Cookbook Giveaway! And the Future of The Shoofly

I wish I could share a supper with you at an actual table, perhaps discussing the nuances of wiggle glace (pictured below), a Julia Kasdorf poem, or how much you love the summer. The dinner table holds the richest and most human of conversations. It's my favorite spot to be planted.

My brother Matt was visiting last weekend, and for us it was homemade pizza and his memories of Nicaragua - all the proof anyone needs that something special happens at the supper table.

But I suppose for you and I the virtual table will have to suffice for the moment. And at the heart of any good dinner conversation, virtual or otherwise, is the good question... From apertif to red to digestif, it's a necessity for us to sit and stay and sip awhile.

In that spirit, there’s 10 questions right here, begging your answer – a SURVEY! The Shoofly's first-ever survey in fact. And it’s been my experience that any good survey comes with a potential prize for the surveyed… so answer said questions and you’re in the Shoofly Project’s raffle!

Winner of the raffle will be announced next week, drawn by my unbiased niece Sofia Yoder.  (cause what’s better than a 4 year old drawing names out of hats?)

The prize? A cookbook of course! Your choice of... 

A Girl and Her Pig by April Bloomfield
Saving the Seasons by Mary Clemens Meyer and Susanna Meyer
The Pie and Pastry Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum

Speaking of questions - Why a survey? …Well I’ve been thinking a lot about the future of The Shoofly Project, and it has occurred to me frequently that it needs a more specific shape. Otherwise, the vague nature of “Mennonite food and culture” seems to be threatening its very existence and identity.  

Vagueness is hard to make vivid. Specificity, vagueness's antithesis, has a much more predictable and palatable nature. I’m reminded of the advice: Don’t overwhelm the palate with too many flavors – otherwise we can’t enjoy the taste of any. 

Two particulars became clear as I looked at the blog’s history and also just up at my bedroom wall.

On the blog and book plan: Lots of pig and lots of pie. 

On the wall: My grandmother’s hands and a pie crust and a pig from Drywell Quality Meat Art.

So a theme emerges…

Pork and Pastry.

Sugar and Swine.

Sweet and Meat.

Bacon and Baking. ok ok I'm stopping. 

   

I think these two beasts are perhaps the answer to the vagueness question. The question then is whether or not to really focus the lens of subject matter to those two? That’s where you and the survey and the cookbook raffle come in! 

So do tell... Is Pork and Pastry a good paring?