RRHS Students publish Deliciously Diverse cookbook

Grade 12 students become published authors
Jessie Bourre, Audrey Chojko-Bolec, Mitchell Haw, Brady Heyens, Tyler McNally, Rylee Mowe and Alexis Sharp, Grade 12 students at Rainy River High School (RRHS) are now published authors. The group has published Deliciously Diverse, a full-colour, international cookbook. Their book is available for sale, or free download, on lulu.com and will soon be available on amazon.com and amazon.ca.
The team, also called the Group of Seven, came up with the idea when they were students in Grade 12 English last semester. All of them liked to eat but few of them knew how to cook. At first they started with pot luck lunches every Friday, featuring a different country. The idea grew to creating a cookbook that would educate people about different cultures and help young people learn to cook. Brady Heyens stated that their mandate was to “…create an international cookbook of publishable quality. It would not only fill your stomachs but also your minds with the food and facts from different countries.” Audrey Chojko-Bolec commented that “we tried to use ingredients that anyone could buy in this area. That was really hard sometimes, so we made substitutions for things like tamarind paste.” The group decided to sell the book at cost as well as make a free download of the book available so everyone could enjoy trying new recipes.
The learning curve, while creating the book, was substantial. Many of the students were unfamiliar with terms such as “blanch”, “sauté”, or “mince”. Some of the students had never cooked anything, including Kraft dinner. Families were patient and supportive as students purchased odd ingredients and piled up the dishes in the sinks.
Not only did the students have to learn to cook, they also had the challenge of publishing. Tyler McNally researched various options including Gateway Publishing from Winnipeg which specializes in cookbooks. Rylee Mowe read up on how to photograph food and all the students researched the culinary traditions of the countries they were writing about. The process was not without its challenges. Mitchell Haw patiently tried to create a template on Corel Draw but after numerous attempts the group decided to use the lulu.com templates instead. There were many disadvantages to this, such as not being able to move things around or customize a table of contents or index, but the goal was to complete the book before graduation and the group has met this goal.
Diligently they tried and edited their recipes while receiving much support from family members. Brady and Rylee feature recipes from their grandparents and Jessie’s mom helped her with not only cooking the Ukrainian recipes but tasting them as well. Mitchell Haw’s family were somewhat reluctant to try his Adzuki Mooncakes, (a Chinese cookie made with kidney beans that taste like fig newtons), however they were very supportive, as well as brave, and enjoyed several of his recipes from China. Alexis Sharp photographed many of the dishes and Audrey discovered that sour cream is not whipping cream that has been left at room temperature for many days.
Rylee stated that, “The publication was a wonderful experience for everyone involved and all of us plan to bring our cookbooks with us to university where the challenge will be to cook for ourselves.