So, I am working on the new book’s TOC (Table of Contents), and this means dragging out my cookbooks. When I say cookbooks, I mean books, magazines, strips of paper, napkins with jottings on them and other various ~crazy woman~ clippings from years of playing with my food.
If they were to be stolen by some equally crazy thief, he or she wouldn’t be able to make heads or tails of them. They are in code. Special, flour covered, sticky code. Only I am a privy to the code.
The names of my recipes are not mere names of dishes. For instance, I have *In Labor Nettle Onion Soup*, and *You Are 4, So Stop Growing Carrot Cake*.
No lie. I am weird like that. Food is not just for feeding the stomach. It is also for feeding the soul. My IL Nettle Onion Soup, brings me back to laboring in the kitchen, making a warm dish for after my baby arrives. I relive that anticipation and excitement just by reading that recipe!
Do you enjoy cooking in the same way? I like to read about recipes, play around with them, try out new ones and just fall to sleep listening to other people talking about food. I think in a past life, I was a loaf of bread.
So, do you have a favorite cookbook? How do you keep your recipes together?
Well, I recently had a computer virus and had to completely wipe and reformat my computer. I lost about 1500 recipes that I had collected, which covered, well, everything from Barbecued Beaver to making goat butter.I reinstalled Mastercook and I'm still using it, but I'm thinking that I need to switch to a paper method.
Oh my goodness! I would just curl up and die. Seriously, that is why although I love my computer, I do not trust it. :-)Call me old fashioned, but it has to be on paper or it's not real. How do you like Mastercook? Is it tedious?Sorry for your loss. I mourn for your recipe trauma.
I try a recipe and if it's wonderful and not too tedious, it is rewarded by being placed in a three ring binder of favorite recipes. If I find myself referring to a recipe on a regular basis (like my cinnamon rolls) it is copied from the binder, laminated and taped to the inside of a upper kitchen cabinet door-so it is always handy. Each door has it's own theme: breads and cakes, pies, appetizers, soups etc. Heather in PA