Kinfolk's Cookbook

In about 1983, Mom decided that she wanted to compile a cookbook, based on her mother's family in Mississippi.  Grandmother Nash, Lessie Hester, had five sisters and two brothers who lived to adulthood and Mom wanted to honor these aunts and uncles, as well as their mother, Nancy Ann.  Of the eight children, only one, Aunt Mallie, was still alive and she contributed several recipes to the cause.

Mom sent out an invitation for all the cousins to send her their favorite recipes.  She wound up with about 150 of them, ranging from pickles to snicker doodles.  In 1984 Mom had not embraced the computer age (most of us had not at that time), so she typed each page of the cookbook.  She wound up with about 54 pages of recipes.

At this point, Louise and I got drafted to help her publish the cookbook so we dove in.  I'm not sure but I think we may have printed 60 to 100 copies, all of which were given away to the recipe contributors and anyone else who wanted them.  Louise and I laminated the covers, collated the books and bound them with plastic binding combs.

The Kinfolk's Cookbook has been one of our favorites over the years and Louise and I wore our copy out completely.  A couple of months ago, Melissa, our niece, copied the cookbook and put it on a web site, which got me to thinking.  Perhaps it was time to reprint this family heirloom.

For the past couple of months, I've been entering the recipes from the original cookbook into a file.  That work is finally done and we are going to put it into a presentable format.  Originally, it was done in an 8 1/2" x 11" format.  This time we are going to print it in a 5 1/2" x 8 1/2" style.  Also, its a lot easier today to have a commercial company print it than to do it around the kitchen table.  I think we'll go that route.

Before long, if you see my phone number on your caller ID, you'll know not to answer because I'm probably going to try to sell you a cookbook!