Case Study of Veronica

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Veronica* is a resident of Southern California who has loved to cook for all of her adult life. She is the matriarch of a large family and the cook and hostess for many family gatherings and holidays. Her interest in food and cooking permeates much of her life, and influences her choice of vacation destinations and the organization of her home. The hub of her hobby is this mediterranean style kitchen with high-end professional appliances, such as this 6-burner range and griddle (right).

Down the hall from Veronica's kitchen is a large library. It is filled with more than 1,000 cookbooks. The cookbooks are placed on shelves that line three of the four walls of the room. The space is comfortable and beautiful and filled with family photographs and eclectic artwork. The library contains Veronica's favorite cookbooks; a few hundred "seconds" are in boxes in a garage. The cookbooks are classified into a system that she designed. Main classes are geographical (i.e. French, Italian, Jewish) and author (i.e. Julia Child, Marcella Hazan). A few years ago, her son designed a database that exists on a personal computer in the library. Veronica enters new books into this system, though as of today not all of her collection is online.

Veronica's library also contains reference books, culinary novels and essays. She saves the brochures that are provided with appliances, and the thin and inexpensive publications that can be purchased at grocery check-out (both, left). Some of her cookbooks are rare and collectible. At right she displays her favorite, a Salvador Dali cookbook worth about $600.

The most often-used recipes are photocopied from the cookbooks and moved to files and folders in this kitchen cupboard (left). There, they are more easily located and used. On the top shelf (and at right) her classification system is displayed in colors. The middle shelf contains "binders," discussed and shown below.

Veronica creates binders for special holidays and family events. These contain background information such as recipes, guest lists, shopping lists, planning calendars, and instructions for favorite traditions or songs. Veronica relies upon these binders to easily execute elaborate family gatherings. Also, they insure consistency, which is important for family members who look forward to favorite foods. She intends to photocopy the binders and give copies to her children and grandchildren.

* The name Veronica is an alias

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