Carillon Assisted Living Releases New Activity Baking Recipe Book to Increase Residents’ Appreciation of Their Home and Enhance Appetite
It’s the newest form of aromatherapy: Carillon’s Activity Baking Recipe Book. This spring, founder Karen Moriarity recognized the need for a recipe collection that could be used to bake goodies and increase residents’ appreciation for their home while enhancing their appetites.
Residents and staff members at all 22 facilities were invited to submit their favorite recipes for such goodies as cakes, pies, brownies, cobblers and snacks. The results rolled off the press in late June: a full-color, 75-page, 8-by-10 book, with the cover featuring a cake topped with icing and blueberries. The five dozen recipes are divided into 10 categories.
Director of Dining Services Bill Furnas oversaw the comprehensive project. It involved supplying each Carillon residence with new mixing bowls, dishes, pastry cutters, spoons and pans to create the dishes.
“Our residents come from all over the country, so these dishes come from everywhere,” Bill says. “The ranger cookie (oatmeal and coconut) is mine. I used it in the restaurants I used to manage because it was so popular; I’m not sure if you could say it’s from North Carolina. Peach cobbler is good wherever it’s from. One day, someone was making fresh-baked banana bread at one facility and it smelled like heaven.”
The limited-edition printing totaled 50 books. Copies have been supplied to activity directors in both assisted living and memory care sections of each residence, although there is the possibility of additional copies being ordered if demand warrants another printing.
One of Bill’s most interesting experiences during recent book deliveries took place in Huntersville. There, Activity Director Nour Qomaq and resident Peggy Wall were on hand to greet the dining services director. Peggy got the thrill of opening the book and seeing some of the two dozen recipes she had submitted for consideration.
A native of King, Peggy once submitted recipes for a cookbook compiled by her home church, Quaker Gap Baptist in Stokes County. However, this is her first commercially-published experience.
The book includes her favorite dessert, Sour Cream Coconut Cake, which calls for the icing to be prepared the night before and then folded into the cake after it is sliced into several layers.
“Oh, gosh, yes,” Peggy says of baking for the four sons she raised before 10 grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren came along. “I had to taste everything I baked. Sometimes they’d say, ‘Momma, don’t make that one again.’ My favorite food of all was potato salad. Everywhere I went, both sides of the family wanted me to make potato salad.”
Bill says the increased baking activities at Carillon’s facilities impresses family members who stop in to visit, and has helped draw staff and residents together.
“When I brought in the supplies, it was fun,” he says. “They were going through all the supplies like it was Christmas. A lady in Knightdale said she couldn’t wait to get started.”
Bill would have said more, but his mouth was watering too much thinking about the recipes.
Posted in Sage Stories on July 11, 2018