So just a quick note this week - I’ve been busy with a new toy in the kitchen, and it’s not a new mixer or juicer or some new must-have gadget. I just bought recipe software for my mac. (I know - you’re thinking “welcome to the 90’s Ms. Swanson. That’s so yesterday.”) I’ve been struggling for years to come up with the right way to organize all of my clippings and family recipes and dog eared cookbooks, and never found the right tool for the job.
Well, last week I bought MacGourmet, and I am fairly smitten right now. It’s not perfect, and there are a few things that feel really clunky. (Can anyone tell me how to add a new category? How can “eggs” and “breakfast/brunch” not be included but “brownies” and “cheesecakes” are?). But I do love that I can drag and drop recipes from any blog or website super fast, and though it usually requires some editing, I can import it faster than printing out the 4×6 recipe card formats that all the cooking sites have - which then require me to cut and staple, tape or fasten multiple cards in some awkward fashion.
In the back of my head I know that this format won’t last forever like my grandma’s huge wooden recipe box, and that at some point I’ll be faced with migrating the millions of recipes I am sure to amass here into the next solution when this becomes obsolete. Perhaps I’ll be able to download every recipe in my repertoire and every cookbook ever printed (including the pre- and post- 1970’s Joy of Cooking) onto a chip that I can have planted into the base of my skull, to be indexed and referenced at a moments notice. There’s a stepford wife moment, to be sure. But for now, this works, and I am digging it. Please don’t tell me if the recipe chip is in development, I don’t think I’m ready for it just yet.
