scribed as a lov­ing and re­spect­ed fam­i­ly, he ad­mit­ted that the com­pa­ny he kept led him to be­lieve crime was the quick­est path to achiev­ing what he want­ed.

One of­fence be­came an­oth­er, even­tu­al­ly re­sult­ing in his im­pris­on­ment.

Daber­am said he spent three years, four months and 14 days at Car­rera Is­land Prison be­fore be­ing re­leased in De­cem­ber 2011.

Rather than al­low­ing prison to de­fine him, Daber­am said he used the ex­pe­ri­ence to re­flect on the fu­ture he want­ed.

While in­car­cer­at­ed, he sat CXC ex­am­i­na­tions, earn­ing pass­es in Math­e­mat­ics, Eng­lish, Of­fice Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Prin­ci­ples of Busi­ness, be­fore mov­ing on to sub­jects in­clud­ing Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Stud­ies, Man­age­ment of Busi­ness and Ad­vanced Ac­count­ing. He al­so or­gan­ised sports teams in­side the prison and cap­tained a crick­et side that won one com­pe­ti­tion.

“When I start some­thing, I am go­ing to fin­ish it,” he said.

Af­ter his re­lease, he re­turned to con­struc­tion work, where he had been em­ployed as a welder, be­fore spot­ting an ad­ver­tise­ment for the Trinidad and To­ba­go Hos­pi­tal­i­ty and Tourism In­sti­tute.

At 34 years old, he en­rolled in ho­tel school.

Daber­am said the tran­si­tion from con­struc­tion to the kitchen was not easy, but he soon re­alised the two pro­fes­sions had more in com­mon than he ex­pect­ed.

“It is a very high-pres­sure en­vi­ron­ment, and you need to be on your P’s and Q’s,” he said.

He grad­u­at­ed af­ter com­plet­ing a year-and-a-half pro­gramme be­fore in­tern­ing at Kaizan Sushi, where he pro­gressed from kitchen as­sis­tant to kitchen su­per­vi­sor over three years.

Daber­am said al­though he ini­tial­ly want­ed to be­come a bak­er, watch­ing Fil­ipino chefs demon­strate in­tri­cate knife skills in­spired him to spe­cialise in sushi.

“The artistry... it looked dif­fer­ent from every­body else,” he said. “I learned as much as I could from them.”

He even­tu­al­ly launched his own busi­ness, Tri­ni Style Sushi, and has since be­come known for pri­vate din­ing ex­pe­ri­ences and cre­ative Thai cui­sine.

On so­cial me­dia, Daber­am show­cas­es his pre­ci­sion knife skills, in­clud­ing videos where he slices veg­eta­bles while blind­fold­ed.

But cook­ing has be­come more than a pro­fes­sion.

“I love cook­ing,” he said. “I think I had an en­er­gy in­side of me that I nev­er knew how to re­lease.”

He said he stopped drink­ing al­co­hol 13 years ago and no longer as­so­ciates with the lifestyle that once land­ed him in prison.

“Cook­ing now, I get all the ex­cite­ment from do­ing every­thing. My imag­i­na­tion knows no bounds.”

At home, he al­so grows hy­dro­pon­ic veg­eta­bles, sup­ply­ing fresh let­tuce and herbs that he us­es in his dish­es and sells to cus­tomers.

More re­cent­ly, Daber­am has be­gun of­fer­ing pri­vate chef class­es, hop­ing to pass on the skills that helped him re­build his own life.

Daber­am said he be­lieves many for­mer pris­on­ers strug­gle be­cause they lack fam­i­ly sup­port, some­thing he said made all the dif­fer­ence in his own jour­ney.

He cred­its his late fa­ther Ramesh, his moth­er Deb­bie Daber­am—known in the com­mu­ni­ty as “the roti la­dy”—his sis­ter Na­dia, a den­tal as­sis­tant who loves bak­ing, and his ex-wife Anisa Gafoor for help­ing him stay fo­cused af­ter prison.

“My fam­i­ly re­al­ly helped me to rein­te­grate,” he said.

He said his 21-year-old son Adri­an, a uni­ver­si­ty stu­dent, re­mains his proud­est achieve­ment while Gafoor stood with him through his most dif­fi­cult tri­als.

Look­ing back, Daber­am said he knows many peo­ple may still judge those who have served prison sen­tences, but he be­lieves his ex­pe­ri­ence has shown that change is pos­si­ble.

“Peo­ple do judge you when they hear you’ve been to prison,” he ac­knowl­edged. “But the peo­ple who know me still sup­port me.”

His ad­vice to any­one leav­ing prison is sim­ple.

“Don’t give up. Find a place and work to­wards it. You will get through.”

He al­so had a mes­sage to as­pir­ing chefs that suc­cess comes from con­sis­ten­cy rather than recog­ni­tion.

“Do your best. The mon­ey small but don’t study that; just do your best. The own­er doesn’t care about you? Still do your best! Just do your best, and you will know when your best is not good enough any­more, and you will go fur­ther when you are de­ter­mined to make it”

He said his goal now is to prove to oth­ers that de­ter­mi­na­tion, dis­ci­pline and prac­ti­cal skills can help any­one build a new fu­ture, even if it is one meal at a time.

Any­one want­i­ng to reach Daber­am can call him at 291-3267 or see his videos on Tik­Tok at chef.an­tho­ny432.