Newcomer Kitchen International Cooking Workshops...

 

Happy International Women's Day sisters 👭💛👭!  

We can all learn from each other and cultures through our stories of resilience and courage to empower ourselves and our communities to be stronger, happier and better in every way! 

Women in Newcomer Kitchen's Food Business Program

May you always find the inspiration and strength to chase your dreams 

and the determination to make them come true. Happy Women's Day! 

Photo captions:

Top- with my past group of students in the Newcomer Kitchen food business program with women from Taiwan, Bahamas, China, Afghanistan and Syria. I am proud to share Newcomer Kitchen has learned from and worked with women from 33 countries since inception over 8 years ago 💗

Bottom- with newcomer women who took part in The Arab Community Centre of Toronto ACCT's Amal Project (Amal = Hope) came to cook and eat together in the past for a happy occasion after Ramadan- graduation lunch. What a Mosaic of cultures - women from Iran, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Venezuela.

🌍 The power of women knows no borders! 

January and February have been busy months at Newcomer Kitchen with several globe trotting small group cooking workshops hosted by women who are in our next level XP food business incubator program.

In this training, we teach newcomer women who are serious about venturing into conducting cooking workshops how to menu ideate, plan their schedule- in advance and on-site as well as storytelling and engaging with their guests. The key is commanding the room and have a mix of demos, hands-on activities and customizing to one's tastes. A recipe for success! Here are some highlights of workshops that I co-hosted with our students in our beautiful century old loft kitchen and office space at CSI- Centre of Social Innovation at 192 Spadina Avenue.

We ushered the new year with La Kasbah del Sol, chef Hajar Ouzid in Savour Morocco for a hands-on workshop exploring Moroccan tagine with all the trimmings!

Moroccan Chicken Tagine

Moroccan Vegetarian Tagine

We gathered around our open kitchen to prepare and cook two tagines. Her chicken tagine was simmered with aromatic spices, tangy preserved lemons, and briny olives. The vegetarian tagine displays a beautiful variety of seasonal vegetables cooked in a fragrant broth served with batbout bread and a beetroot salad.

Her dessert was a showstopper and perfect finish- flaky layered phyllo pastry filled with homemade creme Anglais and a douse of icing sugar. Served with a mint tea ceremony, it's a delicious end to a hearty Moroccan meal! Everyone left satiated having learned new delicious things and meeting great new people 🤗

The week after, I co-hosted with Nigerian host Opeyemi Osadare, founder of @ibilemeals an eclectic evening, discovering and cooking West African cuisine 🇳🇬- Savour Nigeria. This is her first foray into delivering a cooking workshop as one of the few small food business avenues we teach in our food entrepreneurship program.

We started the evening snacking on baked flaky veggie pies, then moved over to our demo kitchen to learn to make Moi Moi, bean pudding made with special African brown eyed beans and spices, steamed in fragrant banana leaves and served with oven-baked chicken thighs. 

A side of Efo-riro (collard greens) was deliciously seasoned rounding out the meal. To finish off, a delightful sweet treat of Puffs Puffs, fried chewy mini dough balls sprinkled with icing sugar and served with a refreshing Zobo beverage also known as Sorrel or hibiscus drink.

Puff Puffs- Nigeria's answer to Tim Bits :D

It was a lovely and lively evening filled with laughter and learning! Simply Magical 💫

In our latest and last workshop in February, host Nada Abd from Anber celebrated the rich flavours, timeless recipes and warm traditions of Iraqi cuisine. She is passionate about crafting authentic dishes that tell a story of culture and community, and eating with your eyes first 👀🤤

Our appetites were whet with rice Kubbeh stuffed with spinach, pomegranate seeds and walnuts, then we joined her at the demo station to prepare Iraqi Chicken Biryani, a fragrant yellow rice with vermicelli and spiced chicken thighs, topped with onions, raisins and almonds. Together, we made a showstopper layered salad with vibrant vegetables, greens, fried pita drizzled with a creamy yogurt dressing. Then finished the hearty meal with a refreshing silky milk pudding topped with crunchy shredded phyllo and pistachios served alongside warm spiced chai tea. 

What a lovely evening with such an amazing gracious host and the warmest guests- loyal repeat customers and partners 🥰. We have been so lucky!

Stay tuned for my next post on Savour Pakistan where I take one of the dishes I absolutely enjoyed from the workshop and make it at home for the family!