Melanie Trotman

I am Melanie Trotman, the owner of Accent Kitchen and a young entrepreneur. I was born in the beautiful island of Barbados and raised in the community at Allen View St. Thomas.

My passion for cooking started at the age of eight when I found myself standing in my kitchen with a bag of English potatoes in one hand, and a bottle of oil, box of matches and some Maggie cubes in the other hand. I will never forget the day!

My father owned and still owns a small business venture attached to my home. On that particular day, my childhood best friend had come over to spend the afternoon, but my dad was way too busy to prep a meal for us. He called us into the shop, put ingredients in our hands and escorted us to the kitchen. He demonstrated how to light the stove, gave us instructions on how to make fries and went off back to his business. That day my best friend and I had some extremely salty Maggie cube French fries. **Chuckle** After that, I started experimenting in the kitchen. My mum taught me how to do mashed potatoes and so I made Maggie cube mashed potatoes until she eventually taught me how to make butter gravy. Trial and error! Trial and error! In third form at St. Winifred’s School, I picked up the Food and Nutrition class.

My teacher often caught me straying away from the recipe she gave the class. But what can I say? I had taught myself thus far through experimenting and I could not help it. Despite this, I learnt the importance of food, kitchen safety, the importance of proper nutrition and the effects of eating too much or too little. Over the years, I have further learnt skills and recipes from my mother, recipe books, videos and of course, experimentation. My school is very important to me because I need to share my knowledge. Not “want to”, “need to.” I strive to do this in a fun interactive way since most persons see cooking and baking as a chore and time-consuming. Cooking can be fun! My students know that.