SAN­DRA L BLOOD

blood­l­sandy@gmail.com

“Ex­pres­sions, colours, mu­sic, fes­ti­vals, hu­mour and food, all in­flu­enced by Caribbean, African, In­di­an and Eu­ro­pean tra­di­tions, cre­ate flavours and de­signs that are tru­ly unique to Trinidad and To­ba­go (T&T),” as­sert­ed Shelly-Ann Lovell, culi­nary ed­u­ca­tor and en­tre­pre­neur from East Trinidad.

Lovell has been in the culi­nary in­dus­try for over 30 years. When every­one want­ed her to di­rect her cre­ativ­i­ty to vi­su­al art if she wasn’t in­ter­est­ed in tra­di­tion­al work, from a very young age, she was vi­su­al­is­ing oth­er types of can­vas­es, tools and prod­ucts. She de­lib­er­ate­ly chose culi­nary art and be­came a cake artist.

The ar­dent ball­room dancer and moth­er of three holds a de­gree in Culi­nary Man­age­ment from the Trinidad and To­ba­go Hos­pi­tal­i­ty and Tourism In­sti­tute, and a Mas­ter’s in Busi­ness Man­age­ment from the Arthur Lok Jack Glob­al School of Busi­ness, which aid­ed her in be­com­ing a tu­tor in bak­ing and pas­try arts and founder-own­er of Lovel­ly Cakes.

She was des­ig­nat­ed the In­no­va­tors Ad­vanced Toast­mas­ters Club’s 2015 Dis­tin­guished Toast­mas­ter, graced the cov­er of the in­ter­na­tion­al mag­a­zine The Toast­mas­ter for a sto­ry, Lead­er­ship in the Kitchen, and is fea­tured in the book Let Me Show You How I Did It.

Hun­dreds of culi­nary arts stu­dents have ben­e­fit­ed from her lec­tures, with many hav­ing be­come suc­cess­ful en­tre­pre­neurs.

Lovell stat­ed that, de­spite hav­ing been a bak­er for decades, she on­ly joined the “cak­er” com­mu­ni­ty in 2022 af­ter she do­nat­ed cake prizes for her daugh­ter’s grad­u­a­tion cer­e­mo­ny and im­me­di­ate­ly got in­quiries for or­ders, with 300-plus cakes fol­low­ing in the same year.

Be­com­ing a re­al­is­tic cake artist, Lovell ex­plained, had its gen­e­sis in 2023 af­ter she was chal­lenged by artist friend Bruce Cay­onne up­on re­ceiv­ing her ice buck­et cake. He told her, ‘Jump with­out a para­chute, be­cause you won’t need it.’ An­ti-grav­i­ty, an­i­mals, sneak­ers, hand­bags and sev­er­al oth­er cre­ative-de­fy­ing cakes fol­lowed.

“Cre­at­ing cakes that ex­ude the per­son­al­i­ty, hob­bies and likes of my cus­tomers is my goal; cakes that leave you in awe and ec­sta­sy.”

Apart from T&T, Grena­da, St Vin­cent, St Lu­cia, Bar­ba­dos, Guyana, Suri­name, An­tigua, Turks and Caicos, An­guil­la, USA, Cana­da and the Unit­ed King­dom have ben­e­fit­ed from Lovell’s mas­ter class­es, but she not­ed T&T’s stand­out unique­ness.

For cake artistry, she looked at T&T’s very bold and cre­ative cul­ture, which af­ford­ed the warmth and per­son­al­i­ty be­hind T&T mas­ter­pieces win­ning the world over. “I’m proud to con­tribute to that,” Lovell shared.

Fo­cus­ing on culi­nary tourism, Lovell said she strong­ly be­lieves culi­nary art is a pow­er­ful tourist at­trac­tion.

“Peo­ple do not on­ly trav­el for mere­ly phys­i­cal beach­es and scenery any­more; they trav­el for wider ex­pe­ri­ences. Food and desserts tell the sto­ry of a coun­try and its peo­ple. Beach­es and scenery can al­so be found on a plate or on a glass or in a bowl. A beau­ti­ful­ly craft­ed lo­cal dessert, a live bak­ing ex­pe­ri­ence, or even themed cake artistry can be­come mem­o­rable at­trac­tions for vis­i­tors,” she shared.

Lovell recog­nis­es that culi­nary art gives tourists some­thing emo­tion­al and cul­tur­al to con­nect with, and cre­ates op­por­tu­ni­ties for lo­cal chefs, bak­ers and artists to show­case their tal­ent in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.

“As a com­mit­ted ed­u­ca­tor, I whole­heart­ed­ly be­lieve that culi­nary art should be tak­en more se­ri­ous­ly with­in schools. Many chil­dren are nat­u­ral­ly gift­ed cre­ative­ly and prac­ti­cal­ly. Every child does not shine through tra­di­tion­al aca­d­e­m­ic sub­jects, but many are ex­cep­tion­al with food pre­sen­ta­tion, bak­ing, dec­o­rat­ing and in­no­va­tion.

“In­tro­duc­ing culi­nary pro­grammes at an ear­li­er stage can help stu­dents build con­fi­dence, dis­ci­pline, busi­ness skills and cre­ativ­i­ty. It can al­so open doors to en­tre­pre­neur­ship at a young age and help cre­ate fu­ture culi­nary pro­fes­sion­als and young culi­nary stars.”

Lovell draws a clear de­mar­ca­tion be­tween dis­suad­ing a child who shows a nat­ur­al abil­i­ty, dis­ci­pline and ap­ti­tude in pro­duc­tive cre­ative arts and com­pelling them to en­ter tra­di­tion­al in­dus­tries by us­ing the term “be­come some­body.”

Lovell talks to her class­es/au­di­ences about what’s need­ed to be­come a suc­cess­ful culi­nary artist; char­ac­ter­is­tics; be­com­ing “some­body”; help­ing young peo­ple pur­sue their tal­ent; em­brac­ing gifts; hav­ing pas­sion goes hand-in-hand with con­sis­ten­cy, pro­fes­sion­al­ism, pa­tience and a will­ing­ness to keep learn­ing; and what a ful­filled life is built on.

While Lovell ad­vis­es em­brac­ing chil­dren’s cre­ative skills, she em­pha­sis­es that they need to clear­ly un­der­stand that pa­tience, con­sis­ten­cy, strong time man­age­ment, clean­li­ness and or­gan­i­sa­tion­al skills are para­mount, be­cause culi­nary work re­quires high stan­dards and at­ten­tion to de­tail. Dis­ci­pline is one of the biggest fac­tors—many peo­ple are un­aware of what goes on in the back­ground.

In har­ness­ing re­silience and ro­bust­ness, a culi­nary pro­fes­sion­al must al­so be will­ing to prac­tise con­tin­u­ous­ly, ac­cept crit­i­cism, adapt to trends and main­tain pro­fes­sion­al­ism even dur­ing stress­ful sit­u­a­tions. Pas­sion ac­tu­al­ly starts the jour­ney, but dis­ci­pline sus­tains it.

Lovell isn’t sole­ly about mak­ing sweet­ness; she bal­ances it off with self-aware­ness and health man­age­ment.

In­clud­ed in her Lovel­ly trea­sure are gluten-free, dairy-free and egg­less cakes, and re­gard­ing di­a­betes, she said mod­er­a­tion is very im­por­tant. Desserts should be en­joyed re­spon­si­bly and bal­anced with a healthy lifestyle.

“What start­ed with flour, but­ter and a dream has evolved in­to a whole love­ly sweet com­mu­ni­ty, but I al­ways en­cour­age peo­ple to treat sweets as some­thing to en­joy oc­ca­sion­al­ly rather than ex­ces­sive­ly.

“To bak­ers and sug­ar artists: con­tin­ue ex­plor­ing health­i­er op­tions, bet­ter in­gre­di­ents and more bal­anced recipes where pos­si­ble. En­joy­ment and health should work hand in hand.”

Shelly-Ann Lovell is “at peace when cre­at­ing.” She’s cur­rent­ly com­pil­ing recipes for a book that is set to be re­leased by the end of this year.