The Cottage Smallholder

Menu for Hope is not something that Danny has run up on the back of a cigarette packet after a disastrous meal.

Menu for Hope is a wonderful fundraising event hosted by Chez Pim. The aim is to raise money to combat hunger and feed the world’s poorest citizens. Last year Menu for Hope raised over $66,000. All profits will be donated to the World Food Programme and this year the funds have been earmarked for a specific programme – a school feeding programme in the mountain kingdom of Lesotho, South Africa.

Currently, the WFP’s school feeding programme provides a daily nutritious meal to nearly 150,000 school kids in Lesotho, many of them orphans. After five years of drought, it is estimated that disease and malnutrition in Lesotho claim the lives of one in 12 children before they reach the age of five. The kingdom is confronting the triple threat of increasing chronic poverty, rising HIV/AIDS rates and weakened government capacity. This takes a heavy toll on the households of the rural poor in Lesotho. Apparently 56% of the population live on less then $2 per day but I bet that it is less.

The WFP have been pushing their the Local Procurement Program. Instead of buying surplus food in the US and shipping it to Africa they are now buying maize and other produce from local farmers and putting funds back into the local economy.

This is the Menu for hope’s fourth birthday and you can make an impact. All donations will make a difference.

The Cottage Smallholder’s raffle prize is a copy of Complete Home Wine Making by Gillian Pearks. This is an absolute winner as this beautiful hardback book is sadly out of print and hard to get hold of in the UK. It has all the essential information for setting up and making homemade wine. The book covers essential (minimal) equipment. And has chapters covering wine made from fruit, cereals, vegetables, dried fruit, herbs, sap and leaves (!). It also covers cider, mead and Perry. And as you can imagine the liqueur section is a valuable recourse for us. The book is packed with useful tips and written in a calm clear style. A small book – under 140 pages – its appeal is for the beginner. However I have seen Gilbert flicking through its pages several times in the past.

Gillian Pearks’ recipes work well. She prefers to use natural ingredients rather than chemicals. She was one of the great country winemakers, ran courses and was somewhat of an authority on making homemade wine. If I see a copy of this book I snap it up immediately as it seems to appeal to all country winemakers and is a very special present. I treasure my copy – it’s my constant winemaking companion. Without frills this slim volume is the essential guide to country winemaking. The prize code for this book is UK28.

There are loads of other tempting prizes being raffled. If you would like to participate in the raffle or even just drift onto the relevant site to gaze in awe at the prizes, follow these instructions provided by the organisers:

Donation instructions:

1. Choose a prize or prizes of your choice from our Menu for Hope at http://www.chezpim.com/blogs/2007/12/menu-for-hope-4.html. (This is the global list of all prizes donated this year). The summary of UK prizes are on The Passionate Cook and will be located here http://thepassionatecook.typepad.com/thepassionatecook/2007/12/menu-for-hope-4.html. Check the terms and conditions carefully for the individual prizes before you bid, as some will come with restrictions regarding where they ship to or how long the prize is valid for.

2. Go to the donation site at http://www.firstgiving.com/menuforhope4 and make a donation.

3. Please specify which prize you’d like in the ‘Personal Message’ section in the donation form when confirming your donation. You must write-in how many tickets per prize, and please use the prize code.

Each $10 you donate will give you one raffle ticket toward a prize of your choice. For example, a donation of $50 can be 2 tickets for EU01 and 3 tickets for EU02. Please write 2xEU01, 3xEU02

4. If your company matches your charity donation, please check the box and fill in the information so we could claim the corporate match.

5. Please check the box to allow us to see your email address so that we could contact you in case you win. Your email address will not be shared with anyone.

Check back on Chez Pim on Wednesday January 9 for the results of the raffle.

The campaign runs from December 10th to December 21st 2007.