As small as the volume is, it is a complex book, consisting of two main parts, neither with certain authorship. Approximately the first third of the volume is comprised of brief notes on sermons delivered by the Congregational minister Edmund K. Alden and others at the Church on the Hill in Lenox between October 1854 and Nov. 1862. The latter two thirds of volume is a well-organized receipt book kept in a different hand. The receipts are arranged in sections devoted to bread and cake, soups, fish, meats, vegetables, pastry, puddings, other desserts, cake, preserves and jellies, miscellaneous, and pickles and sauces. Several recipes are attributed to other writers, including the well-known cookbook author Juliet Corson.

Although the book is signed on the front end paper by Mary E. Tucker, her death in 1855 precludes her from being the author of the volume. There is a partially erased inscription immediately above Mary's inscription reading "Hattie's book," suggesting the author may be Mary's younger sister Harriett (b. ca. 1846), however there two distinctly different hands are represented in the volume, and Harriett was too young to have written the comments on sermons. A poem written on the page before the cookery section is signed by Owen Meredith, who has no clear relation to the Tuckers.