How to Make Your Own Jewish Recipe Family Cookbook

One of the great regrets of adulthood is not preserving the stories, histories and recipes of elder family members. This is one regret, fortunately, that can be avoided. All you have to do is start collecting these things now. Even if many of the elders in your family have already passed away, you can talk to the senior members of your family to see if they have letters, recipes, photographs and other family treasures that you can use to put your Jewish recipe family cookbook together.

Digital Technology and Jewish Recipe Family Cookbooks

Digital technology makes putting together a Jewish recipe family cookbooks very easy to do. The supplies that you will need include a computer, word processing software, a scanner, family photos, family recipes and some time. When you have all of these items in hand all you have to do is cut and past, scan and input your way to a new family treasure.

Designing a Page Layout Template

To make your Jewish recipe family cookbook easier to manage it is a good idea to create a template for each of the pages in your cookbook. To do this all you have to do is use your word processing software program to create a sample page. Then you will save this page. When you are ready to create a new page all you have to do is open the saved template and cut and paste elements into the fields that you created.

If you are interested in preserving the history of your family as well as their recipes then you will want to include a photograph of the recipe's author, a description of the person, how they are related to you and a little story that goes along with the recipe. Then of course you will need to enter the recipe.

Organizing Your Pages

When you organize your cookbook you will need to categorize the recipes by food type, main ingredient or by who gave you the recipe. For example, you can have a family cookbook that is organized by the recipe's author, such as Bubbie Jean's Recipes, or by the course, such as appetizers-entrees-desserts, or by main ingredients, such as beef-chicken-potato.

Publishing Your Cookbook

After you have created all of the pages in your family cookbook you will want to publish it. You have several options. Your first option is to print out the pages and keep them bound in a three ring binder. Your second option is to keep the cookbook in digital format and burn it on a CD or DVD. What ever option you select you will want to make sure you save the file so that it can be added to as your family grows and evolves.