In partnership with the City of Bellaire, the Bellaire Culture and Arts Board is creating a community cookbook – and needs YOUR recipes! The cookbook will feature favorite recipes from the community and stories surrounding these recipes. The Culture and Arts Board found inspiration from the Bellaire’s Own Historical Cookbook produced by the Bellaire Women’s Civic Club in 1969 to commemorate Bellaire’s 50th Anniversary. That cookbook contained recipes, personal stories and historical facts about Bellaire beginning with the early settlers.
Board Chair Gay Mayeux noted, “Reading the cookbook felt like we were opening a time capsule and gave us a sense of what it must have been like to live in Bellaire over 100 years ago. We are excited to build on this history and to collaborate with the community to produce a cookbook to serve as a culinary history of our community, represented by meals and traditions that nurture those who live here. This new cookbook seeks to celebrate the cultural traditions and meals enjoyed by community members and to connect neighbors through the sharing of meals and stories. “
The board is seeking community contributors for the project and has created a website titled BellaireCookbook.com with an online submission portal where neighbors may submit original recipes, photos, stories, and cultural culinary traditions. Younger community members will have a chance to participate as well, as the cookbook will have a section for the kiddo culinary wizards around us.
For those wishing instead to submit a hard copy of recipes and photos, those may be submitted to the Bellaire Cookbook submission box at the Bellaire Library. Recipes and stories will be curated in an all-new cookbook that will be on sale to the public in Spring 2025. Recipe submissions will be accepted through December 2024. For more information about the cookbook or guidelines for submitting a recipe, please contact Kristi Coffey at kristileigh1979@gmail.com.
