The Family Recipe Book
Amicorum gathers a family’s recipes into one book. Relatives near and far add their recipes, the stories behind them, and photographs from a private link, and the pages are printed and bound as a hardcover book.
What goes into the book?
More than a list of ingredients. Each relative opens the family’s private link and adds a recipe, a note, or a photograph.
- A recipe, written the way the cook really makes it.
- A note on where it came from: who taught them to make it, and which gatherings are not complete without it.
- A photograph: the dish, the cook, or the handwritten card the recipe was first kept on.
How do relatives far away take part?
Through the same link. Share it in a message or an email, and each relative opens it on a phone or a computer and adds a page.
No one needs an app or an account, and no one has to mail a recipe card across the country.
Who puts the book together?
Whoever begins it. Every recipe, note, and photograph comes to you first, to read, correct, put in order, or leave out. You see the whole book, page by page, before anything is printed, and nothing goes to print until you have approved it.
Where should a family begin?
With the cook. The recipes a family treasures most are often the ones that were never written down, or that sit on a card which leaves out what the cook really does. Sit beside them, write down what you see, and photograph the cards.
William’s own family began this way, with his grandmother and her Southern recipes. He tells that story in the journal.
Can a recipe book be a wedding guest book?
Yes, and that is how Amicorum began. William and his wife overheard a daughter tell her father that it might be a cool idea to use a cookbook as the guest book at her wedding. “Just have everyone pick out a recipe page and write a note or sign it,” he replied.
A wedding’s guests can add recipes as well as notes and photographs.
What is the book like?
It is a hardcover book, printed on acid-free paper. Our print partner prints and binds it and ships it to your door.
The sizes and the cover materials will be confirmed before the first print run.
What does it cost, and when does it open?
Prices have not been set yet. They will be announced before the first print run begins, and the people on the waitlist will be the first to hear.
The first books are planned for the inaugural 2026/2027 print run, and entry will be by invitation to those who signed up for the waitlist. At launch, books are shipped within the United States.
Request an Invitation
The waitlist is open. Leave your email address and we will write when Amicorum opens.