There is hope after all

Two questions typically race through my mind when I hear of an impending major do-not-leave-your-home weather event: Do I have enough craft supplies? and Do I have enough flour? In other words, when I’m trapped inside for a weekend, there’s a 2 in 3 chance that at any moment you can find me doing one of two things — making or baking. Crafting or cooking.

So you might find it ironic (as I did do) that my personal recipe collection is so haphazard. And ugly. Scribbled notes on the backs of receipts, in notebooks, on index cards of various sizes. Printouts from the Web. Pages cut and torn from magazines. Most get stashed in a pile or stuffed in a book. Do you know that one year I developed the PERFECT dairy/egg-free pumpkin pie, and no sooner than I had licked the pie plate clean I had LOST THE RECIPE? All thanks to my brilliant recipe filing system.

I know it makes no sense, and its nonsensicalness is twofold because I am both a designer and one of those neurotic people who panics if her shopping cart isn’t organized right. This is someone who should be capable of devising an organizational system and making it pretty. And yet, I’ve found no method that really appeals to me.

Until now!

I whipped up these simple recipe cards one snowy weekend, and boy howdy do they fit me just right. I can have my recipes just the way I like them: neatly typed and nicely designed — with the ingredients section clearly separated from the instructions — low maintenance, not overly cute or pretty or frilly or decorative, and subtly humorous (to me, at least). I suppose after years of cooking, you would develop a better sense of what works for you. Still, it’s amazing how after all this time, the right solution could be so quick and simple.