ROSEMARY PARKINSON
AUTHOR - Venezuela

Rosemary Parkinson was born in Venezuela of Trinidadian parents - the late Gordon Parkinson (a revered artist) and Dickie Parkinson who resides in Barbados and runs The Parkinson Gallery in Rockley. The author of Shake Dat Cocktail, and the highly acclaimed 460-page book Culinaria: The Caribbean; the latter reaching the December 5th New York Times List Review in 1999. Culinaria was featured by all top newspapers and magazines worldwide, its reputation - the definitive book on Caribbean cuisine weighing in as “just a tad heavier than Julia Child’s biggest book”. Rosemary resides between Jamaica and Barbados but spends much of her time visiting and writing about ‘her’ Caribbean islands. Her latest tome, Nyam Jamaica, a 424-page culinary tour around the island with Jamaican Chef Norma Shirley and photographer Cookie Kinkead is to be launched this year in Jamaica. An avid photographer herself, Rosemary writes a weekly food column for The Jamaica Gleaner and is a contributor to The Nation newspaper (Barbados), MACO magazine (Trinidad), Jamaica Eats (Jamaica), Skywritings (Air Jamaica), LIAT’s Inflight magazine (Antigua), Ocean Style (New York) and others. She is an artist in her own right having exhibited in the Caribbean and Europe but, has devoted her life to writing, lecturing and consulting on anything to do with the importance of Caribbean food, believing that island cuisine has only just begun to be tasted. Her greatest moment? Being told this year that at her age she no longer requires to pay departure tax in Trinidad! Her greatest wish? To see the Caribbean totally integrated, their produce feeding its people and visitors, their imports of substandard foods from places outside the region reduced to almost nil. What does she definitely know? There is no other food like Caribbean food and it can leave the kitchens of home and be made as classy as any gourmet cuisine anywhere in the world standing out amongst the crowd as tastier, healthier and far more beautiful to behold!