Three groups of students from the Turks and Caicos Islands Community College participated in the second annual hurricane season culinary cook-off.
The event was held on Tuesday (June 13) at the Providenciales branch of the college and was hosted by the Department of Disaster Management and Emergencies (DDME), in collaboration with the school.
The theme for the initiative was, ‘Do you know how to cook a nutritionally balanced meal with limited food sources?’
Group One and winners of the competition told media that they had prepared for the competition before it began so they already had in mind how they were going to execute their ideal meal.
Director of the DDME, Dr Virginia Clerveaux, explained that her goal was to ensure that the students were properly equipped in case a natural disaster occurs.
She said: “We have been doing various public education campaigns, so we wanted to begin focusing on the health.
“As the famous saying goes, ‘the health of a nation is very important’ and we wanted to ensure that we have a healthy population that can assist, and not just with the response effort, but also in the recovery effort.”
Judges for the event were Chief of Medical Services at the Cheshire Hall Medical Centre, Dr Denise Braithwaite Tenant, nutritionist Tamika Handfield and local chef Nikita ‘Chef Nik’ Skippings.
Dr Braithwaite Tenant said that she views the initiative as very important.
“This is a very good initiative. This initiative is very useful, especially for myself, being a mother who is often wondering what to cook if power goes off.
“I think that this is a very good opportunity to showcase to the public some of those delicious yet nutritious meals that you can cook with non-perishable items. So, I really do like it.”
Chef Nik, head judge and culinary ambassador for the TCI, noted that in the future he wants to see more food being cooked on charcoal grills because there is always a chance of not having electricity during hurricane season.
He said: “I would have liked to see some cold stoves [charcoal grills] involved because remember that during a hurricane season there might not be any electricity and most of the amenities that we are used to in terms of preparing food is not available to us.
“I think next year we are going to have the charcoal grills. We are going to allow it to be more challenging for our participants in this event.”
