Got a summer luau party coming up? I always think about carving watermelons and other fruits to make a nice edible centerpiece for a summer luau party. There is nothing so pretty as a watermelon cornucopia of sliced fruits to make a nice statement on the summer luau party table. The colors are so lovely, and the bountiful fruit is large enough for a crowd. Read the rest of this entry »

You’ve finally completed your family recipe book files using cookbook-making software, and now you want to make it a nice finished product at the local quick print store. There are many options available to bind recipe books together in either full-page or half-page formats.

I personally prefer a smooth finish to bind recipe books, but other bindery styles are more popular. Here are what many experts say are the top 3 ways to bind recipe books:

Perfect Binding - This method to bind recipes books is used primarily when a heavier weight paper is used for the wraparound soft cover and the recipe book has lot of pages (up to maybe 2 inches thick). A flexible adhesive is used to stick the cover onto the edges of the content pages.  When done properly, this type of binding is, well, perfect. Many thick magazines and paperback books use perfect binding.  See above for sample photo of perfect binding.

  Read the rest of this entry »

One of the great things about using Matilda’s Fantastic Cookbook Software is that all your recipes are neatly organized in one place and ready to be printed to use at a moment’s notice.

Sometimes I just print the recipe I want instead of having the family cookbook on the counter. I call these my disposable recipe cards or recipes because I can print them out in any format I choose: full page, half page, recipe card size, whatever is best at the time. Read the rest of this entry »

The sequence of events and facts in the following story are absolutely true. The names have been changed to protect the, well, you’ll figure it out.

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While I was visiting my dear friend, Ruth, and enjoying tea at her kitchen table, I noticed a rather large gap along the baseboard of her kitchen cupboard.  “My, that’s big enough for something to live in,” I remarked.  Ruth replied, “Oh, yes, I know. I need to fix it one of these days.” Read the rest of this entry »

Our customers are our greatest resource for keeping in touch with the cookbook-making software marketplace at large. What features a few customers may want individually in their software is usually a good indicator of what everyone wants (but might not be voicing their desires). According to our interactions with customers, just about everyone interested in creating a family recipe book also wants to achieve professional quality cookbook making at home.

But how do you know you’ve achieved professional quality cookbook making at home? There are many good indicators that you’ve succeeded. For the record, here are our three hints to know that you’ve achieved professional quality cookbook making at home:

EASY TO DO
Instead of a chore, the project was one you looked forward to doing every day until it was done. You could either type your recipes or cut and paste recipes into pre-determined templates. There were many choices of headings and ways to organize the recipes in sequence.

LOOKS GOOD
The graphics and design options were clear, simple and distinctive enough to reproduce in color or black and white. You didn’t need to worry about how to format the recipes. (A good cookbook-making software will automatically convert your recipes into the design template of your choice). You could add photos and stories about your relatives or about the recipes.

POSTIVE FEEDBACK
Everyone to whom you gave (or showed) a copy of your cookbook loved it. In other words, your target audience was truly impressed that you achieved professional quality cookbook making at home!

We pride ourselves on the fact that we listen to our customers and try to incorporate their ideas into future releases of our Matilda’s Fantastic Cookbook Software. If you have ideas on how to enhance our cookbook-making software to take professional quality cookbook making at home to a higher level, please let us know in our Forum. We can’t promise you a spot on a “Windows 7-I’m a PC”-style television commercial, but we can promise that we will consider your suggestion carefully and do what we can to accommodate your ideas in our next release. Thanks so much.

Happy Cookbooking,

Matilda

In its purest form, cooking in general can be a therapeutic action: methodically measuring out ingredients for the recipe; having a proven recipe plan to follow, successfully combining different components and techniques; and enjoying the outcome of one’s efforts.

Sometimes the sheer concentration of making a recipe is all that one needs to find therapeutic order in the chaotic world we live in. For some, cooking can be a quick rehabilitation, if you will, performed daily, or as frequently as desired.

Recipe book making can be therapeutic, too: collecting the recipes; entering into the cookbook software; proofreading the recipes; printing the pages; having them all bound together.

Here are five ways recipe book making can be therapeutic:

1. A recipe book making project can be healing. It might force an estranged family member to call the other, thus helping heal family wounds. (That’s therapeutic!)

2. A recipe book making project can be constructive. For someone who is recuperating from an illness, creating a recipe book is a wonderful use of time. In this regard it is therapeutic for the recovering individual, as well as for those who may eventually enjoy the fruits of the recipe book.

3. A recipe book making project can be a remedy. It might correct some misconceptions about recipes, relatives, and the family history. The recipe book might solve some mysteries! (That’s therapeutic!)

4. A recipe book making project can be satisfyingly productive. A sense of pride and accomplishment for the recipe book maker is evident, in that an actual physical item is produced at the end of the undertaking. (My cookbook software makes sure it all looks professional, too).

5. A recipe book making project can be restorative. For someone who needs uplifting, a recipe book making project can be invigorating when it causes the maker to experience a therapeutic change of scenery, a change of mind, or a change of heart.

For me, recipe book making is a grounding experience. Just as cooking is an essential function of every day, recipe book making has a way of giving me perspective on stressful events that may be out of my control. It allows me to forget everything but the task at hand for a few moments. (Now, that’s therapeutic!)

Happy Cookbooking,

Matilda

If you want to make a family recipe book but your family is not cooperating (or you are running out of time because your family reunion or wedding is approaching quickly), then consider one of the 5 (absurd) shortcuts below that will help you make a family recipe book: Read the rest of this entry »

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Every once in awhile, I’ll speak with customers who have questions about supplementary software that they can use to help create their family cookbooks.

After a bit of personal trial and error, I have found, and often use, the following very helpful supplementary software programs. Many other software products probably exist and do similar jobs, but I like the ones described below best because they work and because they are mostly free. Thus, my top 4 supplementary software to use with Matilda’s Fantastic Cookbook Software are: Read the rest of this entry »

Before there was Caesar, before there was Ranch, before there was Balsamic Vinaigrette, there was Green Goddess salad dressing.

Green Goddess salad dressing was one of the most popular salad dressings in the United States at one time.  The story goes that Green Goddess salad dressing originated at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco in 1923. There was a hit stage play in town at the time, and the dressing was created in honor of the play and actor George Arliss (who was later nominated for an Oscar for reprising his stage role on film). Read the rest of this entry »