Episode 10-08: Cooking Programs

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Welcome to Season Ten of Linking Our Libraries! We are so happy to have you join us again! This is the Central Minnesota Libraries Exchange, and our members are all types of libraries and their staff. I’m Mary, the director. It’s so good to have you here also. In this podcast, we talk about the skills library staff need to be successful and to help them to serve their communities.

This season we are talking about library programs – giving you some ideas about different ideas you can try in your own library. It is always good to share ideas across libraries, and we are all better! Each week we will look at a different theme of programs.

This week we are discussing the tasty program of cooking in the library! This is another set of programs that you can easily do either in person or virtually. (It is, of course, best to make all of your programs available virtually; this week just lends itself to that pretty well.)

We will insert a blanket disclaimer here that food sensitivities, allergies, and religious restrictions are important to people. So be sure you are sharing ingredients and preparation methods with people as freely as possible; and to the extent possible, offer some flexibility in the program to accommodate these issues.

In general, food is a great way to entice people to come to your programs. This week’s programs, all about food, will be a great way to encourage participation. And there are so many different ways to talk about and share food in the library!

Cooking in the Library

Virtual Cooking Clubs

Cooking at home is so much easier than dragging things into the library! Send out the recipe in advance if you want to do this live on Zoom, with everyone cooking together. Or, you can make videos that people watch on their own time. (Or both!)

  • Chicago Public Library Check out their Snacks in the Stacks video program
  • Indianapolis PL: Plant-Based Cooking: Warm and Cozy Recipes  Welcome to Simple and Affordable Plant-Based Cooking. It’s getting cold outside, which is why we’ve created some warm and cozy recipes for you and yours. In this class we prepare thick and creamy hot chocolate and hot apple cider to warm you up on these chilly nights. Then to fill you up, we show you how to make easy cinnamon baked apples and pumpkin pie pudding. 

Edible books

“ Edible Book Day is celebrated on April 1. In 2000, Judith A. Hoffberg and Béatrice Coron started this event to commemorate the birthday of the famous gastronome Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, a French lawyer and politician, famous for his book “Physiologie du goût.”

Edible Book Day is an international event where edible books are created, presented, photographed, and consumed. The images and details of the event are usually uploaded to social media. The holiday gathers bibliophiles, gourmets, xenophiles, and the occasional bookworm.”

Around April 1st, bibliophiles, book artists, and food lovers around the world gather to celebrate the book arts and the (literal!) ingestion of culture.  Participants create an “edible book,” which can be inspired by a favorite tale, involve a pun on a famous title, or simply be in the shape of a book (or scroll, or tablet, etc).  All entries will be exhibited, documented, then EATEN!  Photographs of all edible books will appear in the Edible Book Festival gallery.

Their 2021 program was virtual, and had a complete agenda. 

The prizes include: 

  • Best Depiction of a Classic
  • Best Visual Presentation
  • Most Appetizing
  • Funniest/Punniest
  • Best Entry Based on Book for Children or Teens
  • Best Collaborative Creation
  • People’s Choice
  • Johns Hopkins University library  The Sheridan Libraries Edible Book Festival began in 2014 and is now a highly-anticipated Johns Hopkins tradition. It is one of many such festivals that take place around the world on or around April 1 to celebrate books, art, food, and culture. In our festival, edible books are desserts inspired by literary titles, characters, or authors. Contestants are encouraged to combine word play with books, decoration, and ingredients.
    • Best in Show
    • Best Literary
    • Best Effort
    • Best Vegan
    • Best Content Creator
    • Funniest/Pun-iest
  • Northampton PL For our first five years we held the Edible Book event alternating between Forbes and Lilly Libraries, but have recently gotten so big that we now use a separate venue. Every year the entries are amazing and the ideas so varied. Judges give awards to all entries and after the judging attendees, entrants, and judges all get to eat the books. Some previous judges have been Mary Clare Higgins, former Mayor of Northampton; Kelsey Flynn, actor, comedian and radio personality; Ellen Wittlinger, local author; Bob Paquette, WFCR news producer, T. Susan Chang, cookbook reviewer, and Steve Herrell, ice cream entrepreneur. We hope you will create an Edible Book or attend the event and be a Book AppreciEater.
  • Eastern IL University:  Booth Library is sponsoring its 12th annual Edible Book Festival as part of National Library Week. After two years of holding the event virtually, this year the event will again be held in person in the library’s Marvin Foyer.

Anyone may enter a work made out of edible materials that has something to do with books in either its shape or content. To view entries from previous Edible Book Festivals, go to https://thekeep.eiu.edu/edible_book_festivals/.

This year’s festival will be an all-day event. Entries will be set up in the Marvin Foyer between 8 and 9 a.m. on April 4. They will be on display for public viewing starting at 9 a.m., with voting until 4:00 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.

  • Shore Lakes Art Org  The Edible Book Festival brings people together for a lighthearted culinary, artistic, and literary celebration. Creations made from food and inspired by works of literature. (Past entries have included works titled Gourd of the Rings, War and Peas, and The Life of Pie.) It’s the most wonderful and delicious nerd parade imaginable.

Cookbook Book Groups

  • West Boca Branch of the Palm Beach County Library System (FL) The next hurdle was determining how to select the cookbooks for discussion. Would we discuss just one cookbook, with everyone reading the same book? Would we have themes, like Italian cooking, Food Network stars or sheet pan cookbooks? Would we include chef memoirs, and other food-based nonfiction?

In the end, we did all of the above. Being one of 17 locations gave me access to multiple copies of the same cookbook. We also had the luxury of leasing books, so I had the option to use part of my lease budget to procure several copies of the same book. Themes were the least expensive way to go; I could borrow various cookbooks from multiple locations to serve the theme. Things were looking up.

The next decision to be made was a bit more esoteric: would we include baking as well as cooking? For the uninitiated, there are generally two camps in the kitchen; people who like to bake, and people who like to cook. Baking is a science with little room for experimentation. Cooking is much more loosey-goosey, with plenty of room to change up amounts, ingredients and more without having the recipe fail. Books like Cake Wreck: When Professional Cakes Go Hilariously Wrong (Yates, 2009) and television shows like “The Great British Bake Off” (or “The Great British Baking Show,” as it’s known in the U.S.) and “Nailed It!” are popular for a reason.

Food can be fun. Food can be culture. Food can be love. Food can build community. And when you bring food to the library – in person, virtually, or through books – you keep building good things for your library, and everyone else!

Books Read

Now, let’s get to the part of every episode that is everyone’s favorite: sharing books! We will link to these books on our shownotes pages, and the link will take you to Amazon. You probably know this, but when you click one of our links and then buy anything at all from Amazon, they give us a small percentage of their profits. That support really helps us, and although it’s anonymous so we won’t know it was you – we appreciate you taking the time to help us!

As nature becomes ever more precious, we all want to spend more time appreciating it. But time is often hard to come by. And how do we appreciate nature without disruption? In this sensitively-written book, Torbjørn Ekelund, an acclaimed Norwegian nature writer, shares a creative and non-intrusive method for immersing oneself in nature. And the result is nothing short of transformative.

Evoking Henry David Thoreau and the four-season structure of Walden, Ekelund writes about communing with nature by repeating a small, simple ritual and engaging in quiet reflection. At the start of the book, he hatches a plan: to leave the city after work one day per month, camp near the same tiny pond in the forest, and return to work the next day. He keeps this up for a year.

His ritual is far from rigorous and it is never perfect. One evening, he grows so cold in his tent that he hikes out before daybreak. But as Ekelund inevitably greets the same trees and boulders each month, he appreciates the banality of their sameness alongside their quiet beauty. He wonders how long they have stood silently in this place—and reflects on his own short existence among them.

A Year in the Woods asks us to reconsider our relationship with the natural world. Are we anxious wanderers or mindful observers? Do we honor the seasons or let them pass us by? At once beautifully written, accessible, and engaging, A Year in the Woods is the perfect book for anyone who longs for a deeper connection with their environment, but is realistic about time and ambition.

  • 56 Days by Catherine Ryan Howard

No one even knew they were together. Now one of them is dead.

Fifty-six days ago Ciara and Oliver meet in a supermarket queue in Dublin and start dating the same week COVID-19 reaches Irish shores.

Thirty-five days ago When lockdown threatens to keep them apart, Oliver suggests they move in together. Ciara sees a unique opportunity for a relationship to flourish without the scrutiny of family and friends. Oliver sees a chance to hide who – and what – he really is.

Today Detectives arrive at Oliver’s apartment to discover a decomposing body inside.

Can they determine what really happened, or has lockdown created an opportunity for someone to commit the perfect crime?

Conclusion

This was a quick overview of a few ideas that you might want to use in your library. Be sure to check out the show notes for links to everything discussed today. We are looking forward to chatting with you all season! We will have more ideas to help you keep your library running well, and strategies to help you serve your community.

And if you want to hear more book suggestions, be sure you are also subscribed to our other podcast: Reading With Libraries. Short episodes drop every Tuesday, and we look at different aspects of Minnesota. This season we look at a different historic site across the state each week, and then suggest six books that reference the site. Join us each week!