Grandma's Recipes

Grandma's Recipes is a sixteen-page family cookbook: six recipe pages, each with a photo of the dish above the method, interleaved with photos of the cook, the kitchen and the table. It is for the child leaving home, the wedding present, or the recipes that only exist in one person's head. The kraft style gives brown paper pages, dark ink, Fraunces for the recipe names and a soft shadow under each photo. The cover holds a photo with the title. Page two is a title page for a dedication. Then the pages alternate: a recipe page (photo over a text block that holds about seventy words), a photo with a caption and date, another recipe, two photos side by side, and so on, with a three-frame strip for the stages of one dish and two photos stacked near the end. Page fifteen is a quote page for the rule of the kitchen, and the back cover has a small photo and a sign-off.

Write each recipe as ingredients first, then the method in short instructions; seventy words is a real recipe if you are disciplined. Photograph dishes from above in daylight, and photograph the hands: kneading, stirring, cutting. Those go on the caption pages and make the book. Print on white or cream 120 gsm paper, since the kraft colour is printed, and consider a 160 gsm cover sheet so the booklet survives a kitchen. Because it is duplex, run the test page to check the flip edge before printing all four sheets. Eighteen photos fill it; many families make two volumes.

Printing this booklet means two pages per side on both sides of the sheet: 16 pages is 4 sheets of A4 or Letter, nested and folded to A5 or half-letter. If your printer duplexes, use the flip-edge setting shown on the download card; if not, print Side A, reload the stack and print Side B, and run the free one-sheet test page first so you learn your printer's flip before spending photo paper. 100 to 120 gsm matte paper for the inside, 160 to 200 gsm for the cover if your printer's bypass tray takes it, and score the fold on anything heavier than 160 gsm. Two staples on the spine with a long-arm stapler, or open a normal stapler flat over a folded towel. The template uses 18 photos across 16 pages.