14 hours ago
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Senior Reporter
The first time Annelca Mendoza cooked a full meal, her mother guided her right down to turning off the gas tank. They had made pelau.
Years later, in Miami, Mendoza put the flavours of a Trinidad Sunday lunch before a panel of judges. At the medal ceremony, bronze and silver had already been called when her teammates began to celebrate.
They knew what was coming.
Mendoza bent her head.
“Mummy, I see you. Thank you.”
Mendoza earned gold in the junior chef category at the 2016 Taste of the Caribbean. Trinidad and Tobago took the overall title in a field of 13 national teams.
A taste of success
Mendoza has been cooking professionally for 12 years.
Her first paid job was at Shakers, a bar on Ariapita Avenue.
She ran its kitchen alone at night while studying culinary management at the Trinidad and Tobago Hospitality and Tourism Institute (TTHTI).
“It was so tiny but the guys treated me with respect and protected me like a sister,” she recalled.
A three-month internship took her to two hotels in France. She remembers how staff who spoke different languages understood one another well enough to work in silence. They cleaned before service, before the staff meal and again after service. Every day. Mendoza says the discipline she learnt there is something she passes on to her own staff.
Friends encouraged Mendoza to try out for the national team. She went on to win the local Junior Chef of the Year title at Making the CUTT, the competition used to select the squad.
On Monday evenings at the Hilton Trinidad, diners sat down to three-course meals the team prepared from baskets of mystery ingredients. They were invited to tell the chefs what worked. At the final practice dinner in May 2016, the national team edged a group of past Taste of the Caribbean competitors by a single point.
For her competition plate in Miami, Mendoza shaped provision oil down into quenelles and served them with curry stew beef and vegetables glazed with local spices. She remembers the aroma of bay leaf, allspice, chadon beni and pimento carrying across the room.
“I wanted my plate to feel like a bite-sized Sunday lunch,” she said.
Back home, the calls came quickly. Mendoza told Sunday Newsday at the time that the medal gave her confidence in her cooking and brought new clients to Ann Iesa Events, the personal chef and catering business she was already running.
Building a business
TTHTI later sent her on a culinary educators’ programme. She has since worked with chefs from across the region and cooked for overseas visitors who found her through referrals and wanted to taste Trinidad and Tobago food.
Ann Iesa carries her mother’s name. Mendoza started it because of a promise she made to her. Her first big booking was a birthday party, and she remembers making plenty of mistakes. Afterwards, the client sat with her and talked her through what had gone wrong. Her next big booking, for the Ministry of Tourism, ran smoothly.
These days, the Hyatt’s LIME Carnival fete is the assignment she says pushes her team hardest. Serving that many people takes planning, and there is little room for error. Alongside private dinners, catering and event planning, she has put together Christmas and Carnival menus, including one for promoters. She also works in sales and culinary development at Malabar Farms Food Service Ltd and is trying to make more time to market Ann Iesa.
The part of running the business she enjoys most is teaching. Mendoza has given staff uniforms and some of her own tools so they could train and practise.
“I just love to see growth,” she said.
More than a passion
for cooking
“I have made so much corn soup,” Mendoza said. The orders come year-round. Some customers freeze it to take to the United States.
Bread, cakes and desserts have taken up more of her time over the years. In 2017, on EatAhFood’s Simply Local, Mendoza showed viewers how to make two loaves from one batch of dough. She left one plain, the kind served with ham and chow chow at Christmas. For the other, she spread softened butter over the dough, scattered cinnamon, brown sugar and raisins, then rolled it up for the tin.
Some restaurants now serve her desserts, and she has started a frozen cake and dessert line. There is still a question from customers that makes her laugh every time: “How you make this, girl?”
A plate that says home
If Mendoza had one plate to tell someone where she comes from, she would start with the flavours of bhagi rice with smoked bones and Creole stewed beef. She pictures a risotto cooked in coconut broth and finished with coconut-pimento cream. On top would go dasheen bush cooked with coconut and saffron, and a braised beef short rib. She would reach for fresh green seasoning, ginger, bay leaf, cinnamon, allspice and star anise.
The rice her family loves is her mother’s bhagi. Mendoza remembers the order in which the ingredients go into the pot, the coconut milk that builds the flavour and the small knob of butter she puts on top when the rice is done.
“That just says home for me,” she said.
English (US) ·