Recipes For Disaster

I would like to begin this entry with this stunning Julia Child quotation: We didn’t know many vegetarians years ago. Not eating meat became the thing to do some places in the ’60s, but the movement is much bigger in the ’90s. Personally, I don’t think pure vegetarianism is a healthy lifestyle. It’s more fear of food—that whole thing that red meat is bad for you. And then there are people who don’t eat meat because it’s against their morals. Well, there’s nothing you can do with people like that. I’ve often wondered to myself: Does a vegetarian look forward to dinner, ever? 

Now, I would like to tell you a little bit about my recipe obsession. My collection of recipes has been threatening to take over my entire life. I know you don't believe it is as serious as it really is, so let me break it down for you all, into cold, hard numbers.

Approx. number of new recipes I cut out of magazines or print off The Internet per year: 600

Approx. number of these recipes I manage to make, within the year: 450

Approx. number of those that I make, and don't want to repeat again, so I throw the recipe away: 50


Approx. number, per year, that are good enough to be put into the Special Binder of my Greatest Hits: 20

Now, let's consider that this has been going on for 11 years....

That means....

6600 recipes

4950 that I managed to make, leaving a deficit of 1650 that I still haven't made

550 have been thrown away

220 are saved in a special place

Which leads me to 2 conclusions....

1) I am never, no matter what I do, going to catch up and make all of the recipes I have gathered

2) There are currently about **5830** unsorted recipes in various folders in my kitchen.

So..... do you believe me now that recipes have been threatening to take over my entire life?!?

Even since I got my iPad, I've been thinking that I need to figure out a way to begin to digitize my recipe stash. But the process seems SO OVERWHELMING, that I didn't know how or where to begin! How do you try and tackle 5830 recipes? Especially when you know you will add at least 50 new ones, each month, to the pile?

I have a friend who has been keeping a blog for several months now, called Year of Months. She does something new for 30 days in a row, and writes about it. It was her blog, in part, which inspired me to take on my own little project here, and keep a blog. Anyway, she is organizing this month, and she also has a stack of recipes from magazines, and asked Is There An App For That? So, I went in search of the answer, and boy, did I find it!

My Recipe Book. Holy cow! This may be the best $1.99 I have ever spent! I am actually kind of stunned at how easy it makes it to store recipes from ANY online recipe site... or any web page, frankly! I've already spent a good 5 hours, since yesterday afternoon, playing with it! So, my goal is to finally chip away at those 5830 recipes. Either they get sorted into the recipe app, or they get sorted into the recycle bin.

This is all relevant to this project because it is also an EXCELLENT tool to use for searching and sorting recipes. So, I will continue on my food quest with even greater ease! I have already discovered 3 recipes using kohlrabi, a decent sounding tabbouleh recipe, and a couple using radishes and / or raw onions. Nothing can stop me now! Not even Julia Child and her belief that I am both afraid of food and dreading my own dinner! ;-)