Food + Wine + Rum = Fun in Barbados

From the woman who sells the Trinidadian treat known as “doubles” outside the Trimart supermarket; to the fresh seafood at Oistins Fish Market; the local produce, meats and poultry of the Cheapside market; and restaurants known for their refined versions of traditional Bajan fare, Barbados has a lot to offer food lovers. Not to mention Barbados is the only Caribbean island to have its own Zagat guide.

Chef Tom Colicchio (right) chatting with Nilou Motamed (left), editor of Travel + Leisure magazine.

So it is with this backdrop that the folks at American Express Publishing and Food + Wine magazine presented the first, "Barbados Food + Wine & Rum Festival," November 19-22. The event held throughout the island included cooking demonstrations and special meals with celebrity chefs such as Tom Colicchio, Ming Tsai and Marcus Samuelsson; wine demonstrations with expert Anthony Giglio; and cruises with food and drink as its central theme. All of it washed down with large amounts of rum--the sugarcane based drink believed to have first been distilled in Barbados.

Chef Ming Tsai signing a book for a fan.

Local food experts played a major role. Peter Edey, Caribbean chef, editor television show host; and John Hazzard, co-owner and executive chef of Marketfive restaurant were among local food experts who held cooking demonstrations and food tastings. This was a program for locals to get to know the International celebrity chefs and for tourists to learn more about island food and drink.

Maria Ling DeMarco (who contributed to this story) with chef Marcus Samuelsson.

Philly and the World attended the opening night “Moonlight Magic” party at the Hilton Barbados. It was an outdoor event with live Caribbean music and plenty of food. On the beach a tent was set up where Colicchio, Tsai and British chef Fergus Henderson signed copies of their books for attendees.

The gnocchi station.

Hilton chef Angela Garroway-Holland led the food service with recipes from the visiting chefs. Local favorites such as Bajan fishcakes shared the night with Asian-influenced kimchee pork belly buns and Italian-themed gnocchi with sundried smoked tomato pesto. There were petite filet mignon, pepper-crusted roast beef and grilled prawns with watermelon and guava coulis. Robert Mondavi had a strong presence in the wine booth. Women from Banks, the local brewery, were serving draft and the bar featured, what else? Rum.

Petite filet

The blue and white backlit dessert table created a frosty appearance on the warm Caribbean night. The obvious standout visually was a pyramid made of profiteroles (left). There was a display of molasses brulee (below), an island twist on the traditional French dessert, topped with local brown sugar. And there were small replicas of rum bottles made of white chocolate.

There were many members of American Express Publishing in attendance led by Ed Kelly, president and CEO, Christina Grdovic, Food + Wine publisher, and Nilou Motamed, editor of Travel + Leisure magazine. Richard Sealy, Barbados minister of tourism, welcomed guests touting the island’s reputation for hospitality.

White chocolate rum bottles

As Sealy noted, this is not a one-off deal. The next event will be held November 18-21, 2011.

Prawn station

The Sunsets of Barbados

Videos of three sunsets from Worthing Beach between Nov. 22 and Dec. 3.








More sunsets of Barbados can be found on the Philly and the World YouTube page.

The final sunset. Taken from the plane as it left Barbados.

The New Gateway to Barbados

For the nine years Philly and the World has been visiting Barbados, Grantley Adams International Airport (BGI) has been under different states of construction. It’s just the way things are done in the Caribbean. The renovation is yet to be finished, as jetways are planned. And like the airport, its official Web site is still a work in progress.

Grab a Banks beer beneath a tent canopy and flying fish before heading into the departures terminal.

But much of the work to the main structures is finished. You can argue with the time it took to renovate the the main gateway to the island nation, but one would find it difficult to argue with the results. The redesigned airport manages to enhance its status as a major Caribbean hub while maintaining its small, more humane scale that defines most airports in the region. (Above is the ticketing area.)

The tent, concrete and steel-beam structure brings the tropical Barbados weather into much of the building. It is most evident in the airy departures area, where beneath large canopies (and an additional concrete roof as you continue inside); travelers can get their tickets, grab a seat, shop, get a beer, and chat with family and friends without ever feeling like you’re indoors. Maria swears that bird sounds are piped through the terminal’s speaker system. I didn’t notice it. For those driving to the airport, the parking lot is steps away from the terminal.


Two views of the of the public area of the airport. Notice the kit-like material on the ceiling.

You are not actually inside the departures building until you get to customs. Once past customs, the new terminal includes a modern food court, shops that sell local and brand-name products (that are sold in nearly all airports), and a small bar. The actual waiting area is a large single-story horizontal room. Large window walls and a concrete and tent roof allow plenty of sunlight and provide a front row seat of the arriving planes, which taxi just outside the building, and a view of the passengers headed to the arrivals terminal.

The departures waiting area (left) and the food court.

As mentioned, there are no jetways. Planes load and unload on the tarmac in front of the departures building, allowing those of us who are leaving to have one last shot of Caribbean sunshine before boarding. I hope they never build the jetways. The arrivals hall is in a separate building next door, which used to house arrivals and departures. The extra space was desperately needed, as most of the North American and European flights arrive at the same time. According to some people, it can still take up to two hours to get processed, although this hasn’t happened to us.

Two views of the shops inside the departures terminal.

More than 20 passenger airlines and four cargo airlines use Grantley, making it one of the busier airports in the Caribbean. Now it’s also one of its most user-friendly and attractive gateways.

Arriving passengers from a Virgin Atlantic flight.

A water element on the way to the plane.

Our chariot awaits.

Fabulous Fried Chicken at a Fish Market in Barbados

Oistins in Barbados is known as a fishing village. It has the country’s best known fish market, which is the site of the Friday night Fish Fry, an all night outdoor party. However, just across the street from the market nestled among a small group of stores that have seen better days is Granny’s, which serves what many believe is the best fried chicken on the island. I haven’t tried them all but after going to Granny’s for a few years I’m not going to argue.

I never met Granny but I think I’m in love with her. The restaurant isn’t much look at—neon lights, white walls, tile floor—but it is clean and bright as full-size windows bring in lots of sunlight. It’s cafeteria style steam table service. You get your tray, walk past the food that sits behind glass and tell smiling women behind the counter what you want. The food is served in Styrofoam containers. You eat on Formica tables and padded metal chairs scattered about outside.

The restaurant serves a full menu of Bajan food, including the national dishes of Cou-cou (made of cornmeal and okra) and flying fish (which actually has wings and can glide above water to avoid larger predator fish).

But it’s the fried chicken that makes Granny an annual trip for me and Maria. Its skin crackles with crispiness. The flour is well spiced. The meat is moist. It is simple food with texture and flavor done incredibly well. It’s how I imagine fried chicken should taste. And the place doesn’t discriminate. The entire bird is fried—including gizzards, livers and necks. Our sides on this trip were a creamy, comforting macaroni pie (a Caribbean version of baked macaroni and cheese) and a crisp, light coleslaw, perfect for a hot afternoon. I’m hungry.

Oistins Fish Market

It’s easy to buy fresh fish in Barbados and the most popular place to go is the open-air Oistins Fish Market.

Oistins is a fishing town on the southernmost part of this island nation. Each day small boats return from the Caribbean Sea and nearby Atlantic Ocean with dolphin, blue marlin, swordfish, kingfish, barracuda, tuna and flying fish (which are now primarily fished in Tobago, 120 nautical miles southwest of Barbados). They are sold to the fish mongers in the market and then, weighed, sliced and sold to locals and tourists.

If you’re lucky you can come down when there are large catches of what is called a lobster, but are actually large marine crayfish. As far as I’m concern, it doesn’t matter because the sweet meat from the creatures are every bit as succulent as lobster.

The market is known more for its Friday Fish Fry, a weekly outdoor party attended by locals and tourists that starts at 6 p.m. and goes into the next morning. But every day the fish market is open selling the freshest of what is available that day.

A fish monger skillfully weighs and cuts blue marlin:

How to Carve a Pineapple

At the Sea Foam Haciendas in Barbados we call her Edith. Her real name is pronounced E-dith-shan, spelling unknown. She is 88 years old has been picking fruit and vegetables and bringing them to tourists and locals on Worthing Beach for more than 40 years.

Tall and thin in her colorful house dresses, she has a weathered face from someone who has spent her life outdoors and her smile proudly shows her few remaining teeth. She also has the good health of someone who works hard and eats what she sells. She carries her daily harvest in a hand-woven basket on her head with the ease of someone half her age. She also enjoys the beer someone at Sea Foam gives her each day.

(Photo above by Derek Lepper of Derek Lepper Photography)

Her daily harvest includes bananas, big brown avocados, oranges and tomatoes. But what she is known for is pineapples. Before Maria and I knew her name, we used to call her the Pineapple Lady. It’s not so much the quality of the pineapples she sells (although they are fresh and delicious) but it’s her trademark trimming and carving of the fruit. With a small knife that looks almost as old as she is, trims the sides of the fruit and then sets to carving the fruit in lines to create a flower-like pattern. It takes her just a few minutes to complete the job. It not only looks attractive enough to use as a centerpiece for a table but it makes it easy to eat.

Edith told us Tuesday in her staccato-like voice and Bajan dialect, she will be retiring soon. Maybe when she reaches 90. One certainly cannot blame her considering the physical nature of her work. But when she does retire she will be missed.

Below is a video of her plying her signature design to a pineapple:

A Room With A View

At the Sea Foam Haciendas in Barbados all the beds are single and are placed side-by-side, which makes it challenging for couples. The sounds of the traffic outside and the music from Mojo’s (a bar and restaurant that caters to white folks who want to experience Rastafarian culture) across the street make it difficult to sleep. Air conditioning is only in the bedrooms. The furnishings are mostly dated and the walls are largely bare. And the wireless Internet is unreliable.

We love it.

The view of the Caribbean from our room.

We love it because it sits on the beach. We love it because day and night we have a view of the sea and the sound of the surf. We love listening to the tree frogs at night and watch the birds by day. We love that the beach is steps away from our first-floor apartment. We love the turquoise waters of the Caribbean. And, of course, we love the sunsets.

There are many reasons why we love the Sea Foam Haciendas, but really what we love the most are the people who come each year at the same time we do and have been coming here long before we knew this place existed.

There’s Derek and Monique who live outside of Vancouver, Canada. Derek, a world-class photographer who specializes in architecture images and Monique, a veteran flight attendant, have become close enough friends that we have visited their home the past three years. Then there’s Jerry and Phillip of Washington, D.C., cousins who are both retired men and travel the world together, tell terrific stories and host an annual Thanksgiving dinner with turkey, ham and all the fixings. There’s The Ontario Six (Roger, Jan, Chris, Elaine, Ann and Kathy) who are the most organized and amicable group of travelers I’ve ever seen. There’s David and Jackie (brother and sister) from the U.K. who are absolutely happy to spend their days on the beach and their nights in their apartment. And there’s the Jacksons, also from the Vancouver area. Three generations of a family in two units who are, by far, the most active members of this temporary community.

We’re the new kids on the block. We have been staying here since 2002. Some of the others have been making their annual trek here since the place opened more than 30 years ago. We’re also among the youngest of this group.

Conversations take place on the beach, while bobbing in the warm Caribbean water, and in each other’s apartment. They are always interesting as we catch up on what has happened the past year and how the events of the world have affected our lives. Since the apartments have full kitchens (and let’s face it, you don’t go to the Caribbean for the restaurants), dinner parties are the norm.

The Sea Foam rests comfortably on Worthing Beach—a small strip of sand with natural borders on each side. It fits well among the private homes and small rental properties, and may have the best spot on this lovely beach.

Image by Derek Lepper of Derek Lepper Photography.

The complex consists of two buildings, each with six identical apartments on three floors. The first was built in 1977 and the second two years later. Although I say they are identical, there are endless discussions over the minute differences of each unit and their location. The main bedroom and bathroom are in the rear facing the noisy street. There’s a hallway that goes past a second bedroom and then there’s the kitchen, dining and living room cooled by a ceiling fan. A sliding door leads to the private patio for each apartment. In front, since we are on the first floor, there is a common patio with tables, chairs, a bar and a grill shaded by Casuarina and Sea Grape trees and is also source of many dinners and casual talk. The building is resilient inside and out. A strong concrete structure keeps the sea at bay. Tile flooring inside and out is also impervious to the elements. And the furnishings? While they may not be the most attractive they are as resilient and comfortable as the structure.

There are places to go and things to do and see while in Barbados (and over the eight years Maria and I have been coming here, we’ve seen a lot), but for most of us the Sea Foam is the place to be. We buy our food, our rum, and our beer and stay mostly put. It’s too comfortable, too relaxing, to perfect of a beach and island experience.

Even the trees are happy at Sea Foam.