family cookbook (with my lemon bars)

Grammie reminded me in the comments of the last post about my lemon bars in our family cookbook. It was compiled and put together by my mom and aunts in 1981. I was 9. I thought it was the coolest thing ever. (I still do.) My mom's side is full of artists, hence the wonderful illustrations and lettering.

You can click on the photos for more detail and to actually read the recipes. When it came together I thought it was the slickest thing ever. A book! Laminated! Bound!  I was so proud I had 2 recipes in it. There are so many recipes in this from people I had never met, my aunts really dug deep in the family tree, so the recipes are from all over, including in-law's families from the Midwest. . .

Here's my lemon bars.

And here's a random page. My god, Dandelion Wine?! I don't flip the pages of this book often enough. This blows my mind, my grandma and great grandma right here on this page. The girls are so lucky to have this book. I have been making the same things from it for years. Our family Christmas Braid bread is from here and my great aunt Mickey's Jello Salad is in here, too which I don't make, but am so happy it's documented here, cause dang—it was so freaky!

I would love to make a new family cookbook. I know my Aunt has started compiling recipes for a second one. If I make one, I will have everyone write the recipes on 3 x 5 cards—to preserve their handwriting. You can make cookbooks all fancy now on various sites and all that (Blurb and some other one I forget) but the typed out ones like this, or scanned recipe cards with handwriting would be so wonderful. I need to try my lemon bar recipe again. This one from the 8 year old me.

Comments

[Rachel]

You made me start thinking about all the "weird" food items my grandmother makes. There are quite a lot of them. Being a gal from the depression era, I'm certain, makes you very resourceful, when it comes to nourishment!
She makes a type of Jell-O salad as well. Hers is made with only two ingredients...Orange Jell-O and Carrots. I love it, but my husband has forbidden me from making it. Apparently he believes it's some sort of food abomination.

Thanks for helping me relive some weird food memories!

[carolyn]

This is great...I made a similiar book as a fundraiser for my high school back in 1975. It was called "HERBAN Cooking" from the Urban School. Friends did the illustrations and I love my music teachers lemon bar recipe that's in it and still use it today.

[Amy]

I really need to put together a book myself. So many wonderful recipes that never belonged to anyone and then after time they go from magazine or actual cookbook to Aunt so and so's casserole or Mom's cookies and so on. Just great how that happens!

[carol]

I love this. I have 3 blank books reserved for each of my kids to fill with their favorite recipes. Unfortunately, the pages are blank. This may just be the motivation I need...completely in my handwriting, whether they can understand it or not!

[Connie]

I have wanted to make a family recipe book for awhile! You have inspired me to start harrassing my family to fork over their recipes! Thanks.

[lynne]

sometimes I flip through my personal cookbook just to be reminded of family members who aren't around anymore and for the memories the recipes evoke. Good luck with your eight-year-old-self's lemon squares!

[Wendy]

That is amazing. I am envious of your family's cohesiveness! Wow. So beautiful to make a book of recipes together, and I like your idea of a sequel.

[Kirsten]

A family cookbook is a great idea. I created one a few years ago and gave it to all our friends/family along with a kitchen/cooking themed gift. I just printed it on colored paper, took it to Staples to be copied stapled through the middle and folded in half. It has all the favorite recipes we make at our house, I use mine all the time and whenever someone wants a recipe I can just let them know it is in the book.

[Caitlin]

What a GEM. I've started something like this so many times, but seeing that lovingly worn copy of your family's culinary delights is just the shove I needed. Thanks for the inspiration!

[Maggie]

I love this idea! I have been wanting to put a cookbook together for our family for some time now (and still will), but unfortunately I waited too long and many beloved members of our family are no longer with us. Perhaps some of their favorite recipes were passed down and still available. Thanks for the inspiration! : ) I'd better hop to it!

[Heather Layne]

You need to write down all the memories that come with these foods! What did everyone make for Easter? Christmas? Birthdays? What was so-and-so famous for in five counties? What did everyone dread to see at family get-togethers (if anything)? I don't know if you would want to write in the book you've got, make a companion book, or what, but the memories, I think, should be preserved along with the recipes themselves. What an heirloom!

[anja louise]

What a great book! Sometimes I will find books like that while thrifting and I just can't believe that someone would have given them up! They are such great collections.

[melissa]

I have never heard of a jello salad.I'm almost too scared to ask, what's in it?

[J]

This is just too wonderful. You've inspired me to have all my family members submit their treasured recipes before our next reunion. Oh, and I love that the recipe for kahlua calls specifically for Yuban. Of course!

[Amanda D.]

That is so awesome!!! What a great thing to have!

[PaperDollyGirl]

Love the idea! My best friends all gave me favorite recipes on cards before I got married, but something from family would be wonderful too.

[Karin]

I have been planning a family cookbook for years! I still haven't completed it. I love the idea of preserving the handwriting. I always tease my Mom about her recipes. They are written on the backs of envelopes, tiny scraps of paper, and other non-recipe card paper. Some are in such bad shape from being exposed to grease, and whatever spilled on them, as well as worn at the various fold lines. When you pick them up they look like 100 year old documents. I tell her she needs to get all those Civil War documents appraised. I have been slowly scanning them into my computer. I hope to turn them into a cook book someday!

[Jeanette]

My children and I started a cookbook like this for my husband at Christmas time. He's a terrific cook,so we thought he should have somewhere special to store all his recipes. We decorated the front,added drawings by the children,and hand wrote some recipes to get him started. He loved it!Best Christmas present ever!

[west bremerton florist]

thanks a lot!

[Katherine]

This is just beautiful, what a wonderful idea and you're lucky to have so many artists to help make the book look so lovely.

[Kristin]

There is just something so amazing and intrinsic to family recipes :)

[Alya]

This is sooo beautiful! I love this idea. The best thing about it is that it incorporates all the generations in the family.

Truly a wonderful and inspirational activity. I agree with adding everybody's handwriting. And it would also be great if every recipe had a little tidbit paragraph with an anecdote about the origins of the recipe, who made it, who likes it, and how it came about, etc..

[Mandi]

what a wonderful treasure!

[Rachel]

What a wonderful keepsake!

[Pam]

What a treasure! I am inspired to do something like this. My maternal grandma was a great baker and I have a lot of her recipes. I must contact my paternal aunts and cousins to see if they have anything written down. It seems to me that most of the "recipes" on that side of the family were handed down orally.

[anne]

So. Utterly. Cool.

I used to love going through my mom's recipe box and looking at all the different handwritings and mysterious stains. My grandfather used to type his recipes, with Random Capitalization and LIBERAL USE OF ALL CAPS. Even typewriting can be distinctive. :-)

[April]

Great, wonderful, inspiring, most-marvelous post. I'm addicted to old cookbooks myself and it rocks that you have one with alot of family history. Thanks for sharing!

[elbie]

This is so great. I especially love the inclusion of 1/2 cup of PARAFFIN in the bon-bon recipe. The use of straight-up wax as a food item is so old school. My family has a similar requirement in our original buckeye recipe. I think we've replaced it with shortening. Not much better, but not a candle, either.

[Eliza]

I can't believe you posted about this today...This is what my daughter and I are making for our family as a Christmas gift this year. It is going to be focused on desserts and include lots of handwritten and hand-drawn items and loads of family photos (even including some of the baked goodies in the pics! Love that 1970's cake decorating...) We're going to use Lulu to create/bind it...Promised myself that I would work ahead more on Holiday/Birthday gifts this year and that is one item we've come up with. (And, don't even get me started on the Jello-based salads...I don't think pitch-ins happen here in the midwest without Jello and Mayo...)

[Kelly]

Not nearly as charming as a cookbook with family art work and such, but http://www.tastebook.com/ is a great site for making your own cookbook. You can add personal pictures, so I guess you could scan family artwork and use it that way.

[Tonya]

Thank you so much for this post! What a treasure you have in that book! It reminded me that I inherited my Grandma's recipe box when she went into a nursing home. Its full of all these wonderful old handwritten recipes and clippings from magazines and newspapers from the '60s -'90s. Most of the handwritten ones are on little scraps of paper with no title. Its good to know I come by that habit honestly. But seeing my Grandma's handwriting after so many years(she has Parkinson's and hasn't been able to write for years) has been so special. Thanks so much, Amy, for reminding me of this wonderful bit of family history that I am fortunate enough to have.

[laura]

A few years ago I went through my mom's recipe box and scanned some favorite recipes that are in my grandmothers' handwriting (and have lots of smudges on them from lots of use). These recipes are very special to me. It was also fun to see recipes I had copied as a child in my 5th grade handwrirting!!

[mary]

What a great little book. I remember one of my aunts making the homemade Kahula back in the 80's. We put together a family cookbook as favor for my sisters bridal shower. Everyone contributed recipes and then was surprised with a copy of the book. My sister loved it and I pull it out all the time.

[Florence]

If you haven't already, you have to check out the Tastebook service by epicurious. http://www.epicurious.com/services/tastebook

I only wish we could upload our own photos for the cover.

[Natalie]

What an incredible treasure. May I suggest in version II include anecdotes and other personalized tidbits, like little bios...?
A family cook book... this is really cool.

[Natalie]

What an incredible treasure. May I suggest in version II include anecdotes and other personalized tidbits, like little bios...?
A family cook book... this is really cool.

[Bets]

I love family cookbooks! And church cookbooks... My collection is steadily growing and I find myself gravitating towards these types of books because the recipes are almost guaranteed to be wonderful! Have you considered publishing a cookbook with your family recipes?? I would buy a copy for myself and a few for friends!!

[lera]

That is a great family heirloom. Two Christmases ago I made a Christmas family cookbook of all the recipes we make during the season (Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year's Eve/Day, and all the cookie recipes). We borrowed my husband's book binder from work and did it all ourselves. I uploaded all the printing to an office supply store and it was so simple and much loved.

[Christine Berardi]

Some of my favorite moments are finding recipes in cookbooks written in my now deceased grandmother's handwriting. Scanning recipes in is a perfect idea, and make sure to get the story behind the name of the recipe!

[Collins]

I love this! When I got married, my mother threw me a recipe shower. Everyone brought hand-written recipes and one ingredient. All my aunts, cousins, and my grandmothers recipes I would not trade for the world. My grandmother gave me a recipe book that she was given when she was first married in the early 30's. It is so funny to read now, a whole chapter on congealed salads!
I love reading your posts everyday, you are such a great writer!

[Melissa]

How lovely to see the peculiarities of Midwest "cuisine" reflected in your family cookbook. Having spent a good deal of my life in Southern Illinois & Mid-Missouri, I am quite familiar with Jell-o Salad! (It's also often referenced by Garrison Keilor on Prarie Home Companion.)

On another note, my mother has a stack of similar cookbooks from elementary school and Officers Wives Club fundraisers. The OWC ones were the best, because they had contributions from all over the country. I still make a modified version of "King Ranch Chicken" from one of those books.

[JennyC.No3]

How cool is it to have a comment from your Grammie?! That totally rocks!

[Nevis]

SO awesome!

[Colleen]

Oh my goodness! My friend Leslie's family made Dandelion Wine. It sounded so gross to me, but reading your recipe, I think I might try a small batch, very small.
Thank you for sharing.

[molly]

every family needs one of these. love it.

[Florabora]

I love these. My husband's family put one together for his aunt's 50th wedding anniversary.

One of the recipes was for a chocolate cake that he wanted to make for me for my birthday when we first started dating. It called for cooking the sugar to a soft ball stage. He called me in a panic, saying "It's in a soft ball, now how do I get it out of the pan?"

so cute.

[andylynne]

Love your last several posts. Really love the cookbook. Sounds liek you had a wonderful family. Thanks for sharing your world. Oh and I love the coat, Grey will be wonderful.

[Amy Lu]

I remember making dandelion wine with my grandparents and parents when I was little! I don't remember a whole lot, I remember picking the dandelions and being told to leave the green part and only pick the yellow part. I remember the tubes that were used to transfer the wine from one bucket to another, I remember raisins were added and being amazed that after a while they weren't wrinkly anymore!

Now I'm going to have to call my mom to see how my memory of it checks with what really happened!

[AJ]

I think that's a great idea. I've thought about it compiling our family recipes but there is so many in our family it would be an awfully thick cook book! I have all of my great grandmother's recipes in her handwritting from her little cook book and I love making the food she made. My grandmother's too! They were so talented. You have a very cool keepsake!

[Evonne]

My friend has a family cookbook that is just the funniest thing ever. Everyone got to contribute and each recipe preserves some of the speaking style and also humor of the person who wrote each recipe. It's kind of like a time capsule too - my friend's recipe reflects the kind of food she made most often as a poor college student! Random stir fry dishes.