Roots Middle Schoolers Release Lake Chelan Cookbook

Through a variety of factors, including Miller’s previous exposure to self-publishing and his wife’s work with Riverwalk Books, the idea for the students to create a locally sourced cookbook was born.

The first half of the school year was devoted to the history of food in America with a specific focus on how the industrial revolution changed the production and distribution of food.

The second unit was far more ambitious. The class planned to create a Lake Chelan Valley cookbook. They reached out to the community and to local restaurants via social media and a communications campaign to determine the level of interest. The response was a bit overwhelming as more than 40 local restaurants and dozens of community members expressed interest.

In order to whittle down the list, the students began an extensive research process. They interviewed chefs and toured local restaurants. They studied historic cookbooks from the area. They looked for recipes that incorporated locally sourced products.

Eventually, they focused on two recipes each from 19 local restaurants. Community members contributed the remaining recipes for a total of the 65 they intended to include in the book.

“We couldn’t have done this project without the enthusiastic support of the restaurants,” said Miller. “They jumped in with recipes, access to their chefs, demonstrations, and interviews without hesitation.”

Grace and Beau watch as we are given a detailed lesson on how to recover one’s dignity after tossing pizza dough high enough to hit the ceiling at Local Myth Pizza.

Recipe solicitation and selection complete. Next came the hard part. And the tasty part.

Each student chose 2 recipes to test at home.

Their assignment was to prepare and cook the food, taking detailed notes for the step-by-step descriptive part of the recipe.

Some of the recipes were proprietary (particularly historic recipes where no one could sign off on their commercial publication) so students were tasked with making slight adjustments while continuing to pay homage to the original recipe.

Although the restaurant itself is long gone, Yesterday’s lives on with this recipe inspired by their much loved Margherita Pizza Sub.

For the next steps of the project, the students were divided into smaller, task-oriented teams. There was a book cover design team, an editorial team, social media team, marketing team, photo team, and more.

In addition to the recipes themselves, the book showcases the history behind many of the contributing restaurants and individuals. Miller credits documents and historical data gleaned through the Lake Chelan Museum for much of the background information.

People eat with their eyes first, so a key element of eventually selling the book was the need for eye-catching photos.

Miller credits local professional photographer Richard Uhlhorn for his valuable participation.

Uhlhorn loaned the students cameras, instructed them on lighting, angles and other aspects of successful photography, and even stepped in to provide photos himself as needed.

Wyatt and Grace debate the proper technique for lens cap removal before a photo shoot at The Vogue Coffee Bar.

The students self-published the book using a template from Canva design software. “They were hands-on through every step of the project,” said Miller.

Completed page proofs were reviewed for errors, and to the delight of the entire class, the day finally arrived when the colorful soft cover books were delivered to the school.

The first shipment of books was a modest 100 copies – which Miller was proud to note “sold out almost immediately”. Another 100 copies was ordered for June delivery.

How much is the cookbook, where can I find it, and what does the money go for?

The Lake Chelan Cookbook sells for $50.00, with all profits going directly to the Roots School.

In addition to purchasing the Lake Chelan Cookbook directly through Roots School and Riverwalk Books, interested consumers can order the book online through any book store via the Ingram publishing company. Just go to Bookshop.org and type in Lake Chelan Cookbook.

Miller indicated the funds are earmarked for a middle school trip which is scheduled for 7^th and 8^th graders every other year. Currently, the school is in the early planning stages for a trip in 2025 to European destinations as part of their WWII educational unit.

A big thank you to so many individuals and businesses who made this project possible.

“The community really got behind this project,” said Miller. “We are so grateful.”

When pushed to call out those who contributed above and beyond, Miller mentioned the generosity of Campbell’s, County Line and the Vogue.

“The class met every week at the Vogue to work on the project,” said Miller. “Campbell’s and County Line supplied the food for our showcase event where we unveiled the Cookbook. We were completely humbled by their interest and willingness to support our efforts.”

What’s next?

I asked Miller if he anticipates there will be a Lake Chelan Cookbook, Volume 2?

“Not anytime soon,” he said with a laugh. Miller indicated next year’s class will have a different year-long project, although he isn’t sure exactly what that will be.

For now, he and his students have closed the book on this project. Except to order more copies as they need.

Congratulations to the entire Roots Middle School for a job well done!

Sometimes research can be confused with fun and games: Logan and Beau fight to defend the world from mutant zombies while we wait for our order at Company Creek Pizza.

Who is Leo Montaigne? And how did he write the cookbook?

Leo Montaigne is a pen name for the 12 students who created, wrote, and produced the Lake Chelan Cookbook.

The Roots 7th and 8th grade class is dubbed: Mountain Lions. They wanted to attribute the book to an author that reflected and represented them all.

Lion comes from the old French word “Leo”, while mountain is derived from another French word “Montaigne”.

Thus Leo Montaigne was born.

Clever kids aren’t they?