LEFT-OVERS: A memoir of bottomless pots

A Character Sketch of the Book:

Left-Overs is a memoir based on how our eating experiences change throughout the courses of our lives and how family heritage effects those changes.

Right from the beginning, my parents kitchen was used as a mood board for the book. I used a similar colour palette and used the retro feeling of the room to my advantage. It's 70s look and feel was a perfect starting point for the general design of the book.

The book is structured in such a way that each chapter has it's own set of recipes. Each recipe, with the exception of one or two have been mentioned in the text and are tucked at the end of the chapter.

The Evolution of the Project:

Originally, I was going to make most of the recipes vague and somewhat hard to follow in an attempt to mimic the way in which my mum goes about cooking, just throwing this and that in to the pot and seeing if it works. But after thinking about it, I thought that I should make the recipes a little easier to understand for those who might actually like to use it.

I also pictured the book being a little bit more "thrown" together, collaging pictures and recipes together. I decided that perhaps I would treat the book as a blank canvas. Keeping the pages clean and it is for the reader to use and abuse, making their own mark on the book as they splatter vanilla and other such ingredients across the page.

Making Choices:
two important choices you have made concerning your book

Typefaces have always been an issue. Originally, the typefaces were all really clean and geometric. After starring at the book for so long, I knew something wasn't quite right, but couldn't figure it what it was. I ended up changing my main type to something a little bit more clunky and awkward and it ended up being a good contrast between the symmetrical layout of the book.

At the beginning, I had wanted to organize the book in such a way that the recipe would fall throughout the type, interjecting in the story all the way through. I tried this though, and it cut up the story too much and really interrupted the flow of this story. This is when I decided I would place all of the recipes at the end of the story in each chapter in order to make Left-Overs flow smoothly.

Compromises:
Describe some of the things (if time or money wasn't an issue) you might have done differently and what they would have added to your book.

I would have made my book larger if cost weren't such as issue. Making it larger would have been another way to symbolize the large meals that are talked about in the book.

Pleasures and Frustrations:
Talking about book design in general – if you were with other students thinking about enrolling in a book design course (not necessarily this course) what would you tell them to expect and what to consider before they make their decision.

I would tell them to expect a lot of work. You really do have to pull all skills to the table, whether you are good at them or not. You have to be organized and methodical, but know when to let go and try different approaches and ways of thinking. You might have to be an illustrator, a photographer and an author all at the same time. Whatever it is, though, just go for it.

I would also tell them to pick a topic that you really like, because you are going to be thinking about it a lot. When you think that your topic is going to work, keep pursuing it and surely you will get over the hump.

What I've been up to...

So, I haven't dropped of the face of the earth and neither has my book. My text is extremely close to being finalized: just a few final edits and tweeks.

All of my imagery is also collected, and now all I have to do is mush it all together.
Here is an example of the introduction and contents pages:

Organizing

Yesterday I started organizing all of the images and recipes that I have collected for my book so far. I found it really helpful to get away from the computer and make a few collages for each chapter.

Full to the brim...

Well, my weekend was a success. Tons of materials were collected and soo much food was consumed. Just to give you an idea of what we ate, here is an example of the menu for 9 people:


Saturday
1 18 pound turkey
huge pots of potatoes, corn, turnip, coleslaw, and layered jello
and for dessert: 2 pumpkin pies and a dutch apple pie served with whip cream and chocolate caramel ice cream.

This morning for breakfast:
2 packages of bacon
1 package of breakfast sausage
1.5 dozen eggs
double batch of pancakes
1/2 loaf of bread

Mid-afternoon
1 chocolate birthday cake
ice cream
tea

I think I am going to be full until this coming Wednesday...

Gobble Gobble Gobble: Thanksgiving a week late

This weekend I am visiting my parent's for "our" Thanksgiving. We arrived about 2 hours ago, and upon walking in the house the aroma of fresh baked Ranger Cookies filled our nostrils — further confirmation that this Family Memoir through Food is a great topic for my first attempt at a book.

Over the past week I have been writing my manuscript and working on further organization of the content.

As of now the chapters are:

"Musical Chairs"
- how families change, as shown through where we sit at the kitchen table
- how our seats change when company comes over, as shown through diagrams and possible seat shuffling scenarios.
- the difference between the kitchen table and the dinning room table


"There's more of everything"
This section will talk about our family heritage my mum's family heritage has proved to result in excessive amounts of food and how it has benefitted my brother and I after moving out of the house.

"Grammas"
Here I talk about how eating has changed since my grandparents were young and how their experiences of living through both the Depression and WWII affected their eating and cooking habits. I will also explain how the recipes and methods have lived on and carried through into our lives.

"Recipes Schmecipes"
I will talk about how as we become more experienced cooks our reliance on recipes becomes less and less.

"Tips and Tricks"
As mentioned in my previous post, "The Zone" will be mentioned in this section, along with other simple tricks that I have learned throughout the years. I'm sure that every family makes discoveries at the kitchen table but here you go, maybe you can take these tips with you and apply them to your eating experiences with your friends and family.

Of course, all of these sections will be further explained through personal family stories and there will also be recipes placed appropriately throughout the chapters. I also want to include a recipes index, so that they can be found easily. Because they are arbitrarily placed throughout the book, this index will organize them into sections such as Cookies, Cakes, etc.

This weekend I am also going to be asking my family members and family friends to write about the eating experiences they have had at our house. I have just learned that we will be having a new guest, so I think it would be great to get her "beginner's account" on eating at the Bovey house. I figure that these little blurbs can most likely be included as possible pull quotes.

So, things are moving along, but I would like them to be moving on at warp speed instead of putting along like it is, but I guess any movement forward is better than nothin'.

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”)