The Gilmore Park Church Community Kitchen celebrated Christmas with a potluck as previous year.

We are glad to have Lorna (standing 3rd from left) to join us again. Lorna gave us a very priceless gift from her late husband. It is an art collection of Lorna’s husband arts with the title “Fascinating Mind of Nigel Tam”. Nigel (1937-2008) was born and raised in an artistic family in Shanghai, China. Nigel graduated from TaiNan Polytechnic and Taiwan Normal University with honour in Fine Arts.

Nigel was married to Lorna in 1971 and had two daughters. In 1992, Nigel and family moved to Canada and established the “Tam’s Studio”, teaching art. Nigel managed to publish his art works in the book “Fascinating Mind of Nigel Tam” just before he passed away. This book contains art work from oil painting, ink painting and digital art work. Lorna, thank you so much for sharing Nigel’s dream with us.

Besides sharing food, Karen made everyone a cute little ornament bell to be hang on our Christmas tree. Karen, thank you for the crafted gift. Frank also gave everyone some Japanese cookies and beautifully written Christmas cards.

Back to food, Heidi made this very fragrant 5 spice duck. She told us she marinated the duck with 4 tablespoons of salt and 4 teaspoons of five-spice powder for 48 hours, wrapped with layers of paper towel to absorb all the moisture. She then use some Shioxing wine to rinse the inside of the duck before steaming the duck for 40 minutes. This 5-spice duck is her husband’s favourite.

Lorna made this dessert soup which is supposed to have healing effect for cough. According to Chinese medicinal point of view, this dessert soup warms your lungs. This soup has papaya, red dates, fig, white fungus (or snow ear fungus), north and south almond and sweetened with rock sugar. According to Lorna, the dry white fungus has to be soaked and blanched to remove the sulfuric taste in it.

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Tanni made Satay Pork. The pork is baked and rather lean. The dipping sauce is not at all spicy to me but it’s enough for Jean to feel the spiciness in it. I would love to have satay which is barbequed and lots of sambal in the sauce like here.

Jean made BBQ chicken. Jean’s secret ingredient is the Kraft Chicken BBQ sauce. Jean first saute some onion and garlic and brown the chicken. Then she added the Kraft Chicken BBQ sauce and simmer until the chicken is cooked. This will be great with some rice or noodle to soak up all the sauce.

Karen brought a traditional Canadian Macaroni and Cheese. Her only complaint is that she could’nt get the old sharp Cheddar for her Mac and Cheese.

Charlene made Cinnamon Raisin Bread Pudding.

Minoo made Nut Brittle.

Lastly, I made Kuejadas (Portuegese Tart).

We had a wonderful Christmas potluck and thank you all for sharing. We wished everyone a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.