Over the years I have amassed a large collection of recipes I have sourced from various places. Everything from the labels on cans and food packages to internet downloadables and even recipes from friends. If there's a fantastic recipe to try, I will keep it. Many of my favourite recipes are not even from books. Most of them are pasted into scrapbooks (love my Buffy scrapbook) and plastic folders.
I am a sentimental person when it comes to my kidlets. Most Mommies are. If my child produces a gorgeous drawing, I feel a need to keep it. Long after they have grown and left home, these precious artworks will be the only manifest reminder I will have of their childhood besides photographs.
With six kids in the house however, the pile of drawings we just can't bear to part with has become huge! Many get admired and tossed later mind you. Occasionally though, one of the kids will produce a drawing so beautiful that it needs to be preserved. Sometimes too, a drawing will be treasured if it represents a particular love or current obsession a child has. When one of them presents me with a super drawing that fits into these categories, it makes the cut for the Memory Cookbook.
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Halo and Rocky Road? - I think so! |
It's really easy to make - seriously. I purchased a plastic covered display book from the newsagents several years back for around $5. Choose one with as many pages as you can find. Alternatively, you can purchase a ring binder and separate plastic sleeves to insert yourself.
All you need do is put your loose recipes in the sleeves and alternate with your child / children's drawings. If you're really crafty you can go a whole lot further with this idea. Spotlight has many items in stock for scrapbookers like stickers, craft scissors and special card stock.
Make sure you write each artist's name and age and date on every picture.
It's nice when I pull out my favourite cookbook, to relive those little memories. My kids always flock to this cookbook, curious as to what pictures they might discover and memories they too might recall.
This book is my work in progress. I am sure there will be many more of them produced over time. Ultimately what I wish to do with these books, is to publish my own family cookbook when the kids are all grown up. I would like to take the best of the pictures and choose the recipes which have become signature dishes, then make copies which each of the kids can take with them when they leave home.
The next generation can admire the work of their 'parents' and hopefully my kids will continue the tradition with their own offspring.
Why not start yours today?
What traditions have you started which you would like to see passed on in your family?
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