Sketching My Cookbook, One Recipe at a Time
How I combined my love for cooking and art to create something special
Bringing My Cookbook to Life Through Art
I’ve always believed that food is more than just something we eat, it’s a story. A single dish can carry memories, traditions, and a sense of home and community. That idea is what led me to start illustrating my own recipes last year, turning them into something more than just instructions on a page. What began as simple sketches of ingredients and step-by-step doodles quickly grew into something bigger: a cookbook, and a family heirloom, in the making.
How It Started
It all began with my sketchbook. Drawing ingredients, mapping out recipes, and sharing them online. I wanted to make cooking feel more accessible, especially for those who find traditional cookbooks and their text-heavy ingredient lists overwhelming.
As I posted more, my illustrated recipes resonated with people, amassing tens of millions of views across Instagram and TikTok. It was incredible to see how much people connected with them. Not just because they enjoyed the artwork, but because they saw their own family traditions reflected in them.
Even more exciting was watching others get inspired to create their own illustrated cookbooks, preserving their own family recipes in a way that felt personal and meaningful. It’s been so special to see this come to life not just online, but also in person at my Cookbook Craft Club events, where people gather to illustrate their own recipes and share their food memories.
A Lifelong Love for Drawing
Before I ever thought about illustrating recipes, I was always drawing. Notebooks, napkins, the Sunday newspaper, the margins of my homework - even bananas (they make surprisingly fun canvases). I never really thought much about it, but looking back, it makes sense that my love for food and art eventually merged.
There’s something special about seeing a recipe come together visually. A drawing can capture the golden edges of fried eggplant, the shine of a ripe tomato, the translucent paper skin of a garlic, or the perfect twirl of spaghetti around a fork. It’s a way of celebrating food beyond just eating it, honoring its beauty, its texture, and the feelings it evokes.
The Recipes That Made Me
Many of the recipes in this book come from my family - my Mum and Pa, and my Nonna and Nonno - but just as many are my own creations, inspired by my favorite ingredients, techniques, and flavors.
I grew up watching my family cook, picking up their little tricks and absorbing their love for food, whether it was my Pa making Spaghetti Aglio e Olio at 2 a.m. on New Year’s night or helping my Mum cook giant pots of pasta for her to serve at the Italian tent at the school fair.
One of the most cherished things my Mum left for my siblings and me is her 50-year-old cookbook, filled with handwritten recipes and notes in the margins. It’s more than just a book, it’s a piece of her and something we can turn to whenever we want to feel close to her. I hope that one day, my illustrated cookbook does the same for my future children.
Where It’s Going
I’m still working on finishing this cookbook, with the dream of publishing it one day. It will first and foremost be a collection of recipes, but I also want it to be a book that sits on your kitchen counter or coffee table, gets splattered with sauce, and becomes something you pass down. Whether you cook from it or just flip through the pages for inspiration, I hope it brings you as much joy as it’s brought me creating it.
If you’d like to follow along on my cookbook journey, you can find me on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and Substack, where I share new recipes, behind-the-scenes sketches, drawing tutorials, and updates on the book.
I’d love to hear: do you have a family recipe or a dish that holds a special place in your heart? Share it in the comments!
are you planning on selling your cookbook? :)
Obsessed with this! Your drawings are gorgeous!