Patchworks Cooking Series by The Elderly
15 September 2007
Yio Chu Kang Secondary School
Singapore

Patchworks Cooking Series by The Elderly

“Are you a Social Entrepreneur?”

Nanyang Technological University (NTU) Welfare Services Club’s (WSC) “Patchworks” committee launches its first cooking workshop series with local secondary school students and elderly citizens on Saturday, 15 September 2007 at Yio Chu Kang Secondary School.

Part of a two-year-long engagement to the “Patchworks” social entrepreneurial venture series, the committee hopes to hold series of cooking workshops with an anticipated participation of at least three other local secondary schools that will run through to July 2008, with breaks between school holidays and examination periods.

In total, three culinary mentors have been engaged to teach the School's students in a morning and afternoon session.
In the morning workshop, students will learn from elderly contributor Ms Anna Tay of the "Patchwork of Flavours" cookbook will guide them on how to cook Stuffed Tau Pok and Sago Dessert.

While the Patchworks committee is pleased to celebrate the start of the Series with Master Chef Sin Leong and Master Chef Hooi Kok Wai of the famed "4 Heavenly Chefs" from Red Star Restaurant and Dragon Phoenix Restaurant. Both chefs have shared their culinary skills with a class of 20 secondary 3 & 4 students from the Food and Nutrition class. They have prepared two of their famous dishes, namely the Ancient Steamed Red Tilapia and Sweet & Sour Prawn Balls <see recipes>.

The committee also hopes that through the inaugural launch, they have met their social objectives, such as public voluntarism, active ageing, preservation of food heritage, and to promote inter-generation bonding between the recipe contributors and youths with “Patchwork of Flavours” – a cookbook comprising a collection of time-honoured recipes contributed by the elderly community.

A part of the committee’s original “Patchworks” plan, this will be a complementing mechanic that the NTU students will be working with Central Singapore CDC to carry out “going from print to actions and emotions”.

Patchworks committee chairperson, Mr. Tan Kay Boon elaborates: “Through this cooking workshop series, we hope to carry forward our objective of connecting youths and elderly from the print and pictures stage to actual face-to-face interaction – this includes making a dish and learning how to prepare it from an elderly citizen. We hope that through this, we can introduce new avenues for fun and meaningful methods of communication with grandparents and grandchildren or elderly and youths.”

Already achieving an impressive sale of more than 1,800 copies of the cookbook sold in just two months since its official launch on 14 July 2007, the committee’s second print edition of “Patchwork of Flavours” will be written in Chinese language. This edition will be available in October 2007.