Newcomer Kitchen Food Entrepreneurship Training and XP Food Incubator Programs...

 

It's been a very busy term since the start of school year 🍂. As quickly as another cohort at Newcomer Kitchen began, how quickly it is also coming to an end, with just three weeks left...

Do you know a newcomer woman who would like to learn how to prepare meals like this to sell to the public market, and meet other women from around the world to learn and cook together? Ask her to come and take part in our innovative IRCC-funded food entrepreneurship training program 'Willing To Work' where you "earn as you learn" with 100% revenue from real life food activities flowing back to the participants.

Prepping in the commercial kitchen at Trinity St.Paul's Church

Here, our current day group DISTIINCT (women from Iran, India, Nigeria, Cameroon and Turkey) completed 50 meals Friday in a sold out social impact event we partnered at Crescent School with teachers and staff. We were delighted to offer such diverse and delicious meals (both meat and non-meat) in our Prepared Meals experiential module as one of three market avenue teachings to take their food business. The outcomes introduce newcomer women to the social and economic aspects of living in Canadian society. Upon completion, they will be more prepared for employment, acquire more confidence, feel more connected to their community and develop more entrepreneurship readiness.

ANNOUNCEMENT: We are calling on participants for our next term that starts in January 2024 for 14 weeks in a hybrid online and in kitchen cooking format. Please see flyer for more details and share this to any newcomer woman who would benefit. Cheers 🤗!

To get a better glimpse of what to expect in our program, sharing our first event that starts with every term- Product To Market... Excited to pop up in The Evergreen Brick Works at their last outdoor market weekend late October before things moved inside. What a beautiful day out and what a busssy market 😁! We almost Sold Out on our lovely Sweets and "Tea" Box For Two to share with a friend or loved one loaded with fall flavours of pumpkin, apples, cinnamon and cloves.

DISTIINCT is a group of women who are passionate about cooking their own unique foods yet love the cross cultural fusion of flavours without borders. You can taste the spectrum of love in this sweet box of five treats and cookies #glutenfree and two "tea" blends #caffeinefree hand bagged from Cameroon- dried hibiscus petals, lemongrass, ginger and mint, and Turkey- dried apples, red dates, cinnamon stick and cloves.

And it all began in September with this ... What AmaZing women we have in both our day and evening programs from all over the world. We look forward to learning from each other, especially cuisines for our first time such as foods from Uganda and Cameroon 😋!

As part of a warm up exercise for the women to get to know each other with a lesson on what preparations goes into a food demo, participants in our 'Willing To Work' program took turns to prepare a live online recipe demo from their cultures.

A+ to all for their mise en place- set up, presentation, thoughtful and interesting storytelling and choosing a simple but delicious dish that was captured in the time limit given. The only miss was not being able to reach through that screen to taste. Bravo everyone 👏

AND... we have our second program, XP #foodincubator that supports entrepreneur-ready alums with deeper-dive resources, independent coaching and more business opportunities!

A weekend Storytelling and PR workshop at Newcomer Kitchen with seasoned storyteller and entrepreneur Jim Adams was part of developing market strategies for your brand. We have created additional enriched lessons and I have been involved in their coaching from branding to recipe writing and costing their individual menus to a deeper dive soon on target marketing to bring their ideas  to life. The next stage is promoting them to our clientele and anew- an opportunity to make money and test the market before they go at it on their own. 

"People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." -- Maya Angelou

Another good money generating avenue is conducting food workshops. This has been hugely popular and successful in our past pre-covid times and what better than to relaunch these 'demo and dines' than with these women who are ready for entrepreneurship with their cultural specialties right before the holiday.

To teach this and the complete package to present to our corporate clients, we held a Grilled Cheese workshop as an example of taking an idea, making it fun and educational, getting hands on interactive and sitting down together to eat afterwards.

It was totally enjoyable and totally delicious learning about the different kinds of cheeses, the history of the American grilled cheese sandwich and how to make the best with various gourmet fillings.

After a period of individual coaching on menu selection, recipe writing and costing, we were ready to host our first XP menu tastings of appetizers, mains, sides and desserts from each of the women from Morocco, India and Nigeria. Our goal was to share feedback, provide pricing input and marketability before we shared their completed menu with our clients for potential catering business opportunities! Everything was so tasty!!

So proud of these ladies💗!

Hugely honoured to be part of your entrepreneurship journey! You Can Do It 👊💥

All Sorts of Action At Newcomer Kitchen...

 

Pizza and Champagne... you bet 🍕🥂! To inaugurate our move into our new office at Centre of Social Innovation (CSI) Spadina three months ago (posting late, better than never)... thanks to a generous grant from @cityofto 🤗. I also started in my new role as Program Manager so woohoo to that too 🎉🎉🎊!

It was a hop, skip and a jump over (next door) to a much larger office (previously occupied by @nowtoronto magazine). Hardwood floors, exposed brick, light soaked, panoramic view of the skyline in a beautiful 1920s building on the top floor. We built an enclosed office space, have a large common area with a couch, big dining table (doubles as a work table) and a kitchenette that also serves as a demo cook station for various food workshops. 

Here I am with chef Mary Freij, our Willing To Work Evening Program Trainer and Sandra Lefebvre, our XP Program Coordinator in charge of our newly launched next level up program for selected W2W alumnis who have shown the most potential in starting their own food business. Over a few months, they will take various business-related workshops and take on farmer's market and catering opportunities from our returning clients and new.

Notably, in May CSI held a Career Pathways event which gathered more than 26 organizations working in newcomer and settlement services to strengthen our ecosystem and partnerships. Here with Tamara Chaikin, NK Director of Operations and Cara Benjamin-Pace, NK Executive Director.

Past graduates catered to the event who are now part of our newly launched XP Program💥!! 

The XP program were also part of the celebrations with Carleton University and their graduates, catering to a 10 years anniversary event with their Philanthropy and Nonprofit Leadership program at CSI Annex. We served a beautiful array of Taiwanese and Syrian finger foods, dips and petit fours with the showstopper Ukrainian honey cake from my past group Taste Elle's Liza 💗! 

Catering for film 📽🎞! 

A joint effort with both Willing To Work Food Business Program and XP Program women!

The 14th edition of The 8 Fest @the8fest (July 28th to 30th) celebrated and presented films from Toronto, across Canada and from small-gauge creators (8mm, Super 8 and 9.5mm, as well as works in installation, loops, handmade, experimental, animations, diaries, etc.,) and communities around the world. Their first annual festival was held in February 2007.

Punjabi Kala Chana Chaat (Black chickpea salad)

Moroccan Vegetarian "Candy" Cigars

We offered on their opening night an International menu of appetizers ranging from deep-fried vegetarian South Asian bites and chana chaat to Turkish meat skewers to Eritrean agelgil (injera layered with shiro chickpea stew) and meat sauce to chocolate baklava. We heard we had the loudest raving cheers when they announced us as part of the credits at the end of the night. YAY 🎬😋!

Meet chef Mary who works with me! She is the owner of Tetaskitchen.com- notably recognized on @torontolife's best 20 restaurants to eat in Toronto 2023. Who better to learn from than a food entrepreneur who did just that, coming from Dubai seven years ago. Incredible 👊💥!

Catching a glimpse of her mouth watering and economical mixed grilled platter for 2 #halal on insta, I had to give it a go. One of the highlights is “Pandan Kebab,” fusing the Southeast Asian herb with their popular customer Middle Eastern mainstays- sheesh tawouk, beef kafta, sumac fries, fresh salad and sauces (toum and tahini) atop spiced rice 😋. I also picked up their Beirut chicken wings with a spicy coriander garlic glaze and more potatoes- battata harra mixed with a spicy pomegranate sauce. Moist and flavourful all the way!

One of the fab perks of having our office at the CSI Spadina is being close to the regular action cultivated to bring members together- Tuesday community kitchen salad lunch bar, Wednesday community coffee chat and so much more 🥗☕..

Here at the first of two annual CSI laneway summer BBQ connecting members in work that supports people and planet- environment impact innovation, social injustices and empowering newcomers to name a few! Great networking event and walked away learning something new and inspired 💡🥰! 

“Every woman’s success should be an inspiration to another. We’re strongest when we cheer each other on” ~ Serena Williams

14 weeks from the very start of our 'Willing To Work' program and both evening and daytime program women graduate 🎓. Not only did they gain food savvy business skills and learn to punch out production as a team for three real life food events some have grown their language skills, confidence and fellow networking- an integral part of what we strive to do #empowerment 💥

Newcomer Kitchen trains newcomer women food preparation and entrepreneurship funded by the Immigration Refugee Citizenship of Canada (IRCC). This "learn and earn" program helps prepare their food ideas to market with all revenue generated going back in their hands. It was so incredible to see these ladies awarded with their certificates of completion alongside the money they generated (prepared take out meals, product to market and catering)... for some, it was the first time they earned money... ever! The proud look on their faces, made me so proud 🥰!

Congratulations Tasty Cultures and Sisters Multicultural Kitchen! Wishing you all the best 💖!

O Canada Day Feast With Newcomer Kitchen...

What a successful event it was with Newcomer Kitchen current Spring day program group Sisters Multicultural Kitchen and the one and only The Depanneur serving their curated O Canada feast menu 🇨🇦🍴 to a Sold Out crowd of 60! And that was even before our menu was posted 🤗! It was a beautiful Thursday evening- a celebration prelude just before the long 🇨🇦 weekend. 

The Bentway and Len Senator at The Depanneur have been teaming up again to bring you a fabulous lineup of diverse and delicious dinners. Newcomer Kitchen’s cohorts are made up of women from around the world who have come together to share their foods and cultures with Toronto. These ladies 🇲🇦🇪🇷🇮🇳 were excited to create a truly international meal just in time for Canada Day — a celebration of what makes this country home for so many.

Family-style dining in a truly unique urban setting. Communal Tables are seated, family-style meals, served and shared at 10 tables of 6, where you bring your own plates and cutlery.

Introducing themselves and the dishes they prepared, they were experiencing public speaking likely for their first time! They did so well 🤗!

Moroccan Mixed Vegetables Tagine anyone? Prepared with tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, onions, zucchini, chickpeas and black olives slow simmered with preserved lemons 🇲🇦😋- the vegetarian option for the main meal...

Or do you want Harpreet's Punjabi Lemon Chicken with a lemony black pepper sauce 🇮🇳🍛🍋... 😋?

How the rest of the delish menu looked like 🇨🇦🍽!

Asmait's Eritrean bread was a major hit- perfect served with the Moroccan eggplant dip, with the main meals or on it's own. Usually this is baked on a special pan with lid called a magogo and served on special occasions. What a treat our guests enjoyed.

Some more kitchen prep and incredible event plating shots!

Sucharita preparing her Indian onion pakoras. To be served with Asmait's green chili data'aa.

Madhuri prepares her tasty cumin basmati rice, a harmonious complement to either mains.

Indian Onion Pakoras with a dip of Eritrean Data'aa

Zaalouk- a lovely Moroccan Eggplant and Tomato Dip

Refreshing watermelon, cucumber, shallots and mint salad sprinkled with black salt- the only way Indians eat their watermelon. The sulfuric flavour elevates the cool and sweet taste with a hint of salt.

Ahhh, a cool frozen fresh strawberry infused kulfi- an Indian delight in individual containers for a portable finish to an AmaZing 🇨🇦 meal!

Enthusiastically working together and volunteeringly serving the great crowd of guests with a smile on their face is what we call a Dream Team 💥! 

Congrats Sisters Multicultural Kitchen 👏👏👏!!