February is Celebration Month with Lunar New Year and Valentine's Day...

 

Gung Hay Fat Choi! Sun Tai Geen Hong! Soon Soon Lay Lay! Greetings and many best wishes to those celebrating Chinese and Lunar New Year a prosperous, healthy one with only good, smooth and sweet things to come 🏮!

Hosting my first CNY celebration at my new-ish home with extended family with Singapore Fried Noodles, and Red Bean Purple Rice Coconut Tapioca Soup Dessert 🥣! 

Singapore Fried Noodles

The family potluck spread

But of course we cannot ring in the year entering the Dragon without the legendary dragon himself Master Lee (handcrafted statue created by my super artist brother Marten Go @mgo.preserveddragons🐉🙏).

Mirroring my brother's sentiments, the year of the Dragon brings abundant energy, vision and growth. Being the most powerful and auspicious animal, it is the reason to pursue your dreams, express your ideas and expand your horizons this year!

"When you say that something is impossible, you have made it impossible..." "Knowing is not enough. We must apply. Willing is not enough. We must do" -- Bruce Lee

Let's Go Dragons 👊💥!

Our Newcomer Kitchen Willing to Work winter term is well underway 💨. Introducing our very diverse groups of women- evening program Seven Senses Kitchen and daytime group Cuisine Connections.

Seven Senses Kitchen

Cuisine Connections

Working hard and having fun producing a total of 100 gift bags for a Valentine's Day ❤ event for our longtime partnering school at Crescent (a private boys middle school). Calling our bags Hugs and Kisses, buy one or buy both to seal the XO. This is part of the experiential learning for our lesson on product to market from production, labeling to packaging.

Which bag would you buy?

HUGS

🇳🇬 Abigail's Nigerian chocolate coated chin chin
🇦🇫 Samurai's Afghani jalebi
🇨🇴 Vicky's Colombian Alfajor dulche de leche cookies
🇮🇶 Nada's Iraqi orange and chocolate cookies
🇦🇫 Sahar's Afghani sheer pira milk fudge with dried fruit
🇮🇳 Shatavisa's Indian ladoo date and fig balls
🇮🇷 Hamideh's Persian sohan saffron tahini biscuit

KISSES

🇵🇭 Carolina's ube purple yam jam served with Skyflakes crackers (Philippines origin)
🇵🇰 Samina's Pakistani chana dal bars with dark chocolate
🇳🇬 Blessing's Nigerian seasoned plantain chips
🇲🇦 Hajar's Moroccan dark chocolate dipped fingers with rose petals
🇸🇩 Omnia's Sudanese kahk cookies filled with pomegranate Turkish delight (lokum)

❤ Happy Valentine's Day ❤

Delivering our Hugs and Kisses gift bags to Crescent School for the boys and their families to pick up and enjoy. This was a collaboration on the theme "Love Letter to the World" where each student wrote on hearts what their message of love is to the world ✍💌

With the very diverse groups of women we are working with this winter term, what great synergy it is to have the symphony of love in the form of treats... from the world to them in these great giftable bags 🤗🥰! 🇸🇩🇲🇦🇳🇬🇵🇰🇵🇭🇮🇷🇮🇳🇦🇫🇮🇶🇨🇴

2023 Wraps and 2024 Begins...

Happy New Year everyone! 

Sharing two notable holiday dinner spreads with close friends - homestyle Greek pork souvlaki, tzatziki, roasted lemon garlic potatoes, Turkish bulgur and Lebanese fattoush salads, Chinese bbq pork char siu and Japanese mochi cake with @lisaeats.

And take out Iraqi assorted kebab and roasted chicken platters with homemade Lebanese fattoush salad, crispy roasted potatoes and Vietnamese veggie rolls with my bestie.

What is the common theme in both these meals? As much as they lean towards one cultural cuisine, it welcomes and embraces the addition of other country flavours, making the experience both global adventurous and harmonious on the kitchen table.

Takes me back to my roots, as far as I can remember in the beginning of my food career. In my early Kraft Kitchen Days as a recipe developer, I always had multiculturalism in mind. I believe I was instrumental in bringing global diversity to the forefront in both our What's Cooking? and Quebec equivalent qu'est-ce qui mijote? magazine recipes to the mainstream audiences. That was nearly 20 years ago. And my love for multiculturalism only ramped up from there 🌐💞.

In a world where change is constant, imminent and inevitable, somethings just never change...

And that in itself, is some kind of wonderful❣ #ethos 

It was a great year end wrapping up my food programs at Newcomer Kitchen and at TDSB Community Services 💞! I am so ever grateful for being able to combine two loves in my career. They are my I.K.I.G.A.I #lifepurpose 💫

On my Passion for Empowering Newcomer Women:

To mirror Cara, NK Executive Director's sentiments which is so beautiful and powerful,

"Watching such special women burst into smiles

Also knowing how scared they are inside

To do their best, that "positive stress"

And their transformative experiences no matter how small they seem at the time

Are why we do what we do ..."

How extraordinary it is to witness this regularly 🥰.

On my Passion for Cooking With Kids:

My dream is to make a difference…

for our children now and tomorrow

Equip them with solid skills, not just borrow

Food education at home, at school

Pass on how-to knowledge, that’s the tool

Important skills that must be taught

Life lessons gained that can't be bought

Too many suffer from not knowing

Cooking is the key to healthy growing

There is a better choice

Empowerment is the voice

Together we can make a difference…

for our children now and tomorrow! -- Susan 

Follow Your Ikigai... 💫

🎉 2023 was a year of tremendous growth at Newcomer Kitchen! From moving into a larger office space equipped with a demo kitchen, to hiring 2 additional staff and launching our second XP food business program with pride, including our first series of Moroccan Mnencha workshop over at Evergreen Brick Works for the holidays... this was certainly a year to celebrate our wins 🎊! 

Congrats to our recent cohort grads- Afro-Asian Eats and DISTIINCT for completing our Willing To Work program. We wish you all the success in your endeavours, and will work with some of you again in XP!

To the ladies currently in our XP, we are very proud of your accomplishments as you take the new learnings to the next level. Your individual menus look incredible and delicious, and we can't wait to see where you go from here 🙌! 

To our friends, partners and followers, thank you for your ongoing support 🙏. May the new year bring you many laughter and happy memories! We look forward to bringing you more events, more workshops to tantalize your senses and take your taste buds on a global adventure. Many cheers!!

And to wrap up this post... As The Depanneur owner Len Senater exclaims "2024 is going to be amazeballs!"

Announcement 📣: New cookbook launch 🙌👩‍🍳👨‍🍳📚 The Depanneur Cookbook is finally arriving in March!

(All excerpts are from Indigo's overview of the cookbook) It celebrates Toronto’s astonishing cultural diversity, telling the modern immigrant story of the city through 100 recipes from 100 cooks and exploring the Dep’s transformation from old corner store to a buzzy place of tremendous culinary creativity.

More than three years in making, The Depanneur Cookbook: Stories from Canada's Unlikeliest Restaurant — Canada's most successful Kickstarter cookbook ever — is finally hitting the shelves March 5th!

Pre-Order the Cookbook HERE

Over a decade ago, Len Senater set out on an adventure to create meaningful experiences using food as the medium. Since then, Len’s idiosyncratic pop-up space, The Depanneur—a tiny, old corner store transformed into “A Place Where Interesting Food Things Happen”—has featured hundreds of talented cooks and served thousands of eclectic meals. Through culinary events such as casual Drop-In Dinners to family-style Supper Clubs, hands-on Cooking Classes to insightful Table Talks, The Depanneur has discovered unique ways to foster community through food, all while avoiding the pitfalls of more traditional restaurant experiences. From a decade of unbridled culinary creativity emerged the idea of celebrating the remarkable accomplishments of this experiment as a book.

Launched as a Kickstarter campaign in November 2020, The Depanneur Cookbook showcases the astonishing range of Toronto’s culinary talent. Equal parts documentary, manifesto, and cookbook, the book features delicious food, poignant stories, and beautiful photography. More than just a collection of authentic home cooking from around the world, it is the only cookbook that truly captures the incredible culinary diversity of Toronto.

Len used to sit on Newcomer Kitchen's Board of Directors. Congratulations! We look forward to more collaborations and inspiration in all that you do 👏🎊!

Looking forward to what food ventures 2024 has in store.... I say Bring. It. On!

Easy Chinese Steamed Snow White Rice Cake...

I'm dreaming of a whiiite... rice cake 🍚❄🎵🎶 Soft, bouncy and springy... oh my!! A snow white cake for a snow white kind of day 🌨

Traditional Chinese rice cake (aka white sugar sponge cake, Chinese honeycomb cake) is not made like your typical baked cake. It is steamed. White rice flour and white sugar is cooked over the stove with water, cooled then set aside to ferment with the addition of yeast until the batter surface is bubbly. The activated yeast creates a spongy consistency with a honeycomb look after steaming. It is very simple to make at home with four ingredients.

The flavour is mellow sweet with a bit of pleasant tang due to the fermented batter. The blend of rice flour and yeast is similar to nostalgic sweet Chinese rice wine and a taste I love. But the real beauty here is all in the bounce #beautybounce #squeezeworthy #whitedelicious #snowwhitebeauty

They say it is best served warm, but I love it cool- it has this refreshing flavour that makes your taste buds crave for more... bite after bite 😋

Chinese Steamed Rice Cake
Makes 1 size of 9" pie plate

200 g rice flour (not glutinous)
110 g sugar
350 ml water
3 g yeast
30 ml warm water

Prepare The Batter by adding rice flour, sugar, and water in a bowl. Whisk until smooth (the batter should be smooth and thin without any lumps).

Place the bowl in a pan with water and heat over medium-low heat for five minutes. Whisk continuously without letting the flour thicken on the bottom. The viscosity should be medium smooth. After heating, remove it from the pan and let it cool.

Combine the yeast with warm water in a bowl and mix well. When the batter is cool, add the yeast mixture and mix well. Then, cover the bowl with wrap. Let it ferment at room temperature for 1 to 2 hours until tiny bubbles are formed.

Pour the batter into your heat-proof safe plate for steaming. Steam for 14 minutes on high heat (DO NOT OVERCOOK or it will turn out dry and hard). After steaming, remove from heat and allow it to cool well.

Cut the rice cake into your desired size and shape. Enjoy! 🤤🥰

Chinese Steamed Rice Cake (Full Recipe)

Makes 1 size of 9" pie plate

200 g rice flour (not glutinous)
110 g sugar
350 ml water
3 g yeast
30 ml warm water

Prepare The Batter by adding rice flour, sugar, and water in a bowl. Whisk until smooth (the batter should be smooth and thin without any lumps).

Place the bowl in a pan with water and heat over medium-low heat for five minutes. Whisk continuously without letting the flour thicken on the bottom. The viscosity should be medium smooth. 

After heating, remove it from the pan and let it cool. Combine the yeast with warm water in a bowl and mix well. When the batter is cool, add the yeast mixture and mix well. Then, cover the bowl with wrap. Let it ferment at room temperature for 1 to 2 hours until tiny bubbles are formed. 

Pour the batter into your heat-proof safe plate for steaming. Steam for 14 minutes on high heat (DO NOT OVERCOOK or it will turn out dry and hard). After steaming, remove from heat and allow it to cool well. 

Cut the rice cake into your desired size and shape. 

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 👊💥