The final Cookathon preparations

It has been a busy week behind the scenes, preparing for the Cookathon. With the survey results back it was time to compile the results and write a fact sheet based on the findings. The fact sheet now contains interesting information about baked potato nutrition as well as cooking tips and some of the suggested topping ideas. Also included are a few of the lovely potato characters drawn by the children. Look to your left and you'll see them all scrolling past in a slide show. All of these also made it onto the Cookathon posters which have now gone up at school as well as other noticeboards around the area.

Also from the survey results we have been able to see which toppings are the most popular. No surprises that cheese beat butter to poll position (only just), with baked beans not far behind. So it should also be no surprise that butter, cheese and baked beans will be on offer on at school on the Cookathon day itself. Joining them will be tuna (another popular) choice, and coleslaw and chilli (because they will be fun to make... well, it is all about cooking after all!). We are very grateful to Riverford Organic Veg for promising to donate 150 potatoes for our event, as well as salad items that will go nicely with the spuds. Red Hot World Food Buffet will be signing people up when they visit the restaurant on Tuesday and we have sixty 15% off Red Hot keyrings to give away to parents turning up to help out or join in at school. Tesco were also generous enough to give us £20 towards our shopping as well as allowing us to stand in their foyer on Tuesday to pester their customers into cooking a baked potato that day too. Other generous offers have come from 35 parents volunteering to help out. With 200 potatoes to cook and only one oven we are sure going to need help!

On Tuesday, with only a week to go, a photographer for the Citizen newspaper turned up at school to take a picture of the children with their potatoes then on Thursday an article promoting the event appeared in the Citizen.

By Thursday all the children had decided which topping they fancied on their potatoes, leaving a rather big shopping list. So Friday afternoon, a trip to Tescos was needed to stock up on 12 blocks of butter, 6 wedges of Cheddar, 15 tins of baked beans... well, you get the picture. There are 200 children to feed!

But 200 isn't enough... we need more! If you are know someone from Kents Hill School make sure you put your name down on their sign up sheet. Otherwise, email the address at the top of the page to tell us that you too will be cooking an spud on Tuesday. We need you!