My name is Khalid Mo­hammed and I'm the chef pro­pri­etor of a fine-din­ing restau­rant try­ing to cre­ate the new Trinidad and To­ba­go cui­sine. I have a one-year-old son, Josh Khalid George Mo­hammed. And a wife. Gretchen. We've been mar­ried sev­en years, been to­geth­er 12. I grew up in Vic­to­ria Gar­dens and went to Dun­ross Prep and St An­tho­ny's. To move from pri­ma­ry to sec­ondary school I just had to lit­er­al­ly cross a gate. And it was in­cred­i­ble how dif­fer­ent every­thing was, cul­tur­al­ly. I didn't hear a curse word un­til I was in Form One. They have caiman in the Diego Riv­er. They're men­ac­ing but still nice to look at. Like snakes. They look bet­ter in a cage, though. Or as a purse or a shoe. Nigel Ro­jas (Rock band Or­ange Sky lead singer) came to St An­tho­ny's in Form Two. I re­mem­ber I was do­ing great in school. And then Nigel came. I nev­er thought there would be a time in my life where I would not be play­ing foot­ball., but the last time I played was more than a year ago. Every night, af­ter ser­vice, we'd play foot­ball in the car park. Two, three o'clock in the morn­ing, small goal. It was hard, be­cause we start work ear­ly in the morn­ing. But it was re­al­ly, re­al­ly good.

Go­ing to watch crick­et is one of the most lux­u­ri­ous things you can do with a day. Back in the old days, West In­dies crick­eters were our he­roes. I feel for­tu­nate to be around that era, the era of Michael Jor­dan, Michael Jack­son, Zine­dine Zi­dane. I saw Bri­an Lara's 153 in Bar­ba­dos. Peo­ple talk about it all the time and I was there. Sport is one of the on­ly things that, when you're do­ing it, you can't think about any­thing else. You re­al­ly do leave what­ev­er prob­lems you have be­hind. I find my­self at work 6.30, 7 am, just to get the busi­ness as­pect done. Every day seems like a race against 11 am, when lunch kicks in. Af­ter 11 am, it's just restau­rant, it's just food. There was a time when, af­ter lunch, I would sneak away and go see a movie, just to chill. It's like sports: you can sit in a dark cin­e­ma and lose your­self, for­get your wor­ries. Now I spend that time with my son. I've changed so much since my son was born. Some­times I feel delin­quent, be­cause I'll run away from the restau­rant to go and be with him, where­as be­fore, it was out of the ques­tion. I am by far my biggest crit­ic. I look at an old menu and won­der what the hell I was think­ing. Fun­ny. The thing you're think you're best at, you're al­so most in­se­cure about. Be­cause it's so per­son­al. I'll al­ways cook in­ter­na­tion­al fine-din­ing. I'm trained in it. Fine- din­ing Cre­ole food is com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent. We're tak­ing lo­cal food and mak­ing it in a restau­rant sit­u­a­tion. We don't have a pot of pelau and, when an or­der comes, dish it out and send it. If we put pelau on the menu, it'll prob­a­bly be made with ar­bo­rio rice, which is used for risot­to and cooked to or­der for you.

We want to clean up Cre­ole cui­sine: Less fats; health­i­er; stop over­cook­ing every­thing; re­think the meats. Will brisket stew bet­ter than clod and give you a bet­ter mouth-feel? Foie gras and ox tail are equal. It's on­ly in our minds we make them un­equal. In Italy, their restau­rant food is their home­food, too. Sa­da roti and ox tail are our food and there's no rea­son we can't cel­e­brate it. If some­one thinks, "That's too fan­cy!" that's the point: we could be fan­cy. Ten years ago, if I served toma­to cho­ka in my fine-din­ing restau­rant, every­body would have run out. But call it, "toma­to con­casse," which is the same thing, just the French ver­sion, and they pay plen­ty mon­ey for it. The best thing about the new Trinida­di­an cui­sine is it's so orig­i­nal. It's not fu­sion. It's new. It's not a play on fish broth; it is fish broth. Au­then­tic flavour in a fine-din­ing way. The bad thing is, some­times, we don't get every­thing right. Be­cause we're fig­ur­ing out the best way to do things. My last meal would prob­a­bly be my moth­er's stew chick­en, rice and red beans. Not some crust­ed rack of lamb. A lot of things that come to mind about what a Tri­ni is kin­da don't ap­ply right now. I think crime has a lot to do with it. I don't have that feel­ing that I have to be at the Oval for the first ball of a Test match. I'm wor­ried about what Trinidad my son will grow up in. Is he go­ing to be in a cur­few? When I was his age, I was gone from eight in the morn­ing and came back when the street­lights came on. And my par­ents didn't have to wor­ry.