The Blueberry Book

I like to have friends over for meals at our home. Breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner... whatever. And of course I have a few of my good 'ol reliable recipes that I repeat a lot. I got to a point a few years ago that I wondered if I duplicated meals or desserts when I had the same friend over twice. How embarrassing to have a friend over for lunch twice in a year and serve the same meal both times. Maybe she wouldn't remember, but maybe she would. And really, it doesn't matter, I guess,  but I wanted to solve my problem. So I began to use The Blueberry Book. Amusingly, I have called it "The Blueberry Book" for about 3 years, and when I took a photo to share with you, I realized that they are actually blackberries. But I think I will still call it "The Blueberry Book" since that's been its name for this long!

The Blueberry Book is a hardcover book that was designed to be a journal, I think, and was one of the multiple journals I received after graduating from grad school. I wasn't using it as a journal, but it was so cute, and I decided to use it to start keeping track of what I cook for different guests.

On each page I write the date and the name of the guests and what we ate. I also write down what they brought (if I had asked them to bring something for the meal). I find it helpful to jot down any food allergies or food aversions, which can come in handy for future reference.   With so many people having gluten-free diets, vegetarian diets, or food allergies, it is helpful to keep notes. Sometimes during the meal I find out favorite foods of guests and I'll write those down at the end of the evening as well.  One time, I found out through random discussion over dinner that a new friend loved carrot cake. Several months later we had those friends over again and I made carrot cake as a dessert, based on the note I had recorded. The friend said, "Carrot cake is my favorite!" I probably wouldn't have remembered that without the note written in my Blueberry Book!

When I have parties, I also record details in the book: the date, names of people who attended, types of food served and amounts of food that was adequate for the amount of people. I also note if there was a particular food that was really popular or not so popular to help in planning for future parties.

I store my Blueberry Book on the shelf with the cookbooks. That way I always know where it is and can reference it easily. Any old notebook will do, but a cute journal-type book makes it more fun. Women keep up with a lot of details in our lives and the lives of our families--and  I think everyone needs a Blueberry Book of her own to keep up with the details related to hospitality. What do you think?