Recipe Storage – what works best?

Do you have a home-made cookbook or recipe collection?

My grandmother took the time to write out all her recipes by hand, of course. Many of the earlier ones are nib and ink. Over the years she tucked them into an old parchment book. They are falling apart, mostly unreadable, but very treasured.

My mother has a mish mosh of recipes. Some handwritten on lined paper in biro,  some typed copies from a mimegraph – those my age may remember the purple ink that was never quite dry, and often smeared so badly we couldn’t even read the sentence. And the smell! As years progressed she added magazine cuttings and these days, she sends me  recipes via email.

Mother in law re-writes skipper’s childhood favourites onto cutsey notepaper and send them to me in the vain hope that skipper will remember what a wonderful cook his mother was and forget about my abilities for posterity.

Mine is a clutch of memories. Ones I gathered in my childhood in my grandparent’s hand, my parents hand, my childhood schoolgirl girl scrawl. Pages ripped from magazines, odd cards kept from subscribed ‘collections’, smeary newsprints from papers of years long passed.

I have a large, fat journal given to me as a Christmas present a few years ago. (Oddly, it features a 3 dimensional coconut tree on the cover, not very ‘cookish’).  It’s drawcard, however, is that it  contains about 1000  A4 size blank pages in a lovely quality ivory paper, and bound by a lovely leather. So, I forgave the coconut cover and began handwriting my own recipes and family favorites in there years ago.  Stupidly, when I began the book, I didn’t think to create categories or divisions so lemon butter is nestled above Thai fish cakes, and adjacent to green beans with pork and chilli.

I also have a huge plastic folder from Kikki K that  contains neatly organised sections and categories. They house clear plastic sleeves, and each sleeve holds the magazine cut outs I have taken the time to sort from the aforementioned clutch. The rest, probably 200 or so torn offerings, huddle together in a basket waiting to be rediscovered for the potential they showed when they were first ripped from their initial resting place.

My dilemma is now, whether or not to house them all in one place.

I have been leaning towards removing the Kikki K inserts and pasting them into the big book.

TFM has his opinion. “I like YOUR recipes in the big book, mum”, he says. “Just have a book and a folder”.

I am not sure.

What would you do? Or, what do you have?

Lounge Lizard

Last day of imposed ‘sick leave’ today.

But I went into school anyway, since it’s photo day and the parents had threatened to boycott class photos unless I was present and had my face in the class shot, rather than the sub teacher. (Who is very nice and just so enthusiastic!).  I was happy to pop in, and showered with love as only 5 year olds can, as well as hugs and kisses from quite a lot of parents. Wow, it’s nice to be missed.

Topped that off with a trip to one of my favourite seaside cafes for a lemon tart and a pot of Earl Grey with a class mum / friend, and a shopping trip to add a few more tunics to my Winter wardrobe since Mother Nature seems so keen to actually GIVE us Brisbanites a Winter this year and I need a few more warm clothes as part of the wardrobe makeover I discussed a few weeks back.

So today, to present myself for ‘photo day’, I am kitted out in boots, leggings, tights and tunics – all a bit foreign to me who is having massive 80′s flashbacks in fashion right now. Didn’t we already do the leggings/stirrup pants/ballet flats/long tunics/oversize jumpers thing?

Very comfy though, I have to say.  I feel very modern, and just a bit funky. I pray I  do not look like mutton dressed as lamb like an old person wearing young person’s clothes.  As someone tweeted to me this morning “Rock that outfit! Those of us who have been there before know how to do it with style. ;-)” I do hope so! (A teacher aide told me a looked ‘very cute’. I guess that’s a good start). I find, though, I DO have to fight the impulse to keep the new items for ‘good’ or ‘when I go out’.  I know that when I was younger, I wore what I bought straight away – to work, dinner, the shop – didn’t worry about saving  my items. When did that start? Probably when most of the items I wore from day to day become covered in baby spit and so saving something unspitted meant I could be seen, safely, in public.

I even updated the ‘loungewear’. (That’s trackies and long tops to us old fogies) and have a range of leggings and long tops that would make any 80′s Diva proud. I have a substantial hole in the bank account, but boy, do I feel good!.

Now I know I have a range of readers, aging from young 20′s to some fantabulously gorgeous over 60′s. And I want to know – when was the last time you gave yourself, or your wardrobe, a makeover? Do you think it’s important or not at all? And why (or why not, as is the case?)