Recipes for Disaster?
Howdy folks, I don’t know if this is quite the right forum for this kinda stuff but I figured “What’s the worst that can happen?” Hell, if anything good comes out of, we all might stand to gain a little and if that’s the case, then, what can be better than that?
A little while back I told you guys about a program called People to People that my kid decided to go ahead and throw her hat in the ring and give it a try. It was more based on whim but she managed to land three letters of recommendation from her school and her soccer coach and was invited to attend the interview process.
Well, lo and behold, she aced the interview and was the only one selected from her school to make the trip and she’ll be packing her bags to head off to Holland/ The Netherlands as a scholar athlete sometime in the year 2007. She’ll be gone anywhere between two and three weeks.
When I picked her up this weekend she brought with her a pretty detailed brochure listing all kinds of stuff from the “do’s and the don’t” to what to pack for her upcoming journey. There, buried amongst the details was a little section that had to do with the cost and how to hold some fundraisers to offset some of the expenses.
Please, before your fingers reach for the downvote button, please read on.
First of all, we’re not asking any of you for any money. It’s not our style to begin with and truth be told, between me and my ex we could probably fund the trip ourselves without taking too much of a hit. But, in order to make my daughter feel like more of a part of the journey, they suggest that she play a role in raising some of the money herself. So me and Anna put our heads together and tried to put our own personal spin on one of their suggestions.
We called it “The Clintonville Cookbook”.
See, Clintonville is the name of our little neck of the woods here in Columbus, Ohio and we plan to go door to door and solicit some of our neighbors for some of their favorite recipes. Maybe it might be transcribed on a faded index card and be sitting in one of those old rolodex thingamajigs gathering dust or maybe it’s one that you’ve invented yourself or just dying to try. Our plan is to gather as many as we can and catalogue them and then bind them up into a book (I actually know someone who owns a small neighborhood bookstore that stays afloat and manages a tidy profit even against the Barnes and Nobles and Borders of this world.) and either sell or raffle them off at a nominal profit with any proceeds going toward her trip.
Then you guys came to mind and we talked about it for a bit last night and decided the project might take on a new dimension. Rather than stick to local traditional fare, why don’t we throw caution to the wind and open it up for some other folks to try their hand at?
Thus, ”The Everything/Clintonville Cookbook” was about to be born.
Here’s what we ask, send me a link to something noded here on E2 that you’ve either written, eaten or just thought might sound tasty. We’ll credit the author of the write up time when publishing time comes and it might make going door to door a little easier.
Some of you might be asking the proverbial “What’s in it for me?” question right about now. For starters, you’ll be helping a little girl make her first big splash in the world and give her something to shoot for. Who knows, your ears might also be ringing when you’re the subject of a dinner time conversation between some folks who just might think that you’re recipe was also one of the best things they ever ate. Plugging E2 in a subtle way is just another benefit that might be gained from this little venture. Beyond that, it can’t hurt anything now can it?
All in all, we're trying to come up with about one hundred or so recipes raging from the simplest to the most complex. We’ll do all the work and everybody that contributes can take all the credit. How hard can that be?
I’ll have more information in the coming days about content and the like but I just wanted to plant a seed in your ears for now. As the old saying goes, the devil is in the details and things such as cost and the number of books to publish are still in the estimate phase.
A while ago I know a lot of you signed on to another idea that we proposed and that we were more than happy to provide. I hope a lot of you still have it and it brings a smile to your face every now and then when you turn the pages.
This time is different though, there just might be a little piece of you stuck between the pages.
Naturally, if any of you out there wants a signed copy of this pending culinary masterpiece for your own kitchen or bookshelves, feel free to let me know and we can work something out.
Love,
Bob & Anna
PS. I know the title is a little cheesy but it was the only play on words that came to mind. Sorry.
The list begins...
IWhoSawtheFace invites us to partake of his version of
A Man's Salad and is willing to procure a signed copy hot off the press.
jessicapierce justifies our appetite with her
oreo sludge bars.
Johnnygoodyear - remember him? Well he jams anything from
Food writing to the mix.
princess loulou piles it on with some
warm broccoli salad ,
lemon poppy seed cake ,
Tatie Oggy ,
Cider-Baked Pork ,
Delicious Death ,
Apple Cake ,
Parsnip Dauphinoise ,
Chipirones en su tinta onto the platter.
Chiisuta chimes in with Tedd's slightly edited recipe for
pizza dough and a signed copy too boot!
Helen4Morrissey hands us a heaping helping of
endive salad with peppers, roquefort and walnuts as well as
Staffordshire oatcakes to the table along with a request for a signed copy!
Bitriot brandishes the table with some
Rabo Encendido
The lovely
Lometa ladles it on with some
Fried Okra,
Bread pudding, and
Black beans and rice.
Wiccanpiper whets our appetite with
Aunt Connie's Corn Pudding,
Fruitcake at Yule, and
Tom's Illinois Pasta Sauce
TenMinJoe tosses in some tasty
Brownies
montecarlo makes his masterpiece
Soupe Céleste
borgo brings it on with his
Cheesy Potatoes and Sausage
wertperch whistles a tune while
baking bread and making
scouse
momomomia makes us all go Mange! with her Italian
Pasta and Cabbage and
Spaghettini Estivi
gwenllian graces us with her
Russian Cream,
death by chocolate cake, and
banana cake.
Your name here?