This is how Home Kong wraps Christmas! Thanks to all of Home Kong Kitchen‘s volunteers for spreading much needed festive cheer to the most vulnerable in the form of staple foods, clothing, toys and delectable sweet treats! Special shout out to Deepa Tolani for loaning me her driver yesterday and making our festive run for the migrant women of Bethune House so pleasurable. Merry Christmas, everybody!
Crazy scenes across Hong Kong for the past few months as the panic buying craze spread faster than the virus. Supermarkets and pharmacies stripped bare. Even things like toothpaste (?) Like brushing your teeth was going to put Omicron off! “Sorry, mate, your breath stinks like stale dog biscuits. I’m going to infect the woman behind you instead. Unlike you, she flosses, too,” Omicron didn’t say.
Last month, Home Kong Kitchen volunteer Mojo Hobo Kaye launched his campaign to ‘Make Hong Kong Barely Tolerable Again‘ by urging Hongkongers to ‘Stop the Woofing Panic Buying!’ He then stole and fraudulently used my credit card to purchase himself a new baseball cap emblazoned with his slogan. Yesterday, Carrie Lam announced that she would not be running for a second term as Chief Executive. Government sources refused to confirm or deny whether Mojo had influenced her decision. However, Junius Ho warned that Mojo’s hat might have contravened the National Security Law. Police are still investigating whether the poodle colluded with foreign forces when he purchased the cap on Amazon.
The empty shelves, soaring food prices and tough restrictions have been making things trickier at Home Kong Kitchen. But thanks to the dogged determination of HKK‘s incredible volunteers, we have somehow managed to keep operating and delivering home baked breakfasts, dry foods, canned foods and medical supplies to the homeless, migrants and refugees. Thanks to everyone who has generously contributed! Every humble delivery of just a few necessities has felt like a mini-miracle. We are now collecting gifts of food, clothing, books, toys and festive treats for our Easter Bun Run and would LOVE to have your support! Email hello@homekongkitchen.com to find out how you can help!
The Year of The Ox is upon us and to celebrate Home Kong Kitchen will be baking and serving cream teas for refugees @ Refugee Union in Sai Yin Pun THIS SATURDAY (Feb 13) from 2pm! Thanks to our collaborators @ Breadline for arranging this opportunity for us to mark the Lunar New Year in our own little way: the Cornish way!
Cream teas have been steeped in Chinese mythology and tradition ever since 400BC when Confucius tried one, overdid the clotted cream and sagely proclaimed “You are what you… think I’m gonna barf!!!” (His publicist later shortened the quote to “You are what you think.”) Here’s hoping the Year of The Ox will be a lot more creamy and a lot less plaguey than its Ratty predecessor!
If you would like to help me serve teas to refugees on Sat or wish to contribute baking or other gifts of cooking utensils, oils, pasta, rice, old clothes or laptops/ phones/ tablets capable of running the Zoom app (for refugee kids to do home learning), please fill in the form below! 💜
Kung Fat Hei Choi & Sun Tai Kin Hong! 🐂
Incidentally, I did consider serving cow pies instead of cream teas, but living in such close proximity to these feral beauties is enough to turn even the most un-woke meat-stinking Gen Xer vegan!
Also, I’ve got no idea how to bake cow pies. Is it flour, eggs, clotted cream, bananas?
View the gallery for this event: https://homekongkitchen.com/2021/02/15/lunar-new-year-events/
Last month, I announced my pie in the sky intention of making, collecting and distributing 100 Christmas Gift Socks to the homeless! Thanks to the amazing generosity and support of bighearted Homekongers, I can only ever find one sock and that target was nearly trebled!!!
Thanks to everyone who donated their time, energy, creativity and baking to Home Kong Kitchen in 2020! It’s because of you that HKK is collecting and delivering bread, bagels, muffins and other gifts to homeless people living in unlicensed shelters and refuges most days! We are also making weekly deliveries to Impact HK every Friday!
There are many ways you can volunteer for Home Kong Kitchen: you can bake a difference as part of our community of home bakers, you can make a difference as a bread donator, or you can create a difference as an artist on our sustainable bread boxes!
Thank you for your kindness and support! 💜 💜 💜
You may have caught me looking slightly guilty a few weeks ago in the SCMP‘s Post Magazine chatting to the hilarious Kylie Knott about my tasty little Home Kong Kitchen initiative: Baking A Difference (geddit?) for Hong Kong’s homeless! Thanks so much to the SCMP for this nice little plug of HKK and Mental Ideas, which is currently broadcasting on RTHK.
BLOWN AWAY by the response to this article, solidarity and generosity of Hongkongers mobilizing support to help the most vulnerable! This project has never failed to rejuvenate my spirits and restore my faith in humanity, bringing me together with so many inspiring individuals and organizations that epitomize the spirit of Hong Kong!
HUGE thanks to bighearted artist Juliana Kung for designing Home Kong Kitchen‘s emblem! It has everything I love: character, beauty and flying bagels! (Actually, I think they’re meant to be orbs, but I saw bagels. I see bagels everywhere now. They’re plastered on every billboard, graffitied on every work of art. Mona Lisa’s smile? Bagels. Munch’s Scream? Bagels. Birth of Venus? Bagels. Map of the MTR? Bagels. The New Fragrance by Christian Dior? Bagels. Leonardo’s Last Supper? What else?? Bagels.)
I’ve discovered every homemade bagel weighs the same as a brick and that lugging vast quantities of bricks bagels around has really paid off in terms of honing my hump! (Sadly not the lovely lady lumps kind; more the Quasimodo kind…) If you’re interested in volunteering for Home Kong Kitchen, please fill in the form below!
PSST – If you’re unsure how to pronounce my name correctly, this is it!! 💜💜💜
