A Taste of Life on Quadra Island
A Community fundraiser for the Quadra Island Children’s Centre
Our Story
“When Island Cookery I was first published in 1981, a night out on Quadra meant going to a friend’s home to gather for a special meal. This remains as true today as it was forty years ago. We still love to talk about our flourishing gardens and our fishing prowess over a table of delicious food.
This book gives us an opportunity to invite a wider circle to our feasts. In these pages readers will find tips and tricks for foraging, harvesting, creating, growing and more. You’ll also find recipes from some of our finest chefs, farmers, fishers, and shellfish growers. Each recipe has been carefully tested and chosen because of its incredible flavours and ability to demonstrate a slice of Quadra life. ”
Cover Design and Layout by Jessie Stones. Cover Photo: Vince Kehn
In the fall of 2020, the Quadra Children’s Centre put out a request to submit recipes for Island Cookery III to raise funds for facility upgrades. What came back was nothing short of magic. Along with the many delicious, unique, and colourful recipes, came stories. Stories of the history of our island, of its residents, and culture. It dawned on us that, along with putting together a compilation of Quadra Island cuisine, we are sharing local lore through our unifying passion for food.
“This lovingly-produced place-based cookbook from Quadra Islanders offers inventive, inspiring ways to use wholesome ingredients from local gardens and farms, forests and seas.
Besides the mouth-watering recipes, I love the luscious photography and glimpses into Quadra Island’s special places, people and history.”
How to use this book
We cook by the seasons, which offer a changing array of foods from the sea, forest, garden, farm, orchard, and berry patch. You’ll find appetizers, salads, soups, side dishes, main courses, and desserts in nearly every chapter, and a comprehensive index organized by meal types and foods. Most of the breads can be found in the farm chapter, and the final two chapters offer recipes and tips for camping trips, and a guide to preserving foods through canning, pickling, drying, and fermenting.
Dietary Needs
There are recipe choices for people with specialized dietary needs, denoted by symbols which were assigned only when both the recipe ingredients and suggested accompaniments apply.
Artwork: Candace Holmes