Are you making a cookbook that will be used (as in, actually dragged into the kitchen and perhaps written in or
spilled upon) or for reading purposes only? This will affect your choices of the type of binding and covering material to use.
Spiral binding lies flat, but when the pages tear, or the comb binding breaks, or the wire gets bent, the book looks bad, and even when you can rebind it, it doesn't look a whole lot better.
Using a binder format (3-hole) might be an option for you--you can remove pages when needed (in case you want to make a copy), and put them in the plastic protective sheets. You can get custom-made binders (although I have no idea how much they cost for small orders), or you can put an oilcloth cover on a regular binder. Or see what is available in zippered 3-ring organizer binders and see if they can be customized in some way.
One problem with regular paperbacks is that the spine quality isn't what it used to be--I think we've all been really annoyed when pages come flying out of the book we're reading when the spine decides to crack or the glue flakes off....
If you haven't done this already, scan all the handwritten recipes and save them onto discs for all (unless you wish to include the scanned copies at the end of the book).
This will be a great family gift.
