If we Americans are known for anything it’s for not knowing when to quit — which is how I’ve come to be inside a hotel room on a perfectly decent sunny day in Barbados, where I’ve come to watch Dallas/Fort Worth’s own cowboy chef Tim Love impress the hell out of the global community during the Barbados Food & Wine and Rum Festival (which, incidentally, kicks off in a mere eight hours).
The island is crawling with Brits, Aussies, Canadians, and a significant contingent from good-old Texas — all here to get a first-person peek at cooking demos by Love, Craft’s Tom Colicchio, Ming Tsai, tail-to-snout pioneer Fergus Henderson, and more. If the number of metal-cased knife sets on the baggage carousel at 1 am was any indication, the volume of both serious tips and fancy flourish will keep me bouncing between Sandy Lane, Whispers on the Bay, The Cliffs, and The Hilton for the next 72 hours.
But for right now, I do know when it’s time to quit (typing, that is). To prove my point, I’ll devote the next eight hours to recovering from yesterday’s 17-hour travel day with a shady chair, Sherlock Holmes, and a cabana boy late-morning cocktail.
With a schedule like this, it may be the last chance I get.