Thanks to easy-to-use online platforms, creating a book full of your family’s favorite recipes is simple. Sites like shutterfly.com and createmycookbook.com help you through the process of choosing templates and design options. Other sites, like heritagecookbook.com, also assist you reach out to family members. If you’re creating a family cookbook this holiday season, here are a few suggestions to get you going.
Suggestions for Creating a Family Cookbook
1. Gather recipes
Send family members a request via email (or snail mail, dependant upon your audience) asking them to contribute a recipe and food-related photo to be included in the book. Make sure they know whether you’re concentrating on a theme, like holiday cookies, or would really like a particular recipe of theirs that you just love.
2. Set deadlines
You’ll want to let members of the family know you’ll need their input by a certain date in order to include their contribution. It can’t hurt to send a couple of email reminders in the weeks leading up to the deadline.
3. Dig out those old cards
Don’t forsake those old recipe cards simply because you’re creating your cookbook digitally. They make fabulous illustrations to give your book a personal flair – the more sauce-splattered, the more effective.
4. Not just recipes
Food elicits rich memories beyond a full stomach. Make an effort to include bites of family food lore among the ingredient lists and cooking instructions. You could possibly ask each family member to talk about a favorite food, an unforgettable meal or a kitchen catastrophe.
5. Zoom in – and out
While professional cookbooks feature gorgeous close ups of food, go beyond ingredients for a project that’s celebrating family. Ask family members for old photos of past family meals as well as old pictures of them to include alongside their recipes.
6. Pull in the children
Enlist the small children with your family to assist illustrate the book. They could draw their favorite foods, members of the family or even scrawl cooking tips in crayon for you to sprinkle throughout the pages.
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