Promise kept...

[pierces]

Several years have passed since my mother-in-law started declining. Long story, but the potential loss of all the amazing family recipes and family history prompted me to start collecting and documenting as much as I could. Old photos, some dating back to the 'twenties and 'thirties have been scanned and the subjects identified. The biggest project was recording the recipes for family favorites that were passed down and enjoyed by generations of my Wonderful Wife's family. Not a long list, but since Kim and I started dating in our mid-teens, I literally grew up enjoying them as did our kids. I decided to take the old favorites and add new favorites added by the current generation of family foodies and make an illustrated family cookbook.  The project is finally done and we are waiting for the proof copy to arrive from Blurb. If all is shiny, we will be ordering copies for family Christmas presents and I can rest easy that my Mother's Red beef Stroganoff and other culinary delights will live on to delight future generations. 🙂

 

The format is double 8x10 landscape and it is presented as a photo book. Here are a few of the spreads:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A lot of work off and on over several months but we got to fix a lot of favorite meals to photograph and that was a nice bonus. A fun project, but I'm glad it's done.

 

Dave

Edited November 5, 2020 by pierces

[ski ww]

That looks like a fun way to pass on some family history & tradtions.

[pengu1n]

What a beautiful keepsake for your family! My cousin worked with my grandma to get all her cookie recipes written down, because she didn't use a recipe. Some of the amounts are strange, because 4 scoops from the blue teacup didn't translate into cups and tablespoons well.

[tommui987]

NICELY DONE!!!   yelling,  loud and clear!

[topkatz]

Nicely done!

 

We did something similar several years ago, although not as nicely formatted. We included some family history and ancestor photos at the beginning of the book and scattered some individual stories throughout the cookbook so that grand and great grand kids would have stories and history to reflect on in the future.

 

The one thing we found made it very useful, was to include a couple of pages at the beginning of the book where we recorded names with birth, death, and anniversary dates. It has been very useful to have all of the relevant information in one place for reference. We reference it frequently. Be sure to leave space for changes/new additions.

 

Hopefully these ideas will help others who decide to embark on a similar project.

 

Thanks for sharing.

 

P

[PurpleHays]

What a beautiful labor of love!