Spirited effort by Flinders a feast for the tastebuds

(posted 18.10.11)

Order your copy now

Forget Masterchef, imagine cooking more than 90 recipes in just three days, styling and photographing each dish, testing and tasting along the way.

It was definitely a labour of love that saw the birth of the beautiful Spirited Feasts cookbook.

An initiative of the Matthew Flinders Anglican College’s Friends of Music group, the Spirited Feasts project hopes to raise $100,000 for the College’s new Performance Centre.

Led by Marina Russell, a small but dedicated team of Flinders parents, staff and students brought the project to fruition in just five months.

“We called for recipes in May, photographed them the last week in June and had the final design to the printers by the end of July. Most of it was done after hours and over the weekends,” Marina said.

Now, 4000 copies of the 200-page cookbook have arrived, just as the doors to the Performance Centre are about to open for the very first time.

With the current interest in healthy food and creating easy, fresh home cooking, Spirited Feasts was an opportunity to showcase fresh, local produce, the Sunshine Coast lifestyle, scenery, restaurants and family favourite recipes collected from the school community.

Each recipe was tested by the team of enthusiastic mums to ensure it was relatively easy, both to source the ingredients locally, prepare and cook.

“Marina and I worked for weeks selecting recipes with the important overall look and style of the book being the priority - namely Sunshine Coast lifestyle and fresh vibrant food,” parent and chief test cook Kerri Sugden said.

 “We cooked over 90 recipes in three days at my home. The days were very long indeed but as I am a passionate cook, it was a labour of love.”

The pair was assisted by Marina's daughter, Jordan, 15, who styled the food, cooked dishes, also took some photos and worked on the computer design.

Each dish was photographed individually by self-taught artist and acclaimed photographer Paul Hamilton, who is the ICT Coordinator in the Flinders’ Primary School.

“The book would not be possible without Paul’s wonderful contribution,” Marina said.

The various chapters of the book – fields, sea, farm, heaven and local indulgences - reflect the beautiful areas and landscapes where the ingredients are grown or harvested. The essence of the Sunshine Coast has been captured by renowned landscape photographer Nick Rains, who found the cookbook “an exciting opportunity to give back to a community that has provided me with so much inspiration over the years”.

“We wanted to make this cookbook a little different. There are so many cookbooks available at the moment,” Marina said. “This resulted in our unusual headings for each chapter – fields, sea, farm, heaven and local indulgences - which highlight recipes from local restaurants and features our sponsors.

“The recipes are easy to read and follow and the cookbook has a large variety of dishes from salads, seafood, meat, poultry, dairy and desserts to suit any family. All the ingredients are familiar and locally available.”

Amelia Smalberger brought all the recipes, images and concepts together to create the final printed result. Other photographic contributions were made by Teresa Smalberger, Lester Jackson and Marina Russell.

The launch of the Spirited Feast cookbook coincides with the opening of the Performance Centre in November, a state-of-the-art facility which will be used by the whole Flinders community and will become an asset for the wider local community.

“The outstanding efforts of those in our community to bring this culinary creation into being, mirror the commitment of our early pioneers of Flinders who founded our College in 1990,” said Principal Anthony Vincent.

“The Spirited Feast epitomizes our College’s goal to aim for excellence in all we do. It is a truly beautiful complementary statement to the completion of our state-of-the-art Performance Centre – both will be treasured by generations of Flinderians.”

The Spirited Feast cookbook is priced at $30 and all funds raised go to the Performance Centre. 

To order your copy, view cookbook

Performance Centre Open House celebrations

Back to News and Events