AN AUTHOR, whose husband’s life was saved thanks to a Basingstoke charity, has published a new cookery book to raise funds for the good cause.

Simon Hawkins, who lives in Winchester, was operated on by surgeons from the Pelican Cancer Foundation two years ago.

As previously reported by The Gazette, in a world first, they removed his duodenum, right kidney, gall bladder and half his pancreas after he was diagnosed with a rare form of bowel cancer.

Two years on, he is cancer-free and his wife, Penny Ericson, has enlisted the help of Hampshire’s finest chefs to create book Meats, Eats, Drinks and Leaves.

Twenty-two chefs have contributed menus that feature their favoured local produce and ways in which they have taken responsibility for growing their own livestock, kitchen gardens and produce.

Penny said: “This book is a peek over the shoulders of some remarkable chefs and tells the stories of how they interpret provenance and what using, and in many cases growing, their own food means to them.

“The dishes vary, some are elegantly simple, whilst others are simply too skilled to replicate at home. From all of them we can take inspiration.”

Penny has previously published Chemo Cookery Club, a book which showcased recipes which provide maximum nutritional value to those going through chemotherapy.

The couple launched the book alongside Sarah Crane, chief executive of Pelican, and other guests, at an event in Lainston House, near Winchester.

Money raised from the sale of Meats, East, Drinks and Leaves, available from Amazon, will go to Pelican Cancer Foundation, based in the grounds of Basingstoke hospital.