A resolution for healthier eating. A decision to pursue a publishing dream. On Saturday, January 29, Food For Thought offers assistance in achieving either goal in 2011. The open house event features seminars in healthy eating and book publication, as well as door prizes, book discounts, healthy food samples, and a demo on making healthy, delicious ice cream. Visitors are welcome from 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday afternoon, January 29, at 709 Main Street in Pella, Iowa. Event sponsors say they’ll mark the entrance, across from the Molengracht, with a collection of festive balloons.
Sponsored by the Write Place and Empowered Health Resource, the open house launches Three Plates at the Table, a new cookbook written by Sheryl Ellinwood and Jamilee McQuivey, and just released by the Write Place. This book includes more than 200 recipes and 65 pages of nutrition information. It includes healthy recipes for vegans, vegetarians, and omnivores (people who eat meat). Using a landmark, three-level format, the recipes list adaptations for each of these three eating preferences. And all of them were taste-tested by eager volunteers. Samples of foods made from Three Plates at the Table recipes will be available for all open-house guests.
The afternoon includes three presentations. At 2:30, a “Paths to Publishing” presentation features Carol Van Klompenburg, owner of the Write Place, which has assisted 20 authors with publishing their books, in genres such as memoir, biography, fiction, and children’s books. The presentation covers both traditional publishing through commercial publishers and self-publishing—the option offered by the Write Place. “More than 90 percent of the adults in this country would like to publish a book, and many of those people indicate it is an important goal for them,” says Van Klompenburg. “The Write Place offers a range of services that helps them achieve their dream.” According to Van Klompenburg, self-publishing has become more affordable in recent years because of the digital print-on-demand option which makes it possible to print books as they are needed, rather than print them all at once.
At 1:30 and again at 3:30, an “Empowered Eating” seminar features Sheryl Ellinwood, author of both Three Plates at the Table and the award-winning Empowered: A Woman-to-Woman Guide to Preventing and Surviving Breast Cancer. Ellinwood says, “Empowered eating is using the power of food to prevent disease, slow aging, and promote health. It allows you to naturally reach and maintain your optimal weight, gives you more energy and alleviates many chronic health conditions.” She says people do best if they make gradual changes in their current cooking and eating habits, choosing healthy foods most appropriate for them.
Other features of the afternoon include two videos. In a ten-minute episode, Sheryl Ellinwood demonstrates making an ice cream recipe from her cookbook that uses healthy ingredients, is simple to whip up, and has amazing flavor. In a longer, half-hour video segment she talks about sugars and other sweeteners—which ones are healthy, which ones are not healthy, and why. She also explains how to substitute healthy sweeteners for unhealthy ones.
Three Plates at the Table will be for sale for a reduced price of $26.00, a significant discount from the listed retail price of $29.99. A few of copies of this cookbook will also be given away as door prizes, along with other titles published by The Write Place. Drawings will take place every half hour.
Potential authors will have an opportunity to browse Write Place sample books and to have a conversation about their book goals with Hannah Crawford, book division manager for the Write Place.
Book publishing is the newest service of the Write Place, which has been providing writing and graphic arts services for businesses since 1995 and has offices in both Pella and in Macomb, Illinois. Empowered Health Resource was founded by Ellinwood in 2010 to share with others what she learned about the role of nutrition in health following her breast cancer diagnosis. She says, “My goal is to work with others to help them bring their own lives back into balance so they can achieve optimal health.” In a few months, she will receive her certification in holistic nutrition counseling through the Institute of Integrative Nutrition in New York.
Food for Thought is a casual, come-and-go event. Sponsors invite area residents to drop in for three minutes or three hours—whatever works for them. When not doing presentations, both Ellinwood and Van Klompenburg plan to be available for conversation with guests about health, about books, and about publishing.
For people unable to attend the event, Three Plates at the Table can be purchased from The Write Place 641-628-8398, www.thewriteplace.biz, or from Sheryl Ellinwood, 641-842-5334, www.empoweredhealthresource.com.