I ordered this sweet little recipe box from Rifle Paper Co. before our wedding. Candace (founder and amazing designer extraordinaire of Lovestru.ck Social Events) designed recipe cards for guests to fill in their recipe for a happy marriage. We have SCADS of the cards left over. One part of me thinks, “OH YAY! I CAN FINALLY FILL A RECIPE BOX!” and the other side is like, “Oh god, am I actually going to try writing down my recipes? Oy vey.”
Why’s it so hard to just sit down and write ’em all out – or at least some of them? I wrote several this weekend, and it was actually really delightful. Though, anyone who tries to use my recipes in the future will probably wonder why the instructions are so brief. “She always leaves something out,” they’ll say.
My mom’s recipe box is massive. It’s really long, like the card catalogs we had in libraries (P.S. do those still exist?) and is packed with cards she wrote and those her mother, aunts, and other friends wrote. It’s a treasure chest of history, great recipes, and a piece of our family’s past. When I was writing down some recipes from my mom today, one said to “cook the dates until they cook up good.” That’s the kind of stuff we need to pass on. Cooking things up good.
Other options are definitely little cookbooks you can fill in. Moleskine even has nice little kitchen journals. Admittedly, I bought one of them a few years ago and it’s still pretty empty. They’re so cute, though, and even come with stickers!
So my question is: Do we still need handwritten recipe cards? Is it enough for me to search through my inboxes with “MOM RECIPE” or through my cookbook cabinet to get what I need? I really don’t know the answer. I think it’d be nice to have everything written down. If we don’t preserve history, who will?