Ian Sherlock
I am currently based in St Lucia in the Caribbean working on a hotel project redefining all new restaurants including reworking the whole menu's costs and new concepts for the operation to make a fresh and stimulating feel for the guests.
There is lots of training to do and involves a lot of hands on training as far as cooking is concerned and also re directing and training in cost areas, especially the butchery and working on yields and product analysis and the effect on market analysis has on the operation financially.
Once understanding the culture of St Lucia it is a very interesting place to work and live, I personally live in a local area and the only foreigner there; the people are very warm, giving and fun.
Working in St Lucia is not a lot dissimilar to working in Asia ; it all boils down to being a people person and the willingness to lead from the front.
It has a very interesting mix of French and Caribbean food they call French Creole with a wide variety of things to eat, from exotic animals like possum to local wild pork and fresh seafood.
Just to highlight a few food related experiences I have all ready had the pleasure of an overnight camp where we roasted a Turkey in the ground with local herbs and spices, white hot stones are laid on top of charcoal, the turkey is placed into a pot, seal with a lid placed ion the stones, then cover with banana leaves and top with sand, after 4 hours you have a beautiful bush style turkey.
A trip into the rain forest riding the jeep down river to a place where we found huge freshwater crayfish, there is nothing better that straight out of the water and on to the BBQ, it doesn't get much better than that.
