COOKING FOR THE CURE

COOKING FOR THE CURE!

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A Collection of Recipes by members of:

The Tilden Woods Swim Team

The Luxmanor Community and

The Walter Johnson High School Community

Rockville, Maryland 20852

“We’re more than a swim team…It’s a lifestyle. When something important affects one of us, we stick together…We’ve pretty much all been affected by it [cancer] so we should all be able to join together to fight it.” Gerri Diamond as quoted in The Gazette, July 20, 2005, p. A4.

Thank you for coming to our webpage and considering buying our cookbook. This cookbook was put together by a dozen swimmers and close friends (ages 15-18). By buying this cookbook, you too have made a difference. We will be donating the proceeds from the cookbook sales to the American Cancer Society and other organizations explicitly for cancer research.

We are a very diverse group of girls who all met through the neighborhood Tilden Woods Swim Team. During the year, we go to a variety of schools, but when summer comes, we reunite and are close friends. Some of us have known each other practically since birth; others are newer to the team. When one of us gets mad or sad, we are all there to help each other get through it. When we are happy and/or accomplish something we all are there to celebrate. Basically, we support each other and if one thing affects one of us, it affects us all.

So when someone we all knew was diagnosed and died from brain cancer this past year, we all began to talk One of us has two parents who have successfully fought their own cancers, others of us know family members and friends who have successfully and unsuccessfully dealt with cancer. As we began to talk, we all saw how cancer affected each of us and knew we had to do something about it. Last fall, some of us put on a Haunted Pool House and raised $800 for the American Cancer Society. This summer, one us asked the others to help produce a community cookbook to raise money for cancer research. We knew that with our active and volunteer-oriented community that a cookbook would be a great idea.

Throughout making this cookbook we have all learned a lot. We had meetings once a week, and every week there was a new question about the cookbook or life in general. Some of the comments were, “I had no clue ‘c.’ meant cup.” “You guys, F-L-O-W-E-R is not what you need to make cookies.” “In a recipe with avocado you have to explain in the directions that you must take the pit out and the skin off -- or else you just have an avocado in a bowl”. We also learned how to write a recipe so that anyone could make it. The first rule on our edit style sheet was “Pretend that you are one of the boys on the swim team making this recipe…would it make sense to you? If they could make – then the instructions are perfect!” Throughout meetings, we would get off topic, and luckily for us, a parent would come back into the room to remind us to return back to the topic. At these meetings, we learned a variety of things such as ‘T’ and ‘tbsp’ both are the same thing (and t and tsp mean something different). We also discovered, for the first time for most of us, how our community has been affected by cancer.

By doing this cookbook, we also learned more about our community. We found out how much cancer has impacted all of us and how a community that works together can make a difference. The coaches for our team were one example of this backing. One coach, Gerri Diamond, agreed, if we collected 200 recipes, to sing to an opposing team’s coach at a big meet in front of both team’s swimmers– without forewarning him. She kept her promise and when we received 200 recipes she sang. The event was memorable – primarily because of her lack of musical training. Luis Emilio then promised to cut his long (ok amazing) hair if we collected 250 recipes. When we received 250 recipes, a hairdresser came to our pool to cut his hair in front of the entire swim team. Finally, a third coach, Nick Kaufman agreed to temporarily dye his hair blue and yellow (our teams colors) when we reached 300 recipes. He did it (as did many other swim team members). Their efforts got the swimmers excited about the cookbook, and encouraged the swimmers to put in more and more recipes. At one point we had to say “Please.. No more.” In this book you have about 450 recipes from our community. There are recipes that come from a wide range of wonderful people from a gourmet chef to an eight-year-old swimmer. This cookbook has a recipe for everyone.

The following swimmers made this book:

Celine Silver	Heather Parmelee
Claire Murphy	Kelly Carlin
Dana Simms	Meagan Gatti
Dominique Perez	Rebecca (Becca) Diamond
Elena Spak	Samantha (Sami) Mongelli
Gerri Diamond	Tara Baris