Car­ol Quash

There is al­ways some­thing de­li­cious cook­ing in Mindy McKen­zie’s kitchen.

From suc­cu­lent meats to airy and but­tery bakes, crisp chunky veg­eta­bles to deca­dent desserts, the 31-year-old shy Ba­lan­dra res­i­dent’s dish­es speak on her be­half, telling sto­ries of a well-honed craft de­vel­oped through pas­sion, care, and the con­sis­ten­cy of serv­ing up de­light­ful meals to her fam­i­ly, friends, and guests at her work­place at the Queen’s Beach Saly­bia Na­ture Re­sort.

And al­though her nat­ur­al cook­ing skills are al­ready more ad­vanced than the av­er­age per­son’s, she re­mains open to learn­ing more.

“My fam­i­ly is in­to food, so I learned from my moth­er, my aunt and sis­ters. I al­so look at videos on YouTube, Tik­Tok, any­where I could find some in­for­ma­tion. My part­ner cooks as well, but he does more ve­g­an food, so I learned some stuff from him as well.”

Her for­mal culi­nary train­ing con­sists of a ba­sic three-day cake-mak­ing course, on which she was able to build to come up with some mag­i­cal recipes of her own.

“This (cake mak­ing) is some­thing I had al­ways want­ed to learn; to bake from scratch. I got one recipe, and from that I was able to do a lot of dif­fer­ent cakes—sponge cakes, choco­late cakes, red vel­vet—with the same bases. I just added dif­fer­ent flavours, and I was able to put my per­son­al touch­es on the cakes.”

Her recipes are all stored in her head, locked in by rep­e­ti­tion, as peo­ple can nev­er get enough of her cook­ing. The moth­er of three told WE Life & Cul­ture that her chil­dren es­pe­cial­ly love her bakes, and from do­ing it over and over, the recipe just stuck.

“Al­though peo­ple have en­cour­aged me to use a mea­sur­ing spoon for in­gre­di­ents and to write down my recipes, it is not some­thing I have ever re­al­ly con­sid­ered. I just do it.”

Be­fore start­ing work at the re­sort, McKen­zie was a stay-at-home mom.

When she was pre­sent­ed with the job of­fer about a year ago, she jumped at the op­por­tu­ni­ty to de­vel­op what she loved do­ing at an es­tab­lish­ment that was just about ten min­utes from where she lives.

“I re­al­ly have a pas­sion for food, whether it’s bak­ing or cook­ing. When I’m at home, I just try to look at dif­fer­ent ways to do dif­fer­ent dish­es,” and the job gave her the per­fect op­por­tu­ni­ty to do it on a larg­er scale, as well as to de­vel­op some oth­er skills.

“Right now we don’t have a se­nior cook, and be­cause I am here longer than the oth­er girls, I would help train them.”

McKen­zie said the busy pe­ri­od is typ­i­cal­ly Fri­day to Mon­day, when week­end guests and peo­ple with day pass­es fre­quent the re­sort’s restau­rant. But the key, she ex­plained, is prepa­ra­tion.

“If we have every­thing prepped from be­fore, it will be smooth sail­ing.”

She wants to learn as much as she can in the culi­nary world, even if it means tem­porar­i­ly hav­ing to step out of her com­fort zone to build on the foun­da­tion she al­ready has. But for her, the north-east coast, with the waves nois­i­ly rac­ing to get to the shore, where the gi­ant leather-back tur­tles re­turn to lay their eggs, and where lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al tourists pass through year-round, will al­ways be home.

“I spent eight years in (San­gre) Grande at one time, but up on this side is where I would al­ways want to be.”

And, in time, she be­lieves the area will see the open­ing of Mindy’s, her own lit­tle space where she can do what she loves do­ing.

“So if some­body says, ‘Well, we have to stop in Saly­bia to get break­fast.’ I want them to be able to say, ‘Let’s check out Mindy’s.’”

Mindy Mcken­zie’s Stand-out dish­es

Steak

Sea­son steak with salt, black pep­per, all-pur­pose sea­son­ing and olive oil

Cook on a hot skil­let with but­ter and rose­mary for six to sev­en min­utes

Re­move, al­low to rest, and serve. 

Gar­lic Bread

In­gre­di­ents:

1 1/2  tsp yeast

2 tb­sp sug­ar

A pinch of salt 

1/2 of a but­ter

1/4 cookeen 

1/4 cup olive oil

1/2 cup milk

1/2  cup warm wa­ter

3 1/2 cups of all-pur­pose flour

1 egg

Method 

Com­bine milk, warm wa­ter, sug­ar and yeast in a bowl. Cov­er and al­low to bloom.

Melt blue but­ter and cookeen.

Add dry in­gre­di­ents to a bowl. 

When the yeast has bloomed, add it to the dry in­gre­di­ents along with the melt­ed but­ter.

Knead gen­tly and add oil. 

Set aside for about 10 min­utes. 

Knead again to ful­ly com­bine all of the flour. 

Al­low to rest for 15 min­utes. 

Cut in­to even parts. 

Roll out to form loaves and place on a greased bak­ing sheet.

Al­low to rest for 5 min­utes.

Top with egg wash.

Bake for 30 min­utes or un­til gold­en brown. 

Gar­lic but­ter

Place half a stick of but­ter in a bowl. 

Add pa­pri­ka, grat­ed gar­lic, chopped pars­ley and a pinch of salt.

Mix well and spread on gar­lic bread.