Hella Buchheim was recounting a story about sledding as a kid when she decided she’d make crepes just like the ones her grandmother made for her when she came in from the cold. Trouble was, she didn’t have her grandmother’s recipe—and couldn’t find anything like it in cookbooks or on line or in family members’ recipe collections.
She lamented the lost crepes. But then Buchheim, a Hopkins-based personal historian who documents people’s life stories, started a new line of business.
Buchheim is coaching others not to let heirloom recipes slip away. At platefullofmemories.com, she offers a CD-ROM of the same name ($27.45) that goes beyond providing recipe templates to function as a how-to guide for compiling a family cookbook: task lists, timetables, and tips that otherwise come from hindsight: “When you’re testing and tasting [recipes], that’s the perfect time to take photographs of your stuff.”
Buchheim’s guide also has advice on gathering the family stories that make family recipes so cherished. She offers other helps, too: a newsletter and classes.
