Queens Memory Cookbook Events

Queens Public Library’s Queens Memory Project has launched the Queens Memory Cookbook, a new storytelling and archiving series with the Ridgewood (20-12 Madison Street) and St. Albans (191-05 Linden Boulevard) libraries. We invite anyone who lives, cooks, visits, or dines in these neighborhoods to be part of this exciting project!

Participants can join programs in-person or virtually to contribute recipes, stories, photos, and recipe cards. Contributions will be included in new volumes of the Queens Memory Cookbook, which will be published, printed, and shared with participants later this year.

To participate, join us on Zoom for monthly sessions led by the Life Story Club, which creates virtual social clubs for adults to share stories and build community. Each month the group will gather and share recipes around the following themes:

  • January: Community
  • February: Celebrations and Festive Events
  • March: Recreating Dishes from Memory
  • April: Holidays and Traditions
  • May: Childhood
  • June: Family Legacies

The first volume of the Queens Memory Cookbook was published in Summer 2022 following a series of programs led by Queens Memory Project and Life Story Club with the support of QPL’s Older Adult Services Program. Participants shared inherited recipes, along with new dishes they have created and perfected on their own. The stories and dishes shared in the cookbook’s stories bring food traditions from China, Ukraine, Ghana, Sicily, Jamaica, and Germany, and across the northeast and midwest United States. You can request to borrow one of QPL’s print copies here or view the full digital cookbook here.

Queens Memory Cookbook with Life Story Club (Virtual)

Each month, we will explore a different way that our memories are simmered, baked, and pickled into our favorite foods. Meet your neighbors, learn more about the traditions and recipes important to them, and share stories of your own. At the end of our series, we will publish a community cookbook that will feature recipes, memories, and photos from across neighborhoods.

Ridgewood
Register here.
Thursday, June 8
3pm

St. Albans & Addisleigh Park
Register here.
Thursday, June 22
3pm

Add Your Recipe to the Queens Memory Cookbook (In-Person)

Join us and add your recipes to the Queens Memory Cookbook, a new book project that will feature recipes, memories, and photos. The Queens Memory team will be available at St. Albans library to help scan photos and recipe cards and record stories about the recipes you’d like to add to the cookbook. Every participant will receive a printed copy of the cookbook later this year. Register here.

Monday, June 12
11am-1pm
St. Albans
191-05 Linden Boulevard