Shelly-Ann Thompson, Freelance Writer
Friends drop in regularly to sample Lamar Clarke's cooking. They especially love his cornbread and other pastries. - CARLINGTON WILMOT/FREELANCE PHOTOGRAPHER
WHOEVER SAID men can't cook hasn't met 26-year-old Lamar Clarke.
His mother, Carmen Davis, says her son is good at making salads and vegetables. His friends agree, but their frequent visits are for his feathery light cornbread -- not to mention the cakes and other pastries he delights in whipping up.
"Anytime I'm cooking, it makes me feel good," says Clarke who lives in 11 Miles, Bull Bay, St. Thomas.
Clarke says he prefers baking and making salads and occasionally does birthday cakes. He even once tried his hand at making wedding cakes but has decided to assist in decorating wedding cakes.
He also cooks and sells fish, bammy, festival, rice and bean, curried goat and grilled chicken at his community's annual fish fry event.
"I like when I prepare food and someone is satisfied - colours and all that."
HOT KOOL AID AND SUNDAY DINNER
Davis notes that her son "love the kitchen from him small" and has been cooking since he was eight. He would demand "hot Kool Aid" and mix it into water and put it on the fire, she recalls.
At age 13, he started cooking Sunday dinner -- rice and peas and chicken, for the family.
Clarke perfected his cooking skills in Home Economics classes at Yallahs Comprehensive High School in Yallahs, St. Thomas. His love of the kitchen and skills led him to Little Pub Hotel and Restaurant in Ocho Rios, St. Ann, where he worked as a cook.
While his mother passed on a few tricks about food preparation, Clarke says the lessons at school played a vital role. He credits his Home Economics teacher Joan Cooper for encouraging him.
"She drew my attention to baking and got me my first baking utensils. She took me personally under her hands and directed me."
'CRAVEN' LED HIM TO KITCHEN LIFE
Davis notes that he is the only of five children (three boys and two girls) to display an interest in food preparation. "But they all love his baking," she laughs.
"A true him did craven," she adds.
Clarke has another explanation, however, that it was his admiration of food that drove him to the stove. "I always like food, like the kitchen, just like to see food, the colour, just everything about food."
While Food was at Clarke's home a friend of his, not knowing that there were visitors, barged into the house demanding to know: "Lamar, the cake dun yet?".
Clarke says it's not uncommon for friends to drop by with the hope of getting a slice or two of his cakes or other food items, whenever he's home from the Cayman Islands where he works in construction. Sometimes they stay for awhile to watch television and eat.
"He is so kind that some evenings him cook and friends and relatives come over and
eat, sometimes there are five people," says Davis.
COOKING UP A BUSINESS
Clarke says he wants to start a food business but needs more funds.
For inspiration, Clarke has on his kitchen wall, close to his refrigerator, a plastic hanging bookshelf. He has cookbooks from the Cayman Islands and others such as The Taste of Summer by Diane Rossen Worthington, also the author of The Cuisine of California; Food Everyday From The Kitchens of Martha Stewart Living; and The Best of Creative Cooking presented by Grace Kitchens and Consumer Services; and recipe pamphlets from Nestle and Tastee.
As a man, Clarke says he is not ashamed to say he cooks or that he loves the kitchen.
Cooking, he notes, has allowed him to help his mother and, "It made me feel good helping out because my mom used to work overtime and I would come home (from school) and cook dinner."
Now he does the same for his girlfriend. "Mi no scared a dat, no time!"
On the menu: Potato pudding, marble cake with butter icing, pineapple cake upside down, delicate coffee cake, cornbread, cup cake marble, rock bun and oats and raisin muffin.
RECIPES
Fried Bammy
1 pack bammy (should be three)
1/2 pack coconut powder cream
1/2 cup warm water
1 tbsp. brown sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup oil
METHOD
Cut bammy in fours. In a bowl, combine coconut powder, sugar and salt then add warm water and stir. Add bammy to liquid for 30 seconds, drain off excess liquid and fry until golden brown.
Tuna salad
10 oz. penny macaroni
1 can tuna (drained)/preferably tuna in water
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/4 green pepper (finely chopped)
1/4 red pepper (finely chopped)
1/8 tsp. white pepper
METHOD
Cook macaroni until tender, drain and put in a bowl. Add drained tuna, red, green and white peppers. Add mayonnaise. Stir, then chill and serve.
- Recipes courtesy of Lamar Clarke
