When I was a child, my grandmother collected dolls. Pedigree, antiques, never Barbies. European dolls made of celluloid and bisque; Madame Alexander dolls with names like Baby Brother and Pussycat; pretty porcelain dolls from Japan; and once, an anatomically correct male doll that he bought in the 1970s that wasn’t on the market long.

Grandma traveled abroad on doll tours and sometimes closer to home on a tour bus, and quite regularly the doll society held meetings in Brisbane. If I were home after school (and I was a fairly enthusiastic doll collector myself), I would be allowed to tag along. The gatherings were bring-a-plate type, and Grandma would prepare a delicious slice of chocolate (which I’ve baked) or a tray of deviled eggs (which I’ve only made once due to its delicacy).

Grandma wrote the recipe for the chocolate slice in the kitchen journal my mother gave me one Christmas when I was a young adult. Mom is a very enthusiastic cook. She has a worn, food-stained red hardcover exercise book in which she has written down all the recipes she has collected and cooked over the years: recipes like delicious lemon pudding and pickled lamb shank, passed down from the women in her family, but also the noodle and curry dishes she learned from her Indonesian Chinese mother-in-law.

Carefully stored in a glass-fronted display case in my mother’s guest bedroom, along with all of her most treasured books, is her own mother’s (Grandma’s) recipe book, which is also a red hardcover, but more brittle with age. Even my father brought out his recipe book the other day, in which he wrote down his sister’s and mother’s Peranakan recipes in the most legible handwriting I’ve ever encountered (he’s a doctor). It is also a red hardcover.

Every time I glimpse my mother’s or grandmother’s crisp, curved handwriting in my recipe book, I am moved. It’s like I’m hoarding pieces of these women I love so much for a future winter without them.

My new novel, A brief history of longanstells the story of an Irish-Chinese family over 200 years, and a cookbook seemed like an obvious way to make connections between family members and their stories.

In my novel, there is a diary that is passed down from generation to generation and is based largely on my grandmother’s, reflecting a certain period in history. It’s filled with handwritten recipes, others carefully clipped from newspapers and war articles titled Illusion Ham is a Saver and Be an Ambitious Cook, plus a drop-down list of Italian sausages.

I also borrowed recipes from my mother’s cookbook. I’ve woven a meat dish my mother used to make into a particular dish, one of my favorite childhood dinners, while a pork and mushroom dish that appeared at a wedding in 1897 is based partly on an old Chinese recipe I found and a chicken recipe my mother scribbled on a sticky note.

Once, after Grandma died, I mentioned to my Aunt Ellen (my mother’s sister) the deviled eggs I used to make for doll parties and she was stumped. He said he didn’t remember his mother ever making them. We’re a close-knit family, so I thought it was pretty remarkable that she didn’t know about this dish her mom loved to make, a recipe that, for me, immediately evokes time with Grandma.

I imagine her in her tidy little kitchen, placing the immaculate eggs in a round Tupperware container. I remember how small she was. How her soft, short hair curled like that of a 1930s star. I remember her laugh, how she raised her left shoulder if she said anything remotely controversial. How he could easily touch his toes as if he had a hinge in his hips. These memories make me both happy and sad. All from a devilish egg.

My own recipe book is not a red hardcover. Instead, the cover shows kitschy red and green wallpaper and sprigs of herbs next to a wooden fork. Although it’s a mess of loose magazine recipes, messy doodles, and main dishes written in the dessert section, I hope that, (far) in the future, my children will also treasure the memories these recipes may hold.

A brief history of longans is published by UQP on July 14, $35.