Old recipe cache found

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heather_in_sf

Well-known member
I’ve had a basket of printed off recipes hiding underneath my dining table for a really long time, and I finally decided to organize it and put it into folders. And then I decided to be really crazy and create an index of it in a notebook so that I can peruse it and remember what I have for menu planning inspiration. But friends, I have to tell you, so many recipes and so many memories from all of the folks here going back to Gail’s Recipe Swap, so many names of people who are not with us anymore. I’ve really been enjoying going through this basket and especially finding recipes from my mom and from some old family friends and things that I thought were lost forever. They were also some fun finds like a brochure from our local oyster company that was forced out of business years ago, the Anderson‘s split pea soup recipe from my last visit there, entire sections of the San Francisco Chronicle food section which used to be my favorite thing to read. Lots of treasures in those. I even found a fax from the 80s with that infamous Neiman Marcus oatmeal cookie recipe chain letter that someone faxed to me at work.

Lately new recipes have been digitally stored so that I can access them on my phone as well as my laptop or iPad for ease of use in the kitchen. I still have three boxes of recipe cards that are also all family treasures. One day I will make an index of those and I would like to digitize them to ensure I have backups in case something awful happens.

I’m sure all of you have reams of printed off recipes too, how do you store them? Do you still refer to them?
 
Absolutely and yes. I just looked at my directory's Food folder (actually I have it listed as A Food since I want it to come up easily and first). It dates back to 2001. That doesn't seem long enough though. When were we on Gail's?

Anyway, under FOOD, I have different categories and most list the origins. I used to print them out, then my husband would organize and categorize the printed versions in 4 HUGE binders. We would give each recipe a rating upon chowing down on the finished product: ease of production on a scale of 3, how much we enjoyed it out of 10, and 3 degrees of complication (time, difficult ingredients or equipment, elaborate presentation, etc.). The binders which include envelopes containing old clippings that my mother sent me and details on unusual ingredients, etc. I tend not to print what I copy now but just run back and forth to my computer as I am making them.

He also photoed the indices of all my foodie magazines, and put those in a binder. They actually went back to the first Food and Wine; I had a charter membership to Saveur plus French mags that I picked up in travels yonder. I gave away the mags to a charity that sold them for donations to a women's shelter. There are a few recipes still in my mind that I just can't access and wish I could. I kept the Saveurs but there is also a French Saveur mag that included tear-out recipe cards with tabs built into the design. How brilliant!

Yes, wistfulness arrives when I see an old contributor who is no longer with us. And I do remember little comments that people have made, waaaaaaaay back. Ah well.

Good luck on your cataloguing.
 
marg, we migrated from Gail's to Finer Kitchens sometime in 2005. So many of the FK recipes are here...unless someone just added a link from another source that is now gone.

Heather, here are my hard-copies, culled down from twice as many binders. I'm gradually removing stuff I now know I'll never make.

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I think that soon after I married (94) I started to create computer files labeled "Chicken", "Pies", "Cakes" etc. and for every printed recipe I liked, I wrote it into the appropriate files. I have 1000+ recipes on file of which I use about 10% (LOL). I only have about 30 paper copies of recipes that I want to try. (although I have 100+ online bookmarked recipes - most of which I haven't tried).
 
marilynfl said:
marg, we migrated from Gail's to Finer Kitchens sometime in 2005. So many of the FK recipes are here...unless someone just added a link from another source that is now gone.

Heather, here are my hard-copies, culled down from twice as many binders. I'm gradually removing stuff I now know I'll never make.

View attachment 3582
Click to expand...
2005.........seems as though it was so much earlier than that. I am getting to be SO old.
 
Most of mine are all digitized going all the way back to Gail’s swap, but back then all you could do was “save as text”, so no formatting. I sure wish I saved more! However, I do have a few that are printed out and a stack of gourmet magazines hiding in the corner
 
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