Kwéyòl / Creole: Recipes, Stories, and Tings from a St. Lucian Chef’s Journey

James Beard Award–winning chef and St. Lucian native Compton shares recipes that “celebrate a diverse African heritage” in her exciting debut. The recipes are organized by places that have influenced her palette. She starts in St. Lucia, recounting stories from her childhood alongside instructions for making macaroni pie, her sister’s cassava cookies, accra fritters (“a definitive St. Lucian street food snack” of fried saltfish), and whole roasted snapper. Next comes Jamaica, where Compton moved at 20 and learned to make grilled lobster with cilantro lime butter, whole roasted jerk chicken, and stewed oxtail and spinner dumplings. A few years later, Compton moved to Miami and incorporated vaca frita with yuca fries, guava and cheese pastelitos, coconut tres leches cake, and other Afro-Latin classics into her repertoire. The final chapter takes readers to New Orleans, where Compton went after being invited to compete on Top Chef, and features crawfish hush puppies, glazed duck with dirty rice, and coconut-braised collard greens. This wide-ranging collection will be a welcome addition to any Caribbean food lover’s library. (Apr.)