Congratulations to Grow Ohio Valley on their newly self-published Wheeling community cookbook titled “A Little of This, a Little of That.” Compiled by Emma Goldenthal and Corbin T Lanker, the cookbook is a wonderful collection of recipes, photography, and food stories from twenty-six local recipe and story contributors! On December 14, 2023, Grow Ohio Valley hosted a celebratory potluck dinner at the Public Market in downtown Wheeling with the cookbook’s featured contributors and their families.

The project is inspired by The Foxfire Book of Appalachian Cookery (1984) and traditional community cookbooks, which are, as Emma notes in the Forward, a do-it-yourself publication often authored by women and commonly associated with churches and social clubs. “The many stories shared in this book are interconnected by common threads,” Emma writes. “Our contributors often spoke about how special dishes and ingredients help maintain family traditions and cultural ties, especially around the holidays. Others reflected on how a meal or dish can be an opportunity for expressing love and care, or a way to navigate grief and change. Some contributors shared childhood memories that cherished foods evoke. And others yet showed us how cooking can be an intuitive practice, a knowing rather than a mere collection of steps, or an avenue for creativity and experimentation.”

Cookbooks are available for purchase at Wheeling’s Public Market or at https://www.growov.org/communitycookbook Proceeds will go towards future community education programming in Wheeling, including Grow Ohio Valley’s after-school cooking classes for 4th and 5th graders.

The digital edition is available for free on the Grow Ohio Valley website!

“A Little of This, a Little of That” was made possible through grant funding from several local and regional agencies including the West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture and History and the National Endowment for the Arts, the West Virginia Humanities Council, and Wheeling Heritage. The West Virginia Folklife Program provided consultation and advising during the interviewing and editing stages.