#23: Stirring Up Memories: Preserving Family History Through the Stories of Recipes

Have you ever thought about the rich history that lies within the flavors and traditions of your family recipes? I'm Melissa Ann Kitchen, your host, and in this heartwarming episode, we thoroughly explore the captivating intersection of storytelling and gastronomy. We discover the profound connection between our past and the meals that have defined family gatherings, and I even share my personal story about a cherished recipe card from my wedding.

We dive into the seven step process I walk all my students though including the joy of brainstorming and the creative process of building your recollection around a special dish, with some inspiration from my grandfather's favorite recipe. Prepare to ignite your creativity as we discuss how to connect with our authentic voices to narrate our culinary tales. The journey doesn't end there: we delve further into the narrative-building process, transforming our brainstormed ideas into engaging stories filled with emotive descriptions and insights.

Finally, we discuss the power of revision to fine-tune our narratives, ensuring they leave a lasting impression on readers. But, the excitement does not end with the podcast. In a bid to create a community of storytellers, I extend an invitation to join the Preserve Your Past Writer Stories Group on Facebook and participate in our monthly writing projects. Whether you're an aspiring writer or an expert wordsmith, this is your chance to honor and preserve your family's unique legacy for future generations through the universal language of food and stories. Get ready to stir up some memories as you whisk through your past.

Show links:
A Few of My Favorite Things: Simple Tools for Your Writing Practice

Preserve Your Past! Write Your Stories! Facebook Group

Let me help you with your recipe stories!  Check out The Family Recipe Story Writing Project by clicking here!

This group is for people who are in the process of writing their own personal stories to preserve their past for their future. It’s a place to come for story writing inspiration, weekly writing-related events and memes, and continued support from me and the other members.

Join like-minded people and get your stories down on paper for your future generations!

Transcript

Melissa: 0:01

Welcome to the Preserve your Past podcast, where we'll explore all things related to the creative process of writing your stories for future generations. I'm your host, melissa Ann Kitchum, author, teacher, speaker and coach. I believe that your personal history is a priceless gift for family, friends and generations to come, whether you consider yourself a writer or not. We are discussing the topics that help with every step of the process, like how to mine for the juiciest story ideas or how to refine them into polished final drafts you'll be proud to share. Let's face it sure, your stories can be overwhelming, but I've got you covered. We all have a lifetime of memories to share, so why not save yours to pass along? Let me help you leave your lasting legacy. Hi everybody, and welcome back to the Preserve your Past podcast, and today we're doing another YouTube version. So if you are joining us on the podcast and you want to see the topic that we're talking about today visually, join me over at the Preserve your Past YouTube channel. I'll make sure the link is mentioned at the end of this, as well as a link in our show notes for this topic today. But today we're actually going to do something a little different. I have a free Facebook group, the Preserve your Past writer stories group, where I have decided to issue monthly challenges to actually let my members have support, build a community where we're actually writing our stories as we learn about the topic. This month's challenge is going to be in the theme of Thanksgiving coming up for us in the US. I know you just celebrated in Canada, so happy Thanksgiving. But during the holiday times, no matter what holiday we're talking about, no matter which culture, there are recipes that we have that are specific to our family, to our culture, that mean a lot to us. And when I did my first in-person workshop last year, that was the topic that came up the most. When we were talking about family and family stories that was an easy one for people to get to, that they were very interested in writing about. I got a lot of positive feedback on that topic. So I thought for the month of November it would be really fun to walk through what that looks like in our Facebook group. So the Facebook group again is Preserve your Past write your stories.

Melissa: 2:48

If you go to Melissa Loves History on Facebook you will see some links to be able to join the Facebook group. I will put the link to the group in the show notes also, so that if you are in Facebook, you can use that link. We'll ask you a few questions, we'll accept you in and even though I am doing this in November of 2023, the group is an ongoing group, so even if you're listening to this at a later time, you might be in the middle of a different challenge that we're working on, but I would love for you to join, so I will definitely put the link to the group in the chat. I'm going to go and show a little bit about what that looks like so that we can talk about what the challenge is, and I'm actually going to walk you through today how I would go through my seven step process for my recipe and what that would look like for me when I'm writing my stories. So I thought this is a great way to integrate an actual writing topic that we will be working on in that group and take you all as podcast listeners and as my YouTube watchers, through that process, and then you, too, can see how what it looks like to go through some of the steps that I share. So I'm going to take you in behind the scenes to the group and just show you what the challenge is and a little bit about that. So let me go and let me share my screen. Okay, we're going to go over to and you can see, now that we I have here my post.

Melissa: 4:26

That was my announcement to my group. Basically, I'm saying hey, everybody here are. Here is our November topic that we're going to be doing. So my questions for this monthly writing challenge where do you have a special family recipe with stories behind them, recipe or recipes? And I wanted to prompt like is it something that your grandmother made, something that you have each holiday, something you remember making with someone when you were little?

Melissa: 4:55

So, in honor of the upcoming Thanksgiving, the November writing challenge was announced and I'm asking everyone in the group to choose a recipe, share it with the group with the hashtag family recipe and then I will be guiding through the rest of the process of writing a powerful personal story around that recipe. So we're going to be walking through all the writing steps that I use in my courses, in my groups, and you get that support live in the Facebook group. So these are things that I teach in my workshops, that I teach to my coaching clients, that I'm going to be sharing and walking through on this topic in my Facebook community, which is a free community. Let me show you how easy it is to get started with just one recipe, and then you can write as many as you'd like and maybe a whole book. So go ahead, get started, choose a recipe and posted in the group with hashtag recipe and then we'll be sharing the next steps. So that is the call to action to my group. Again, if you want to join us, whether it's November 2023 or you are listening to this in the future come over for the fun.

Melissa: 6:00

So this challenge was issued and, as you can see here for those of you who are watching on YouTube, I will describe it for those of you who not, I shared an actual recipe card that my aunt Heidi had actually written out for her daughter and probably shared it with me on my wedding, because I do have recipes. That was one of my gifts from her was family recipes, which I love to have this in her handwriting. I have my Bubba's recipes in her handwriting. I have my mother's recipes in her handwriting. I have some of my grandmothers in her handwriting.

Melissa: 6:33

So this one is an interesting one and I picked it because it's a little different. It's not the women in the family writing down the recipe. Actually it is a recipe that she wrote down, but it's a recipe that actually links to a memory of my grandfather and she wrote in here widespread cheese dip, and it says one of grandfather's favorites. Now, for those of you watching, she did not misspell grandfather, that was our name for my grandfather. Grant is a name that goes through several generations in my family and my son actually has that as his middle name one of my sons. So Grant father was what we called him, and this is a doubled recipe, so it goes through for again those of you who can't see 16 ounces of widespread cheese, room temp, six hard boiled eggs, four teaspoons of mayonnaise, four tablespoons of butter, one jar of minced pimentos, two teaspoons of minced onion.

Melissa: 7:33

And then the next part is that you mash the butter and the mayo into the cheese. You mash the egg whites with a fork on a plate, you mix together with the cheese mixture and then you mash the yolks and sprinkle them over the top and chill. Then it says the best cracker to use for this dipping is the Kebler Townhouse. Now I giggled when I read this to you all, because there is a word that gets used in this recipe a lot, and that is mash.

Melissa: 8:03

So as we go through and I walk you through the writing steps, we'll take a look at this recipe and I'll share how we can share the story behind it. So I'm actually going to be taking you now for a moment out of the Facebook group and into a training that we actually did on a previous podcast, using my powerful personal story pillars. And these are the steps that I teach. I'm going to share the screening in with you, the steps that I teach when I teach my writers, the whole process that I bring the workshops through, the whole process I bring my coaching clients through, and these are seven powerful personal story starter steps. So this was from the presentation I did when we did this, for just learning about the steps, but today I wanted to go through the steps with this recipe as the challenge.

Melissa: 9:02

So the first step that we have here is called setting the stage, and in the first step of setting the stage, there's three parts to it. No matter what your story is, I really advise and encourage you to use all three steps before you even get started writing. So let's go through and look at what those are. So for setting the stage, there's a part A, a part B and a part C. Part A the first piece of setting the stage, is gathering your writing materials. So for those of you who are on the call and I'm not on the call but seeing this on YouTube, I'm just showing I have a journal, a book that I have been writing stories daily for my boys. So I often put first drafts of things in here too, and we'll do it in a more conversational mode and then take it over if it's something that's going to be a longer process.

Melissa: 9:59

I have a favorite pen. I'll actually link to these. I get these on Amazon, the Uniball Signo. I love how it just flows and it's just, it's my favorite. So I do some favorite materials that I share in one of my freebies when it comes to this. So I'll put the link to that, because that's all about a few of my favorite things when it comes to this step of gathering materials and setting up your environment. So that link will go here too. But I pull all your materials. I suggest for this one instead of just one recipe when you go to get started, have a couple with you because as you go through the process, you might like be pulled to another story. As you're writing about that one recipe, something else might come to mind, that you feel more creative and is more that you're ready and present to write now. So when you gather your materials, whatever you're going to be writing about, if you have photographs to go with it, if you have the recipe cards, if you have any kind of materials, objects that are from that past are going to be part of your story gather those two. Then I want you to and be set up your environment for success and, as I mentioned, I do have a free resource for this. I'll link to it in the show notes.

Melissa: 11:16

That is all about your materials and setting up your environment, and environment for me is a very, very important part of my creative process. I know that if I don't have the right environment, either I'm overwhelmed, I'm not focused, I might feel distracted, I might feel rushed or I don't know anxious about it. I want it to feel special, I want it to feel nurturing, I want it to feel nourishing and, depending on how long you're planning on writing, if you're planning like a mini retreat you want to make sure you're nourished, even with water and my water or tea and snacks so that you can just focus, get your writing done when you're in that flow. Right, you don't want to have to be getting up and being interrupted while you're in the flow, and that's a big part for me of getting more writing down. So I want you to set your environment up for success by pulling in all those things. I like my fairy lights that you can see behind me. I like lighting a candle. I often have music going on behind me. That's a relaxing flow. I'll usually shift what it is. I use Spotify. So I do have a few favorites that I use when I'm doing my writing. So, thinking about temperature seat, I even have like really good support on my seat so that when I'm working on my projects I can be here for a while and not kill myself. I have a blanket because this room gets cold. So I do set myself up for the environment to support me in my writing and support my creativity. So that's number two.

Melissa: 13:03

Part B, I should say, of stage one is setting up my environment for success. The next part of setting the stage is determining your who and your why. So if you've read my book or you've taken any of my classes, even in a previous podcast. We talked about the importance of this a lot and that is, first of all, determining who your audience is going to be like. Who are you writing to? The who is so that you know the language you're going to be using. You can focus and be really connected with your audience, so that you're connecting through your writing. Once you have a person or people in mind, your writing can be even more real and more specific and more connected to that person.

Melissa: 13:54

Determining your who could mean your audience, should mean your audience. It might also mean, if there's a who in your story, that you're really deciding, like thinking about your who, and we'll talk about that in the next stage. Also. Then your why. What's the point of this project? What's the point of you all over sharing your stories? I share my why a lot. I share that I lost my parents when I was younger and I didn't have a lot of stories in their words and I didn't want that to happen to my boys. But I also want to share my parents and my grandparents with my boys because they didn't know them. My why is pretty straightforward.

Melissa: 14:35

Now, specific to this recipe there's a lot of reasons why I want this recipe to be shared. Maybe my who on this is my boys. It could also be other family members. I could decide that I want to write this for my other cousins or for my siblings, but also for my boys, that they know my grandfather. Thinking about your who and your why, it's really going to determine what you share in your story the details, the language. Lots of important pieces of how your project turns out will be determined by knowing your who and your why. That's step one setting the stage. Let's look at step two I talked about even on step one. I talked about in regards to this recipe, because that's what we're looking at this with. Setting the stage with the recipe story means that I have my recipe, I have my writing materials, I've created an environment where I won't be distracted and I know who I'm writing it for and why. I want my boys to know specifically in this, why is my grandfather and the who would be my boys, or even sharing it again with my cousins who would have these similar memories.

Melissa: 17:48

The next part that we're going to go through now thinking of our recipe story is connecting and grounding. There's three parts to how we connect and ground, and this is one of those steps that I think is a little different than a traditional writing process or when you see steps to the writing workshop. This one's a bit unique because part of what we're writing about are things that we have a heart connection to, things that are in our past, or people that are in our past or people that are in our present, and they're very personal. When I talk about connecting and grounding, there's three pieces. I want you to take time to connect and ground to your past in relation to your project. We'll go through what that looks like for me when I look at the recipe card. The next part of connecting and grounding is to your creativity. So just connecting, grounding, knowing I love my writing, I'm going to let my words flow, I want to use the most creative processes as available. Like I want to connect, I want to be grounded and present for that creativity. And then the next piece is your voice really being connected to your authentic voice and letting that flow when you tell your story. So those are the three parts In relation to my recipe.

Melissa: 19:17

The first piece of connecting to my past means that I really want to think about my grandfather and that recipe, and so for me it would be really taking time to close my eyes to connect to him. Maybe I'm even having a conversation with him in my mind, maybe I'm asking him for what he would want to share, like connecting to his spirit, connecting to his personality, connecting to him through my heart of my memories of him, really picturing him visually, his energy and just that particular recipe, all the memories I have of that particular recipe. So I'm picturing him at the table and I'm picturing him and remember the word that kept showing up in the recipe was mash. And I think it's funny because I picture my grandfather sitting at the kitchen table and he usually had like white t-shirt was going to be his shirt that would go under his dress shirt when we were eating dinner if it was going to be a more formal dinner, but he was a pharmacist. So it's funny because when I picture him making this dip, I picture him almost like the mad scientist or the pharmacist mashing together the things, but he would sit at the table and this was like Down to business, making this dip. And so now I can see the mash, the mash, the mash, the mash, like I picture him mashing the eggs and chopping and, honestly, my memory of this, when I look at it, is he didn't follow the right, like he didn't have a recipe in front of him.

Melissa: 21:00

And I'm closing my eyes, I'm realizing, as I'm talking about this piece of of connecting to the past, but he did not have a recipe that he used. Obviously there was a recipe and he did it the same way each time, but it looked like he was just pulling stuff out of the fridge and mashing it. And now I know why because he really he really kind of was and he'd be super focused at mashing and sometimes we'd be able to help, like he'd give us something to mash for him. I remember that too, but it always came out delicious. But I always was a little apprehensive because, honestly, as a little kid, I thought he was making it up. I thought he was pulling like the old things out of the fridge, so so it's no wonder that I have this like strong Visual and sensory memory of this dip. But it was delicious and it always meant him and, honestly, I did not have the recipe for a while.

Melissa: 21:52

So when I went through and was looking for something for this project in my Facebook group, that came to me even more so than some of the recipes that I have for my mother, my grandmother Pies and cookies and things like that. So I connected and grounded, you could see. I went back, I looked at my grandfather. I could visualize I'm doing it. I thought about what the kitchen was looking like and where he sat and how I helped and really got grounded to the past. And so what I would do now is really step Into myself and start thinking about creativity, kind of reminding myself to let it flow, reminding myself that the beginning parts of writing your story is about getting all of that, those visions and memories and Little snapshots out onto paper, because we're going to craft the story from that.

Melissa: 22:47

But I want to let the creativity flow, which then also leads to see which was my voice. I want to be connected and grounded to my voice. I want to tell the story in the best way possible so that when my boys or my sister and brother or my cousins Listen to this or read this, that they hear my voice, so that they're connected to me talking about my grandfather. Right, I'll be that Intermediary, which is why when people ask me, what, where do I start with my stories? And I say start with you. We can go back and look at our ancestors that were pilgrims or you know famous people, but the the ones that we have the most detail on, or are those one and two Generations ahead of us that we had those core memories with? So start with yourself and tell those stories. So my voice for this will be important because my boys will be reading it or my family will be reading it and they'll hear the connection of me authentically talking about my grandfather, and I believe that my voice will then be very Showing of the enthusiasm, the love, the warmth which brings me back to knowing my who that I'm writing for, so that my voice in my language can be Supporting who I'm writing for, right. So that's number two. Connect and ground, and that was to your past, to your creativity and to your voice, and we looked at that in the relation to their recipe.

Melissa: 24:20

Step three is going to be brainstorming. So these are going to be Like this is the step where, for those of you who haven't done this in a really long time, haven't written like Benning school to write in a while, haven't done something that was like a creative type brainstorming Session, this is where I just want you to take time with an empty sheet and Brainstorm story ideas that meet your current purpose. So you wrote what your purpose was and you've got grounded in your person, in your memory, and so we know our purpose this time is to write about that recipe. Right, I'm going to be writing about my grandfather's recipe. My purpose is so that my boys know him and appreciate the recipe and Try the recipe right, and then have visuals for what that means, what that recipe means to my grandfather, what it means to me, those verbs of just mash, like thinking of that, that's part of like what's going to be part of the purpose of how it gets shared and passed along. So my story ideas for my current purpose, I would just be writing down on a piece of paper. We've talked about mind mapping. I probably will be doing another episode on that, where we do it visually too here on a YouTube video, because I think that one was just a podcast one. I'm describing it and I think doing it in person will probably be a good idea and, who knows, maybe that will be One of the sessions that I use, branching off from this topic of the recipes.

Melissa: 26:00

But the first part is just all the story ideas that meet my current purpose. So it would be the visual description of my grandfather at the kitchen table. What he was wearing will be needing to be in there. I can talk about Helping to do the mashing, what my grandmother's kitchen looked like, what the tablecloth looked like there's a whole nother story about her tablecloth and assigning it but when I picture him at the table for a special event like that, that would have been there. I want to get all those story ideas down so that I have the senses you know all five senses. In my story I'm I'm showing what he's doing instead of telling what he's doing. Just the word mash itself is so descriptive of what you do with those ingredients.

Melissa: 26:43

So, taking time to brainstorm, getting all of that down, because then you are going to be able to go in and take all those visions and all of that, those ideas, and pick and choose what's going to help lead you to the clear vision, Pick and choose what's going to help lead you to the clearest and strongest story for your audience. So that is part three and that is brainstorming the story ideas that meet your current purpose. Step four we are going to do an actual story map. So the first one was more of like a mind map. We were just dumping ideas. This one is going to be something that helps us plot out a story and the story elements and the structure.

Melissa: 27:28

So for this, if we're telling a linear story like a timeline story, we might want to have it be across and have step one, step two, step three, step four. That kind of goes along with sharing a recipe story. So you could have first I remember this and then he would do this and then he would do that. That might lead very well to this type of story. Then what I could do from that timeline of order, of just plotting out what the order of the recipe I could then go through and branch off of that with details of what I remember throughout that process. So maybe in the beginning it's him taking the items out of the refrigerator. What did that look like? What did it feel like? I talked about how in my mind I thought he was just picking whatever was left over and smashing it. Until I got older Then I realized there was only a few key ingredients in this dip. So like going through and mapping out Some story plots aren't gonna be as linear and so you might even just use a circle in the middle and then just scriptures going around like a spider's web more so, or like the subplots being spokes going out to other areas.

Melissa: 28:50

But that's up to you. I will be posting some more about story mapping and how that can work for you when you're thinking about your story, because a lot of people even think about like the introduction and the conclusion and then story arching and then completing at the end. So we'll get into story structure in that more formal way, but thinking about a map or something to plot out your steps of your story. That will be step number four. Step number five is where you are taking time to actually begin writing your story and there are three parts to this. You can see, if you're on the YouTube, that we can write our messy first draft where we get it all down with no filters. So this is our writing time. This is just our messy draft writing time. We are taking the plotting that we did and all of those items that we brainstormed and then kind of plotted in an order, kind of move the puzzle pieces around. Now it's time to go to pen and paper and more narrative form, start writing our story out from beginning to end, without stopping and making it perfect along the way.

Melissa: 30:17

I want you to just get the story out. This is gonna be something that will be messy because you might decide as you read it the next time to cross things out, to move pieces to the front. That's gonna be in a future step, this part. I just want you writing your messy first draft, getting the ideas down without a filter, without judgment. So for this, I would definitely be looking at my recipe, thinking about all of the things I told you about the smashing about the refrigerator, and then I would just take time to write it all down. All of it's gonna be good for me because all of it will be taking my memories and putting them out of my head. So this is where this writing time kind of comes in handy but also feels overwhelming. Is it's time for us to take? I mean, those of you who are creatives know this. We have these thoughts, we have these ideas, we have these stories In our mind. It seems like we know what we're gonna write and then, as we start writing them down, it's like it gets messy because there's so much there that we didn't realize was kind of coming out with it. So taking time to do your messy first draft For me it will be writing all of those items about my memories of my grandfather, of the recipe, and just putting it as best as I can into paragraph form, knowing that I'm gonna go back, clean it up and re readjust the order. So that is that next step. Number five is the writing time, and that's really your messy first draft.

Melissa: 31:56

The next piece is where we go to edit and revise. So revising is actually where we go back and make our writing more powerful. This is where we show description. This is where, instead of saying the ingredients I don't know where we show and we don't tell by, instead of saying someone's walking across the floor and they're loud or whatever, we show it through other things. We use clarity, we think about the meaning. Does the meaning come across? Those are the kinds of things that we are looking for when we are first doing our revision. This is where we might move paragraphs because we might want to change the order to make a better impact or have a better meaning.

Melissa: 32:44

So if I was looking at my stories, I definitely would want to go back and make sure that I was adding as much description as possible, because it's such a visual memory for me that I would really want that visual to be portrayed well, and because it's a family member that means so much, and that's my purpose. I'd also really want to make sure that there was a lot of clarity in sharing his personality, so I'd want to make sure that it wasn't just about the recipe, that it was also about my grandfather and his personality and his being. That was in that. So that would be something that I'd want to first revise on and make sure it actually worked the way I wanted it to and that it was clear. Because this is also going to be one of the times when I start doing my personal memories that are near and dear to my heart, that have so much that bring up so much right. I can get messy with them because I just there's so much to them. So I definitely will go back and revise and take things out and move things in order and clearly, more clearly, say the things I'm trying to say.

Melissa: 34:05

After, that is when you would go back and edit for punctuation or spelling and grammar. So first you really are going to be looking at revising for meaning. You might have other people read your story to see if they are understanding it the way you wanted it to be. This is another reason why, in the last podcast episode, I talked about working with groups of other writers, or working with groups in your writing and joining our Facebook group, because there is an opportunity for other people to help you with doing some quick rereading for understanding, or even assisting with some punctuation, spelling or grammar, depending on everyone's strengths, but definitely taking time.

Melissa: 34:53

This step takes a while. That revising doesn't need to be forced or rushed. It will take a little bit and it might change the story, might change several times before you find the one that feels like it's the right one. That's step six. And so now we're at the step seven, and this is the publish and share piece that I work with. When I work with my clients on different projects, we talk about this one. We go through the seven steps and kind of have a discussion first but this is one that they need to think about also at the beginning and then at the end we make those decisions. So how are we going to publish this and how will this be shared?

Melissa: 35:36

Now, when I say publish, I don't mean you are going to be putting your book on Amazon. You know your recipe on Amazon and selling it as a book. I don't mean Simon and Schuster are going to be publishing it, unless that's what you want and there are amazing ways to make memoir related cookbooks, right but what I am talking about is how do you want to publish it? Are you going to put it as just one recipe? Maybe Is it going to be a collection of recipes? Are they all around a certain theme? Are you going to photocopy the recipe and then hand write the story? Are you going to be embedding the photo of the recipe and typing out the story? How are you going to publish? Is it going to be digital? Is it going to be paper? Is it going to be book format? That's the question of that For me.

Melissa: 36:28

With this recipe, I think it would be a lot of fun to actually photocopy, embed it into a document, create my story and then pass that, along with the ingredients, to family members, which goes to the next part of how will you share. So how will you share? Is is this going to be in a book that you're going to gift someone later on? I showed you the book that I have. My journal that I write in is going to both my boys. I don't know how they're going to split it up yet, but it's my handwriting and I just wanted one place. I'm not going to be waiting double stories. Maybe they take turns, maybe they take it apart, photograph it, put it together, I don't know. But how I will share that is different than for this recipe. It would be fun to do individual.

Melissa: 37:20

If I did have a lot of recipes that I worked through that I wanted the boys to see that could go in some type of either electronic cookbook or I could do a publishing. It's really fun to look at some of those actual easy to self-publish programs and businesses where you can submit photos or words and have a booklet made of your own work, and so that's something else that could be a lot of fun. If you have several recipes, for me I think I would publish it by putting it either in my own writing under the card, because I think handwriting is just as important as a connection. When I see my mother's handwriting it's really special to me and where we're talking recipe cards, and this has my aunt's handwriting, who's no longer with us also, so that even just her recipe card has a lot of special meaning, aside from the fact that it was my grandfather's recipe. So that's kind of your end game is what are you going to do, how are you going to publish it and how will you share it? And those are some ideas to kind of talk through.

Melissa: 38:26

If I was doing the recipe, what would that look like for me? And we have guests. For those of you on YouTube, you can see we have guests agreeing and behind. So that brings us which, for those of you who are not on YouTube, my son's greyhound is in behind me readjusting. So that brings us to the final step, which is that publish and share. And I do again invite you to join me at MelissaAndKitchencom.

Melissa: 38:56

I have free resource. I'm going to actually link to the one I mentioned here, which I kind of keep as a special one, so I'm not sure you would see it when you just go to my website, so I will share the link in the show notes. But that one is a few of my favorite things and it really is a nice little resource for all the things I love when it comes to setting up my writing environment and materials and things like that. And then, for those of you on YouTube, please come see me and listen to this podcast if you're not able to see it at thepreserveyourpastpodcastcom. And for those of you who are on the podcast but want to see the visual, the, my YouTube channel is at Preserve your Past and you will be able to see this and each of the steps that I walked you through in a slide presentation. So thank you all for joining me today for this. I hope you enjoyed it. I would love, love, love, love, love, love.

Melissa: 39:58

Please, in the comments of the podcast or on my YouTube channel or on Facebook, please tell me about how you have used recipes and your stories. Let me know if you had a favorite recipe. I always love hearing from people. Feel free to email me. My email is Melissa at MelissaInKitchencom. But do you have a favorite recipe? Are you interested in joining our Facebook group for November 23? We will be working on this recipe project, but each month we will be going through the steps with another project. So that will be on Facebook. Facebook, I do have posted in my links the group. Otherwise, you can email me and I will send you that also, and that group will be linked to the show notes for the YouTube as well as for the podcast. So thank you everyone, and here's to sharing your powerful personal stories. I didn't record. Oh, thank God it didn't.