It’s Cooking Good! The Ancoats and Northern Quarter Cookbook

About

Introducing the Ancoats and Northern Quarter Cookbook, a celebration of our independent local Manchester food scene. Published in aid of the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital Charity.

What’s it all about?

Featuring over 20 restaurants from top food venues in our neighbourhood of Ancoats and the Northern Quarter. A feast of recipes, with all profits going to the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital Charity… It’s Cooking Good!

Coming together with our favourite local eateries, the cookbook features step-by-step recipes for some of the most delicious dishes from Manchester’s kitchens.

Contributing venues include established hotspots and award-winning new-comers from the eclectic mix of eateries that characterise Manchester’s more artisan districts.

Abel Heywood, Ancoats Coffee Co, Black Milk, Cottonopolis, Café Cotton, Elnecot, Kettlebell Kitchen, Luck Lust Liquor and Burn, Nam, Pen & Pencil, Pie & Ale, Rosylee, Seven Brothers, Sweet Mandarin, Tariff & Dale, The Blue Pig, Walrus and Yard and Coop, to name a few.

The book is a homage to the independents’ flair and creativity, bringing Manchester together through great food. You can now take it home and turn dinner into a ‘good deed’, with all profits from the book going to the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital Charity.

After all, that’s what Manchester does best; gets together and makes things happen.

So, why support Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital?

The number of children being treated at the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital has been steadily increasing. From 100,000 children when the hospital first opened its doors in the summer of 2009 to last year when the number topped 276,000. In total a staggering 1,875,000 poorly children and their families have been supported by the hospital and staff since the 'Many Hands' Charity Campaign began.

This year the Many Hands campaign will support a project that will help children and young people seen by the Children’s and Adolescent Mental Health Service. The campaign will support therapeutic artwork at the centre, aimed at reducing anxiety and increasing self-confidence for their young service users during intense, distressing times in their lives.

We all know of events when the children’s hospital has touched someone’s life close to us. The charity visited our studio recently to talk about their work; unsurprisingly there was not a dry eye in the house. The effect the hospital has on children and families from across the North is humbling, and something that we are really proud to support.

Why a cookbook?

We love food. As a creative agency and photography studio in Ancoats, it’s our day job. So bringing this and a few contacts together to produce the Cookbook just made sense. The RMCH Charity is our nominated Charity this year, so we wanted to do something memorable that involved our wider community and take part in the RMCH Charity’s Many Hands Campaign. Challenged to raise at least a £1,000 - we intend to smash this with a little help from you.

And why feature Ancoats & the Northern Quarter?

With the area described by the New York Post as "an artsy hub of trendy cafés, restaurants, bars and boutiques opened mostly by independent entrepreneurs" do you need to ask? It’s the North West's hotbed of new independent food, community and hospitality.

* Please be aware that all cookbooks will be printed and shipped during October 2018.

Risks and challenges

Designed, with dishes being photographed as you read this, the cookbook is almost ready to go to print. Your support will help to cover the print cost.

We are lucky to be in good company as our local printers, Entwistles, have given us a charitable discount on printing costs.

Raising the £3,200 required to produce the cookbook is a challenge, but one we hope will be supported by the local community. The dream really starts once the cookbook has been printed and the books are being sold, where all profits from every book will go towards the RMCH charity.

The book is set to retail at £10.99 and we hope to raise a minimum of £1,000 in profits for the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital Charity. This means that for each book sold, £3.24 will be donated to Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital, Reg no 1049274.

We will sell the cookbooks online, via a digital shop on the Shoot the Moon website and the STM Photography website, as well as on Amazon. It will also be sold from some of the venues involved in the cookbook that are able to do so. We have a marketing campaign planned and ready to spread the good word.

In return for supporting our cookbook, we promise to keep you updated on progress via email.

We are looking to print the cookbook in Autumn 2018 and host a launch event in the Ancoats/ Northern Quarter area.