Eating well during guava season

CHERISSE L BERKELEY

Eating healthy, tasty food does not have to cost a fortune. Self-taught cook Baidawi Assing is on a mission to help people prepare budget-friendly and healthy meals.

Assing has authored a free e-cookbook that is available via his Eat Ah Food website. Assing’s e-cookbook is called Guava Season to reflect the hard economic times that many have fallen on.

Eat Ah Food is a website which shares recipes and tutorials on how to make local dishes.
https://eatahfoodtt.com/news/guava-season/

Quincy Ross started the website as a blog before Assing got involved. It then evolved into a website featuring video and recipe collaborations with food producers, chefs and cooks from around the country and across the Caribbean. Assing is the managing director of the company.

Assing, 45, grew up in Morvant with his four siblings and their parents. He films his videos from his home in San Juan. The self-taught cook spent his life fiddling in the kitchen. He attributed his skill from his mother Zina Assing, along with his grandmothers Christina Assing and Majorie Small.

Assing went to Richmond Street Boys’ RC primary school, Port of Spain; St George’s College, Barataria, then Barataria Senior Comprehensive where he did art and English for A-levels.

His father, Umar Assing, was a licensing officer and his mother a clerk at the Red House, supported and encouraged Assing in his creative endeavours. Assing became a DJ at 11 and started playing gigs at 13. He attributed his love for music to his father who was a seasoned guitarist.

His family practises Islam and this encouraged him to assist his mother when they prepared numerous dishes for Ramadan, Eid and other festive holidays for his family.

Now he prepares some of the same dishes to share with his family for Eid celebrations. After leaving school he started Good Fellas’ Pizza with Makesi Syrus, Akil Syrus, Anthony Mc Knight and Marlon Yearwood (deceased). He ran the business out of his family’s kitchen.

“I started the business when I was fresh out of school as something to occupy my time.”

The business fell through when the other partners returned to school. Assing went on to work in IT then marketing until he started a production business called Detonator in 2005. That is when he started assisting Ross with the blog and started it’s evolution by incorporating videos, collaborations and social media to the brand.

Though he dreams of having his own restaurant, he does not cook commercially.

“Cooking is such a personal thing. I wonder if cooking for money would take the joy out of it.” He added, “Even though I did the pizza, I was not as passionate about food then as I am now.”On his decision to offer Guava Season, a phrase which is used to reflect the hard economic times that many have fallen on, especially since the pandemic, Assing said:

“I couldn’t reconcile calling the book Guava Season, saying it’s for hard times and then charging people for it.”

“Put thing out, and thing go come. It eh come yet but I know it go come,” he said jokingly. He chose to market the book for free as the covid19 pandemic had a financial impact on him and many others. Assing said he was inspired by his friend Patrice to create the cookbook.

He admitted to suffering from imposter syndrome (believing that you are not as competent as others perceive you to be) as he is not professionally trained.

Reflecting on the conversation with his friend he said, “Yes, I post recipes on Eat Ah Food’s website on a weekly basis, but I felt as though only writers can put out books.”