He pan-fried two fresh snappers, whipped up a tomato-based Creole sauce, and served it all with avocado verde and sweet fried plantains. Not unlike a crew at sea, Nik and his sous chef Carol Silvero commandeered my kitchen at The Yacht Club for a private cooking session, animatedly walking me through a menu of hominy with pigeon peas, conch (inevitably), pumpkin, smoked pork, and a storm of spices. “The typical household had to make do.” Locals would scoop up the leftovers from ships anchored along the shores, learning how to make dishes out of the barrels of salted pig tails or piles of fish. “You didn’t have too much of anything,” Nik explains. The national dish is hominy: “Grits with everything in it.” Made from ground corn, it has long been a hearty food for hard-working people. “What you come to the Turks and Caicos and eat pizza and pasta for? You don’t want to sit down and eat no risotto!” “Before I started my restaurant, it was all conch, conch, conch.” But knowing that there was more to island food than the ubiquitous, chewy sea snail, he made it his mission to inspire visitors to look beyond the expected on resort menus. (Cue Bubba and that shrimp scene in “Forrest Gump.”) Menus abound with conch fritters, cracked conch, conch ceviche, conch tacos. (Ask just about any Belonger and you’ll get an, “Oh, yes, I know Nik.”) His father owned Smokey’s, a beloved BBQ restaurant on Provo, and Nik followed in his food-loving footsteps, opening the restaurant Crackpot Kitchen in Grace Bay on Provo, followed by private cooking classes and a catering business. He vibrates with a childlike energy and is something of a local celebrity. Born and raised on South Caicos, Chef Nik is a towering man with a booming voice and wide smile. While dining options may be limited, private chefs can still work, not the least of whom is Nikita O'Neil Skippings, the official culinary ambassador of the Turks & Caicos Islands. Photo courtesy of Crackpot Kitchen The Chef from South Caicos and could only offer delivery or take-out, but I found a clever workaround to safely tuck into some authentic island dishes after dark. ( TCI Assured on the Turks and Caicos Tourism website has the latest information.) When I was there in February, restaurants had to close by 5 p.m. Before entering TCI as an American visitor, I needed to complete a travel authorization form, purchase specific Covid-19-related insurance, which I got from American Express for $32, and bring proof of a negative PCR test conducted within 72 hours of my flight’s departure. In the pre-Covid era, TCI would log than a million visitors to their shores annually, though mostly on Grand Turk via cruise ship.Īs of early April 2021, TCI had reported 2,344 Covid-19 cases and 17 deaths. In total, there are 40 different islands and cays, of which only eight are inhabited by about 44,000 Belongers. The British Overseas Territory of the Turks & Caicos Islands is comprised of two island groups: the Turks Islands of Grand Turk and Salt Cay to the east, and the larger Caicos Islands of Providenciales (“Provo”), North Caicos, Middle Caicos, East Caicos, South Caicos and West Caicos to the west. Photo courtesy of Turks and Caicos Tourist Board. This wasn’t my first time to the islands, and I was eager to meet the people beyond the glittering resorts of Providenciales, the go-to island for luxury tourism. And so it was that I found myself traipsing across some of TCI’s lesser-known spots this past winter on a three-week escape from New York City. But like non-Belongers throughout history, humans are compelled to journey to places they perhaps should not. ![]() Basically, we all belong at home, because, Covid. ![]() These days, it’s never been clearer who belongs somewhere and who doesn’t. ![]() In the state of Indiana, they improbably go by “hoosiers.” And across the azure archipelago of the Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI), the locals are “Belongers,” an epithet that needs no explanation. TURKS & CAICOS – The indigenous people of Hawai’i are called kanaka. Chef Nikita O'Neil Skippings and Demitri Harvey.
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