04/6/07, 'Community Cooking' a Treasure Trove

As Leslie Yacavone flips through the pages of 'Community Cooking,' a collection of recipes from friends, volunteers and staff of Community Memorial Hospital, she is looking for key ingredients, bold flavors and meals that are quick to assemble.

A chicken casserole submitted by Madeline Cossette stops Yacavone, the proprietress of the Peppermill, a kitchen ware and gift shop in Hamilton and one of several locations where the book with its 400 recipes is available.

"I grew up on casseroles. How good is this? I'm into great tastes but easy and quick recipes."

All cookbooks are a treasure trove of delights for folks with an epicurean bent and Yaccavone's is inherited from her Dad, whose love of food has also inspired her six brothers and three sisters, a cooking family that includes both amateur and professional chefs and, what else, cookbook collectors.

"I like the way 'Community Cooking' is laid out, categorized by dishes with all the little helpful hints in the back. It is a well put together cookbook," says Yacavone, one of several merchants who are assisting the Community Memorial Hospital Auxiliary's fundraising effort by selling the book.

Judy Schenk, manager of the Barge, reports there has been plenty of interest in the cookbook at the coffee shop and says several Colgate students have told her they think it's a great gift idea.

Rob Stahl, trade book manager of the Colgate Bookstore, where 'Community Cooking' is also available, isn't a cook but he is civic-minded.

"I think people like cookbooks that help our community."

The book, a collection of 400 recipes, gathered from people in the community and on the hospital staff, was edited by Alice Jacobs from Social Services, who pays tribute to two earlier Auxiliary cookbooks by including "vintage" recipes from 1948's 'Chenango Valley Recipes' and the 1962 sequel 'Chenango Valley Recipes: Old and New.' The purpose of all three cookbooks, in addition to providing fun to make and wonderful to eat delicacies, is to support Community Memorial Hospital.

"The Auxiliary is a support system represented by volunteers from all our neighboring communities dedicated to strengthening the mission statement of the hospital," says the group's president Susie Gustafson. "Women, and now men, accomplish this in a variety of ways but always with an eye toward the comfort of patients and their sense of well-being."

'Community Cooking' is available at Maxwell's and the Community Memorial Hospital Gift Shop as well as the Peppermill, the Barge and the Colgate Bookstore.

Leslie Yacavone, who has already sold several copies of 'Community Cooking,' intends to bring her parents the cookbook when she visits them on Cape Cod. After all, it is a great gift.