ICYMI: Montreal restaurant Elena raises $50,000 for workers in community cookbook revival
Community cookbooks — a meeting of creativity, cooking and cause — are experiencing a revival. Whether spiral-bound or downloadable, as Montreal restaurant Elena proves, these grassroots publications still hold the power to make a difference. Through sales of a pair of digital mini cookbooks — Elena: Remember Skin Contact?, and Elena and Friends: A Tight-Knit Community Cookbook — the St-Henri spot has raised nearly $50,000 for restaurant workers.
Drawing on recipes and photos they had banked for a potential long-term cookbook, they challenged themselves to putting something together — “almost like a zine kind of idea” — in a matter of weeks. All of the money from both books goes to the Montreal Restaurant Workers Relief Fund, formed to support workers in financial need due to COVID-19.
Much of the focus of pandemic cooking has been on shelf-stable staples. And while there are recipes geared towards pantry cooking in Elena and Friends — such as Elena’s Pantry Cake and Candide’s Preserves — the team wanted to strike a balance with uses for spring/summer produce. The recipes range in level of difficulty as well: Some take time, like The OG Beba Beef Empanadas; others are more straightforward, such as Taverne’s Mac & Cheese.
Elena and Friends belongs to a new breed of digital community cookbook — with professional photography, playful illustrations and considered design — but it shares much in common with its analog predecessors. A snapshot of a moment in time, it represents what people can accomplish when they unite over a common cause.
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