Cookbooks for Kinglake

On Sunday, we hosted the big event -- the cookbook launch! -- up at Kinglake.

As you'll know (because I don't stop going on about it), a group of crafty ladies (that includes me) gathered and created a cookbook as a way to help those 2000 people who lost their homes in the bushfires this last summer.

We wanted to give a copy for free to anyone who had lost everything because that's a way of sharing our family history and community, not to mention damn fine chocolate cake recipes. I seem to remember murbling something of the sort into a microphone at the launch (I do hate microphones. They freak me out.) but happily people took it pleasantly. Probably because we plied them with chocolate cake first, so their veins were flooded with chocolate endrophins.

I'm getting off track...

The launch was:
a) a party! Decorations, cake, face painter, prizes. Music!

b) dinner for the Kinglake community -- recipes from the book! Punjabi lamb shanks and Freda Bessie's chicken, plus a lentil and spinach tart and loads of yummy vegetables.

c) a real collaborative effort. So many lovely people helped, from those who worked on the book itself to get it ready and printed, to those who helped on the day in the kitchen and front of house -- occasionally both if they were one of the lucky ones to receive the two-finger-collarbone-grab from me and an 'ahoy lovely, you're in for some kitchen duty...' These ones took it in good humour, too, and are tinged with sainthood in my eyes.

So now it's over, we've met some lovely people, we're exhausted and happy and there are many thank yous to be written. Soon it will be time to reprint the book and promote the second run: we want to raise money to help the Salvos with their work for families and individuals finding themselves in all sorts of hardship. It feels good to be doing something so real.

You can see a little more about the launch prep and I'll be blogging launch photos soon over at Taccolina.

x
Bev