Abby and Amber Whittington, daughters of Steve Whittington, head football coach at Greenville Academy, make their own preparations for the Taster's Dinner by "cooking" up a few recipes from the school's cookbook, which will be featured at the dinner on Saturday, July 15.

Photo by Alecia Weldon

By Alicia Weldon

Staff Writer

Greenville Academy is giving the community a chance to eat delicious food while helping out the school at the same time.

The school is holding its annual Taster's Dinner on Saturday, July 15, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. The food available will be dishes featured from the school's cookbook, "Sharing Our Best," which will be on sale for $10.

The dishes will be made by the parents at the school, and each plate will be $5. There will be an area set up inside the school to eat for those who want to stay cool, as well as an area set up outside under the trees with fans for those who enjoy being outdoors. Plates can also be bought to-go from the school.

Sara Jean Atkins, chairman of the cookbook committee, said there will be over 25 dishes available for visitors to try out.

"There will be people to serve you a taste' of what the cookbook has to offer," Atkins said. "We tried to serve some dishes which were different from what people are used to eating."

Some of the featured recipes will be crock pot dressing, barbecue crock pot chicken, Mom's Wonderful Salad and tortilla roll-ups, one of the featured appetizers.

There will also be more familiar dishes, such as lasagna, poppy seed casserole, Mexican cornbread and potato casserole.

To finish an excellent meal, many desserts will be available for a taste, including pecan pie, cheesecake, buttermilk pie, Mississippi mud pie and potato chip cookies.

"We expect to have about 300 people come to the dinner, based on past popularity," Atkins said.

This is the first year Greenville Academy has held a taster's dinner for the school's cookbook. In previous years, a dinner was held featuring recipes from the Watermelon Jubilee cookbook.

Atkins said so far, sales for the school's cookbook have been good, but they do have more to sell.

"This is the first time I've been selling cookbooks that I've had someone from Mobile order one," Atkins said. "She saw the ad in the newspaper and wrote us a letter asking us to send her one."

Atkins said without the parents, this fundraiser would not be possible.

"We have a very family-oriented school, and each of the parents is always eager to help out," Atkins said.

Funds raised will go to help the school's athletic department.