Fay­ola K J Fras­er

Grow­ing up in a close-knit Tri­ni fam­i­ly, food was al­ways a cen­ter­ing life force for Abi­gail Bod­ing­ton. One of many chil­dren, Bod­ing­ton re­mem­bers an up­bring­ing “full of en­er­gy, love and lots of home-cooked meals”.

With her foun­da­tion deeply root­ed in tra­di­tion and fam­i­ly, she grew up very con­scious of her roots, a con­scious­ness that she car­ried well in­to her adult life and ca­reer. Bod­ing­ton has tak­en her tal­ents world­wide, through­out the Caribbean, the US, and to re­mote des­ti­na­tions in the Mediter­ranean, ex­pe­ri­enc­ing life as a chef on pri­vate yachts.

Born in Point Fortin and raised in Diego Mar­tin, Bod­ing­ton at­tend­ed St Mar­tin’s Girls’ and St Au­gus­tine Sec­ondary School be­fore her fam­i­ly made the de­ci­sion to mi­grate to the Unit­ed States.

Grow­ing up, the sta­ple in every Caribbean house­hold, the sa­cred Sun­day lunch, was an ex­pe­ri­ence she en­joyed along­side her fa­ther. “From the time I was lit­tle, I was help­ing in the kitchen–sea­son­ing meat, chop­ping herbs, stir­ring pots,” she re­mem­bers fond­ly. “Those ear­ly mo­ments laid the foun­da­tion for my pas­sion.” For Bod­ing­ton, cook­ing was more than food but an ex­pe­ri­ence that fos­tered com­mu­ni­ty, and she found joy in bring­ing peo­ple to­geth­er.

As she got old­er, she was ap­point­ed as the go-to cook for fam­i­ly events. Food be­came not on­ly a means of sur­vival and en­joy­ment, but ac­cord­ing to Bod­ing­ton, it was a sci­ence for her, as she learnt and ex­per­i­ment­ed with flavours and com­bi­na­tions to un­cov­er things peo­ple en­joyed.

This sim­ple joy in feed­ing oth­ers grew in­to a pas­sion and, even­tu­al­ly, a pro­fes­sion. Peo­ple en­joy­ing her food gave her the con­fi­dence to dive head­first in­to the culi­nary world, and she start­ed her own cater­ing com­pa­ny, which even­tu­al­ly ex­pand­ed in­to her of­fer­ing of per­son­al chef ser­vices.

Though pas­sion was her start­ing point, ed­u­ca­tion and train­ing gave her struc­ture. Bod­ing­ton stud­ied at culi­nary schools, pur­su­ing cours­es of study such as a per­son­al chef train­ing pro­gramme at Mi­a­mi Dade Col­lege and an in­ten­sive culi­nary pro­gramme at The Ital­ian Culi­nary Acad­e­my of New York. She gained price­less ex­pe­ri­ence un­der chefs from Lon­don, France, and Italy and then en­tered the restau­rant in­dus­try.

She cites the im­por­tance of a full-fledged restau­rant ex­pe­ri­ence, as her first ex­pe­ri­ences in the in­dus­try were not be­hind a stove but in front of house. “I start­ed in the restau­rant in­dus­try work­ing as a serv­er, which helped me un­der­stand the rhythm of food ser­vice and the im­por­tance of guest ex­pe­ri­ence. I was lat­er pro­mot­ed to bar­tender, where I learnt even more about tim­ing, pre­sen­ta­tion, and con­nect­ing with peo­ple,” she ex­plains.

The turn­ing point in Bod­ing­ton’s ca­reer came when she was of­fered an op­por­tu­ni­ty by a friend to work as a chef on a pri­vate yacht, a move that launched a 15-year ad­ven­ture and shaped her ca­reer. The life of a yacht chef proved both chal­leng­ing and ex­hil­a­rat­ing, giv­ing her hands-on ed­u­ca­tion and on-the-job train­ing. She pre­pared meals in the Caribbean, the Mediter­ranean, and be­yond, adapt­ing to chang­ing client pref­er­ences, time zones, and kitchens.

“Trav­el­ling the world as a pri­vate chef has been one of the most re­ward­ing parts of my ca­reer,” she says. “Work­ing in such an in­ti­mate and high-pres­sure en­vi­ron­ment taught me key lessons: how to stay calm un­der

pres­sure, adapt quick­ly to client pref­er­ences, work with lim­it­ed re­sources, keep every­thing or­gan­ised in small spaces, and keep things run­ning smooth­ly even when things go wrong.”

Among her high­lights was be­ing asked to cook for the King of Spain, a sur­re­al ex­pe­ri­ence that un­der­scored just how far she had come. “From cook­ing Sun­day lunch in my par­ents’ house to a roy­al meal re­in­forced my be­lief in the pow­er of food to tran­scend bor­ders and bring peo­ple to­geth­er,” she mus­es.

Al­though awash with high­lights, her jour­ney was not with­out ob­sta­cles.

Cook­ing at sea meant un­pre­dictable con­di­tions, last-minute menu changes, and man­ag­ing up to 25 guests with lit­tle no­tice. “Not every day was glam­orous,” she ad­mits. “There were times when I was cook­ing in tight quar­ters, deal­ing with rough seas and every­thing shift­ing side to side in

the gal­ley and through­out the yacht.”

On a per­son­al lev­el, long stretch­es away from her fam­i­ly were equal­ly dif­fi­cult. But those mo­ments honed her re­silience. Re­ly­ing on child­hood learn­ings that had formed her foun­da­tion, Bod­ing­ton har­nessed val­ues of dis­ci­pline, stay­ing in rou­tine and lean­ing on her com­mu­ni­ty to stay ground­ed, con­fronting every chal­lenge as an op­por­tu­ni­ty to grow.

As a woman nav­i­gat­ing a male-dom­i­nat­ed in­dus­try, es­pe­cial­ly in the yacht world, she had to learn to as­sert her­self ear­ly on. “I had to work ex­tra hard to be tak­en se­ri­ous­ly. I re­alised quick­ly that if I want­ed to stand out, I had to not on­ly be good at what I did but al­so con­fi­dent in pre­sent­ing my­self. Over time, I learnt to speak up, ad­vo­cate for my­self, and set bound­aries,” she re­flects.

As she con­tin­ued to gain con­fi­dence and hone her abil­i­ties, her pro­fes­sion­al­ism and con­sis­ten­cy won over scep­tics. “Once peo­ple saw what I could bring to the ta­ble–lit­er­al­ly and fig­u­ra­tive­ly–I earned the re­spect I de­served.”

Bal­anc­ing a de­mand­ing ca­reer that of­ten takes her over­seas with moth­er­hood has been an­oth­er chap­ter of her sto­ry. The sac­ri­fices have been dif­fi­cult–missed birth­days and long ab­sences–but she has learnt to be in­ten­tion­al with her time, com­mu­ni­cate well, and take sup­port where it is of­fered.

“My ad­vice to oth­er moth­ers try­ing to bal­ance ca­reer and fam­i­ly is to give your­self grace. It’s okay to pur­sue your dreams–it sets a pow­er­ful ex­am­ple for your chil­dren. Build­ing a sup­port sys­tem and hav­ing a part­ner who is on board with the long-term plan goes a long way. Al­so stay or­gan­ised. And nev­er for­get that you’re al­lowed to do it all, be present for your fam­i­ly and present for your pas­sion,” she em­pha­sis­es.

De­spite her in­ter­na­tion­al ex­po­sure, her food­ie heart re­mains in the Caribbean. Her ab­solute favourite things to cook in­clude any­thing root­ed in West In­di­an flavour–healthy, bold, and com­fort­ing, filled with tra­di­tion and emo­tion.

What’s her per­son­al favourite thing to eat? Cur­ry goat with dhal and rice. “It’s warm, hearty, and has the per­fect bal­ance of spice and soul. Whether I’m cook­ing it or eat­ing it, cur­ry al­ways feels like a hug on a plate,” she laughs. For her, food is nev­er just nour­ish­ment; it is mem­o­ry, emo­tion, and iden­ti­ty.

“Every dish I make is a re­flec­tion of where I’ve been,” she ex­plains. From her child­hood kitchen to a glam­orous yacht off the coast of Italy, cook­ing has al­ways been her lan­guage of love and con­nec­tion. She us­es food to tell sto­ries, share her cul­ture, and in­vite oth­ers in­to her world.

“I’m not just feed­ing peo­ple. I’m of­fer­ing them a piece of my jour­ney, my heart, and my cre­ativ­i­ty.”

Through it all, her jour­ney has been a tes­ta­ment to re­silience, cre­ativ­i­ty, and the courage to pur­sue pas­sion against the odds. Or, as she likes to re­mind her­self, “You are the on­ly per­son on Earth who can use your abil­i­ty.”

From her home in Trinidad to es­teemed kitchens across the world, Bod­ing­ton—an avid hik­er and marathon­er who has medalled in New York, Lon­don, Mi­a­mi, and T&T—shows that food is more than sus­te­nance; it is her­itage, a bridge across oceans, cul­tures, and peo­ple.