Loaves of love for cookbook!

From the garden to the kitchen to the table, a new Cork cookbook is a real labour of love.

The Cork Mental Health Men’s Cookbook called ‘Loaves of Laughs’, is the first of its kind in the county and features recipes submitted by a group of men who took part in a ten-week cooking course in Knocknaheeny. The course was run by Martin Ryan, a Resource Officer for Suicide Prevention with Cork Kerry Community Healthcare.

The classes were so successful that the group agreed to publish a cookbook featuring some of their favourite recipes.

The proceeds will fund further classes at NICHE Health Project. Participants submitted their own recipes alongside a story about why their recipe is important to them.

As well as promoting positive mental health and healthy eating, the cookbook also stresses the importance of home-grown ingredients.

All the ingredients used as part of the course were grown in the community garden in Knocknaheeny’s NICHE centre.

The cookbook is a collaboration between Connecting for Life Cork and Northside Community Health Initiative NICHE and was officially launched on Monday.

Martin said: “The sense of achievement and fun within the programme was evident from the start. It was very humbling to see the men enjoy the fun within the kitchen, and support each other at the same time.

“It proves that if we thank just a little differently about our approach, long lasting changes can happen,” he added.