Festive Favorites: Black cake, a piquant feature of Caribbean holidays in South Florida

This story was first published on Dec. 17, 2018.

Turns out Kathy Ann Paul – aka Sweet Hand Kathy – is as capable a DJ as she is a baker.

Right now, when you walk into her Miami Gardens restaurant – called, of course, Sweet Hand Kathy – you’re likely to be regaled with “parang,” a festive blend of music like Trinidadian calypso and Venezuelan gaita. That’s because parang season means Christmas season in Trinidad and Tobago, the Caribbean island country where Paul grew up.

“We’re definitely paranging these days,” Paul tells me. “It’s traditional. Very important. Christmas Eve night we have a big event here. We’ll have a DJ playing outside in the parking lot.”

But right now Paul is inside her bakery kitchen making something else very important – more important, actually – to a Trinidadi