Hinckley’s finest: Care home residents publish first recipe book
Betty C’s Fish Pie, Christine’s Toad in the Hole and Shelley’s Sweet N Sour Pork are just a few of the recipe’s that can be found in Hinckley Park Care Home’s cookbook.
It’s no secret that older people often whip up the best dishes, perhaps some of your favourite mealtime experiences have been at your grandparents house. However, thanks to the creation of a new cookbook, we now don’t have to wait for our older loved ones to make our most treasured meals, we can simply assemble them at home.
Hinckley Park Care Home residents at the book launch.
Fourteen residents at Hinckley Park Care Home – an establishment that provides nursing and residential care – have piled together their favourite recipes which have now been published in a new cookbook called Park’s Pantries. Staff at the care home have also contributed some of their best-loved meal options.
The book, which is available to buy from Amazon and a copy of it has been sent to the British Library for archiving and preservation, was the brainchild of Hinckley Park’s wellbeing coordinator, Rachael Gilliver, who runs her own publishing company alongside her role of helping look after residents living at the care home.
‘Apparently everyone has at least one book in them, and when one of our residents mentioned they would love to have a book published but had no idea how to go about it, I and other team members started thinking about helping them making their wish come true,’ Gilliver said.
‘Other residents talked about how much they would like to pass on their recipes, and how being published in a book would be leaving a legacy to their children and grandchildren.’
‘Thanks to technology, publishing has become a lot easier in recent years. Before I started working at Hinckley Park I had worked for a number of traditional publishers, and in 2018, I set up Roswell Publishing to help people who wanted to self-publish,’ Gilliver added. ‘I was very well placed to help our residents’ wishes come true.’
A couple of the people whose recipes are features in ‘Parks Pantries’ attended the book launch last week where they expressed their excitement for being given the opportunity and pride for what they had achieved.
Betty Truelove, who provided a recipe for Spanish chicken, said: ‘I never thought I would see my name in print.’
Meanwhile, Betty Calnan, who gave the recipe for her famous fish pie, added: ‘Seeing my name in print makes me feel like I belong in this world and that I’m leaving something behind.’
What’s more, David Minogue, Hinckley Park’s home manager, expressed his proudness of the residents.
‘We are incredibly proud of our residents for publishing this recipe book, it really is quite a remarkable achievement. A big well done to Rachael for helping our residents make their dreams come true,’ Minogue remarked. ‘The recipes are delicious and very easy to follow, and we’ve even passed some copies of the book on to our fantastic kitchen team who will be cooking some of the recipes for our residents to sample. Everyone is really looking forward to it!’.
Images: Hinckley Park Care Home
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