I have a friend I worked with for over 10 years when I worked at a Pizza Hut. They ended up closing our location because the 20 year lease was up and they wanted to triple the rent or something and it made no sense to keep us open because we were a restaurant that wasn’t in the red, but made little to no money. Everyone was there for so long that we were all at the top of the pay rates for our positions so we would often work a skeleton crew so we could stay in budget for the employee costs.  I learned a lot from this place and from the people I met there. I will forever miss it.

I developed some pretty great relationships while working there and one was with a Jamaican woman named Odette. Her nickname is Vivi and that’s actually where my daughters middle name came from. When I had my son I was out of work and Odette had just opened her very own Jamaican place about 40 minutes away from where I lived. Right past the palisades mall in New York. https://www.yelp.com/biz/tropical-delicacy-spring-valley  I highly recommend this place if you are in the area. The food is amazing! The people are amazing! Just go and eat!

 I use to bring my son with me and we would hang out all morning while she cooked. I would feed my son, put him down to nap and dive right in to whatever she needed. Wash dishes? Sure! Cut cabbage? Absolutely. She taught me a lot about how to cook Jamaican. When my son was 10 months old I ended up getting a job as an office manager so our time was cut down.

Then life happen and we just weren’t able to make it over there for a while. I needed Jamaican food though and even though I had helped in the kitchen I didn’t actually write down any recipes. Then I found this website https://cooklikeajamaican.com/new-recipe-brown-stew-chicken/. I have found lots of delicious recipes on this website and I really recommend trying a couple!

Now, since it’s the weekend, I think I need to make a trip to visit and old friend.