Creating intentional memories in the kitchen
Every Saturday morning, growing up, I’d wake up to the smell of sourdough bread frying on the stovetop.
I’d hurry myself to the kitchen, where my mom would be standing over the stove, in her robe, cooking us the most delicious french toast you’ve ever tasted in your life. It was her specialty, and it was the first recipe she ever taught me to make. I still make it to this day, for my own kids, and when I do, I feel like I’m back in my parents’ kitchen, and my mom is still here.
I’ve got other sweet memories like that, too. My grandma making fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy every Thanksgiving. My mom’s famous Pumpkin Dump Cake. The cookies she’d bake from scratch every time my friends came over.
After my mom died, one of the first things I did was collect her recipes. They were strewn all over the kitchen, some in a recipe box, some tucked into cookbooks, some kept in ziploc bags in the pantry. I found each one and collected them into a safe place. Did I do that because they were delicious recipes? No.
I gathered those recipes because they were a part of her. A tangible connection to the women I’d lost, the woman I wanted to be. As silly as it might sound, those recipes mean something to me. Those dishes mean something to me.
I’ve been on the lookout for a way to compile them all together, to rescue those memories from my momma and keep them safe in a place where I can share them with my own daughter one day.
And friends, I found it. And I have to share it with you, because I’ve never seen ANYTHING quite like it.
I’d love to introduce you to the Keepsake Kitchen Diary.
The Keepsake Kitchen Diary is a recipe book where you can ALSO record special memories from the times you’ve made that recipe.
Every two-page spread offers you a full page for the recipe & all the notes that go along with it. And on the opposite page, a space to record your memories from making that recipe. You can record multiple memories for each recipe, and date each one.
I love what Val, the creator of the Kitchen Diary, has to say about it:
Every recipe stirs up a memory. ? We truly believe this, which is why every recipe spread in the Keepsake Kitchen Diary includes a memories journaling page opposite of it! Record the stories and occasions when the dish was enjoyed. These small moments matter.” – @keepsakekitchendiary on instagram
It’s beautiful, and brilliant, and I can’t think of anything more special to keep for my own daughter one day. Do you know how much I wish I had my mom’s recipes, all written out in one place, in her own handwriting? So. Much.
I don’t have that, but my daughter will.
It’s so easy for us to live fast paced & frantic, driving through Chick Fil A on our way to baseball practice, or just cooking up some noodles and butter on a night when we’re exhausted and we don’t want to fight about what to eat with our kids. Those days are going to happen, and I get that.
But there’s something to savor about the slow process of cooking a meal in your home. Of choosing recipes you’ll use as intentional anchors throughout your week. Of teaching your children the value of a home-cooked meal and good conversation around the dinner table.
It’s these things our children will remember – this is part of the legacy we are leaving.
So friends, as we head into Thanksgiving, and then Christmas, I want to encourage you to consider the recipes you’re making, and the memories that come along with them. Are you writing those things down? Do you have a place to keep those tangible connections for your children, for long after you’re gone?
I can’t recommend the Keepsake Kitchen Diary highly enough. Not only is it a functional recipe book, beautifully designed & available in two gorgeous covers, it’s also a space for you to record those memories for your children. In fact, you can even use it WITH your children.
It’s possible that I have two, one to pass on to each child when they marry & start their own families. And I can’t wait to gift these beautiful books to my kids.
To shop for your own Keepsake Kitchen Diary, click HERE: Get my Kitchen Keepsake Diary!
And enter below for a chance to win!
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Kayse Pratt serves Christian women as a writer + designer, creating home + life management resources that help those women plan their days around what matters most. She’s created the most unique planner on the market, helped over 400 women create custom home management plans, and works with hundreds of women each month inside her membership, teaching them how to plan their days around what matters most. When she’s not designing printables or writing essays, you’ll find Kayse homeschooling her kids, reading a cheesy novel with a giant cup of tea in hand, or watching an old show from the 90’s with her husband, who is her very best friend.
I love recipes that have a story behind it, this keepsake would be a perfect way to record them. I had been writing all my recipes on a big plain, old notebook. This is just great! Thanks for sharing Kayse! 🙂
Every year in the fall time when the plums are ripe, my mom would make the yummiest German dumplings filled with a plum – covered with brown butter and sugar. Mmh. She still makes those for us every year when we visit. It’s like being a child again.
Rolling and rolling and rolling hundreds of perfect buckeyes every Christmas with my Mom and siblings. I still love making them today!
Each year, I make struffoli with my aunt, grandmother, and a family friend. It is such a sweet holiday tradition.
I have fond memories of my grandmother fixing a HUGE pot of chili and my dad’s family gathering at her house to eat and just be with family. We’ve all grown up and had our own families and the older generation has passed on but those sweet, house-full-of-family meals will stay in my memory forever.
I love baking sugar cookies with my mom, using my grandmother’s recipe that she began using over a century ago. Such a wonderful & meaningful family tradition! This cookbook wpuld be a wonderful place to record this!
Every time we would go and visit my grandma, she would have us baking up a storm in the kitchen and I loved it!
One of my favorite memories is making Christmas cookies with my whole family every year. We would make a whole day out of baking, decorating, and then packing the cookies to send to relatives who lived further away.
What a beautiful idea … just last week I was hunting down my great-grandmother’s recipe book that was handed down to me to use as part of a photo shoot.
Not only were the recipes she recorded special, but the handwriting, written in her beautiful calligraphy-type font with a fountain pen, is such a wonderful connection to the past.
We have 3 daughters (and perhaps in years to come 4 daughter-in-laws), and I’d love to bless them each with a special keepsake such as this.
I live 3,000 miles away from my mom. This would be great to collect recipes that I remember from my childhood plus recipes that I use with my family to pass on to my children some day.
I have just a couple of recipes written out in my grandmother’s hand and they are a treasure to me. The recipe book looks like a great way to create an heirloom!
I loved making biscuits in the kitchen with my Mawmaw. If only I could have ever learned to make them as good as she did!
My fave kitchen memory is my mom making her super moist chocolate cake with ganache!! ? And during the holidays, her fruit cakes makes the kitchen smell sooo good! ❤
When I got want to college, I had to start learning “the family recipes.” One, so I could learn the tradition. Two, so I could eat in school.
We have debates every holiday on who makes the best salsa. Each of us has the “original” recipie from my Grandmother but none taste the same as hers. I think she told us all different one so she could keep her secret. One day we will crack the code.
My Mom made the best Christmas Cookies when I was growing up. There were always Russian Teacakes, and Gingerbread People and Sugar Cookies to decorate.
What a cool format for a recipe book – I love this!!!!
I remember making gingerbread cookie with my grandmother!
I have so many kitchen memories as I was blessed to have a mom and 2 grandmothers who were all good cooks! I remember the Christmas cookies my grandma would make. There was one type in particular that I have never been able to find a recipe for but I keep looking!
making pizza with my dad on Saturday nights
saturdays homemade pizza is a special memory with my dad
My best kitchen memories are spending time in the kitchen with my grandmother learning to bake.
My mom would cook us a yummy breakfast of either french toast or homemade pancakes every Saturday morning. To this day…I still love a yummy breakfast on Saturday mornings!
My favorite memories in the kitchen are helping my mom create holiday meals. We don’t get to spend as much time together any more so I cherish those memories.
When my kids were small we would say, “let’s make cookies”. No matter if they were in their PJ’s, we’d get everything out on the kitchen table and it would always lift our spirits.
My 6 year old LOVES helping in the kitchen. My favorite memory was watching her do an entire recipe by herself and seeing how proud she was.
I have been eyeing this or actually a while so winning it would be a blessing.
My best kitchen memory is making gingerbread cookies.
This looks amazing. I have been eyeing it for a while. So winning it would be amazing!
This is a beautiful book!
I would love to get one of these! My children are starting to be very interested and helping cook so it would be fun for us to have our own little family recipe book to use not just at the holidays but all year round.
I absolutely love this!!! <3
I love cooking and baking! Now my littles (4 and 2) are starting to really get into the kitchen too! Cracking eggs or mixing up a bowl of ingredients can get messy, but it brings them so much joy! I remember cooking with my mom and siblings growing up. We would always try to sneak a taste when mom wasn’t looking. I’m sure she knew…
The holidays have so many traditions! We have baked cookies with friends and family every year since I was 2. When I was in middle school, we started inviting my girlfriends, and it became a tradition for them too. Now I do it with my daughter, and maybe a friend or two. The best!
I still remember crying while my dad cut up an onion for thanksgiving stuffing when I was little. I don’t like onions in any other dish, but it’s not thanksgiving if I don’t get a little teary cutting an onion!
My favorite memory in the kitchen is making homemade noodles with my Granny. This keepsake book would be perfect for recording and passing down all those family traditions!
One of my favourite memories was one year when I was back in the US to visit my family and was working with my sister and sisters-in-law to prepare the Christmas dinner.
The smell of my mom’s baking is always a wonderful thing!
One of my favorite memories: Christmas baking!
I have my grandmother’s recipes written on small scraps of paper in her own handwriting. Those are the ones I pull out for every holiday meal. Love this idea of having it all in one place as we create new memories!!
My favorite memory in the kitchen is working alongside my mom making Kris Kringle cookies and decorating them. Now we share this tradition with my daughter!!!
I remember when I was a child… every Sunday when we got back from church, the house would smell chicken that my mom would put before we leave! Great memory!
Every year my three siblings and I would all gather in the kitchen with our own trays of Christmas cookies to decorate. It’s probably one of the few things we would all do together in the kitchen and I think of it every year.
I just taped all of my grandmother’s recipes into a scrapbook. She had tons of old magazine clippings(so vintage looking) and several handwritten ones. It is neat to have them in book form to flip through.
I have lots of fond kitchen memories – especially with the holidays. My mom was pretty much a small town Martha Stewart and would make loads of cookies, candies & breads and we would plate it all up for friends & neighbors. She shows her love in the kitchen and between her and a few Christmases with my grandmother (her mom) I have TONS of sweet memories to relive.
My Mom worked outside the home, sometimes as many as three jobs, school teacher, store clerk and bookkeeper just to keep us fed and clothed. She wasn’t a great cook but she always managed to put a meal on the table each night. I remember her famous pork chops and stuffing cooked in an electric roaster for Sunday dinner.
Cooking and baking over the holiday season!
One of my favorite kitchen memories was making fried pies with the kids and ending up with flour fight.
This time of year I remember sitting at the counter,as a child, turning the old grinder making homemade cranberry relish.
Every year after Thanksgiving we would make gingerbread houses out of graham crackers and royal icing with the left over Halloween candy. The children loved spending the day together and preparing for the Christmas season.
What a cool idea!
What a great idea for a cookbook!
My Mom taught piano lessons right up until dinner, so often our meals were simple and from a box. Sundays were different. We always had a roast and lots of sides. Still warms my heart thinking about the food and the time we spent around the table.
This is beautiful! I would love to fill this in for my family–
Oh, Please wait, please enjoy the wait. The wait in wanting to gift these to your babes when they are grown. It goes so fast, this thing we call time; seriously so, so fast. Tonight you are tucking them in with prayers, but soon they are tucking themselves into dorm rooms. So enjoy the wait, and intentionally incorporate them into the memories. And don’t ever mind the flour on your noses!
Wow love this. Such a great way to preserve memories
One of my favorite kitchen memories is making caramel popcorn with my dad. I plan to make it for Christmas gifts this year in his memory!
Some of my most favourite memories in the kitchen centre around Christmas cooking. Christmas falls in sumer here in Australia, so the aromas of fresh prawn salads, glazed ham, icecream cakes, strawberry punches, and other goodies being prepared make me feel so nostalgic and remind me of how wonderful it feels to gather and with my family of ten around a fully laden table, complete with hearty laughter, thankful hearts, and meaningful conversation. This keepsake book would be such a perfect way to record our family”s most cherished recipes!
I LOVE this idea! I have been looking for a good place to record cherished recipes for the time I have a home of my own, God willing. This looks like such a perfect and precious place to do that! Thanks for the giveaway, Kayse! God bless you and your family! – Gabrielle
I have been looking at this Kitchen Keepsake for the past year! If I don’t win it, I think I will have to put it on my Christmas list!!
I have many memories of helping my nana in the kitchen before thanksgiving or Christmas. I’m hope one day my cooking is as good as hers. I would love this book to add family recipes to it so I can always have them.
I’ve been meaning to gather my Mom’s recipes for some time now. This might just make it a bit easier.
I’ve been eyeing this keepsake book for awhile. I love celebrating and recording memories, including recipes and those special kitchen shenanigans with family.
I need to organize my recipes and this is such a fun way to do it!
I have great memories of making green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, and corn in the kitchen with my Mom during the holidays.
Some of my favorite memories are in my Nanny’s kitchen. We always do Thanksgiving at her house and the kitchen is always a mad house of aunts and now that we are grown my cousins as we finish dinner and set the table. There is always laughter and a bit of bickering but a lot of love too.
Love this beautiful recipe holder! What a wonderful way to hold on to Memories!
This is our second holiday season without my mom and I still miss her so much. As I get older, memories of loved ones and precious moments spent together are so much more meaningful. We’ve named favorite dishes after loved ones such as “Mr. Joe’s No Good Molasses Cookies” which is one of my kids’ all time favorites. While we enjoy these favorite foods, we share memories. I treasure the recipe cards and slips of paper in my grandmother’s and mother’s handwriting. I love the idea of a recipe book that provides a space to do just this as a keepsake for future generations.
I have wonderful memories of my Mom making Christmas cookies with us!