We came across Nivaala's beautiful recipe journal when we were doom scrolling on Instagram - a beautiful, square handcrafted journal with minimal embossing. We wanted to buy it then and there but forgot about it. Fast forward to now, we were suddenly reminded of Nivaala, when this writer's mother asked if there was a book around for her to write some recipes down. And that's what Shruti Taneja, the founder of Nivaala, wants us to do. Write down and record these 'mothership recipes' as we call them. She tells us the inception of the recipe journal came about when she had lost her mother and realised that she hadn't learnt any family recipes or even written them down to pass it on to future generations. Nivaala is dedicated to her mother, Neena.
While we were looking at the website, we realised Nivaala now features recipe cards and an updated recipe journal. The hardbound recipe journal has a beautiful illustration of things you'd normally find in the family kitchen -- like a masala dabba, coconut scraper and salt jar -- on the front and back cover. The handcrafted journal features recipe-log pages that can record up to 40 recipes. Gift it to mum, grandmum, your dad, or anyone in the family and ask them to write down their heirloom recipes. Or you could write down the family recipes yourself. Either way, memories and recipes will be recorded and relived every time someone picks up the book.
We love the recipe cards, you get 15 of these with the same structure of information as in the journal -- ingredients, what generation recipe it is, recipe title box, instructions, and a small artwork of various ingredients in the corner. These are postcard size, so you can even send these recipes to your friends. Both the journal and the recipe cards come in a box to store safely.