FOR Vidya Maharaj, home is where the heart is, and one of the ways she expresses her love is through food.
Maharaj runs a successful India-fusion vegetarian restaurant in Miami called Diya, where she is proud to show off her Indo-Trinidadian heritage. 
Serving up aloo-pies and doubles with her twist, Maharaj enjoys experimenting in the kitchen and surprising customers’ palettes with an array of flavours.
Originally from Sangre Grande, Maharaj left high school to further her studies in the United States.
She says food was not initially part of her plan, but acknowledges that life itself can take you down many paths. 
Maharaj said right after she graduated from Northeastern College, she went to Miami to become a doctor, but instead she became a scientist.
“I am the vice-president of a biotech company that submits FDA (Federal Drug Administration) approved new drugs and therapies during the day, and at night, I am chef,” she said.
Maharaj says it took some convincing from her brother to share her passion for cooking with the world.
“Diya was established in November 2018 and was officially opened for fine dining in January 2019. The name Diya is a combination of my mom’s name (Daya) and my name Vidya,” she said.
Maharaj is the executive chef at Diya, and as a bonus, she works with her family: her younger brother Dharam, his wife Valeri, and her older brother Muneshwar. Her 20-month old niece Rani is also a part of the family’s food legacy.
Although her brother, Dharam, actually established the restaurant, Maharaj says it was her intervention at a critical stage that caused it to thrive. 
She said, “My brother always loved my cooking and wanted me to open a restaurant. He said I had it in me to be an amazing chef. I declined as I was at the height of my career in the biotech world. I finally said yes in January 2019 when I attended his soft opening and realized he would lose all his money if I didn’t intervene.
“I told my job it was a family emergency and immediately took four days off. It was a Tuesday. I told him we would do a reopening on Friday night. I started on the menu on my way home and tried to incorporate things I like and a fusion of Miami.” 
Maharaj said she never doubted that she could be an integral part of a successful restaurant. She was more concerned that her brother, Dharam, would lose it all.
“He and his wife had just had a baby girl two months before. I had to step in. Love for my family was greater than anything. I am lucky I have a very supportive husband who lets me do these things,” she said.
Maharaj had absolutely no professional culinary background, but her gamble paid off.
She said, “We serve fusion traditional Indian cuisine. In the beginning, we used to serve up traditional Trini aloo pie and doubles and Indian street food. It changed due to manpower and popularity as a result of the pandemic. I moved towards more traditional Indian cuisine and, recently, world fusion. For example, we do kofta pasta, a spin on traditional malai kofta. We still serve doubles but on an elevated level and call it channa taco.”
Maharaj says her fusion of traditional Indian cuisine costs between $10 - $30US per dish, and her channa taco is popular with customers.
The pandemic has not only been a colossal global-health crisis, but it has also been the toughest challenge for the restaurant industry to date. While some countries have been able to roll back restrictions, some restaurants may never reopen.
Maharaj says in the ever-changing economic landscape, Diya has had to adapt and refine its fine-dining restaurant model to move forward in the new normal.
She said, “We opened before the pandemic and had to do whatever it took to stay open. We are growing by the day, and people are saying our dishes are different but worth Michelin stars. We pride ourselves on service, food, and presentation.” 
For first-timers to the restaurant, Maharaj recommends they try Gobi Manchurian, channa taco (doubles), kofta pasta, and their signature ras malai tres leches.
Given the present economic landscape, she does not plan on opening a branch of Diya in Trinidad soon, but is planning on expanding her menu to include more elevated Asian cuisine.
The restaurant is located at Sunset Harbour in Miami.  Source: Sunday Express, Aug 4, 2021

Angostura, a brand that’s practically synonymous with the cocktail bitters category, is a mainstay on the shelves of everyone from top bartenders to home mixologists around the globe. The bitters brand has been around since 1824 and is a regular feature in popular cocktails like the Old Fashioned, Manhattan, the Vieux Carré, and of course the Angostura Sour.
But while the Angostura name is instantly recognizable, there’s a level of mystery surrounding the brand. First, the bitters recipe is an old family secret. In fact, only five living people know it — all of whom have agreed to preserve the secret. But it’s not just the contents inside an Angostura bottle that have long confounded drink lovers. The brand’s oversized label makes it stand out on the shelf and has long been a source of confusion for consumers. There’s a reason for that: It initially began as a mistake.
When the brand’s founder, Dr. Johann Siegert, died in 1870, he passed the family business along to his sons Carlos, Luis, and Alfredo. The Siegert brothers decided to enter a competition to get their brand some press, and decided to do a rebrand. One brother designed the new bottle, while another brother designed the new label. The problem? Neither thought to consult the other about how to size them. By the time they realized that the label was too large for the bottle, it was too late to start over; they entered the competition anyway, oversized label and all.
Though the Siegerts ended up losing the competition, one judge advised the brothers to keep the design exactly as it was. This, the judge said, would ensure that Angostura bitters would always stand out against the competition (who else would make the same silly mistake?).
The Siegerts did just that. To this day, a century and a half later, the label on every Angostura bitters bottle is just a little too large, sticking up around the neck of the bottle. And while this has helped the brand maintain its uniqueness, it has also inspired some copycats. Brands like Forest Floor Foods, Fee Brothers, San Francisco Bitters Collection, and Underberg all produce bottles with oversized labels not unlike that of Angostura. This may simply be a classic case of imitation, or perhaps Angostura — a brand that’s been around a bit longer and is arguably more popular than the aforementioned brands — has influenced the bitters space so much that consumers now associate the entire category with having a large label. Either way, while Angostura started the trend, its large label is no longer one of a kind on today’s market.
Unlike most of its imitators, however, Angostura uses its packaging mistake to its advantage; with all that extra label space, the brand provides useful information to its customers. In tiny blue lettering, Angostura’s labels detail the brand’s history, and contain Dr. Johann Siegert’s signature, a product description, product ingredients, and more — some of which is written in multiple languages. Angostura sure does know how to make a bitter situation into something sweet.
Source:  Katie Brown, Vinepair.com

An article about  "Doubles" - how they're made, how they taste, etc. to someone not born on Trinidad and Tobago.   To read the story, click here . Or copy and paste this URL into your browser
  ​http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20210526-doubles-trinidads-favourite-street-food

 At the time we met him, Lewis was preparing about 150 pounds of nutmeg to be dried for sale.
“I have at least 20 nutmeg trees and I buy...nutmeg from estates around the community. I carry most of my nutmeg into Port of Spain,” said Lewis.
Although he's an emergency technician with the Eastern Regional Health Authority, Lewis produces nutmeg as a source of extra income. He also has a passion for it.
Growing nutmeg isn’t simple.
Firstly, there must be a male tree planted next to a female tree. The female tree, which is the flowering tree, will not bear the fruit from which the nutmeg seed is obtained if a male tree isn’t nearby.
The fruit is allowed to mature and split open, and the nutmeg seed will fall to the ground. The seeds are collected and the mace – the red coating around the seed – is removed. The seeds are then dried, giving us nutmeg as we know it. The mace is also sold and used for a variety of purposes.
When you think of nutmeg production in the Caribbean, it isn’t uncommon that the first place you think about is Grenada.

But did you know that the spice is also grown in a village along Trinidad’s northeast coast? Matelot, which is French for sailor, is known for its scenic landscape and abundant fishing.
However, the village also has a thriving agriculture sector with nutmeg being one of the mainstay crops.
On a recent visit, Business Day met with 56-year-old nutmeg farmer John Lewis to learn more about nutmeg production. For the past ten years, Lewis has grown nutmeg on approximately one and a half acres of land. To supplement what he grows, he often buys the spice from other growers in the village. But, Lewis explained, nutmeg seeds don’t always drop in abundance. Throughout the year, nutmeg trees produce seeds at high and low rates. For example, Lewis collects most of his nutmeg seeds in December and January. His harvest is smaller from February to May.
Praedial larceny is a major challenge nutmeg farmers face and, according to Lewis, it has been difficult to effectively deal with the issue.
The farmers also complain about inadequate infrastructure. Lewis said access roads to estates in the community have not been properly maintained which has led, in some cases, to estates being totally abandoned.
“The access roads to the nutmeg estates are not being properly maintained. Years upon years we have been complaining. People have been complaining about access roads here and nobody seems to take agriculture here seriously.”
Some farmers don't have proper land deeds and are not regularised, therefore they cannot register for a farmer’s badge.
Without proper regularisation, farmers are not able to seek government support for their activities which could be beneficial to boosting agriculture in the village.
Lewis intends to continue farming and is getting his 22-year-old son involved. His son recently started raring livestock and is caring for a few pigs. 
“In Matelot, it’s quite easy to live because you can eat a plantain and go on the bay to get fish. So, in terms of us (in Matelot) feeding ourselves, we can be about 60 to 70 per cent assured about that,” Lewis said. He also grows plantain, cocoa, and short-term crops.
Calling on the Agriculture Ministry to provide greater support for agriculture in the village, Lewis said this move can not only be beneficial to the village but also the entire country.
He would like to see the implementation of skills training programmes in the village to teach young people about agriculture and fishing.
With there being a number of unemployed young people in the village, he thinks actively engaging them in activities like agriculture can provide them with a source of income. It would also stem the exodus of people out of the community to find jobs elsewhere, which he said has already been happening.
He said, “We need people from the ministry to come in and support the small farmers here (in the village). Government have to pay more emphasis on the small farmers because we are the people who can build this country. They always say that a country that can feed itself will be a wealthy country. We must be able to feed ourselves.”
Source:  Newsday, April 22, 2021