Somerville Reads 2012, the Somerville Public Library’s third annual community reading program, will occur this spring.

By Cathleen Twardzik

Somerville Reads 2012, the Somerville Public Library’s third annual community reading program, will occur this spring. This year’s the program theme is food, therefore they would like your help with two things: recipes and stories.

A community cookbook will be compiled, so that people may share their favorite dishes. Several recipe ideas that may inspire submissions include: cooking for a crowd, children’s favorites, local roots or ingredients, and family heritage.

The submission deadline is March 1.

“Somerville voted for the delicious theme of food, and the Somerville Reads committee selected the featured book Farm City by Novella Carpenter. Seedfolks by Paul Fleischman and Judy Pedersen, illustrator, is the featured children’s book,” said Maria Carpenter, Director of the Somerville Public Library.

“We are leading with a theme. The past two years Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried and Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake were selected.  The themes of war, Vietnam, service, remembrance, family, and the immigrant experience came from those works,” said Carpenter.

Printed copies of the cookbook will be sold at the program’s kickoff event on March 31 at 1 p.m. in the central library in Somerville, at which there will be a potluck meal. The local band Michael J. Epstein Memorial Library will perform.

“The plan is for the community cookbook to be unveiled and sold at this program. We hope that cookbook contributors will make a sampling of their recipe and bring it to the kickoff,” she said.

Proceeds from the sale of the books will go toward future programming at all of the branches of The Somerville Public Library, such as museum passes, children’s performances, and author talks.

Three ways to submit your recipe are possible. Drop it off at any Somerville Public Library

location, send via Ellen Jacobs’ e-mail to ejacobs@minlib.net, or mail it to: Somerville Public Library, 79 Highland Ave., Somerville, MA 02143, Attention: Ellen Jacobs.

The program may not be able to print all of the recipes because that depends on how many submissions are received and whether there are duplicates. However, as many of them as possible will be included.

If a recipe is not yours, then, the program reminds you to properly accredit each one. For example, according to them, it is essential for you to say, “[I] found this recipe in my mother’s old “Fanny Farmer,” if that is where it originated.

The program supports literacy, as well as community engagement, by “encouraging” individuals throughout Somerville to read and talk about the same book.

Discussions about the books, urban gardening and food will also take place at the event.  Jessie Banhhazi from Green City Growers and Cathy Piantigini, Head of Children’s Library Services, as well as Jim Boyd of Somerville Community Garden will lead them.

“We learn so much as a community by discussing books: about history, politics, socioeconomics, various cultures, universal values [and] what it means to be human,” she said.

Additionally, Somerville Reads would like to encourage you to share your stories. An open-mic night, at which individuals may tell food-themed stories which will range between five and 10 minutes, has been planned to take place on April 11.

“I saw a program like this out in San Francisco, and it was so much fun,” said Carpenter.

If you have a good story, such as a personal experience about trying an interesting dish in a foreign country, a recollection of learning to make a family favorite with a grandparent, or a familiar folktale that you’ve always loved, then tell the tale at the event and hear other people tell their stories as well.