When Amer­i­can ac­tress and for­mer Miss USA Crys­tle Stew­art stepped in front of the cam­era on Tor­to­la, the set­ting was un­mis­tak­ably Caribbean—blue wa­ters, a lux­u­ry re­sort and a de­sign­er whose work draws heav­i­ly from the re­gion.

What be­gan as a dream on a re­hearsal room floor in Trinidad and To­ba­go be­came an in­ter­na­tion­al jour­ney that car­ried the voic­es of young per­form­ers, ed­u­ca­tors and the­atre prac­ti­tion­ers across the At­lantic and on­to sig­nif­i­cant stages for Shake­speare and the­atre.

Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Hai­ley Pysadee was crowned Miss In­dia World­wide at the in­ter­na­tion­al pageant held in Trinidad last night, bring­ing the ti­tle home as con­tes­tants from around the world gath­ered for the high­ly an­tic­i­pat­ed com­pe­ti­tion.

The 86-year-old Ca­lyp­so and So­ca icon re­turned to Trinidad last week­end to re­ceive the Elite Ca­lyp­so Ho­n­our at the Caribbean Mu­sic Awards, her lat­est ac­co­lade in a globe-trot­ting ca­reer that be­gan in Barataria decades ago.

An ode to women, and to how they ought to be treat­ed by their sig­nif­i­cant oth­ers, can be heard in en­ter­tain­er Stephen Mar­celle’s sul­try vo­cals, David “Nyce­Na­tion” Pareira’s pen and Randy Williams’ vi­su­als. To­geth­er they have pro­duced Hap­py Birth­day, a lo­cal birth­day song for our ladies.

Trinidad and To­ba­go film­mak­er Teneille Newal­lo’s DANM opened the 20th Trinidad AND To­ba­go Film Fes­ti­val with a world pre­miere and left the fes­ti­val with two ma­jor awards, in­clud­ing Best Film Made in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Chow is a snack close­ly as­so­ci­at­ed with the Caribbean. For Bar­ba­di­an busi­ness­woman Sami­ra Abed, man­go chow is dis­tinct­ly Tri­ni.

Toss­ing that car­ton of sour milk or a pot of left­over rice in­to the trash might feel like the right thing to do, but hold up a sec­ond. The bin doesn’t al­ways have to be the end of the road. Plen­ty of items past their prime can eas­i­ly trans­form in­to a new meal, a pantry sta­ple, or a clever house­hold helper.

Long be­fore bake and shark be­came one of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s most recog­nis­able culi­nary cre­ations, shark was hard­ly con­sid­ered food.

While we may be ac­cus­tomed to the sweet­ness and rich­ness of our lo­cal desserts, one Trin­bag­on­ian bak­er is bring­ing the re­fined taste of France to lo­cal palates, tak­ing her mo­bile patis­serie across the coun­try.

Long be­fore the in­ter­na­tion­al stages, the Car­ni­val crowns and the ti­tle “Ca­lyp­so King of the World”, Slinger “Mighty Spar­row” Fran­cis­co was part of every­day life on Sime­on Road, Pe­tit Val­ley.

In 1984, two young peo­ple from Wood­land – one Hin­du, one Mus­lim – de­cid­ed that love mat­tered more than dif­fer­ence.