The Recipe File Project -- Part 2

I've probably killed a tall tree or two over the years, printing out recipes from favorite websites like Epicurious, Food52, the Food Network, etc. I've also been socking away pages of recipes clipped from magazines like Martha Stewart Living, Cook's Illustrated, Real Simple and others.

Until recently, I kept all these recipes in a big, fat, three-inch thick heap, stuffed inside an old Cook's Illustrated magazine until the magazine came apart. Then one day, I could no longer stand it. I pulled the recipes out, went through them one by one and downsized the pile to make it more manageable. Bye-bye recipe for cassoulet. I might order cassoulet at a restaurant, but clearly I'm never going to make it. So long, recipe for dark chocolate chunk sea salt cookies. We've got enough cookie recipes to carry us through the afterlife. 

And on and on. The surviving recipes were arranged in stacks, by category (pasta, egg dishes, cakes, cookies, etc.), on the dining room table and transferred to an envelope-style plastic organizer with multiple, labeled and divided sections. I picked it up for $5 at OfficeMax, after debating the merits of a three-ring binder. I like the divided organizer better.

Some of you are going to say, "You could have scanned all the recipes on to your computer and made a PDF file to share and access on the computer or print out.'' You're right. I could have. But that would have taken even more precious time. Now I have this recipe file right where I want it: on a shelf, in the kitchen -- in its own sort of portable document format.

 

For my next recipe project, I'm looking into ways to digitize all or parts of my mother's and grandmother's recipe files. Each contains hundreds of recipes. Several kind souls have volunteered to assist with this. If you have any suggestions, let me know in the Comments section, below.

 

The Recipe File Project Part 1 (2010)

 

Comments

[Margaret at Eat First]

Thanks for sharing this, Kelly. Something to aspire to for next Christmas. :) Enjoy the holiday season!

[Kelly K. Needham]

When my mother passed away several years ago I took her handwritten recipes and photocopied them into a book for my siblings. I also typed them out so that her sometimes illegible handwriting could be deciphered-I knew we all wanted the copies of her handwriting. I interspersed pictures of her along with all my siblings-this cost me literally a little bit of time and very little money but I pull it out every single time I make her meatballs and my siblings all cried when they received it the Christmas after she passed.