Publisher's Synopsis
Because of the high cost of publishing a book containing over 70 color photographs raised the cost of the color edition beyond the reach of many readers, I decided to publish a lower priced edition using black and white photographs. It is the same cookbook/memoir that contains 125 recipes from 17 Caribbean islands. It is still more than a cookbook that showcases meals and beverages of the Caribbean. It is unchanged from the memoir that tells the story of how Pat Lovelace created a menu to satisfy the sophisticated tastes of guests visiting Pat and Guy's upscale boutique hotel. The book is still a chronicle of her experiences on the islands where she collected the recipes. Pat and her husband built The Windmills Plantation on the remote island of Salt Cay in the Turks and Caicos in the 1980"s. This was well before those islands became the prime tourist destination that they are today. The island government sold the land for the project to Pat and her husband contingent upon their using only local help to build and operate the hotel. Pat's kitchen staff was therefore selected from local women who had no culinary experience other than cooking simple island meals in their homes. The task was further complicated by the fact that all food items other than conch, lobster and fish had to be flown from the US to the island of Grand Turk, clear customs and then be loaded onto a ferryboat for transport to Salt Cay. After which it would eventually be trucked to the hotel. Fresh and frozen foods did not survive the ordeal. Pat was limited to canned food and vegetables that could be stored without refrigeration. She was able to use only the few frozen items that she could carry in cooler boxes with her luggage on her monthly buying trips to Miami. Using recipes she had collected while visiting 32 Caribbean islands with her resort architect husband she created her Tour of the Caribbean menu. The recipes had to be simple enough for her staff to understand and execute yet good enough to please the palates of her guests. The positive reaction to Pat's culinary tour de force is documented in hundreds ofletters of praise from her guests and their requests tofood magazines for Pat's recipes.
