This week we are looking at kai resilience building initiatives as a focus on Neighbours Day Aotearoa 2022.
In our local neighbourhoods we have a lot of organisations that have been doing this for years and have been doing a great service to our communities.
At Te Pātikitiki and Ashhurst Libraries they each have a community garden kindly run by volunteer groups Let’s Grow Highbury and RECAP: The Society for the Resilience and Engagement of the Community of Ashhurst and Pohangina Inc. respectively. Everyone is encouraged to take what they need from the garden, and these groups also run education programmes to help share their knowledge of how to grow your own produce.
Another great service these groups provide through our libraries is the seed libraries. They are run slightly different but their purpose is essentially the same, where the focus is sharing seeds around the community for free.
All the Community Libraries have sharing tables where people frequently drop off excess fruit and vegetables – a much better option than having it munched up by the lawn mower! These are found in all the libraries with the exception of Ashhurst Library that has a sharing shelf outside.
Next week the Digital Help Sessions at all City Library locations will resume.
These are individual sessions where we can help you answer your questions, such as how to access eBooks, how to use your phone, help with a job application, or simply learning how to turn your device on!
We are happy to try and find solutions for you though bookings are required for these sessions so please contact us if you wish to make one.
I was recently recommended Jennifer Ryan as a new author to read. I am so very glad I took this recommended as I really loved the 3 stand alone novels of hers that I read which were Lost and Found Family, Sisters and Secrets, and The Me I Used to Be. I feel the theme of ‘families’ and the all the drama’s that goes with families is the over lying theme in all of these books. They were really were all an enjoyable read and I would recommend them.
Spotted on the shelves at the Awapuni Library! We so enjoyed this picture book by Anna Kenna! The Essential Fairy is the story how the tooth fairy’s job got added to the list of essential roles during the 2020 lockdown. It’s a fun, rhyming read and captures a special part of New Zealand history. A great read for kids and adults! Find it on our shelves or reserve it here: https://bit.ly/3MYPpSu
Neighbours Day is about encouraging people to get to know their neighbours better. The theme for this year is Kai Connections.
There are two activities our libraries are getting behind to celebrate Neighbours Day this year. The first is about highlighting the community-led programmes that help with kai resilience building initiatives. This will be done through a series of photographs and stories that will be put together in a book to be available at the Community Libraries.
The second activity with be a display at all the Palmerston North Libraries for Neighbours Day Aotearoa 2022 – Kai Connections. The displays will invite people to share their favourite recipes and ways of how to share kai within the community.
Holi is a Hindu festival also known as the Festival of Love and the Festival of Colours which ties in to the gorgeous display of colourful saris we have in the Central Library at the moment. It also marks the start of Spring.
If you are lucky enough to visit India during Holi you will find the streets full of colour. Each colour represents something, with the brightest colours being the most popular. You will, however find an absence of white and black.
During the Holi Festival streets will be full of people dancing, throwing colours at each other (coloured powders and water), lots of music and celebration.
Come in and see the beautiful display we have in the Central Library on the First Floor kindly put together by Anita from the Central Indian Association.
We kiwis love our takeaways, especially on a Friday evening, when we’re tired and just want to take it easy. But we *know* takeaways aren’t the best for us, but that hankering for something quick, affordable and tasty is so great. Luckily for you, Palmerston North City Library has curated some great books for fast Friday food, in case you feel the need to cook on Friday (or if you want fast food any other day of the week). Get stuck in here and pay us a visit to check out your fave (don’t forget we also offer click and collect, in case you’re really busy!)
Time saving fast food, by Simon Holst
Most of us are on the lookout for different ways to create tasty meals that will satisfy ourselves and families. With fast busy lifes and households Time Saving Fast Food will save you time in the kitchen and cooking can be a more enjoyable experience instead of a chore.
We all love a takeaway. It’s one of life’s little pleasures, and a great way to try food from around the world in the comfort of our own homes. But when hankering after a plant-based treat, the takeaway menu isn’t always the easiest thing to navigate. Vegan Fakeaway offers 70 recipes that deliver fast, easy, vegan takeaway classics that will make sure that you’re able to indulge, whenever the craving strikes.
The Domestic Goddess is back — and this time it’s instant. Nigella and her style of cooking have earned a special place in our lives, symbolizing all that is best, most pleasurable, most hands-on, and least fussy about good food.
Featuring fabulous fast foods, ingenious shortcuts, terrific time-saving ideas, effortless entertaining tips, and simple, scrumptious meals.
Eat : the little book of fast food, by Nigel Slater
A collection of recipes that you can have to the table in less than an hour . The recipes are generally for two but are easy double or triple up for more.
This collection of recipes provides lots of exciting ideas for parents faced with the dilemma of how to provide nutritious, economical – and above all tasty and tempting – meals for their young families.
Jo Pratt has devised a cookbook full of delicious and healthy food that addresses one of the most challenging problems experienced by busy parents- finding time to cook meals for their family. The recipes are simple, easy to shop for and quick to make, with shortcuts and prepare-ahead tips.
Everyone needs quick, healthy, and delicious recipes for feeding a family–and no ones better at providing them than Gordon Ramsay, the three-star chef famous for his no-nonsense cooking. Here he serves up a feast of doable ideas: more than 100 recipes and 15 great menus for putting food on the table each and every day. Many of the dishes take only 15 minutes to prepare and cook!
The “I love my air fryer” 5-ingredient recipe book, by Robin Fields
Create deliciously quick and easy recipes in your Air Fryer using only 5 ingredients or less! Want simple meals that your entire family (even the pickiest eaters) will devour? This easy-to-use cookbook provides mouthwatering, whole-food dishes for every meal–from breakfast and dinner to appetizers and dessert–using favorite, familiar ingredients you probably already have in your pantry.
Known for her bold and surprising flavour combinations, Nadiya loves to throw the rulebook out of the window, always finding ways to take familiar recipes to the next level. Now she makes it easy for others to do so too, with a host of everyday recipes that are guaranteed to send your taste buds into overdrive. Sour, sweet, spicy, zesty, earthy, fruity, herbal – her delicious recipes offer new and innovative ways to pack your meals with flavour, using clever shortcuts, hacks and handy ingredients to put the va-va-voom into your food without spending hours in the kitchen.
‘Belonging’ is a photographic exhibition created by Aline Frey. The City Library was lucky enough to display this exhibition after the grand opening at The Globe before some pictures were put on display at Square Edge Arts Centre to be part of a larger display to celebrate International Women’s Day.
‘Belonging’ celebrates 10 women, who like Aline, emigrated to Palmerston North. This exhibition represented women from all about the world, and showcased them as women, not the roles they play such as being mothers or their jobs.
Aline Frey captures the diversity of Palmerston North City through the portraits of ten women from across the globe who have made Palmerston North their home
Belonging is a basic desire of all human beings. Almost all of us want to belong to a family, a community, a place, a country, or a nation. For some, belonging can be an effortless, automated feeling, but for others, it can be a roller coaster of emotions, challenges and experiences. Regardless of how different each other’s journeys to belonging are, belonging itself is a most beautiful feeling. A feeling to be home. Through her portraits of women from Palmerston North, Aline Frey captures the feeling of belonging.
Palmerston North City Library hosted the opening of the ‘Belonging’ photo exhibition created by Aline Frey in the Globe Theatre. The exhibition highlights the portraits of 10 women accompanied by their stories. The common thread that connect these women together is a sense of belonging, Hononga, and Pertencimento.
After the opening it was displayed at the City Library for 2 weeks before some photos were moved to be on display at Square Edge Arts Centre to be part of a larger display to celebrate International Women’s Day.
Aline was inspired to create this exhibition due to her own experiences coming from Brazil and comparing what other women do to feel they belong here. She wanted to find out from other women about their experiences and how it compared to her own, and to find strategies to help others in the community feel connected. She discovered people found their own ways to relate to their new environment whether it be from connections with things such as food, music or friends. It was discovered that sharing their journey, finding those connections and becoming part of the community helped them feel less lonely and isolated.
The generous ladies who shared their stories for this exhibition were found from word of mouth. Aline wanted it to represent every corner of the world. The exhibition gave the women an opportunity to feel proud of themselves and share what was important to them, their journey of finding Palmerston North their home and the shared experiences of belonging.
Aline particularly wanted to focus on women as themselves; not just as mothers, or teachers, or daughters, but above all as themselves. She felt sometimes women were forgotten about and were only thought about as the roles that they play.
By sharing their stories and uploading them to online heritage platform Manawatū Heritage it enables their story to be preserved for their Grandchildren to learn about them, where they came from and how they learnt to belong in their new community. She wanted them to be proud of their stories.
Palmerston North is a very Global community and the exhibition features women from across the globe. Olivia from Vietnam, Flavia from Brazil, Natsuko from Japan, Megan from Zimbabwe, Jaspreet from India, Marylon from United States, Eunice from Scotland, Lai Bar from Myanmar, Doris from Nigeria and Poto from Samoa.
Aline said that “I am the photographer and the inspiration behind this exhibition, but to create it involved a whole community. Without the extensive teamwork it wasn’t possible. Leslie from the library and Maria’s support kept me going. The teamwork made it a dreamwork.”
We have another great review from a wonderful patron at the Awapuni Library on The Body on the Doorstep by A.J. MacKenzie.
1796, Kent. Peaceful backwater? Hardly! Be prepared for a story of murder, mayhem, smuggling and treachery. Late one night the Reverend Hardcastle finds a dying man on his doorstep and so begins a tale that swings from one dramatic event to another; told with a wry good humour.
With the able assistance of his friend Mrs Chaytor, Hardcastle sets out to solve the mystery. Smuggling is rife along England’s South East Coast so he first assumes that it must be linked, but there are others who lurk along the Kentish Coast and the Reverend soon finds he may have bitten off more than he can chew…
This book is available online through Libby and BorrowBox.
You can enjoy FREE access to movies and documentaries using your library card with Kanopy and Beamafilm. You just need your library card number and pin number – if you have forgotten your pin number don’t worry, just contact us and we can help you.
To help you get started, we have provided the instruction sheets below. Enjoy!😀
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