Our story
A book my father wrote.
For my daughter.
The original Kookbook
Dedicated to
Poppie — the cook of our family.
I grew up watching my father — Poppie — cook for our family. He’s the one who taught me. I cook his recipes for my own kids now, and they’ve started cooking them too: the same flavours, the same way, the same things he was making when I was their age.
Six years ago I moved to Jersey. My parents stayed in South Africa. The thing I didn’t realise I’d lose was just sitting around the table eating Poppie’s food. My daughter Bella missed it too. She asked her grandfather to write his recipes down for her — and he did. A paperback he made himself, called the Kookbook. That’s where this app started.
Sometimes on special days we cook the same meal, eight thousand kilometres apart, and eat together over a video call. The flavours are exactly the same.
Why this exists
Sharing food is one of the oldest things humans do. It’s how families bond, how the day winds down, how stories get told. Long before kitchens, tribes sat around a fire and passed plates around.
Modern life — most of all the phones at the table — is quietly cutting into that ritual. We sit together but look elsewhere. We eat without really eating together.
This app is a small attempt to push back: to keep your family’s recipes alive, to cook them together (even when you’re apart), and to put the phones down around something worth gathering for.
“A line from Poppie — Dylan to provide.”
— Poppie
Three generations, one kitchen
Start your family’s cookbook
Whatever your Kookbook turns out to be, this is the place to keep it.
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