Spice of life offered in taste of the Caribbean
By Susan Pugh on Sep. 07, 2007
By Casey Gillis, The Burg
/385-5525
SWEET BRIAR — Lee and Bobbi Carpenter go to Aruba every winter, but got an early taste of the Caribbean this year at Sweet Briar College’s “Jamaican Night Under the Stars.”
“Look around,” Lee Carpenter said at last Thursday night’s event. “How can you beat this? We love it. We love the Caribbean.”
Held at the college’s Florence Elston Inn and Conference Center, Jamaican night was the brainchild of inn manager Pat Hutto and new chef Glenton Goodwill, who grew up in Montego Bay.
“So many people do not know the conference center exists,” Hutto said. “There were so many people at Jamaican night and other events (who said), ‘We had no idea this place was here.’”
They’ll be holding one more Jamaican night from 7 to 9 p.m. Sept. 13, and Hutto said it would be very similar to last week’s event, which attracted more than 200 people.
“We just want to get one more in while the nights are still balmy,” she said.
Last week’s event was so popular that Hutto said they had to bring out extra tables to accommodate everyone.
“It was TGIF on Thursday,” she said. “I think it went very well.”
So did the people in attendance.
“The music is good, the food is delicious and the jerk sauces are great,” said Nancy Wellons, who knows a thing or two about Jamaica — the Lynchburg resident was born there to missionary parents and goes back to visit every year.
“They have done a wonderful job.”
There was so much food on the all-you-can-eat buffet table, it was hard to know where to start.
Many guests walked away with plates piled high with oyster on the half shell, peel-and-eat crawfish, brown stew chicken, jerk pork chops, shrimp and lobster stir fry, baked whole snapper with homemade calypso sauce, rice and peas and Jamaican patties (seasoned beef baked in a flaky crust).
“That was the hard part — fitting it all on the plate,” said Hunter Duffield, a 15-year-old Amherst County High School student who came to the event with his parents.
Duffield’s friend Nate Hudson, also 15, said he was impressed with the live steel-drum music, provided by The Island Music Trio out of Roanoke.
“He’s in the drum line, and … he wanted to come to hear steel drums,” said Hudson’s mother, Toni.
Hutto and Goodwill are planning to hold a series of similar events throughout the fall as a lead-in to the opening of Wailes Lounge, a fine dining restaurant they plan to run from the conference center during the winter months.
“There’s no restaurant like that on this side of the river until you get to Charlottesville,” Hutto said.
Tickets are $24 in advance and $28 at the door, and reservations can be made by calling (434) 381-6207. J
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