as you can see I have always liked food and how it tasted. As I grew up I was particularly fascinated by the culture and history surrounding it.

As I got older it became more important because of the ways that it builds community. So much so, in fact, I'm excited to embark on a career as a chef.

In this project I developed recipes through research and testing. 

what I wanted to do not for flavor but for the community surrounding it

about the author

This project took all all the skills I spent learning on my quest to one day be a real chef

American households

on average American households throw out 40 million tons of food waste every year you might think that all that is simply the inedible bits of food but you would be surprised tons of perfectly edible food ends up in landfills so how does this happen its very simple...

Corporate greed

...America is dominated by chain grocery stores who sell the majority of our food and simply put the more food you throw out the more money they make to this end they have two main weapons.

First, "best by" dates everyone knows them but, fun fact: those are not regulated meaning they can set the date to any number they want getting you to toss good food out!

Second, those misters that spray over the. vegetables making them look all shiny and tasty actually ruin the produce making them rot faster by introducing unneeded moisture.

1. chain grocery stores

1. "best by" dates

1. Produce in grocery stores

The first idea

American home cooks are in the trenches when it comes to cooking. Food keeps getting more and more expensive and it feels like it goes bad even faster. Preservation is an art mostly lost here in the states. Most of the preserved food we eat like jams and pickles are cheaper to make ourselves and can last ages stretching food for longer periods creating less of a need to buy. Sounds perfect. But when I started looking for good recipes I ran into a big problem

To much stuff

it is hard to find good recipes maybe you own a few cookbooks but you probably get a lot of your recipes online. Either from a place like the New York Times or maybe you just google good dinner recipes and hope for the best. Either way it can be very hit or miss. You might find a great recipe you use everyday or you waste half the stuff in your kitchen on a barely edible mess. The best way to find recipes is to get them from other people maybe your great grandma passed down her awesome chicken soup. So even if you want to try preservation where do you find the recipes?

1. recipe websites

1. overabundance

1. cooking

1. recipes

The solution

The process of sharing recipes online has essentially transformed the way that Americans share recipes for the better and arguably for the worse. The sense of community through sharing has become more rare.

this project is a cookbook designed to help reduce food waste by making preservation more accessible while also bringing back community by being easy to add to make more of and share.

Design objectives

I wanted this cookbook to be

[include example page here]

2. easy to read

1. easy to add to and change

3. filled with tips from people who made the recipe in the past

Research

Budgeting

yippee.

Recipe testing

Recipe selection:

Some were based on some of my favorites that I wanted to document and include

Others I was excited to push myself to tackle new types of cuisine and document the results

Process:

Moments of learning/challenge:

Some mis-steps:

Grape jam didn't gel properly

Unreliable stove-tops changed the cook time!

Forgot the grape leaves for the cucumbers (lacked the tannins!)

Included these in the book to help others avoid the same mistakes!

The Mistakes

first the grape jam didn't reach the right texture. the burner I was working on took took long to reach boiling making the jam to loose

while I was putting together the dill pickles I completely forgot to put the grape leaves in the jar with the rest of the spices and I didn't notice until after I sealed the jar

recipe 2 screenshot

recipe 3 screenshot

Photo of all

Reflections

1. Respecting the kitchen

1. how to stop wasting food

1. how will I continue this project

What next

at my booth I will have samples of some of my recipes that you can snack on while you look at all of our fantastic presentations

thank you