To raise awareness of the needs of the hungry and food insecure in Madison County, including Richmond and Berea, the Madison County Public Library played hosts to the DICED community cooking challenge on November 7.
The library partnered with the Kentucky Association of Food Banks and Grow Appalachia to put together the event. Grow Appalachia works with people living in "food deserts" and helps them learn to grow their own produce, as well as teaching how to prepare and preserve those foods.
Cooks who wanted to participate in the contest were asked to bring a nonperishable food item as their admission fee. The food was donated to local food banks.
Participants were given a random selection of ingredients and had to make a tasty dish out of them. Lindsey Windland, who won the competition, noted that she received a box of fruit rollups in her ingredients basket. A finalist, Shelley Tucker, received the unusual combination of turkey SPAM and spicy tuna. Now that the contest is over, the library might consider using booklet printing to produce a small book of the winning recipes and draw attention to the event should it return in future years.
Although the cooking contest is over, the library will continue to accept food donations in exchange for forgiving library fines during its ‘Food for Fines’ program.
