A Couple's Cookbook: The Solution To Your Wedding-gift Woes

Wedding season is here – I’ve already been to two, and it’s only early May. Bridal registries usually offer plenty of gift choices for foodie couples and the foodies who love them (though we may turn our noses up at their brand of knife set or their decision to put a George Foreman instead of a food processor on their wish list).

But sometimes a deep fat fryer or an overpriced blender strike you as too impersonal a gift for a close friend. That’s how I felt when I perused the registry of Rachel, my best friend from high school, who is getting married on Saturday. I racked my brains for an idea she would love, something I would enjoy giving her which would fall within my meager budget. The choice was clear: I would make her Cooking As A Couple, a homemade wedding cookbook for her and her husband.

This cookbook can take your friends through their first year as a couple, providing recipes for dinner parties, anniversary meals, holidays (their first Thanksgiving is an important one), and less momentous occasions like having-the-in-laws-over-for-the-first-time, or quick dinners for busy nights.

Every couple has to cook, and producing something homemade and personal will make this gift special. But it’s not the easiest project in the world, so here’s some advice from someone who’s been through the process.

1). Homemade doesn’t equal free: There are a lot of different styles you can use to create the hard copy of your cookbook. I did the recipes on the computer, but I designed the book as a scrapbook, gluing in pictures, stickers and other accents to give it a more colorful, homey presentation. But as someone who doesn’t normally spend her weekends scrap-booking, I had no idea how much those little scrapbook supplies cost at Michael’s—between albums, pages, and accessories, it cost me about $60. Plan to shop carefully or shell out some dough—or decide to go with a more bare bones presentation.

2) Make it personal. Try to make your cookbook as individualized as possible. For example, I know Rachel hates broccoli, so I’m not going to include a recipe for broccoli cheese soup in the book. She and her fiancé like hosting gatherings for their friends from their church, so I’ve got a section called "church gatherings". They love Indian food, so their anniversary dinner is an Indian feast. Rather than recipes for a Superbowl party, I have recipes for a Purdue Party, since that’s the team they root for. The more it seems specially designed for them, they more they’ll appreciate it.

3) Play to your strengths, and use your resources. I went through my recipes and figured out the best ones to share before I outlined the cookbook itself. I noticed I had a lot of chicken soup recipes, as well as many Mexican food options – those turned into sections for Cinco de Mayo parties, and tips for nursing your spouse back to health. If you’re a cook who loves making Italian sauces, have a section of weekend projects they can do together, and include the sauce recipes there.

Also, don’t be afraid to share recipes from other cooks you know (ZAF’s recipe for compound butter made an appearance in mine), from books you have, or even from the Food Network – this book isn’t being published, so plagiarism is more than acceptable. Plus, it’s a lot easier to cut-and-past Rachel Ray’s recipe for Curry Turkey Burgers than write out all the steps you take to make your grandmother’s puttanesca sauce. Provide a nice mix of personal and borrowed recipes, and just make sure these are all dishes you’ve cooked with success.

4) Leave yourself plenty of time: A homemade cookbook is not a project to embark upon a week before the rehearsal dinner. I gave myself about two months to complete mine, and I’m still finishing up. Allow yourself a day to choose your recipes, time to design your cookbook’s content and style, quite a few nights to type up all your recipes, a day to go shopping for supplies, and some final days to put everything together.

Sound like too much work? Here are some other food-related wedding gift ideas:

*Find out where they’re going on their honeymoon. Research the restaurants there, and treat them to a gift certificate to a fancy, expensive restaurant there – complete with reservations.

*Get them a make-your-own recipe file, and stick in a couple of your favorite recipes as a starting gift. Include a subscription to Gourmet or Cooking Light magazine.

*Sign them up for a cooking class they can take together, from sushi-making to pastry design.

*Pay for them to go on a wine-tasting excursion together.

*Food-of-the-month club memberships. I find these a little overpriced, but whether cheeses or chocolates are their favorite temptation, this is a gift that lasts all year. Or you can go regional and send them some crabs from Baltimore, or some lobsters from Maine.

*Hire them a personal chef for a day – a good option for couples who are homebodies and not as interested in going out to a restaurant.