The Urban Family Recipe Collection began its life in a three-ring yellow binder. Originally organized as a Christmas gift by Joy Urban, she made copies for members of her extended family. This includes her parents, Esther and Donald Urban, her brother Dave Urban and his wife, Laura Urban, and their children and their partners: Kristine and Kurt Makiewicz, Leslie Urban, Greg Urban and Josh Clary, and Emy Urban and Katie Mikulka. These binders initially served as a way to preserve beloved family recipes for family members to reference and recreate. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the Urban family turned to technologies like Zoom and Marco Polo to stay connected and share updates. Conversations often turned to cooking and food, a way of virtually sharing nourishment and finding community across Washington, California, Illinois, Maryland, and Massachusetts. New additions to the famous yellow binders were made in late 2020 to capture many of the recipes shared throughout the year.
The Urban Family Recipe Collection is a digital repository that collects many of these recipes. Organized by a variety of means, including a recipe’s creator, main ingredient, seasonality of ingredients, cooking method, or meal type, there are many ways to locate a desired recipe. The boxes on the homepage allow for searching by many of these dimensions, while the “Subjects” link in the top navigation bar provides a word cloud display of main ingredients. Once found, recipes can easily be printed or downloaded as a PDF for ease of reference or annotation. This collection will hopefully continue to grow as new recipes are developed.
Happy Cooking!