Make Your Own Family Cookbook: A Gift That Warms The Heart and Spans the Generations

I read somewhere once that the most treasured heirlooms that you can pass down to your children are memories. Our son recently lost his beloved grandma, my mother-in-law, at the tender age of four. How could I help him hold on to his memories of her when he was so young? The answer…. I needed to be very intentional in documenting those memories for years to come.

Fortunately for us, we were blessed with the gift of time. You see, my mother-in-law was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer almost 14 years ago. Her prognosis was poor at diagnosis, but she fought bravely for years and she (and God) gave us an enormous amount of irreplaceable time and memories.

What I’ve learned painfully over the years is that time is not always a gift we are promised. Too often, we blink and life changes. We lose people we love and all we have to hold onto are the memories of special moments together. Food has a unique way of bringing those memories back to life. The smells, the tastes, and even the act of cooking a family recipe often warms the heart and brings the special comfort that can only come from home.

So That’s My Why…. Because as Michael Chiarello is quoted saying, “What keeps me motivated is not the food itself, but all the bonds and memories the food represents.”

Here’s a Little Background on the Main Contributors to our Family Cookbook…

My Mother-in-Law was born and raised in Trinidad & Tobago in the West Indies. She was Chinese, but she had this fabulous way of blending Indian food, Chinese food, and Caribbean food. There wasn’t anything this woman couldn’t cook. She was absolutely one-of-a-kind in the kitchen! She raised four boys, all grown men now, who still go on and on about their favorite meals that only she could make!

After her diagnosis, I started to realize that if the day came that we lost her, not a single one of us would know how to make any of her special dishes. The very thought of that just broke my heart. … and that is where the idea behind our family cookbook was sparked. It became my mission to document and preserve not only her unique and special recipes, but all of our family recipes on both sides of the family.

When I think of special memories around the dinner table, I am reminded of some of the best southern cooking I’ve ever had! My Mom is an amazing cook! If I had a dollar for every time I called her to help me with this recipe or that recipe, I’d be rich. And what I admire most about her cooking… she can take one look in my pantry and grab a variety of random items and make a full (and delicious) meal! It’s awe-inspiring to me! Love you, mom!

My Maternal Grandmother and grandfather owned many businesses in their younger years. They had a deli, a restaurant, a grocery store, and even a chili-making business. I don’t remember a single Thanksgiving where there weren’t piles of pies in the fridge, like a true southern grandmother! I had to laugh when I realized that 75% of her recipes were desserts.

My Paternal Grandmother wasn’t known for her cooking, but she was my heart. She met my grandfather during WWII. She was English and they met while he was serving overseas in the Army. They moved back to the States shortly after getting married. Our family fondly remembers her amazing minced-meat pies and her All-American pecan pie. As a child, she would take me with her to collect pecans for her pies. We would drive out to the country and find them under a big pecan tree by some old railroad tracks. I was very young, but the memories are still so vivid because I loved her so much.

There were many (many!) others that also contributed to the cookbook, helping me find old photos, helping with editing and design, and even tracking down family recipes that had gone missing. Hours were spent on this special project, but the end result was well worth it and enjoyed by all!

Just How Much Time Will It Take?

The answer to this question is dependent on a lot of things:

Will you be including just your recipes or several family members?
How many recipes do you plan to include?
Will you have it professionally printed or just a simple print and spiral bind at a print shop?
Will you be including family pictures?
Will you be tracking down handwritten versions of the recipes to include in the books?
Will you need to have it edited by multiple people?
Will you use a typing service or do it all yourself?

There are so many factors that affect your timeframe. If you need something quick and easy, I would suggest keeping your cookbook contributors minimal, or even only you. Like maybe “Mom’s Favorite Family Recipes.” Then you have access to all the recipes you need, the editing will be quick and easy, and you can include photos you already have. I used a cookbook printing service and once I completed my book and paid for printing, it was just under two weeks before it shipped. Pretty fast turnaround and great product! But if you’re in a crunch, a print shop and fast binding service will do the trick and can usually be done same day.

As far as my experience goes, I really enjoyed the process and our family didn’t have anything like it (on either side), so I went all out! I invited all members of the family to include something special. I have brother and sister-in-laws that are German, Hispanic, Spanish, Asian and more, so together we created a real melting pot of family recipes. My mom and aunts spent hours tracking down and sending me family recipes from my grandparents, who had passed on years before. All said and done, we ended up with over 250 recipes! A true family heirloom!

But, ever the over-achiever, I didn’t stop there. I decided to include family photos, old and new. Well over a hundred of them. That took a good chunk of time to pull together because I had many family members digging up old photos and then I had to sort through the process of making several collages. It was all very time-consuming. Keep this in mind, depending on your timeframe.

Further, the more contributors you have, the more people that you need to involve in the editing process. I hand-typed all of mine, so I needed everyone to review them and make sure that I didn’t have any typos. That became a very extensive task since I was dependent on people’s free-time, which we all have very little of these days.

All in all, my family cookbook project took almost 3 years of collecting, typing, sorting, and editing. Truly, it could have been done quicker if I had dedicated more time to it, but once finished, it was only two weeks from ordering to shipping. Time-consuming? Yes…. but, Worth it? Absolutely…. 100 times over!!

See more about the online cookbook program that I used under the heading “What About Online Cookbook Programs?“

So, What Should I Include In My Family Cookbook?

Introduction Page: I’m a big fan of the sentimental, so I like to include an introduction page or two, with photos, to introduce the cookbook and our family. I took the time to list off the “family names” of every contributing member and family line. It was just a little personal note from me to the reader(s) to say, “welcome to our table.”
Handwritten Personal Note Page: Maybe I should say it again… I’m a huge fan of the sentimental. Totally guilty here. So, I included a page at the beginning of our book that simply said, “The secret ingredient is always love…” and left plenty of room for personal notes. Why? Because I felt that when this cookbook was gifted, it would be nice to have a place for a personal note. Unfortunately, we lost my mother-in-law unexpectedly just a few months shy of my final print date, so I went back to an old cookbook that she had gifted me for Christmas one year and took a photo of a special handwritten note she had placed in the inside cover. It simply said, “Happy & Healthy Cooking with Friends and Family! – Millie.” I included this photo on the “Handwritten Personal Note” page so that it would be with the book forever and in every copy. Then, I also asked my mom write a special note on the same page for me in my personal copy of the family cookbook. I will treasure this part of the book forever.
Recipes (of course): The more that I explored family recipes, the more that I realized that some of our most treasured recipes were not in fact “family recipes” at all. Let’s take for instance this circumstance… Everyone loved my grandmother’s German Chocolate Cake, but imagine my surprise when we discovered that this heavily-requested family recipe actually came off a package of instant pudding! After a good laugh, I simply added it to the cookbook under her name with a note on the bottom for recipe credit and went on. After all, I’m not selling the cookbook. It’s just for family. That said, there are very strict plagiarism laws when it comes to recipes and instructions, not to mention the simple courtesy and respect factor of not falsely claiming a recipe as your own, so a simple note at the bottom of the page to give credit to the true author of the recipe, as mentioned above, goes a long ways! …While we are on the topic of recipes, I didn’t leave anything out! We had the standard sections (breakfast, lunch, dinner, soups, salads, desserts etc.), but we also had jams, jellies, crockpot recipes, homemade spices, mixed drinks, teas, lemonade, dips, playdough and even birdseed recipes! We included it all! Anything that anyone wanted to contribute, young or old, traditional or odd! It all went in!
Maiden Names: With so many contributors to our book, I wanted to find a way to give credit to all the family lines involved, and in a round-about way, it also created a sort of family tree. With each recipe, I included the following format: Recipe Contributed By: First Name (Maiden Name) Last Name. Therefore, if I added one of my personal recipes to the book, it would not only include my married name, but also my maiden name, so that anyone reading the cookbook could easily tie me back to the recipes contributed to my mother and father as well. Likewise, my mother’s contributions included her married name and maiden name so that she could be tied back to my maternal grandparents. And so on. It created a way to tie everyone together and give credit to all of the family lines included.
Photos, Old & New: This part of the process was a true treasure hunt and, upon completion, possibly one of the most enjoyed aspects of our family cookbook. Many family members had not seen some of the photos in years, if ever. I made sure to try and track down photos of grandparents in their early years, just married, with kids, and later in life. I included photos of my brother-in-laws and my sister growing up, traveling, making memories. The special attention to this part of the book added lots of time and cost to the final product, but I got more feedback on this aspect of the cookbook than any other part. Everyone just loved it! That said, understand that adding basically a color-printed page on every other page of our cookbook increased the print cost significantly, so food for thought, keep that in mind when budgeting.

When scanned in, this image quality wasn’t always ideal due to the age of the photo and limited abilities with a lower-end scanner, but I just loved having them in there anyways! For a better result, direct upload or a higher quality scanner would do the trick! (Names covered for privacy.)

Love Notes: When I stumbled upon a love note between my maternal grandparents from when they were just kids, I knew that we had to include it in our family cookbook. It just added that sweet, special touch when placed on a page with a photo of them in their younger years. Because we had lost both of them before the printing of our book, it was a special addition. Whenever I came across things like this that I wanted to add, I generally used a scanner and created an image file. That seemed to make for a cleaner and more legible image. Which brings us to…
Handwritten Copies: My husband lost his mom, my mother-in-law, just months before I was ready to print our cookbook. For years, I had asked her to write up her recipes for me and, as it turns out, those handwritten copies became invaluable to us. You see, when this cookbook idea all started, I tried to learn from her in the kitchen. My sweet mother-in-law was an amazing cook, but a terrible teacher! (I say that with all the love!) So, my solution? Every year, I would tell her that all I wanted for Christmas and Birthdays were handwritten copies of her recipes. Pretty soon, the boys all jumped in and would request this one and that one because they knew that I was building quite the collection for everyone. After a few years of requesting and collecting, I had almost every recipe that her boys treasured and was ready to put them all together. I typed up every recipe in the book, including the ones that I had handwritten copies, but then I also scanned and included the handwritten versions as an image on the same foldout (adjacent page). Why? Because my husband takes comfort in seeing his mom’s recipe in her own handwriting. It’s a beautiful thing and something that I wanted to include. Similarly, my mom, who has lost her mother, can see her mom’s recipes in her handwriting. It’s comforting and special and that’s why I took the time to add this piece.

Special Thanks Page: There’s simply no way that I could add up all the time and effort that was spent putting this very special family heirloom together. Many (many!) people helped. My mom, mother-in-law, aunts, sister, sister-in-laws, brother-in-laws, and more! So, I felt it appropriate to dedicate one page to just say, “thank you,” to all of the people that gave their time, money, and energy to this project. I had a crazy idea that turned into a three year project and if it had not been for all the family that jumped on board in one way or another, it never would have become the amazing gift that it is and will be for generations to come!

**These two women dedicated time, love and energy into this project over and over! I am forever grateful to them! Left to right, me, my mother-in-law (Millie) and my mom (Sandy).**

Dedication Page: Truly, this is a personal preference, but I dedicated our family cookbook to my son. It was a special page to tell him how much we all loved him and how I hoped he could find comfort, joy and happiness for years to come in these recipes, memories, and traditions! In truth, I hope this cookbook is something that he shares with his family some day and it becomes a family heirloom that is treasured for generations.
Disclaimer Page: Let’s just say that this was a CYA moment for me. I had many (many!) contributors to this cookbook and no way of knowing if some of our recipes were plagiarized. For instance, someone writes down a recipe, like my grandmother, and it’s passed down, and soon nobody knows who was the original source of the recipe. I knew that I had no intentions of selling our cookbook or making a profit. We had it printed just for family. But, to cover my backside, I included a page in the back of the book that simply stated that we do not own the rights to any of these recipes or instructions. That the book was simply published with the intent to share our favorite family recipes, some borrowed and some original, within our own family circle. The book is not for sale. This is not guaranteed to CYA, but I hope it makes clear to any reader what our intentions were with its printing.

What About Online Cookbook Programs?

Yessssss! Okay, so I used an online cookbook program because it gave me an easy platform with pre-designed layouts and a quality finished look. I was not disappointed! The program that I used was www.createmycookbook.com. There are absolutely other programs out there, but this is the only one that I am familiar with.

So, why use an online cookbook program? Well, for starters, it provides one place where everything is stored and you can have multiple people log in and add or edit, if you desire. The company that I used even offers to type the recipes for you if you would like to pay an additional charge. I opted out of this option for the simple fact that I’m a bit of a control freak, but for those with a tight deadline, this might be just what you need. The pre-designed layouts meant that you didn’t have to move things around or design pages. You simply pick your design and drop in the ingredients, recipe instructions, and photo (if desired). It literally takes less than a few minutes to add everything you need for one page!

What are the drawbacks to a cookbook program? Well, for starters, design and fonts. You are limited to whatever fonts and designs/layouts that they have. For instance, on the Create My Cookbook site, you could only upload one photo per page, so when I wanted to create a photo collage or have two photos on a page, I had to design it in another program and upload it as one image. Same goes for the cookbook cover. I had to completely design the cover in another program and upload it because I didn’t like the options that they offered in the online program itself. But, if you can deal with some of the limitations of the program, you will find that the ease of the program and the convenience is usually worth it!

What about price? Well, I’m not going to speak to pricing much because they have all kinds of binding choices, book styles, color vs black/white, fundraising discounts, and more. I will tell you that we ended up with two books (we exceeded the max # of pages for one book). One book was 186 pages and the other book was 102 pages. I would bet that well over half of our book was printed in color due to the massive number of pages with photos. We had the book bound as a hardcover (hardback case-bound, think traditional hardback book) and the quality was very professional. We paid $125.17 total for the two books, plus shipping. Again, we had a tremendous amount of color pages, a hardback cover, and TWO BOOKS! You can do a project like this on their site for much less, if needed.

We also had the cookbook printed as a wire-o soft cover (spiral bound) and the quality was fantastic as well! Some of our family members preferred this layout because you can lay the book flat on your kitchen counter. We paid $81.36 total for the two books, plus shipping. Again, we had a tremendous amount of color pages and TWO BOOKS! You can do a project like this on their site for much less, if needed.

Just a note regarding quality control: During this process, we ended up with one book that had an issue resulting from a machine error during production. I contacted customer service and was immediately issued a replacement cookbook. I highly recommend this company!

What If I Don’t Want to Use an Online Cookbook Program?

There are options if you don’t want to use an online cookbook program. If you simply type up your cookbook in the Microsoft Word program, you can have it printed and bound at a printing place. If you want a more traditional look, set up your Word document layout to have two columns per page and then have it printed, cut, and bound. If you live in a more populated area, print shops can usually do these services same-day.

Want to go really frugal? Print it at home and hole punch the top left corner of the pages and wrap a little piece of cord, yarn or such through it to tie it together. Homemade is special regardless of how you package it and this kind of presentation can be super cute too!

Final Thoughts

“The secret to having it all is believing you already do.” Treasure the moments that you have with family. Embrace the hard and love with an open heart. All too soon, we are asked to say goodbye and so many words are left unsaid. Give the hug. Share the kiss. Say the “I love you.” Tomorrow is not promised and although our family cookbook will be a treasured heirloom for years to come, it will not replace the people that we have lost. The laughs. The smiles. The comfort.

Jesus loves you!