151 The Heirloom Project with Sri Bodanapu with Sri Bodanapu

Sri Bodanapu owner of Heirloom Project custom family cookbooks poses with one of her products

Introduction

For so many of you who listen to this podcast, recipes are among your family’s greatest treasures. You cherish these recipes because they connect you to your ancestors and the sacrifices they made, to your homeland and its beauty that cannot quite be matched, and your family’s resilience through change, struggle, often even tragedy.

Sri Bodanapu loves her grandmother’s recipes for all this - and for the fact, of course, that they are delicious; the best food she’s ever eaten. When her uncle challenged her to transform the hundred page Word document that sat on his computer and her family’s inboxes into a real, bona fide, honest to goodness, hardback cookbook, she began a journey to creating a one-of-a-kind business that checks all the boxes for our needs.

Sri’s company, Heirloom Project, offers two paths to creating cookbooks that are professional, elevated, beautifully-designed, and made of the highest quality materials - all while remaining amazingly affordable. As she says, belongs on a shelf (or on your coffee table) besides the greatest cookbook authors out there.

There is no minimum OR maximum on the number of contributors that can collaborate on each book and the copies you can print. So you can use Heirloom to crowdsource a cookbook from your extended family, your church, or civic group. If you have a marketing channel, you can create a cookbook to sell.

In this episode, Sri shares with us all the tips and tricks to make her grandmother’s Lamb Biryani and the story of becoming the woman who was both motivated and equipped to begin this remarkable business. One note - this is a sponsored episode, but only because I believe completely in Sri’s mission, the quality of her books, and that this service is exactly what many of us have been looking for. Congratulations to Sri for creating something we all need - and thank you, reader, so, so much for being here.

sample cookbook from Heirloom Project displayed on silver tray with ranunculus — Through Heirloom Project's proprietary software, you can create a family cookbook as beautiful and professional as Sri's.

Highlights

Biryani

What makes a biryani?
Tips to cooking a perfect biryani
Basmati vs. Jasmine rice & how to cook
A biryani leaf!!! - did you know it existed?
The critical "dum" - sealing the biryani pot with roti (and what to substitute in the U.S.)
how to control the spice - start with the lamb and adjust from there instead of cooking all at once
Biryani as a Persian dish and Sri's home city of Hajerbad

Sri's Story

Sri's grandmother, who developed this biryani recipe
Memories of chopping the vegetables with
Sous chefs for families & the huge job of daily cooking for large families: Support systems in India
"Cooking is so simplified in the US" vs. in India
Culture, agriculture, and markets in Sri's city
Sri's career trajectory and when she turned to a career in food
The breadth of Sri's experience in the food industry
Food career not being taken seriously
Expectations on Indian women: changes over generations
When Sri chose to write a family cookbook - and how it related to the birth of her first son
Her uncle's massive word document of all her grandmother's recipes
Sri's process of writing a cookbook: 25 recipes in 31 days

Heirloom Project and Custom Family Cookbooks

Creating an "aspirational" cookbook - one that will make your children proud of their heritage
The importance of aesthetics and high quality materials in showing respect
Telling the stories of immigrants and refugees not only for families but for the rest of us as well
Recipes = resilience
Cookbook design process: self-design vs. Full Service
Heirloom's ideal client
The incredible (exciting!) affordability of Sri's cookbooks
How to write a cookbook with multiple contributors