Family Memoir: Initial Blueprint

Well, here we go. My initial thoughts on what I would like to do with this Family Cook Book Memoir are a little scattered, but here they are anyways.



Overview

• This book is going to tell the story of eating as seen through my family. Eating in this book will be defined as social act of togetherness rather then just getting the food from the plate to your mouth, chewing and swallowing it.
• Incorporate learning out comes into each section…?
• Include specific stories about the topics talked about
• Discuss why people should still eat together
• Glorifying the ordinary foods like cake from a box


Possible Titles

• “On the Last Notch” – with belly-band as a belt (on the last notch) the belly band is covering the top button of someone’s pants being undone.
• “There’s More of Everything” – My mum says this at every meal, like we don’t already know.
• "Left-overs"

It will talk about...

Family dynamic around the dinner table

• How it changes throughout a life time
• It will be shown through diagrams of how when I was young there was mum, dad, brother, sister. Then, mum, dad, sister and brother on the weekends. And so on…
• This can lead into Portions... "hopefully mum made enough food that I can bring back left overs - hopefully for the entire week...
• How it changes when company comes over.
• Possible Heading: "Fight for your life: Designated seats around the dinner table"
• The table leg… with large numbers of people sitting around the table it is inevitably going to happen…

Portions

• My mother has the Unique ability of cooking for an army even when there is only us.
• A typical dinner for the Bovey household of 4:

(The general rule of thumb) The trick is to double how much you would actually need, for example, 8 chicken breasts, a HUGE pan of scallop potatoes (17 pounds to be exact). Yes, my brother had the bright idea to actually weigh the gigantic pan of potatoes my mum made. Now this is including the large stone-wear Pampered Chef™ pan, but still...

• This could be a separate section... How eating changes throughout out life.
• How this has worked out to our benefit when we went away to school.

• We go from having family home cooked meals while living at home... to heating them up in the microwave when we move away.

Kitchen Table vs. Dinning Room Table

When do we justify using the dinning room table instead of the less formal kitchen table?

"The Zone"

“ We were all sitting around the supper table in my parents in our kitchen, passing the dishes around and piling our plates with food. My brother’s friend Shannan was over for supper, so of course we were in the designated “companies over” spot at the table (refer to diagram on page 00), when we noticed that all of the condiments, pepper, salt, margerine and so on were surrounding my dad’s placemat. It was at this point in time the a plab was devised to stop this from happening…”

• History (how it came about)
• Diagrams
• Why it is so beneficial
• Fitting the zone into your dinner routine

Mum’s Illusional Cooking

• My mum lives by the rule that recipes are only guidelines.
• Chocolate pudding story
• Can include icing recipes… cannot be created by any other then Doris Bovey
• Possible title: “Venti? (measurements, what?)

Other things to possibly include...

A Grandmother’s Touch

Gramma E’s Legacy… raising a large family on a farm

• The time we told Gramma we were having fish for dinner… she didn’t have to know what kind of fish we were having.
• Staying over at gramma’s house
• Treats on Fridays
• Puzzle toast in the morning.

Granny and Pop Bovey… how did she do it?

• Raw toast – saving energy
• Their beautiful garden – the most healthy way of eating – the classic way to eat. Veggies from the garden and family around the table with tea and dessert to follow.
• The recipes that weren’t.

TO DO

• Weigh pampered chef pan to figure out actually weight of potatoes.
• Write all of the text (hopefully by next Friday)
• Make some more moodboards
• Determine size
• Cover designs
• Typeface choices
• How am I going go fit the recipes in? (I am going to have to figure out ways to weave it through in my writing.)
• Add a Character Glossary? ( Mum (Doris Bovey) aka “Notorious Double Batcher”)