Some of your favorite family memories probably feature the wonderful tastes emerging from the kitchen. It's easy to preserve that tradition for future generations by compiling your own family cookbook. Author Marla Hardee Milling tells us how.
Always a wide variety
It's always amazed me how potluck dinners turn out so great. You'd think without a list, people would show up with the same dish. It seems likely there would be 15 bowls of potato salad and little else. But that's never the case - at least not at the hundreds of potluck dinners I've enjoyed in my lifetime.
My favorite potlucks are found at family reunions. Fried chicken, green beans, pasta salad, potato salad, coleslaw, casseroles of all kinds, deviled eggs, fruit salad, cornbread, mouthwatering cakes and pies, and of course, sweetened iced tea to wash it all down.
From generation to generation
In 1997, while pregnant with my son, I decided to compile a family cookbook to
preserve the favorite recipes handed down from generation to generation. The cookbook
made such a big hit when I passed it out at the family reunion that I wanted to pass
along my tips:
- GATHER RECIPES - I made a simple flyer on my computer. I pasted in some food related clip-art and, in the text, I explained to relatives what I was doing and that I needed their help. I gave them about a dozen categories under which I wanted them to submit at least one recipe in each. For those relatives with computer access, I asked for the recipes on disk.
- COMPILING RECIPES - I had to type in most of the recipes I received. Since I had decided on the categories, I made a file for each on my computer and then entered the recipes in the appropriate files. I kept them in alphabetical order, and at the end of the recipe, I included the name of the person who submitted it.
- LAYOUT AND DESIGN - I surfed the Internet for free clip art, which I used to decorate the pages. The cookbook pages were standard 8 1/2 x 11 inches.
- PRINTING - I couldn't afford to take my cookbook to the printer. Instead, I let my HP color inkjet printer do the work. The book was over 80 pages in length--that's with recipes printed on each side of the paper. It's a chore to print it all out and collate by hand, but a real cost saver.
- COVER - I enlarged a piece of clip art for the cover, and typed the title in a large, pretty font. I called the book, "From Generation To Generation: Shuford Family Cookbook." The local printer laminated the cover pages for about a dollar a piece.
- BINDING - Once the cookbooks were collated, with the laminated front cover and a heavy back cover, I bound the books myself. I used an electric binding machine, and plastic binding rings.
The cookbooks look great, yet my costs were minimal. I did, however, put in a lot of time typing recipes, printing the pages, and collating them. It's worth all the effort to keep those family potluck dinners as wonderful as ever.
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About the author: Marla Hardee Milling is an Associate Editor for Inc., and the Techie Mama columnist for com. Her freelance articles have appeared in a variety of online and print publications including Pregnancy Magazine, Smart Computing's PC Today, Healthgate, Armchair Millionaire, Babycenter.com, and others.
