Holly’s Favorite Recipes

After a catastrophic fire at their historic schoolhouse and community center, the community of Holly, Washington was reeling. Local resident Paige Stockley approached me about producing a complete compendium of Holly recipes, drawing from the three historic community cookbooks from 1973, 1977, and 1990, plus new recipes from today’s Holly residents.

The project grew from a simple reproduction to a passionate compilation of the community’s personal histories, photos, and family recipes. Proceeds from the sale of the cookbooks goes to support the rebuild fund.

Collecting the history

I started by collecting items from the community club, including historic photos of the town’s original families (many of which were lost in the fire), personal histories, stories, recipes, and the three community cookbooks. The objective was to bring to life artifacts passed down for generations, and to preserve those that were lost.

Preparation and Design

I scanned each page of all three cookbooks using a high-resolution flatbed scanner to capture color images of each page. Some pages were different colors, and because they were going to be reproduced in black and white, I had to normalize their contrast in Photoshop to make them readable.

I also masked each page in Photoshop to remove the black scanner background. This involved masking around the edges of the page, as well as the holes for the comb binding. We chose to leave blemishes from use, as we felt this added to the character of the cookbooks—it preserved the reality that these recipes were made by real people.

The final product

The final product is a hefty book of nearly 300 pages with a soft-touch cover, over 50 years of family recipes, and over 100 years of photos and history.

Community Debut

Nearly 100 books were sold to the community and their family members in the weeks after the design was finished. Paige hosted a book launch party attended by many Hollyites. Guests were invited to make a recipe from the book and bring it to share.