If you really want to know about it, this Buckeye Valley Heritage Cookbook cover was designed by Serbin Studio. It all started with me seeing a book cover that another architectural firm had designed for the City of Goodyear. I wanted to do one better for Buckeye. I also had some time on my hands.
I use any excuse to work with Pat Rovey, President of the Buckeye Women's Club. She lives on this farm with two palm trees that are a million feet high. I always know which street to hang a left on when I see those green pom poms way down on the horizon along the thick ancient tree line of west Buckeye.
It started with the Ariona Flag that Pat wanted on the cover. Pat was crazy about having the flag on the top waving around. This was all her idea. It really was. Did I tell you about her crazy bird that said "Quit leavin' the gawd-damn door open!". Pat whispered with her hand blocking her mouth that the bird had colorful language. But we were alone among the boxes and piles of old timey things. I mean the bird was about a hundred years old. This wasn't even her bird, she was just watching it for her son. He knew a guy who had a bird, who had a bird, who had this bird...
Spent a Sunday afternoon going through old photo albums with Verlyne Meck and Pat Rovey to hand pick each photo that would eventually end up on the front cover of the cook book. Verlyne and Mayor Meck's daughter Sara Faccio drilled out the way cool Hobo font that you see on the cover. Her grandfather who is holding the megaphone in the photo below wrote his correspondence in the Hobo style. Eventually, this text needs to be a font in a digital format so we can use it for signage in Down Town Buckeye. Now that would be something!
Jeffrey Serbin helped in the photoshop layout. He is lighting fast that boy! It was impossible to pick which photos for the cover. I tried to focus on food, gatherings and farm life for a cookbook for Buckeye. My granola recipe is on page 170. It will be hard to compete with recipes like Bootlegger Beans, When Mama's Gone Casserole or Sheriff's Posse Sonuva Gun Stew on page 66.
Art Arnold, Buckeye, Arizona 1950's
Originally I had Art Arnold right smack in center on the cover. I quickly realized that I had too many cowboy photos for a Buckeye Women's Club cookbook. This shot is my favorite from Verlyne's collection. She has thousands of photos. Some day Serbin Studio will design a museum for all of Verlyne's stuff. Tell Pat's son's bird that I would really love to design a museum. That bird is really hundreds of years old. Yes, the bird was in this cage next to her kitchen sink under these flouncy calico curtains.
Monroe Avenue, Buckeye, Arizona, 1957
Second favorite photo. This photo prompted me to buy a ivory colored cow girl hat for the upcoming Centennial festivities. Check out the pack of smokes on the table and Constable Meck in command.
This is the finished book. I like the 3-ring style so I can quickly find the Velveeta Cheese Fudge, Mile High Biscuits or Verlyne's Chalupa. Even the insert tabs were custom designed by me. I tried to pack in as many vintage Buckeye photos like cowboys throwing pigs into a barbeque pit, grandma baking bread, picnics by the canal and the watermelon eating contest.
Erna Siervogel Bottcher, Prize-winning Bread for Arizona State Fair, 1950. Erna is Pat Rovey's grandmother.
What's for dinner?
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