Diane Skelliter’s kitchen has turned into a community kitchen for a dynamic group of new Canadians each month.
Skelliter, a true grandmother to Zoey and Joseph Roque, also takes on that special bond with many others.
Working in the kitchen at the main site of the Jubilee Heritage Daycare on Applegrove Street, she first met Vũ Hà My, or Mimi for short. The early childhood education student had just arrived from north Vietnam and admired her work in the kitchen.
“Mimi watched me make community soup each week and brought me her homemade pho with nem, or spring roll. From then on a friendship formed,” Skelliter said said.
Mimi introduced Diane to a group of Vietnamese students also studying abroad and now they host dinners in Skelliter’s home kitchen.
Gin, or Nguyễn Linh Gin is from central Vietnam. She is like an assistant to Mimi at dinners and likes to make the chicken salad dish, a.k.a. “goi ga”. Goi ga has boiled chicken, herbs, ginger, red onion, minced coriander, chives. Cilantro, mint, chilli salt, lime juice, sugar and pork and chicken base bouillon are also used for flavouring along with condensed milk.
Tom, or Tạ Quốc Thái, hails from southern Vietnam is the jokester of the bunch. He admitted he is not the best in the kitchen, but he’s learning. He’s in charge of the thit heo kho tau, a stewed and braised pork dish with boiled eggs.
“I season it with love and affection. That’s big in our culture — part of what makes a dish, is the maker of the dish,” Tom said.
At this dinner, everyone works on their respective dishes from their region. Mimi always makes the pho soup and the nem. These northern spring rolls are filled with minced pork, vermicelli, green onions, bean sprouts and a dried black fungus mushroom, also known as “cat ear mushrooms”.
Mimi purchases these dried mushrooms at KingDou, an Asian Grocer on Lasalle. She then submerges them in warm water until they expand.
The goal is to get together once every six weeks to recreate the moment and often with the same dishes.
“The food just keeps getting better and better, which is hard to believe,” brags Gin.
Skelliter and her extended family are adventurous and join in the spread, but there are some dishes that they just can’t do.
“They do a barbeque chicken feet dish, which they love for the bones and gelatin. I find the feet too bony for my liking,” Skelliter said.
By the time all the meal prep is done, dinner is served around 9 p.m. on a Saturday night. Gin, Mimi and Tom prefer to eat with chopsticks, whereas the Skelliter family prefers western cutlery. Mimi’s cousin arrives late for dinner. Nguyễn Trần Ngọc is the “official dishwasher”.
“I’m really trying to learn the language,” Skelliter said. “I am learning Ojibway, and even some French on Duolingo but the Vietnamese is so fast and melodic.”
Diane’s goal is to learn the basics next year when she travels with Mimi to meet her family in Vietnam. They want to thank her for welcoming their daughter into Canadian culture.
A bond that started over community soup in the kitchen at Jubilee Daycare has turned into something stronger, like Mimi’s simmering pot of pho.
Anastasia Rioux is a writer in Greater Sudbury. Let’s Eat! is made possible by our Community Leaders Program.
