LEWISTON – Barbara Bush’s barbecue sauce recipe sounds timid. Sen. Olympia Snowe’s baklava sounds wicked. And Stephen King’s recipe? Scary.

“I only make it when my wife, Tabby, isn’t home,” King wrote for the new Rainbow Federal Credit Union’s “Ending Hunger Cookbook.”

“She won’t eat it,” King said of his “lunchtime gloop,” a greasy combination of ground beef and canned spaghetti. “In fact, (she) doesn’t even like to look at it.”

His tongue-in-cheek concoction is one of about 350 recipes in the $7 cookbook. All profits go to organizations that fight hunger, particularly the Good Shepherd Food-Bank that is based in Auburn and has a statewide mission.

A hungry person would welcome the recipes inside the cookbook’s 136 pages, compiled by the credit union.

“These are the kind of recipes that most people can make,” said Jackie Kahn, the credit union’s development director. It just happens that some of the ideas come from notable folks.

First mom’s BBQ

These include Gov. John Baldacci, Sen. Olympia Snowe, U.S. Rep. Michael Michaud and former first lady Barbara Bush. The cookbook begins with Bush’s recipe for barbecued chicken.

Kahn originally hoped to get President George W. Bush to submit a recipe, sending out a request to his campaign this fall.

While making the request, she joked to a Bush staffer, “If he can’t do it, how about his mom?”

When word came that the first mother would indeed oblige, Kahn was stunned.

“I was only kidding,” she said. “But I didn’t tell them that.” She gratefully accepted. The recipe appears in the book beneath the White House logo and opposite a letter of thanks to everyone who donated. The others are sprinkled throughout the book, among recipes from local folks.

Baldacci submitted a recipe for pasta carbonara, a quick recipe with bacon and cheese. Michaud gave a nod to his Franco-American heritage with a recipe for tortiere, a pork pie. Sen. Susan Collins sent directions for blueberry cake, and Normand and Lionel Guay, the mayors of Auburn and Lewiston respectively, submitted a recipe for “dill-stuff mushrooms.”

Fighting hunger

However, the majority of the recipes are from regular folks among the credit union’s membership. The members have become accustomed to such fund-raisers. Since 1990, credit unions around the state have raised more than $1.53 million to fight hunger.

Workers at the Rainbow offices have sold quilts, piggy banks and candy bars. The cookbook idea was suggested by two people at the Lewiston headquarters, Sandy Demers and Leah Griffin.

“We’d done everything else,” Demers said.

So far, the food is getting high marks, and many of the books have sold, about 450 in all. The cookbook is available for sale at any branch of the Rainbow Federal Credit Union.

Rainbow recently donated $5,000 to hunger relief, based on the profits from its other fund-raisers and its anticipated future sales of the book. Most of the money went to the Good Shepherd Food-Bank, a charity that Stephen and Tabitha King’s foundation has supported for several years.

In fact, the prolific author and Lisbon High School grad supported the cookbook with two recipes. The second is for basic bread.

“Baking bread is one of the ways I relax,” King wrote about his recipe. “I like kneading it, and love the smell of it, the way it fills the house and makes your mouth water.”