5/19/2023
This week has been busy, busy, busy! The past weekend I was home with my family and got to get some project work done. I baked a ziti, visited my Nana, and spent time with my parents and siblings. It was a heartwarming and productive weekend that set me up to hit the ground running this week. I brought back some photo albums with me so that I could scan some photos to use for my cookbook, all with permission of course. If you ever use photos that you don’t own or don’t depict just you, always ask permission before using them!
I made my way down to Photoland on Wednesday and got the photos scanned. The plan was to then get into InDesign and start drafting up my cookbook, but the lab aid gave me a good piece of advice. She let me know that for what I was doing, I really didn’t need to be using InDesign–in fact, InDesign would make the whole process more difficult. She advised me to just pop it all into a google or word document, and if I wanted to get fancy with the cover and photographs I could always use Photoshop or another photo editing software/app. So, despite it being the middle of week 7 of the quarter, I decided to listen to the person more knowledgeable than me, cut my losses, and put the body pages in a document.
I was going to use Photoshop to create a front and back cover, but then it hit me; I could also use Canva. Canva is an app I’m already familiar with, so there wouldn’t be a huge learning curve and it would make the process easier so I can actually get the cookbook done in time.
I was pretty happy with the cover design I landed on. I also had a fun time designing the layout of the photographs I would be using for some of the recipes.
It took me about six or seven hours, about four or five of them consecutive, to do design and layout for all the pages that would need it, but it was overall a really fun experience and allowed me to visualize the aesthetic I want for the cookbook.
I also looked up how to write a copyright page and learned it’s rather easy. You literally just need to know what to write. Of course, there are extra steps you need to go about to get your copyright registered with the government, but by virtue of this being an original work of my own I have the copyright.
Besides squaring things away with the cookbook draft, I’ve been continuing to read Buttermilk Graffiti by Edward Lee which has proved to be a major source of inspiration for me. The way he writes is humorous and humble, but also a well versed look into multicultural communities and foodways across the United States. It feels incredibly similar to what I hope to accomplish with this cookbook, my goals are just on a smaller, more localized level.
The stories that Lee finds and tells don’t feel exploitative, because often times he’s in the middle of what he’s talking about. He makes sure to preface that he’ll never truly grasp or understand these cultures which he doesn’t belong to, but he meets community members and lets them tell him what they think about themselves, their practices, their traditions, and their food. All the while, they often invite him to partake in some moment with them, in one story he fasts for Ramadan while he’s staying in a town where many of the restaurants he’s looking for food in are run by Muslim families.
I’m excited to continue finishing up my cookbook draft next week and to hopefully get a first print done by end of week 9!
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