I’m in a cookbook! With Helen Mirren!

Made With Love: The Meals on Wheels Family Cookbook features recipes by celebrities and celebrity chefs (and me) and raises money to fight hunger among seniors. And we’re giving away a copy here.

And Mario Batalli! And Martha Stewart, Patti LaBelle, Al Franken, Paula Deen… Made With Love: The Meals on Wheels Family Cookbook includes recipes from the tables of well-known actors, chefs, writers and other celebrities, along with personal stories about their favorite family meals. I was honored to be invited to share a recipe.

Published just last month by BenBella Books, Made With Love features 125 recipes arranged by course, from breakfast to appetizers, soups and stews, main dishes, casseroles, pasta and rice dishes, salads, sides and desserts. The stories told about many of the dishes are as delightful as the recipes themselves. Beautiful color photographs are sprinkled throughout the book.

The recipes are all accessible and doable, perhaps none more so than Joan Rivers’ Toast, “my favorite recipe to make for family and friends.” The ingredients are 2 slices white bread and butter or margarine, as needed. She adds, “For holidays and special occasions, raisin bread may be substituted, but follow the same procedure.” Other recipes are a little more involved; all are made with love.

Made With Love was edited by Enid Borden, President and CEO of Meals on Wheels Association of America. Meals On Wheels is the oldest and largest national organization of its kind, composed of some 5,000 community-based Senior Nutrition Programs in the United States. Every day, they provide more than a million meals for seniors across the country. To make and distribute all these meals, Meals on Wheels employs many thousands of professionals at the various local Senior Nutrition Programs across the U.S. They also rely on a virtual army of volunteers.

Each sale of the cookbook supports the work of all these individuals and programs and helps to end senior hunger in America. The problem is a huge one, and it keeps growing. According to the Meals on Wheels Research Foundation, 8.3 million seniors faced the threat of hunger in 2010. This reflects a 78% increase since 2001—and a 34% increase since 2007. The effects of food insecurity are disproportionately borne by women, who make up over 60% of seniors facing the threat of hunger.

You can help. The holidays will upon us before you know it. Already editors everywhere are compiling holiday gift lists for their readers (well, except for me—I’m an inveterate procrastinator). But when my list eventually comes out, it will include this book. Made With Love is one of those gifts that keeps on giving, with family recipes and stories to share—and with knowing you’re helping fight hunger.

And now the giveaway. Win a copy of Made With Love. BenBella Books has generously offered a copy for one of my readers. To enter to win it, just leave a comment on this post. On Tuesday, October 9, I’ll select a random comment as the winner. Just one comment per person, please.

Update: The contest is now closed. I’ll announce the winner next week. Thanks for entering!

22 thoughts on “I’m in a cookbook! With Helen Mirren!

  1. My husband is employed by our county foodbank. So we are aware of the ever growing threat of hunger in this country. Meals on Wheels is one of the best nutritional programs available to those in need. I will be giving this book to family and friends this holiday season as one of my personal ways to fight hunger. –

  2. Meals on Wheels is such a valuable program. I was first made aware of it about 30 years ago when my friend’s Mom who is a nurse was involved but I know it’s been around much longer.

  3. Congrats on sharing space in the same book with such notables! Well done. Love Joan Rivers’ toast recipe! Good of her to share that family secret. 😉

  4. One of my favorite food programs. A local meals-on-wheels program helped make my mom’s life happier in her last years, as she found it harder and harder to cook for herself. Not just the food, but the smiling hello from the person who delivered it. Congrats, Terry!

  5. Can’t say enough good things about Meals on Wheels, a great organization. And Ronnie Ann is spot on — it’s the people who deliver the food who nourish a day as much as it is the food. Congratulations on the book!

  6. So happy to hear of this cookbook and yest Meals on Wheels is somthing that I have been hearing about for years. A GOOD thing!

  7. Shut the front door! Are you kidding?? Terry, that’s fantastic!! Yay you. My mother and father used to be Meals on Wheels delivery people for a few years after they retired.

  8. Congratulations on being apart of this cook book! I just graduated college, and when I was a college student, I always (and still do) referred to your recipes for new meals, as they use moderately simple items put them together in such a unique way, and that’s what makes the dishes extraordinary. Keep it up!

  9. Whoa! Heady company there, Terry! What was the recipe that highlights your skills, taste, and love? (Oh, I know–buy the book and find out.).

    I’m another former Meals-on-Wheels deliverer in a rural community where some homes were hovels and so full of vermin, we had to honk and go to the gate — no further. But they got love from us, attention in chat form, and a nutritious lunch.

  10. Congratulations to you, and kudos for all Wheels on Meals delivery people. I was ordering MOW for my father after my mother passed, and he was one ornery critter about it. The food wasn’t good (he said), he didn’t want it, leave him alone, won’t answer the door… except I couldn’t feed him, and he couldn’t/wouldn’t cook for himself. Our delivery person wouldn’t leave until my father opened the door and accepted it! And then somehow it did get eaten.

  11. I am looking forward to buying this cookbook. Meals on Wheels is such a great organization. How wonderful that they will benefit from the sale of this cookbook.

  12. Over the years many of my family members have been involved with Meals on Wheels – first my aunt, who encouraged my mother, who brought my nieces and nephews along for the ride; then my father, who was joined by a retired neighbor after Mom died… and they still deliver together, telling jokes along the way. It’s an amazing organization, and I know some day I, too, will join the MOW family. By the way, I am relatively new to Blue Kitchen, and am loving it! Plus, I, too, have a blue kitchen. Cheers!

  13. Joan River’s and toast? I wouldn’t think that would have made it in. Very cool project, and definitely worth buying if not a winner.

  14. Would love to add this one to my collection – it sounds like a real winner and the fact that it was written for such a good cause makes it even more valuable.

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