Recipe for Disaster

Photo by shimelle

Hundreds of small cards. Magazine pages ripped and folded. E-mails. Dusty books.

What do these things have in common? For many of us, they are the means by which we've collected recipes over the years. You know the drill. You go to someone's home, eat something you dream of eating every day thereafter, and you ask for the recipe. The hostess graciously writes the recipe on one of those cards bearing images of birds--or else rips the corner off of her church bulletin--and now you have to keep track of that piece of paper until you get home.

How often does the recipe actually make it into our file? (...and likewise onto our kitchen table?)

I would suggest that--if you can find it in your heart to do something drastically different than your ancestors--you should consider storing your recipes online. There are hundreds of free websites dedicated to storing and swapping recipes. The great thing about keeping your files online is that you can access it absolutely anywhere the Internet exists.

Trying to figure out what you'll fix for dinner when you get home from work? Pull up your recipes. Want to share a recipe with your friend while at her house? Pull up your recipes. Want to share a recipe with your mother while at her house? Pull up your recipes. (After helping her figure out how to open Internet Explorer.)

There are so many possibilities. AND if you don't have the Internet or don't feel great about storing things online, consider organizing your recipes in a document to be saved on your desktop. It will cut down on those pesky pieces of paper that tend to get lost in the shuffle.

Either way. . .you won't be digging through your pockets to find that recipe for cream puffs when you most need it!