Fay­ola K J Fras­er

Equipped with an in­domitable “sweet han,” Shan­ice George Ed­wards, a tal­ent­ed chef and en­tre­pre­neur, has loved cook­ing from a very young age. Ed­wards is the own­er of Peck­ish868, a gourmet cater­ing out­let that was found­ed from her pas­sion for cre­at­ing beau­ti­ful art from food and cre­ative­ly us­ing lo­cal in­gre­di­ents.

Her unique ap­proach to cook­ing, in­formed by her back­ground in agri­cul­ture, her di­verse learn­ing ex­pe­ri­ences, and her far-reach­ing trav­els, has earned her a rep­u­ta­tion for cre­at­ing de­li­cious and in­no­v­a­tive dish­es.

Ed­wards was born in Trinidad and moved to To­ba­go at three years old, where she con­tin­ues to re­side. She start­ed cook­ing at ten years old, in­flu­enced by her now de­ceased god­moth­er Sher­ma Mc­Dougall.

“I used to cook so many things, delv­ing in­to dif­fer­ent cuisines with her as she trav­elled a lot. We would al­ways cook some­thing from one of the places she vis­it­ed,” Ed­wards re­mem­bers while re­flect­ing on the gen­e­sis of her cook­ing ca­reer.

She be­gan falling in love with ex­plor­ing oth­er cities and coun­tries through food, learn­ing very ear­ly about the in­tri­ca­cies of jollof rice and stewed tripe, which were African sta­ples.

Her god­moth­er al­so loved to en­ter­tain and “had a house lime for every pos­si­ble oc­ca­sion,” mean­ing that Ed­wards took up the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of cook­ing in large quan­ti­ties from an ear­ly stage.

Cred­it­ing Mc­Dougall with “im­print­ing my love for dish­es far be­yond our Cre­ole tra­di­tion,” Ed­wards has used cook­ing as cre­ative ex­pres­sion, tak­ing the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of open­ing peo­ple’s palates very se­ri­ous­ly.

She opened her cater­ing com­pa­ny, Peck­ish868, in 2017 with the aim of “tak­ing my clients’ taste buds around the world with a fu­sion of flavours and tastes.” Un­der­stand­ing food as a love lan­guage has ce­ment­ed her ded­i­ca­tion to pro­vid­ing her clients with “world-class gas­tro­nom­ic ex­pe­ri­ences.”

As the hold­er of a BSc in Agri­cul­ture from the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, she al­so fus­es her in­ter­est in agri­cul­ture by us­ing many lo­cal in­gre­di­ents in var­i­ous styles in her cook­ing.

Her culi­nary qual­i­fi­ca­tions are di­verse and ex­ten­sive. Ed­wards at­tend­ed the Acad­e­my of Bak­ing and Pas­try, took cook­ing cours­es with world-renowned chef An­dres Paul, and pur­sued a sushi-mak­ing course with a Japan­ese chef.

Re­main­ing hum­bled that peo­ple en­joy her culi­nary cre­ations, her loy­al clien­tele en­abled her to open her own brick-and-mor­tar restau­rant, Peck­ish868, in Mount Pleas­ant, To­ba­go, in 2023, serv­ing as an out­let for her cre­ativ­i­ty and a home for her cre­ations.

Boast­ing menu items such as sushi, BBQ, grilled foods, and more, al­though her restau­rant is now tem­porar­i­ly closed, she looks for­ward to its re­open­ing.

Open­ing her restau­rant threw Ed­wards head­first in­to a new world, and she was forced to learn the in­tri­ca­cies of en­tre­pre­neur­ship on the job.

Ed­wards says, “I had no back­ground knowl­edge or guide to the restau­rant in­dus­try. I am con­tin­u­ous­ly guid­ed by God with the help of my team.” Sup­port­ed by a strong team who have been with her since her cater­ing busi­ness be­gan, she learned to re­ly on her com­pe­tent staff rather than at­tempt to man­age her var­i­ous du­ties alone, and to­geth­er they “have grace­ful­ly ma­noeu­vred the tri­als and er­rors.”

Through her en­tre­pre­neur­ial jour­ney, she has fo­cused on nur­tur­ing her own dis­ci­pline and in­sists that fo­cus and sac­ri­fice are in­te­gral parts of achiev­ing her goals.

She al­so strives to main­tain her high stan­dards and qual­i­ty of out­put for her clients and cus­tomers, re­fus­ing to cut costs by us­ing low-qual­i­ty in­gre­di­ents.

In late 2024 to ear­ly 2025, Ed­wards spent sev­en weeks in Thai­land train­ing to re­ceive cer­ti­fi­ca­tion as a Grand Mas­ter Asian Culi­nary Chef.

“Thai­land was amaz­ing, and amaz­ing is ac­tu­al­ly an un­der­state­ment,” she says. “I learnt so many dish­es—Thai, Ko­re­an, Japan­ese, and Chi­nese—all of which are unique and dif­fer­ent.”

Be­ing there for sev­en weeks, she was able to in­te­grate in­to the cul­ture and en­joy liv­ing like a lo­cal, em­brac­ing the day-to-day Thai lifestyle.

Re­turn­ing to To­ba­go, she hopes to use this ex­pe­ri­ence as a gate­way to bring di­ver­si­ty to the To­ba­go culi­nary scene and delve in­to recre­at­ing var­i­ous Asian cuisines.

Ed­wards re­mains grate­ful to her cus­tomers and con­sid­ers “every chance I get to be of ser­vice to every cus­tomer, cor­po­rate client, or any­one else” her great­est ca­reer high­light.

Look­ing for­ward to re­open­ing her restau­rant, she is on a nev­er-end­ing jour­ney of learn­ing and de­vel­op­ment, as she is build­ing a cat­a­logue of new menu items and dif­fer­ent flavours in an­tic­i­pa­tion of her re­turn to the restau­rant world.

Her pur­suit of the culi­nary art form is a gift to the lo­cal food in­dus­try, ex­pand­ing the op­tions for cus­tomers and en­cour­ag­ing peo­ple to eat food made with fresh, qual­i­ty lo­cal in­gre­di­ents.