I have 2 very exciting pieces of news today! The first one I am sure you have already realised, since you have found your way here, but I will tell you anyway because I just can’t help myself. We have a new website! Welcome to the new ‘My Family Kitchen’.

You will find that all the recipes from the original MFK page are here already and you can either view them on the main blog page or by searching in the search tool on the right hand toolbar or heading to the recipes page where they are catalogued by category. There is also now a MFK facebook page where you can get updates from the blog direct to your newsfeed just by hitting ‘like’. Yay! I told you it was all very exciting!

Ok, so on to the second piece of news. A week or so ago a very special package was left for me at my parents’ farm.  This package contained 4 cookbooks which had once belonged to my Great Grandmother, Martz. I was blown away. These books are so old (1928!) and contain so much history. In addition to having over 2,200 recipes, there are also household hints (such as recipes for axle grease and homemade whitewash for the shed), instructions for crocheting doilies and ads for all manner of products from the era. I plan on sharing these other aspects of the books as well as the recipes, so keep an eye out for a new series, starting very soon!

With this newest discovery, the My Family Kitchen mission has expanded. I have a much wider range of recipes to work with now and you will start to see a lot of different cooking. I also have new aims for this blog now, I am hoping it will be able to be expanded further in the future to include recipes from other parts of my family, and when I am able to get my hands on more recipes, I will be sure to let you all know!  Head over to the About page for some more history and info on how this blog came about.

The biggest (in terms of recipe numbers) of the books from Martz is ‘The Schauer Australian Cookery Book’. This book was written by Amy Schauer (1871-1956). After graduating from Technical College, where she focused on domestic science (cooking, needlework and other household skills), Amy went on to teach these skills at the Brisbane (Central) Technical College, Nambour Rural School and also at the Mater Hospital and Australian Army Medical Corps, where she ran invalid cooking classes (cooking for the sick). She produced a number of cookbooks, including this one and they were extremely popular, especially in Queensland. This cookbook is the second edition that was published as an Australian wide book. In previous editions they specifically focused on Queensland. (Info sourced from The Australian Dictionary of Biography)