Congratulations to Laura Plett of Stead, Manitoba! Laura was one of the Grand Prize winners in our 1st Annual Blueberries & Polar Bears Culinary Contest, sponsored by Churchill Wild!
Laura created Pancakes with Blueberry Sauce from her mother’s Black Currants & Caribou cookbook and it looks delicious, as you can see in her photo above. Laura’s winning essay submission follows below:
Growing up, my mom always had a copy of “Black Currants & Caribou”, although at that time I was too busy snaring rabbits, shooting squirrels and being a wild little 12-year-old to find much time for cooking (other than over a fire on a stick). But I did love this book for the stories, animals and pictures of all those amazing places I had never been before… but mostly for the little caribou at the bottom of the page my mom told me I could “make run” if I flipped through it really fast.
I knew I would get up there someday, but I had no idea that cooking would be my ticket! The first breakfast I cooked at Kississing Lake Lodge was pancakes, which is what I made for supper tonight, on Pancake Tuesday. I used the “Yeast Pancakes” recipe from this cookbook, as well as the recipe for “Blueberry Sauce”. I served it with moose-wild rice sausage, from the bull I got last fall.
I was a lot less terrified this time around compared to the first meal I created for real guests back in the day, but I’m glad I kept at it, because that experience has taken me to some amazing places.
From cooking at a fishing lodge, to guiding fishing trips and hunts for big game animals like the ones I read and dreamt about as a child, to managing an outfit and teaching other people how to do both. I am still, and always will be, chasing those “running caribou”.
Well done Laura!
For her Grand Prize, Laura will receive four large autographed cookbooks from our Blueberries & Polar Bears cookbook series including Blueberries & Polar Bears, Cranberries & Canada Geese, Black Currants & Caribou and Icebergs & Belugas, as well as five small cookbooks from our Wild & Wonderful cookbook series including Wild & Wonderful Blueberries, Wild & Wonderful Cranberries, Wild & Wonderful Goose & Game, Wild & Wonderful Fish and Wild & Wonderful Rice. In addition, Laura will receive a 12 oz. container of Dymond Lake Seasoning.
”We hope you enjoy your new cookbooks Laura, and use them to create many wonderful memories with your family, friends and lodge guests!
Helen Webber and Marie WoolseyAuthors - Blueberries and Polar Bears
