I Hope You Ruin This Book

Why falling-apart cookbooks make me happiest.

When my first cookbook came out, I wrote in the introduction that I wanted people to ruin it.

I wished for flour in their bindings. Dog-eared pages splattered with gravy. Scribbles in the margins. Bent corners. A cracked spine from being opened to the same recipe 75 times.

My biggest fear was writing a beautiful cookbook that lived untouched on a shelf.

Thankfully, my fear never came true.

Over the years, readers have sent me photos of their very well-loved copies of The Prairie Homestead Cookbook, and they are genuinely my favorite reviews.

Although these are pretty great too:

“This lives on my counter in my kitchen now.”

“I read it from cover to cover before I even cooked from it!”

“My kids/husband LOVE recipe XYZ and I make it every week.”

“I borrowed it from the library twice before deciding to buy my own copy.”

And one reader told me she was only halfway through and had already nearly run out of Post-it flags marking recipes she wanted to try.

THAT was my goal.

I don’t care to produce pretty coffee-table books… My aim is to create something that becomes part of the rhythm of your home.

As I wrote The Old-Fashioned on Purpose Cookbook, that remained my goal.

Actually, maybe even more so. Because I have a few more years of cooking, feeding people, running businesses, raising kids, and figuring out what actually IS useful under my belt now. And I think that makes cookbook number two even better.

And yes, I hope you ruin my new cookbook, too.

I hope the Essential Everyday Dough page gets dusted with flour.

I hope the One-Pot Beef Stroganoff page gets stained with sauce.

I hope you scribble all your substitutions for Supper on a Sheet in the margins.

I hope the binding eventually falls open automatically to your family’s favorite recipe.

Because that means it did its job.

And if you want to put your own copy to work, launch week is a extra good time to grab one:

Order by 11:59 PM Mountain Time on October 6 and I’ll also give you my full $147 Heritage Cooking Crash Course FREE.

How it works:

1. Order The Old-Fashioned on Purpose Cookbook from your favorite retailer or local bookstore.
2. Upload your proof of purchase here.
3. We’ll email you access to the course within 24 hours.

(And yes! If you already preordered it months or weeks ago, you can still get the bonuses! Simply upload your proof of purchase via the link above.)

Here’s to stained pages and broken-in bindings. 

-Jill

P.S. The only catch is that once the clock hits 11:59 PM MT on October 6, this bonus is gone… Because giving away one of my most robust courses forever would be a questionable business strategy…

But I believe in this cookbook enough that I wanted to make launch week irresistible for you. If you’ve been thinking about getting the cookbook anyway, this is the week.