Welcome to the May issue!
This month’s issue offers some food for thought on a way you can preserve, celebrate, and share your family’s culinary legacy.
I hope you enjoy this issue of the Family Legacy Video® Producer’s e-Newsletter. Please e-mail me at steve@familylegacyvideo.com or phone toll-free (888.662.1294) with any questions or comments you have.
Cheers! – – Steve Pender
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A tasty recipe for a sizzlin’ legacy video.
Stuffed cabbage: It’s one of my ultimate comfort foods, as well as a delicious reminder of my Polish heritage. Luckily for me, my mother-in-law is the “Queen of Cabbage.” She brought her family recipes with her when she emigrated from Poland in 1960 – and she’s still at the top of her game in the kitchen. For me, her stuffed cabbage is the stuff of which dreams are made. Few of her recipes, however, are written down. And when it comes to measuring ingredients, she basically works on the “a little of this, a little of that” standard, which makes preserving her recipes and techniques a bit of a challenge.
Sound familiar? Is your mom, mother-in-law, grandmother or other relative a great cook who works from memory and not from written recipes? Do you want to be able to recreate those scrumptious dishes and pass along your family’s culinary traditions to your children and grandchildren? Or maybe the hours you spent in the kitchen with your mom or grandmother are special times you’d like to share with younger generations of your family. If so, how do you go about it?
A family legacy cooking video could be just the ticket.
Cooking shows and demonstrations continue to be all the rage on television. We have entire cable channels filled with nothing but cooks and chefs frying, sautéing, poaching and baking up a storm. If cooking – and your special family recipes – figure prominently in your family story, you can use the same techniques you see on the Food Network to showcase your family’s culinary heritage. And Family Legacy Video® offers the expertise and creativity to help you whip up your own family legacy cooking show.
Let’s say your subject is stuffed cabbage and the cook in question is your mother. We might begin the show by speaking with you and your mom. Perhaps she relates the history of the recipe we’re going to feature: how she learned to cook it and any memories associated with it – and you describe what the dish means to you and your family. Then we follow you both into your kitchen. Your mom shows you the ingredients involved and then launches into preparation, with you assisting her and asking questions. As she shows off her cooking techniques, you check her food and spice measurements. Along the way, you and she share favorite stories related to memorable meals and family get-togethers; perhaps your mom also describes how she learned the recipe from her mother. Finally, there’s the big reveal as you present the dish to viewers – and then dig in! In the end, you’ll not only have documented the creation of a lip-smacking family treat, you’ll also have captured some fascinating and fun family lore. And what can be more delicious than that?
The tastes and aromas of our signature family recipes carry lots of associations linked to the special people and times in our lives, especially the love that generations of family cooks have liberally sprinkled into the mix. That love is what I taste whenever I bite into my mother-in-law’s homemade stuffed cabbage. It’s also what you’ll pass along to your children, grandchildren and great-children when you celebrate your own family cooks, and cooking traditions, on video.
– Steve Pender