The $45,000 cookbook

The marvellous Cookbook “Tastes From Martinborough” has been a runaway success!
Produced by the Wharekaka Auxiliary, to raise funds to provide hospital level care at Wharekaka Rest Home, the book has been enthusiastically embraced by locals and visitors alike and has quickly sold out of its’ 1000 copy print run.
 
Generous support from local businesses and donors meant that the production costs were fully met, allowing the full purchase price of the book to go to the fundraising effort. At $45 per copy this means that a whopping $45,000 has been able to be donated to Wharekaka.
 
This is an enormous help to the initial set up costs of the HLC project, a service which will allow people to remain in Martinborough should they require a higher level of care than was previously available at Wharekaka. Not only rest home but hospice and palliative level. The upgrade has now been implemented and has already proved successful and necessary .

 
Recipes came from all manner of sources and were many and varied. Some, like the one sent by Marc Soper the Chef at Wharekauhau Country Estate , which included stinging nettles and “paddock treasures”, were rather exotic. One started by saying ” First shoot your hare”.  Many were far more everyday but no less tasty.
Some of the most poignant however, were the special ones from members of the district who are no longer with us. Connie Taylor’s Anzac Biscuits and Lulu Paton’s FruitCake are wonderful examples of good old fashioned home cooking and the book is a lovely way of remembering those special people. As we all know, food is a sure way of evoking memories and this book will surely remind many of happy times spent in the kitchen with loved ones .
 
Huge thanks must go to the whole community, advertisers and donors, recipe providers and testers, sellers and buyers, the list is too numerous to thank everyone individually.
This wonderful response just shows how the community supports Wharekaka’s “ “Caring Country Living” philosophy.
Carolyn Thompson for the Wharekaka Auxiliary.

Photo caption: Esther Read, Di Martin, Gail Wilson, Roberta Kimmins, Helen Meehan watch Carolyn Thompson present Trish Logan with the cheque
Highlight: A whopping $45,000 has been able to be donated to Wharekaka.