By Sue Tiffin
If there’s a recipe in your collection that is a must-share or that you’d like to live on outside of your kitchen on the printed page the Kinmount Legion wants to see it.
Tara Wilson who became a Legion member earlier this year through Kinmount Legion branch 441 had been donating baking to sell alongside the Saturday meat draw which raises funds for the community in an attempt to raise funds for the Legion itself. She noted that Legions especially those in small towns are struggling to “pay the bills pay the Hydro pay Bell” and that community support can help keep rural Legions up and running. Her baking helped raise thousands of dollars for her local branch and also inspired others to get involved in contributing their own baking.
Now Wilson through the Kinmount Legion is putting together a community cookbook of recipes of all kinds in an effort to raise more.
“I wanted anybody in Kinmount or surrounding communities because we’re all one community in the end to try and help build a community cookbook” she said of the ask which she put out in July and that has since garnered about 110 recipes. Wilson would like to collect 200 submissions and is appealing to the community to email her their favourites or drop off recipes at the Kinmount Legion. What kind of recipe is she looking for?
“Anything and everything” she said. “The only stipulation is that it can’t be a licensed recipe i.e. Neiman Marcus cookies. Other than that everything’s fair game. I’ve [submitted] some of my grandmother’s recipes my mom’s my own.”
The cookbooks – called Gold Recipes a John McGrath Community Cookbook – are expected to cost between $12 and $15. After Wilson inputs each recipe into a publishing program and sends the book layout to Winnipeg for publishing the Gold Recipes cookbooks are expected to be ready in time for Christmas sales. It’s an initiative Wilson hopes will support the Royal Canadian Legion an organization which helped support her great-grandfather grandfather and father after they served and which has supported the community she moved to just a few years ago.
“We all live in small communities up here we all have to try to support each other whether it’s somebody who’s had a fire and you support them or someone who’s down on their luck sort of thing we’re all trying to help each other” she said.
To help youth get involved in the project a colouring contest was held for submissions that could be used to decorate the front and back cover of the cookbook with winners receiving a prize of colouring supplies. Youth have also submitted recipes for the cookbook.
“Instead of taking some stock picture of food it just got the kids involved in the Legion” said Wilson of the contest.
Winners of the cookbook colouring and design contest are Ali Smith from Harcourt and Laine King from Kinmount in the ages four through six category; Cambell McCracken from Haliburton and Adriana Smith from Harcourt in the ages seven through nine category; Jude Vanderwyst-Kozlowski from Gooderham and Alex Humphrey from Haliburton in the ages 10 through 12 category; Kelly Lin from Kinmount in the ages 13 through 15 category and honourable mention to Ollie Vanderwyst-Kozlowski from Gooderham.
To purchase ad space or a sponsorship listing in the cookbook to submit a recipe or for further information contact Tara at rcl441_cookbook@hotmail.com. Recipe submissions can also be dropped off at the Kinmount Legion 11 County Road 503 in Kinmount. The Kinmount Legion can be followed on Facebook at Royal Canadian Legion Branch 441 Kinmount.
