Popular recipe blog inspires Menno-themed cookbook
A family recipe for traditional Easter bread has become the catalyst for a blog-inspired book that's taken its creators completely by surprise.
A few years ago Abbotsford, B.C. resident Lovella Schellenberg began writing a personal blog, posting memories, photos and recipes connected to her Mennonite heritage.
One of the first items to go up was a recipe for paska, a traditional citrus-flavoured bread popularly served during Easter.
Then Schellenberg started getting comments and e-mails from women who googled "paska" and found her blog. They loved the recipe and wanted more, so she invited them to send in recipes, which she made, photographed and posted.
Friendships developed and camaraderie grew. Schellenberg found herself wondering if more could be done.
"It was a lot of fun, but how much more fun would it be if I'd just start a recipe blog and invite these ladies to be part of it?" she says.
Mennonite Girls Can Cook launched in 2008 and is now comprised of a group of 10 women between the ages of 49 and 63 who hail from southern B.C., Manitoba and Seattle, Washington. They take turns posting recipes and on Sundays, a devotional.
The recipes and photos on the blog range from appetizers to casseroles, desserts, dips and sauces, gluten free, meat and poultry and traditional Mennonite fare.
"We thought if it was just for the 10 of us and our families, perfect," says Winnipeg cook Charlotte Penner. She got to know Schellenberg after googling the paska recipe.
"Who's going to find our blog, really, with all of the blogs that are out there?" she wondered. "The next thing you know, we had a following."
The blog attracts thousands of visitors each day and at last count had more than two million visits.
Then fans started asking for a print edition. Schellenberg, Penner and the other group members prayed about it and decided if it was to be, a publisher would have to approach them.
Mennonite Publishing Network approached a short time later and the print version of Mennonite Girls Can Cook, containing some of the group's best recipes, photos and comments, hit store shelves in May.
Meanwhile, some of the B.C.-based women have been leading sold-out cooking classes, teaching others how to make traditional Mennonite dishes like rollkuchen (fritters), borscht (soup), zwiebach (buns) and pies.
"Someone said to me it's making Mennonite food cool again," laughs Schellenberg.
"Most of our recipes are just really sensible, good comfort food recipes," she says. "But we also really focus on cooking within a hundred miles, cooking what's in season.
"We take some of the mystery out of recipes," she says, testing recipes to provide exact measurements for what earlier cooks only called "a pinch" or "a soft dough."
The popularity of the blog and book is reaping additional benefits.
All proceeds from the sale of the cookbook is being donated to the Good Shepherd Shelter, a Mennonite Central Committee-supported home for orphaned and abandoned children in Ukraine.
"We wanted to honour our heritage, where we came from, our parents and grandparents," says Penner. "We want to give the money back to the people that are still in the Ukraine, especially children. We want our profits to support MCC because MCC has been such a strong force in helping our families over to this country."
"It's really exciting to see how God is in all of this," she adds. "None of this was our own doing. He's laid a path for us, and He's taking our five loaves and two fishes and turning it into food for the multitudes."
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