Books 2 Eat (Part 1)

Barb and I heard about Books 2 Eat (Midland Library - Books 2 Eat) a few months ago, from our friend Nicole DiPinto, who owns Grounded Coffee Co.with her husband Scott Campbell. Nicole organized this event with Scott Cooper, a great local musician who also works at the library. And loving books AND food, we decided to enter. I had almost forgotten all about it, but Barb had not, and she came up with the idea to make Golden Rings of Power, from the Lord of the Rings. We were going to make doughnuts at first, but during a cooking session at my place, making pretzels, decided to make pretzels instead which could be made into ring shapes, and made individually for the 200 people who bought tickets to the event, in aid of our local library.

So we spent a lot of time practicing and getting our technique down, and deciding what sauces we would make. I worked mostly on sauces and made a few batches of pretzel dough, but Barb quickly got the knack of twisting the pretzels into cute round braided-like rings, where mine ended up mangled and misshapen. Barb drew some great maps of  Middle Earth, and I got place cards ready (with cool Hobbit Paintbrush font) and a bunch of quotes from the book to scatter along our table. We placed one ring of power on the display. We had made quite a few practice models of really huge braided pretzel rings, but when it came to our actual display it didn't really work out as well as we'd hoped, and we knew that with 150 pretzel rings of power, there would be enough rings for mortal men....Unfortunately, no elf kings or dwarf lords were present. I spent a lot of time organizing
the text and photos in this post, and no matter what I do, when I publish it, it all changes and
it does not look as nice :( I'm not sure why, but this will have to do.

I hurriedly took some pictures. Andre Sanche, from Ciboulette et Cie, was voted the winner, with his fantastic Mad Hatter teaparty, from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

Deck of card cookies and sweet little
meringue mushrooms, (which side makes
you taller?)

pink macaroons, I heart them.

See the white rabbit?

Oh, and it happens to be MY unbirthday today (and
tomorrow, and the next day....)

 My pictures do not really do justice to the overall effect, it really packed a visual punch.  The attention to detail was exquisitely incredible.

 The Explorer's Cafe based their entry on  Paddle to the Sea, with a Salmon on Wild Rice nest, Squash soup inspired by native cuisine (I think it was called the Three Sisters soup, with corn, squash, and beans), and finally mussels, representing a west to east Journey.

The Farmer's Market, run on Sundays in Midland, on the corner of King Street by the dock, had a Field of Dreams-inspired entry, with the field made of green chocolate covered pretzel sticks, while Simply Cakes had a simply sweet Winnie the Pooh cake

Another entry, I have forgotten whose it was, (sorry) was based on an art book containing the work of VanGogh (my favourite artist), and one my favourite paintings, Starry Night.






While I didn't get to taste the cake, knowing Glen and Elaine, their entry for LadyBug Cafe was as delicious as it was phenomenally-well executed. A book from a book, in a book competition.....Love it, totally clever, and well, almost everyone I know loves Harry Potter, and would love an edible copy of the Monster Book of Monsters. They received an honourable mention.

I am about to gush a bit here, and it's totally just adoration for the group who was set up beside us.

We were lucky enough to have our table set up beside a group of five students from a  George Brown College baking course, who, though I really didn't get to taste any other entries, had excellent food, in an amazingly well-presented entry, based on A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snickett. I loved it all, the cucumber soup (so fresh-tasting), and the great cake with the edible gears on them, and little quotes, so well done (and when they cut the cake, it was beautifully assembled as well, very even layers of cake and icing, and the cake decorator in me was awed. Totally beautiful job inside and out).

The Misfortune Cookies were so great too, Barb's misfortune was "You will be horribly mangled later on today", and I loved my misfortune: "This cookie has fallen on the ground." I ate it anyway (since I'm pretty sure it didn't, and even if it had, well, that was fine with me). Such a great idea.



But the best part were the lemon cupcakes (see how that ties in there? See?? Lemony Snickett?? yeah...SO cute), with the best icing I have ever tasted, which was Italian buttercream (why am I not surprised, Italians have mastered the culinary arts so well). It was light and buttery and therefore, stupendously delicious. I am definitely going to look up recipes for that.  I have to say, I was secretly rooting for them, (after us of course), they were a great group, but they also received an honourable mention, and they have sweet careers ahead of them should they choose to continue!

As for us, I will leave our entry, and our behind the scenes photos, and recipes for another blog. It was a lot of work for all involved, and totally worth it. A great event to be a part of, or attend. They expect more entrants and more people next year, and supporting the Library and literacy in general is an important and worthwhile cause. :)