Plum Grove celebrates 'Apron Strings'

Plum Grove graduate trader Aaron Dolin (left), communications and marketing manager Rikki Foss, executive chairman and managing director Andrew Young, wheat and derivatives trader Tracy Vaughan and grower and consultant relationships manager Pete Rees at the launch of the Apron Strings cookbook.

FOR the past three years Plum Grove has participated in a commercial community partnership program that aligns with the annual Newdegate Machinery Field Days.

This year the WA-based grain accumulation and export business partnered with the Newdegate and Varley branches of the Country Women’s Association of WA (CWA) to prepare, print and roll out a beautifully crafted hardback cookbook, titled Apron Strings.

The publication is filled to the brim with delicious salad, main course, sweet treat, share platter, picnic and jam recipes passed down through the generations of local families living and raising their children in the Newdegate and Varley regions.

The launch also coincided beautifully with the 80th birthday celebration of the CWA’s service to community by the Newdegate branch.

Plum Grove’s role in sponsoring the cookbook was to highlight yet another vital organisation in country WA and celebrate all that the local CWA branch has done for its community including years of fundraising in aid of various community buildings and activities.

WA Parliamentary Secretary to the Agriculture and Food Minister Jim Chown was on hand to help launch the publication and cut a birthday cake after Premier Colin Barnett’s late withdrawal.

“The CWA is an institution,” he said.

“It’s one of the reasons we have such a vibrant agricultural industry.

“Without the ladies in the CWA and the outstanding work they have done over 80 years on behalf of the community they live in, I don’t think we’d have the kind of communities in WA that we have now.”

Plum Grove executive chairman and managing director Andrew Young officially launched the book.

He said the past three years had seen a range of innovative ideas and concepts designed to celebrate the community group that was Newdegate including this year’s masterpiece, Apron Strings.

“It has 150 recipes supplied by local community members as well as some of the Plum Grove staff members,” he said.

The limited print cookbook was on sale throughout the field days and retails for $25.

(Originally published in Farm Weekly)