Sophies keepsake is her husband's grandma's handwritten cookbook. Joan Patricia Vowles lovingly added to this cookbook over forty years (1950 -1990), and Sophie inherited it when she passed away in 2006.

The cookbook is made out of a notepad and filled with delicately handwritten recipes and poems, resplendent with butter, egg and oil stains. The recipes come from friends, family, church group members, and cutouts from cereal boxes and magazines. There are recipes for cakes, puddings, sauces, jams, relishes and pies. Ticks appear next to the recipes she likes and crosses next to the ones that didn't work out.

Sophie has made many recipes from the cookbook, but perhaps not the Veal with Bananas. Her favourite recipe is the light ginger cake with golden syrup or treacle running through it with a hint of lemon.

Sophie was interviewed and published in Coles Magazine in March 2021 with this recipe after posting a few recipes from the cookbook in the Coles Cooking Club Facebook Group.

Joan Patricia Vowles (nee Keeping) was born in Narrogin in 1917 and lived in Tincurrin, a small town in the Wheatbelt region of Western Australia. The town has a street called "Keeping" named after her father, Walter. Joan became a hairdresser, moved to Perth in 1935, married in 1938 and had three kids (Patricia, Rupert and David). She loved a good chat, and her secret to a good cheese and tomato sandwich was celery salt.

As part of the State Library of Western Australia’s exhibition Keepsake: Cherished Family Mementos from the Collection, we asked The Chin Wagon to create a podcast series collecting stories from members of the public about their family treasures and heirlooms. Scrabble boards, cookbooks, medals, fishing lures, trinkets and tools. Why are these items so important to the people that hold onto them?

The Chin Wagon is a mobile recording studio designed to capture WA’s stories. Run by much-loved storytelling collective Barefaced Stories , The Chin Wagon provides a fun, cosy hearth for people to share their most treasured memories, tall tales or embarrassing spills. Andrea Gibbs interviewed seven members of the public in this mini podcast series.

Keepsake exhibition runs at the State Library of Western Australia until 4 February 2025.