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Post #77 – Women’s Memoirs, News – Kendra Bonnett and Matilda Butler

Memoir Writing Contest Ends Soon

Kendra and I are quite excited about our new contest: Memoir and Food. Of course, we’ll come up with a better title, but the winning entries will become part of a new ebook. The ebook will feature stories, memories, and recollections of special times and the accompanying favorite recipe.

A few years ago, I decided to compile a family recipe book. My sons often called to ask for one of my recipes and I thought I could do a brain dump of all their favorites. After all, how hard could it be? I figured I could choose 100 recipes, type them into my word processor, print them out, and have a great Christmas present.

I won’t go into all the effort that it took or the fact that I was still printing copies on Christmas morning. Instead, I want to share my surprise revelations. It turned out that it wasn’t really about the ingredients. It was about the stories. Each recipe was chosen because it had a special meaning to us. As the stories came tumbling out, I loved reconnecting with the history of our family, the holidays we celebrated together, the special breakfasts each child enjoyed, the catastrophes before a final triumph with a requested dish, etc. Along the way, I also gave Kendra one of the three-ring binders that contained all my treasured recipes. She has reciprocated by sharing some of her mother’s fantastic recipes.

Although I find I use my cookbook fairly often — well it does bring all my favorites into a single place — I had tucked away this experience until recently. I saw an article showing data that over half of all meals at eaten out. What? I couldn’t believe it, but there was the data. When I was a child growing up in the late 40s and 50s, we ate almost every meal at home. Going out was a special treat. That means there was a lot of kitchen time in our family.

Kendra and I talked about this and thought all of you who visit Women’s Memoirs might enjoy the opportunity to write about a favorite time that relates to a recipe, then share that story and recipe (and perhaps even a photo) with us. We’ll create an ebook and make it available to all of you.

The deadline is fast approaching but you still have time to craft a beautiful story and send it to us. The deadline is: — June 1. Click here for details.

Independent Publisher Features Kendra Bonnett and Matilda Butler

We’re thrilled. This month Independent Publisher featured us in their article on Women in Publishing. Look for a second article next month. Here’s the link.

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