family cookbook

As you plan and layout your family cookbook, be sure to include plenty of photographs and images. Not only do photographs bring an exciting visual dimension to your recipes, you'll want to capture the memories that family photographs will add to your family cookbook.

A family cookbook is more than a collection of your family recipes. This is your special opportunity to tell the family story and capture your family history. And all of those photographs that you've collected over the years make the perfect addition to your family cookbook.

Here are a few ways to incorporate photographs in your family cookbook

• Recipe and food images
• Family portrait (the family group)
• Portraits and pictures of family members
• Honor the chefs and cooks behind the family recipes with a photo
• Pictures of babies, children and grandchildren
• Pictures of the family pets (how about a funny food story or mishap with a family pet to go along with a picture of your pooch)
• Pictures at the holidays
• Pictures from family vacations
• Pictures from family events and celebrations including family reunions, birthdays, weddings, etc.
• Pictures in the kitchen
• Pictures of the houses and towns where your family has lived

Tell the story with pictures and words. 

When you set out to create your family cookbook, don't just focus on the family recipes. It's also about capturing the family stories and preserving the family memories. There are so many ways to weave stories about our family members into the family cookbook content.

Here are a few of the more obvious opportunities to capture and tell the family stories

• Biographies of family members
• If your family immigrated to America, how did they get here?
• Every family event offers a story (weddings, holidays, graduation, births, family reunions, family vacations, etc.)
• A family member's special skills and talents (sports, charity and philanthropy, dancing, photography, hobbies, careers, inventor, gardening, storytelling, etc.)

Family stories spring forth from some of these less obvious places

• Sentimental objects that remind you of a family member
• Letters from a family member can reveal a whole chapter of memories (romatic letters when Grandad was courting Grandmother)
• A family disagreement and the lessons learned (hopefully you can find some wisdom even in the family conflicts)
• A family member's military service and the pride and gratitude we hold for all that make this courageous contribution
• Life's embarassing moments (hopefully everyone is a good sport)

Every family has stories and memories worth preserving. And the family recipes make some of the best material for including in the family memoirs. Creating a family cookbook around the collection of family recipes is a wonderful way to share and safeguard the family recipes for future generations. When you think about it, many of our favorite family memories are associated with food.

All of us can identify with sentimental memories of our favorite dishes that mom prepared, funny food stories, food and cooking experiences that ended up in a disaster, the warmth and comfort of holiday meals and celebrations, and maybe even a frivolous food fight in the kitchen. The family cooking legacy provides the perfect central theme around which to write the family memoirs.

When you create the family cookbook, you can capture and write about the stories and memories behind all the great cooks in your family. A family cookbook that focuses on these memories and recipes is a beautiful way to preserve your family history. And create a terrific cookbook for all of your relatives in the process.

Unfortunately, far too often, we allow these recipes and stories to slip away as one generation passes to the next. Don't let this happen to your family. With just a little bit of effort, you can organize and capture your family history in the form of a family cookbook.And we'll make it easy for you to accomplish this worthwhile project at FamilyRecipeCentral.com

There Are Many Great Reasons to Create a Family Cookbook

A family cookbook is an heirloom that your family can treasure from one generation to the next. It's also very practical. Let's admit it, most of us are not very well organized when it comes to keeping track of our family's recipes. Perhaps you've thought about creating a family cookbook, but just haven't found a good way to get started?

Here's our version of the top 10 reasons why you should create a family cookbook.

I encounter stories everyday about the special way families all over the world remember their loved ones through the family cookbook. There is something universally special about the family recipes and the love and nurturing we receive by way of mom's home cooking.

Do you keep your special family recipes a secret?

We're all about sharing the family recipes here at Family Recipe Central. But that doesn't necessarily mean you have to share your special recipes with the entire world. A lot of people would like to share their family recipes with other family members, but still keep the recipes within the family.

That's why we provide "family groups" at Family Recipe Central.

You can create a group for your family, and only members that you invite to join your group can view and share the recipes and other content that you keep safe and secure within your group. It's a great way for families to collaborate online, but still maintain some family privacy.

But what happens when Grandma doesn't want to share her secret recipe, even with other family members?

It happens more often than you might think ...

More people everywhere are discovering one of the best ways to preserve the family history is with a family cookbook.

Our cherished family experience bridges the generations. For many of us, it would be nice if we could find more ways to establish more permanent and lasting connections. Better ways to document the family history, to preserve the family tradition. And to pass on the family experience, lessons and knowledge from one generation to the next.

Along with family scrapbooks and family photo albums, have you thought about a family cookbook? How often do you wish you would have paid more attention to capturing and preserving your mother's, grandmother's or favorite aunt's special recipes?