A Charity Cookbook for Japan is a new collection of nearly 60 family-friendly Japanese and Japanese-inspired recipes contributed by 56 of today's best and brightest food writers, bloggers and photographers.
All profits ($11.45 of the cost of about $30 to Canadians) will go to charity relief in Japan, which was hit by the devastating earthquake of March 11. The enormous recovery effort will take years - and the cookbook is how one group of people is trying to help.
Peko Peko is a joint effort of food bloggers Stacie Billis of One Hungry Mama, Rachael Hutchings of La Fuji Mama and Marc Matsumoto of No Recipes - and the stellar team of contributors includes Montrealer Aimée Wimbush-Bourque of Simple Bites (www.simplebites.net).
Peko Peko, intended as a celebration of the Japanese people, features 120 colour pages, lovely photographs and a glossary of more than 50 Japanese ingredients, including substitutions for the North American home cook, and an essay on bringing Japanese food and other global cuisines to the family table.
"While our No. 1 goal is to raise as much money as possible for the children of Japan, the creative impetus behind Peko Peko is our belief that food is a common language that brings people together," Billis writes. "Our hope is that these recipes say: we are here for you Japan, with love."
Peko peko is onomatopoeia - it sounds like what it is - for the sounds an empty stomach makes. In Japan, it's a common way for children to say, "I'm hungry."
Profits from the book's sales will go to the GlobalGiving Japan Earthquake and Tsunami Relief Fund; the Global Giving foundation has been hugely successful at helping raise money for small non-profit projects and non-governmental organizations.
For more on the book, go to www. simplebites.net/tag/peko-peko or to the book's website at www.pekopeko cookbook.com, where it can be ordered.
A hip-hop dance workshop created and organized by young West Island resident Alexa Nozetz, who was only 11 when she dreamed up the idea, has raised $2,000 for the Montreal Children's Hospital Foundation.
Alexa said she created Hip-Hop 4 Hope, as the event is known, because "I know there are so many kids who would love to have the opportunity to take dance lessons, but can't, for lots of different reasons."
For a donation of at least $10, anyone 7 and older was eligible to participate in the workshop, held May 19 at Riverdale High School in Pierrefonds. Alexa turned 12 five days before the event.
Hip-hop instructors, including members of Blueprint Cru, secondplace winners during Season 5 of Randy Jackson's America's Best Dance Crew, and the 8 Count Team, first-place winners of the hip-hop competition World of Dance 2010, were on hand.
Alexa is an avid dancer at the 8 Count Dance Complex in Dollard des Ormeaux and a member of its junior varsity dance team, Toy Soldiers. The complex is home to both teams, and also to contemporary dancer Janick Arseneau, one of the two top female dancers on last season's So You Think You Can Dance Canada.
When Alexa approached studio owner Steve Bolton, who represents the two teams, he agreed to donate the dancers' time to teach the workshop. The photographer who took the photo of Alexa, shown here with Arseneau, as well as other photos at the workshop, is Rubie Tenorio: she donated her services that day.
Alexa and her proud parents say they intend for the event to become an annual one.
More than 150 guests gathered at Tudor Hall on May 26 to listen as Marina Nemat told her story of courage, survival and resilience.
Nemat was born in 1965 in Tehran, Iran, and was just 16 when, following the Islamic Revolution of 1979, she was arrested. She spent more than two years in a political prison in Tehran, where she was tortured and threatened with execution. Her 2007 memoir of life in Iran, Prisoner of Tehran, was an international bestseller; now she has published a second book, After Tehran: A Life Reclaimed.
The event was hosted by Canadian Hadassah-WIZO (CHW) Montreal in association with the Reuven Feuerstein chapter, and more than $7,000 was raised for CHW programs and projects around the issues of children, women and health care.
The Information and Referral Centre of Greater Montréal Foundation raised $23,000 at a cocktail event held June 15 at the Atwater Club, attended by 75 people and featuring a mini-concert by Quebec singer Marc Hervieux.