Dominica’s Secret Bay and Fort Young hotels have shifted from catering to overnight guests to feeding frontline healthcare workers amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Dubbed “Koudmen Kitchen,” an homage to the Creole term that translates to “helping hand,” and led by Grant Lynott, the executive chef of Secret Bay’s Zing Zing Restaurant, along with Fort Young Chefs’ Delma Cenac and Minavia Hazel, the initiative is designed to supply COVID-19 frontline workers and healthcare professionals with 50 no-cost meals a day at four locations across the island for at least the next thirty days. 

Fort Young is also expanding services at its waterfront eatery, The Palisades Restaurant, to now offer takeout, curbside pickup and food delivery to the local community.

“With both Secret Bay and Fort Young operational, though, for the first time in our history both resorts are at zero occupancy, we wanted to refocus our efforts in a meaningful way that best serve those on the frontline working to the breaking point in the fight against,” said Gregor Nassief, chairman of GEMS Holdings Limited, which operates and manages both Secret Bay and Fort Young Hotel & Dive Resort.

“We’re delighted to not only keep Fort Young’s The Palisades Restaurant open but to now offer a new special to-go menu and safely deliver orders to our loyal patrons,” Nassief said. “I’m inspired and proud of our entire team.”

Koudmen Kitchen, which began its service on April 3, is receiving support from Archipelago Trading in the form of food inputs, as well as 100% Green, which is providing biodegradable containers, as well as local farmers and fishermen and the delivery teams in Roseau and Portsmouth.

Fort Young’s The Palisades Restaurant in Roseau will continue to operate in accordance with Dominica’s guidelines and has launched takeout, curbside pickup and delivery food service.

“I’m honored to collaborate with Chef Delma, Chef Minavia and our collective teams to prepare meals for those fighting to protect us,” Lynott said. “As it is said, we’re all in this together and food is my way to keep us all connected.”

— CJ

The post How Two Dominica Hotels Are Feeding Healthcare Workers appeared first on Caribbean Journal.

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For many
people, singer Jimmy Buffett and his signature tune perfectly capture the
island vibe they crave while slogging away at their busy lives the rest of the
year.

That’s even
more true right now, as we all dream of the Caribbean and look for ways to
channel its spirit from inside our homes.

Buffett
himself, of course, has had a long love affair with the Caribbean: back in the
1970s he called his music “Drunken
Caribbean Rock ‘n’ Roll,” and he has long worked
references to his island adventures into his songs.

Cuba gets a
shout-out in Havana Daydreamin’, Barbados in Presents to Send You
(“Thought I might sail down to Bridgetown, spend some time in the Barbados sun”),
and Martinique in 1974’s Migration: “Well now, if I ever live to be an
old man, I’m gonna sail down to Martinique, I’m gonna buy me a sweat-stained
Bogart suit, and an African parakeet.” (Instead, Buffett, now in his 70s, runs
a sprawling business empire, and has a net worth of more than $500 million.)

Buffett also has based many of his Margaritaville restaurants and resorts in destinations like Jamaica, the Cayman Islands, and the Bahamas. So if you have a “Caribbean soul you can barely control,” here’s a look at  the footprint of the Parrothead-in-Chief in the islands of the Caribbean:

Jamaica: Police in Negril reportedly
once tried to shoot down Buffett’s seaplane, thinking it was being used to
smuggle drugs. (Jamaica Mistaka: “Come back, come back back to Jamaica,
Don’t chu know we made a big mistaica, We’d be so sad if you told us good-bye,
And we promise not to shoot you out of the sky.”)

These days, the singer gets a much warmer welcome, with Margaritaville outposts located in Negril, Ocho Rios, Montego Bay, Falmouth, and even in Sangster International Airport in MoBay.

St. Barth: Cheeseburger in Paradise is one of Buffett’s biggest hits, and you can enjoy “heaven on earth with an onion slice” at the iconic Le Select restaurant in Gustavia, where the singer traded the owner the right to use the slogan in exchange for a lifetime tab at the bar. In the French/English Autour Du Rocher, Buffett reminisces about partying at an old hotel on Lorient beach.

Buffett wrote several of his songs while staying at St. Barth’s legendary Eden Rock resort, and has called Maya’s, open since 1984, his favorite restaurant in the Caribbean. Buffett and other A-list celebrities also can sometimes be found at the Le Ti nightclub, and St. Barth is currently the only place in the Caribbean where Buffett has a home — when he’s not living on his boat, of course.

Turks and Caicos: There’s a Margaritaville bar and restaurant at the Grand Turk cruise dock on days when there are ships in port.

Cayman Islands: The Grand Cayman location of Margaritaville is almost as much a resort as a bar, complete with a water slide, rooftop pool, and swim-up bar. It’s also home to the all-inclusive Margaritaville Beach Resort Grand Cayman.

Bahamas: The Margaritaville Beach Resort scheduled to soon open in downtown Nassau is just the latest connection between Buffett and the Bahamas. Back in the day, Buffett was known to fly his seaplane to Harbour Island and occasionally take the stage at Gusty’s bar, and he has called the Staniel Cay Yacht Club in the Exumas one of the best places in the world to get a drink.

The singer also was known to sneak off to Long Island for some beach time and to Kaye’s restaurant on Rum Cay for post-dive drinks. Plus, Tully Mars, the fictional hero of Buffett’s book, A Salty Piece of Land, washes up on Cayo Loco, a fictional island in the Bahamas.

The British Virgin Islands: Buffett’s song Manana was inspired by a year that Buffett spend in the BVI living on a boat. It pays tribute to Cane Garden Bay on Tortola, home of the Callwood Rum Distillery, and Foxy’s Bar on Jost Van Dyke. Buffett wrote Cheeseburger in Paradise during a 1972 boat trip to Tortola, and the Anegada Reef Hotel on the low-key island of Anegada was also reportedly a Buffett hangout.

Montserrat: Buffett frequently sailed his 50-foot ketch Euphoria II here in the 1970s, and recorded his album 1979 album Volcano in Montserrat. Ironically, Montserrat’s famous
Air Studios, along with the capital city of Plymouth, was damaged by a hurricane
and later destroyed during an eruption of the Soufriere volcano in 1995.

The post Searching for Jimmy Buffett in the Caribbean appeared first on Caribbean Journal.

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Maybe you’ve been to Seven Mile Beach, or had a mudslide at Rum Point.

But if you want to go deeper, to find that sought-after Cayman Islands fantasy, you need Little Cayman, still one of the Caribbean’s greatest secrets.

It’s the sort of tiny Caribbean destination we all dream about: where the airport runway is also the island’s main road; where chickens walk the streets and where every day is the weekend.

The latest edition of Caribbean Moment takes you on a digital vacation to the tiny island’s party piece: Point of Sand, the spectacular beach on Little Cayman’s far eastern coast.

It’s a place of reflection, of pure serenity, of pure Caribbean dreaming.

So sit back and take a moment of your day to travel to the Caribbean right from your chair.

See more in the latest Caribbean Moment below:

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