With 26 participating restaurants serving everything from saltfish cakes to caramel-crusted pork belly, the theme of WTJX’s 14th Annual Taste of Two Islands, “Savor the Flavor,” was aptly named. The event, held Thursday night at Antilles School’s Mark C. Marin Center on St. Thomas, also featured wine, spirits and music from Cool Session Brass.
Approximately 500 people attended Taste of Two Islands, according to Melia Cook, the director of development and fundraising at WTJX. The event is the annual fundraiser for WTJX, she said, supporting “PBS and NPR programming in the Virgin Islands, educational programming and any other kind of local programming” offered in the territory.
“I think it’s a great crowd considering this is the first event we’ve had since the hurricanes,” Cook said, referring to hurricanes Irma and Maria from 2017. “We are really excited. We’ve had a really big turnout tonight.”
Long lines of people waited to try the food served up by such restaurants as Delly Deck, Kallaloo Gifts and Sweets, My Brother’s Workshop and Thirteen.
Once Cool Session Brass started playing at around 7 p.m., the energy at the event turned up, with many attendees joining together for an eventual rendition of the Electric Slide.
One visitor, Lisa Smith-Jones, said she was pleased with how the event turned out.
“We are enjoying ourselves,” Smith-Jones said. “It’s so good to see everybody come together and enjoy food, and fun, and fellowship after the storms.”
