very cool idea ms. sue.... i will most definately participate... (where is spell check?)

very very cool sister! food and family... LOVE IT!

i'll have a story from my italian side AND mexican side... yum, yum.

I will enjoy seeing people have fun creating this cookbook but I don't really cook anymore.

Have fun!

BTW ... just got a question from someone about the title of the posting, wondering if there was actually going to be a dinner, or if we were just collecting recipes. While the recipes were really the gist of it, I think it would be kind of cool to do some meet-ups out in meatspace to cook for each other where some of us are geographically close :^)

Thanks for the invite Sue.

I don't cook, at least not in the kitchen ; ).

Actually, it's funny, we just returned home from our weekly Sunday night dinner at my mother's house, complete with homemade New York cheesecake.

Cheesecake ~ now there's a comfort food : ).

Sue-

I'd love to participate!

I love to cook. Love to have friends and family over. The more the merrier!

Carla, that sounds like quite the story. How do you say it; Manja, everyone!

Kimberly

I sure hope I won't have to appeal to any kind of "quota" to get a recipe in -- probably I'll just have to find something better than "1. open package 2. eat"! ;D

Consider me game! (putting on chef's hat and apron)

nmw

Wonderful idea Sue. I've got a few collected that should find their way to you soon.

Thanks Sue.

I just arrived in the Alps (between Evian and Geneva) to spend one week...so my fisrt contribution will be a recipe coming from the Geneva lake and French Alps influence. I will try to join pictures of the place, the fishers and the people who produce the cheese used for raclette et fondue savoyarde. And of course some comments and pictures about the white extra dry wine (chasselas grape) produces in this area that is the perfect one to drink with this gatsronomy. For the 'meet-ups out meatspace' because I am far to be 'geographically close'I will just strongly think about the kind of kitchen atmosphere that can be when ON members cook together... I will for sure look for the first occasion to make this essential trip to USA.

I think this is a wonderful idea! Thanks, Sue!

I have family recipes and French delights en masse that I will sort through. Just tell where to stick them!

I actually did something similar to this in 8th grade in a language arts workshop class. I still have the recipe book that is equally filled with heart-warming tales of the history or personal significance of the dish. A true testament to the potpourri of cultures and traditions that made up even an affluent Chicago north-suburban junior high school community -- I can only imagine what this community will create! Fantastic!

P.S. Oooo! Gregoire -- manges de la tartiflette de ma part! :-P

YAY I get to be creative and write a story and find a recipe and maybe add a picture ~ I will be working on it this week ! (My head is already full of ideas)

Great Idea Sue !!!

Fantastic idea, thanks for the invitation.

Grandpa Johnston's Buttermilk Pancakes

I'm in, Sue! Now for the recipe hunting...How fun! :)

sue, after this is done, we have to have a community potluck somewhere, and everyone can bring one of the dishes in the book...

wouldn't that be fun?

i think so.

Yes, thanks for letting me know about this, Sue!

[Comment edited because Luke needs to smarten up and learn to read the whole discussion before posting.]

I'll hunt for some of my favourite recipes...

Been offline for several days, and had only come online long enough last night to post this idea after spending a wonderful day cooking for my dad and his new partner, and thinking about the wonderful legacy of the recipes my mom left me before she died. She was only 62, and had been battling breast cancer for 6 years. The most powerful memory I have, above all the pain and suffering, was the last meal I cooked for my mom. It wasn't fancy or elegant. It was comfort food that she had cooked for us hundreds of times when we were kids. Any time my parents went out for a night (mom to bridge club, or the two of them to chaperone highschool dances, because my dad was a teacher), mom would make tuna casserole with chinese noodles and cashews. I couldn't wait for them to go out again, because it was one of those things that I just loved.

On my 40th birthday, my mom and dad called me first thing in the morning to sing happy birthday to me. Later that day, my dad collapsed (6 years of caring for my mom at home, no sleep, gruelling realities). I went home to care for them both, and it was to be the last month of my mom's life. On top of cancer throughout her system (had eaten through her ribs, her spine, and then into her skull), she had slipped and broken her pelvis. She was upstairs in the bed. My dad was downstairs on the pull-out sofa bed with fever and delerium. Every two hours round the clock I was getting up to give my mom shots and pain pills and bathe her and comfort her. I had to spoon feed them both. By the end of two weeks, I was so sleep deprived I could barely function. My dad finally turned enough of a corner that he could come up and sit with my mom for a time, so I decided to make the comfort food that I had loved so much as a kid. We sat together in my mom's room eating what was to be our last meal together. I don't think food has ever tasted so good to me before, nor will it likely again.

For obvious reasons, I won't be sharing this in the cookbook. It's a bit too sombre and sad, and I don't even know why I was compelled to share it here now, except that it made me realize that, in the end, the simplest thing I could do with the most love was to take the love my mom had poured into us all those years through her amazing food and share some of that back.

Carla, the potluck is a great idea. I thought I had written that here, but maybe I only shared it over in the workspace. What I had written last night was that I thought it would be great to do two things:

1. find other omidyar.net community members who are close to us and have a real-world "meet-up" and do what you've suggested -- share our contributions and sit down to break bread together, and
2. do a community meal (not just omidyar.net members) that could serve as some sort of fundraiser (the way that pancake breakfasts do, or a church tea and bazaar), or get together to make some of the recipes up and deliver them to a homeless or battered women's shelter.

In any case, I think it would be wonderful to let this little piece of our connecting spill over into the real world and create a bit more infectious good :^)

Stone Soup:

http://www.omidyar.net/group/community-general/news/206/

Norbert Mayer-Wittmann said:

I sure hope I won't have to appeal to any kind of "quota" to get a recipe in -- probably I'll just have to find something better than "1. open package 2. eat"! ;D

Besides making me laugh out loud, this got me thinking about something else: there's something to be said for the good old fashioned t.v. dinner. If it allows you to spend less time fussing and more time with folks, mission accomplished. One of my favourite restaurants in London is a road house where, besides the standard wings and grub, they'll serve a $10 t.v. dinner purchased from the grocery store next door. It's pure kitsch, but there's something to be said for the memories it brings back and the place it's held in society. Might be fun to include something on this in the cookbook, along with the "top ten reasons why I let Mrs. Swanson do the darn cooking" ;^)

Also, for folks who may not have the same penchant for getting all down and dirty in the kitchen, perhaps there's a family recipe connected to strong memories for you. Even if you don't cook it yourself, and you can't dig the recipe up, share it back here and see if we can't collectively find something like it to contribute along with your story. The central theme is more one of making memories while making meals, whether your hands are involved directly or not ;^)

Mark Grimes said:

Stone Soup:

http://www.omidyar.net/group/community-general/news/206/

Mark, this is amazing! I don't know how I missed this. I was offline when you started this, but it looks like there's been recent activity there. Thanks so much for pointing this out. What a bodaciously cool idea :^)

Gregoire, I was happy to find you here :^) Your comments in Olivier's original thread were exciting! As for the meet-ups, just reading the stuff you've written is enough to make me get on the next plane to France to close the geography gap ;^)

Lauren Mann Thepot said:

I have family recipes and French delights en masse that I will sort through. Just tell where to stick them!

I opened up a workspace where we can share our recipes, stories and pictures:

http://www.omidyar.net/group/goodfactory/ws/cookbook/

Just start a new page in the workspace for each recipe, and when you've saved it, be sure to link to it back on the main cookbook index page. If you have trouble learning the ropes, give me a shout, and I'll help you out.

>>Thanks so much for pointing this out.<<

You're welcome Sue, glad to hear you liked it.

In many ways all my projects: auction4good, Spread the Good, the Giving Project, and Stone Soup Days are all interconnected in ways too much to go into right now. There's about 6 more that are add-ons big projects too, that in the long run will build a social purpose enterprise unlike anything I've seen date.

Right now I'm just focusing on executing the first three :-)

Thnx

<M>

Mark, could you link to these? They're all excellent examples of infectious good!

Another thought: sometimes the foods we come to love to share don't necessarily have a family history attached, but rather new "rituals" we've built around the way we share them with friends. Please don't limit yourselves to things that have passed down. Making new memories is a great thing too!