Turks & Caicos: Part 2

 

The food

This was my biggest worry.  Not the food itself, I knew that it was good and there was plenty of it, but food for Sean.  This was the first time he would be eating at a restaurant.  Every meal at a restaurant.  How would it work?

About a month before the trip I contacted the resort.  The Executive Chef responded to my email and we sent a few messages back and forth.  He described the process and asked what type of food Sean like to eat.  I sent the details.  He seemed to be pretty knowledgeable on the subject and asked the right questions (like, is he allergic to milk protein) so I felt a little better.

Once we arrived, I met with him again and he described how each meal would work.  I was to fill out a form one meal in advance (lunch form at breakfast, dinner form at lunch, etc.) and hand it to the chef.  We needed to know where we would be eating, at what time and request the food he wanted. 

This process wasn’t difficult.  There were a few complications.  At least one time the restaurant didn’t get the form.  Not all the hostesses were as helpful when returning the next meals form.  For example, if we were currently in one village and our next meal was to be in a different one, they wouldn’t take the form.  This only happened a few times.  Overall, everyone was very helpful.  The chefs would come out and meet us.  Some started to recognize Sean as the week went on.  Not every place was able to accommodate our food requests.  No soy milk here, no dairy-free ice cream there, but nothing too bad.  They stocked the fridge in the room with soy milk so if we couldn’t get some we could always go back and fill up his cup. 

This was our third time at the resort but the first where Sean was eating prepared food.  It was nice that they had a system and was probably less complicated than a vacation where you are dining at someplace completely different each meal.  I will say that you do miss out on a bit of the experience of the resort.  One thing I enjoyed on previous trips was not having to decided when or where we wanted to eat until that meal.  Or being able to just pop into a place for a snack or some ice cream.  Everything had to be preplanned.  I suppose this is the reason I didn’t gain 10 lbs while there.

Even though Sean had food available to him at every meal, I think he survived the week on mostly fruit and french fries.  Sometimes he would eat the chicken nuggets, other times he would not touch them.  He is a picky eater anyway so this was not a big surprise. And sometimes he was just way to tired to even think about eating.

Lunch at Cricketer’s