Monday, February 04, 2008

Recipe Quirks


Everyone has their quirks, and one of mine is my keen interest in other people's recipes. I love to read their scraps of paper with recipes written on them, or look through files and scrapbooks of aged recipes. I've even purchased complete recipe collections in metal file boxes at yard sales when I couldn't convince the seller to keep Aunt Susie's or Grandma Miller's lifetime collection. Some people keep recipes in very unusual places. My mother-by-marriage preferred washing dishes by hand and never used her dishwasher for it's intended use. Instead she stored her cookbooks and files neatly cataloged on the dishwasher racks. I could never remember to open the dishwasher to pull out the gliding rack and find the cookbook needed. It was such an unusual place to store a recipe collection! Aunt Mildred kept her favorite recipes attached together by a clothespin on a spindle that was kept on her kitchen windowsill. It served her well for more than eighty years. Although she has been gone for nearly five years, her recipes still grace the windowsill in the warm Arizona sunshine. They are a part of her ranch house kitchen that will probably always remain there as long as Uncle is yet alive and living in the house. Some people keep recipe collections on disks or websites, others in beautiful notebooks or painted file boxes with colorful cards. Each becomes it's own work of art and heart. And each speaks volumes about the individual who lovingly put their unique collection together. How do you store your recipes?

Photo: Aunt Mildred's recipes

4 comments:

  1. Anonymous6:36 AM

    You've visited my blog and have seen my cook books (thank you) but I do have some family recipes in my mom and sister's hand writing in a recipe card binder. I love that I can look at the cards and see a part of them whenever I want. In some ways, it's better than a picture.
    Then, in my window sill behind the curtain, is a recipe box that looks like a little house complete with an orange kitty painted on the side. That's where I keep the loose stuff.
    You just lift off the roof and there are the recipes. lol

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  2. Your mil's method is truly unique. Hope that the water isn't hooked up! :>

    I store my recipes in a photo album. Not nearly as interesting as the methods that you've described.

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  3. how i store my recipe cards demonstrates how overly organized i am sometimes. i typed up all of the recipes and glued them onto 3x5notecards. this took forever but they are neatly organized and stored in a cute little flower box that just barely holds them all.

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  4. That's funny about the dishwasher storage! I hope it was unplugged! I have way too many loose recipes, and cookbooks. I store the often used loose recipes in two different recipe boxes, one is just for tea party recipes. I also have many other loose recipes in a small accordian folder, and then even more recipes in file folders! I doubt I'll ever use all these recipes, but won't throw them away.

    Katherine

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