Hello all, I’m Emily Adams…and I built this site. I wanted to take a minute and explain the idea and spirit behind the creation of this project.
I love to cook. I associate a lot of memories with cooking. I cherish the recipes of special dishes that my loved ones have made and I wanted to share them with others.
Christmas 2013 was really great. Most of our family cooked and gave each other foodie gifts and we shared a lovely meal. I got the seedling of the idea for this website that day. I was determined to start early on for Christmas 2014 – and I did. I started the journey to this site January 1 (and was determined to keep it under wraps for a whole year).
In my brain I started referring it to the “2014 Recipe Project” (you can still see my starter brainstorm/inspiration board on Pinterest). Here’s how the ideas evolved:
- Pick 5 family recipes and write them out on note cards. Tie them up with ribbon and include them with everyone’s Christmas gifts…I quickly realized I couldn’t narrow it down to just FIVE.
- Pick 10 family recipes and write them out on note cards…then I did the math on how many family members I was thinking about and had a panic attack.
- Find a really cool template for recipe cards, type them up and then print them…then I remembered I’m a graphic designer.
- Make a really cool template for recipe cards, type them up and print them…then I realized all recipes are dramatically different lengths and a standard template is a myth.
- Ooooooh, then I wanted to buy a vintage recipe box for everyone on my list to put the really special, sentimental cards in…imagine several hours of my life wasted on etsy & ebay, realizing this idea would cost a small fortune and I really wanted to keep all the little tin boxes for myself.
- Then I realized, I’m not really wanting to do recipe cards – I want to do a family cookbook…then I got totally overwhelmed for about a week.
- Then I realized, some of my friends are really good cooks…and the project got that much bigger in my brain.
- So I started researching cookbook formats…I went straight to bound hardcover, full-color. And found out they are very expensive.
- Then I started thinking 3 ring binder…which is great for adding new stuff later, but didn’t appeal to me at all.
- I realized I wanted something that could grow, be a “living cookbook”. A resource of recipes, memories and inspiration for everyone I love…and then I was like, duh, you’re also a web designer. And here we are. It only took ’til mid February for me to figure it out.
I love that this site can grow over time. That it’s searchable by family members as well as food types. I hope you all enjoy and use the site to it’s fullest. The more you participate, the richer the content will become.
My only worry now is that there might be more submissions than I can keep up with. What a wonderful problem that would be!
Thank you. I love you all & happy cooking! – ea
