Kajin's Relational Kitchen & Catering
I will cook with or for you using ingredients of our choosing in a place that feels good for everyone.
> See 'Additional Information' to see how this works. We chat:
- What do you like to eat?
- What do you not like to eat?
- What can you NOT eat?
- How many people will eat with us?
- Where?(yours, or mine, or other?)
- How about a kitchen? (yours, or
mine, or other?)
- What ingredients do you have?
- What do you grow?
- Do you want to harvest or forage or fish or hunt together (or on your own)?
- Would you like to pair this with beverages? (Alcohol/non-alcohol)
- When do you wanna do this? Breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner, supper?
- Would you like to help cook? (We can consider it a mutual cooking lesson as we prepare our meal.)
- Would you like music to be part of this?
- Would you like to invite someone from outside your circle to help participate/cook/play?
6. You cover cost of ingredients. I might use some of my own condiments/sauces/spices/equipment for which you make a contribution we agree on.
7. Kajin doesn’t have a car or license. Maybe we also book a date to forage and gather together.
8. We cook! We eat! We feast! We make friends!
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KAJIN’S RATE
We decide if I get paid a flat fee or how many hours this will take or whatever. I like the pay-what-you-feel model, personally. Reflect on what you feel the experience is worth. Remember, I like to eat too! Also, exchanges and barters can be built into the ‘fee’. :)
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KAJIN’S ABOUT/BIO/MANIFESTO:
I’m not a chef, but a cook who grew up in my parents’ (and grandparents’) kitchens, from Singapore to Malaysia to Newfoundland and Canada. In fact, the most prized items I inherited from my parents are a pestle and mortar, and traditional Chinese iron flat-blade that date from the earliest days of my parents’ marriage, and with which I learned to prepare food when I was just a young noodle coming of age. My parents were polymaths in the kitchen, constantly experimenting and testing new recipes. Our dinner table would alternately be set with traditional Asian favourites, curries (we are South-East Asian), pasta, French farm dishes, and more. I’ve also inherited this love of diversity on the plate, and slide into my comfort place when I’m at stove, whether that be prepping a roast, noodles, soups, stews, appy plates, sashimi etc. Since moving to the island I began to revive another favourite activity from my growing up days, namely harvesting and foraging in forest and beachside for what the land offers. I’m especially enamoured of any kind of seafood (shellfish, crustacean, fish) and mushrooms, and learning more of the indigenous flora and edible species of the Gulf Islands. I’m not an especially ‘fancy’ cook, though I do like to dress up and present meals as the occasion suggests. I grew up before the current ‘foodie’ era in the West, but really, I come from a culture of diehard foodies in the first place, where some of the best plates are served streetside. I like improvisation especially, and might look up a recipe for inspiration but generally cook from that space between the head and heart (but also nostrils and tongue and eyes) and more or less let the ingredients direct me. I love the tools of cooking — from pots and pans to woks and cast-irons and knives and everything else — and the variable ways we can pull flavours onto the plate. More recently I’ve been doing more camp cooking over open fires, raking embers to sear a steak and splicing onions on a halved log cutting board, or boiling up huge pots of chowder on the beach. I’m passionate about all aspects of food culture, believing our collective nourishment to be an essential key to the expression of life. I like to nerd out on learning how this whole operation works — the history of food, the movement of plantlife and crops around the planet and more (after all, I hail from the ‘spice basket’ of the world), the intersect of gastronomy and society, and the revolutionary potential of food itself. We indeed are what we eat, and I believe our guts link us to the source. Also, food is medicine. The word ‘cure’ is in ‘Epicurean’ after all! Beyond this project, I’m currently working on a future pop-up, farm-to-plate style dining experience for the warmer months which will marry eating with story-telling, music, friendship-building, society-bonding and more. I’m excited to deepen relationships between growers and harvesters and fisherfolk and hunters and eaters. I’m also working on Gabriel’s Kitchen through the Chuan Society, a group I helped create with friends in 2017 which moves social action through culture. This is a community kitchen which will be operating out of Ganges, and a tribute to my dear friend Gabriel Bonga who ran Stone Soup in Peace Park every Thursday for four years, and who sadly passed away in a boating accident in early 2020.
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NOTES
A)
This is a relational endeavour. Meaning, I am not ‘providing’ a ‘service’ in the usual way.*
Instead, I’d like to stress collaboration, relationship, while recognising the value of food and where it comes from, and the process of its arrival on our plates. I am not ‘serving’ you, as we are in effect partners in co-creating this experience, these tastes, and these nourishments. In another way we could also say the whole environment is collaborating with us as well to produce this meal. B)
I am not much of a sweet tooth (lol, it’s there in the name of this project) so I don’t usually do desserts. I can learn though or invite amazing dessert-makers to become part of this project. That said, I originate from another salty place (South East Asia, namely Singapore and Malaysia) and so can be mindful around the seasoning/salting of dishes. All this can be chatted about in the lead-up to the meal, ie. spice tolerance, taste preferences, anything to do with the shape of your palate.
* This has to do with the etymology of the term ’service’, (which I do appreciate in different iterations) which you can look up on the interwebs! This is relational cooking/eating rather than something associated with the ‘service industry’ (not a put-down; some of my best friends work within this field!).
