Warren District Agricultural Society president Aimee Bendotti featured in book celebrating country show cooks

Warren District Agricultural Society president Aimee Bendotti and her prize-winning chocolate potato cake recipe have been selected to feature in a new book celebrating the traditions of country shows and their cookery competitions. Released on Tuesday, The New Blue Ribbon Cookbook is a collection of time-honoured recipes and inspiring stories from across Australia compiled by best-selling author Liz Harfull. Ms Harfull said inspiration for the book came from an interest in sharing how Italian culture had influenced shows in Western Australia to introduce special classes and competitions for Italian sausage-making. “The show society put me in touch with Aimee and her uncle, John Bendotti, who is very well known for the sausages he makes, sharing his tips at sold-out workshops and making them to raise money for local community groups,” she said. “We talked about the history of the Bendotti family and their early years building a future in the Pemberton district, how John learnt to make his air-dried sausages, and how Aimee has been inspired to keep an extensive vegetable and flower garden by memories of her grandmother, Lina. “Aimee is a fine cook too, well known amongst friends for her baking and preserves, as well as being one of the younger show society presidents that I’ve come across.” Every cook featured in the book was asked to share a prize-winning recipe, which is accompanied by extra tips from both the cook and experienced judges, as a way of encouraging more people to enter their local shows. Ms Harfull said the recipe choice for Aimee seemed obvious, given the Bendotti connection with the potato industry and Aimee’s own love of potatoes. “There is hardly a meal where you can’t feature potato ... it’s very underestimated,” she says in the book.