Queens Public Library’s Queens Memory Project has launched the Queens Memory Cookbook, a new storytelling and archiving series with the Ridgewood (20-12 Madison Street) and St. Albans (191-05 Linden Boulevard) libraries. We invite anyone who lives, cooks, visits, or dines in these neighborhoods to be part of this exciting project!

Participants can join programs in-person or virtually to contribute recipes, stories, photos, and recipe cards. Contributions will be included in new volumes of the Queens Memory Cookbook, which will be published, printed, and shared with participants later this year.

To participate, join us on Zoom for monthly sessions led by the Life Story Club, which creates virtual social clubs for adults to share stories and build community. Each month the group will gather and share recipes around the following themes:

• January: Community
• February: Celebrations and Festive Events
• March: Recreating Dishes from Memory
• April: Holidays and Traditions
• May: Childhood
• June: Family Legacies

Queens Memory will also offer monthly events in-person at Ridgewood and St. Albans community libraries to allow participants to record a story or get assistance scanning photos and recipe cards. Meral Agish, Queens Memory’s Community Coordinator, will be available in-person at:

• St. Albans Library on Saturday, May 6 from 2pm-4pm.
• Ridgewood Library on Thursday, May 18, 4-6pm.

The first volume of the Queens Memory Cookbook was published in Summer 2022 following a series of programs led by Queens Memory Project and Life Story Club with the support of QPL’s Older Adult Services Program. Participants shared inherited recipes, along with new dishes they have created and perfected on their own. The stories and dishes shared in the cookbook’s stories bring food traditions from China, Ukraine, Ghana, Sicily, Jamaica, and Germany, and across the northeast and midwest United States. You can request to borrow one of QPL’s print copies here or view the full digital cookbook here.

Queens Memory Cookbook with Life Story Club (Virtual)

Each month, we will explore a different way that our memories are simmered, baked, and pickled into our favorite foods. Meet your neighbors, learn more about the traditions and recipes important to them, and share stories of your own. At the end of our series, we will publish a community cookbook that will feature recipes, memories, and photos from across neighborhoods.

St. Albans & Addisleigh Park
Register here.
Thursdays, May 25; June 22
3pm

Add Your Recipe to the Queens Memory Cookbook (In-Person)

Join us and add your recipes to the Queens Memory Cookbook, a new book project that will feature recipes, memories, and photos from across Ridgewood and St. Albans and Addisleigh Park. If you cook, eat, dine, or shop in these neighborhoods, we'd love to hear your stories! The Queens Memory team will be available at the Ridgewood and St. Albans libraries to help scan photos and recipe cards and record stories about the recipes you’d like to add to the cookbook. Every participant will receive a printed copy of the cookbook later this year. Register here.

Saturday, May 6
2pm-4pm
St. Albans
191-05 Linden Boulevard

Thursday, May 18
4-6pm
Ridgewood
20-12 Madison Street

Save the date for our first ever festival!
Stories and Snacks: A Festival of Home Cooking History on Sunday, May 21, 1-4pm.

Register here.

The Queens Memory Project and the Voelker Orth House Museum are partnering for a new festival dedicated to home cooking , which will take place at the Voelker Orth Museum, located at 149-19 38th Ave, on Sunday, May 21, 1-4pm.

This inaugural festival is an immersive celebration of food and cultural memory. Activate your senses and connect to the diversity of Queens’ culinary traditions as you explore the Voelker Orth House and its Victorian garden.

Hear from experts on history and cooking, taste samples from local food vendors, and swap family stories and recipes. Learn how to preserve a record of your family’s home cooking traditions, and get creative with hands-on family workshops.

Join us to add your stories, heritage, and food traditions to the living history of Queens! Register here.

Backyard Picnic

Try samples from local artisanal producers of kimchi, pickles, kombucha, beer, and sourdough bread. Learn how you can preserve your food through live demos by experts in fermentation, pickling, and brewing. See which Queens-based food vendors will be attending the picnic.

Save My Recipe

Bring your own photos of family cookouts and holiday feasts, handwritten recipe cards, and family food mementos to scan with digital archiving experts from the Queens Memory Project. Learn preservation how-to’s in the areas of oral history and digitization. You’ll have the option to submit your newly preserved records to the forthcoming Queens Memory cookbook.

Stories From The Sofa

Join us in the living room for a line-up of expert talks and storytelling with your neighbors. Share a recipe steeped in family lore, from the tried-and-true classics to that out-of-date recipe you just can’t throw away. You’ll learn new techniques you can use at home, connect to the multicultural fabric of the city, and jump into guided conversations on celebrations, traditions, and humor.

Family Workshops

Educators and artists will lead family workshops to connect kids to cultural recipes and family tradition in hands-on activities throughout the day.

Location: Voelker Orth Museum (149-19 38th Ave)
Date and time: Sunday, May 21, 1-4pm