This isn't so much a celebration of stationary, though who doesn't love a nice notebook, as another dispatch from my kitchen. This pile of notebooks is the result of a quick look round my sitting room and inside my handbag, I know I have as many again somewhere about the place. I have more notebooks than I actually need, I know this because quite a few of them are as yet unsullied by any hint of pencil or ink, but the ones I use - well they're what I would want to rescue from fire or flood.
Notebooks are great; one of those perfect things - my partner laughs at me for still using a paper diary and organiser but I find it the easiest and most convenient way of keeping track of things, especially when I want to look back for something rather than forward. I'm also extremely attached to my kitchen notebook, so much so that I often take it on holiday with me.
I've had kitchen notebooks for more than 20 years but this unappealing looking object has proved to be the best of the lot. I've had it for about 6 years now after I decided on a fresh start and binned my old notebook. I have a lot of cookbooks, not food writer numbers (I read somewhere that Nigella has over 4000, and having seen some of Diana Henry's collection think she must be in the same ball park, I by comparison probably have about 150) but enough to easily forget where I found something good, I also have every intention of getting more (impossible to imagine I'll never want another cookbook). The main purpose of this notebook is to keep a record of recipes that I know work and which I like enough to make again but not every week (there are a lot of cakes in it).
I've always been a fan of following a recipe rather than winging it - I know I can make something that tastes all right when I throw a few things together but I also know that whatever it is will end up tasting much like all the other things I throw together because it'll inevitably use the same ingredients - all the staple things I always have in the kitchen. I don't have all those cookbooks because I want to eat a minor variation of the same thing every night. It helps to because I have a rotten memory for quantities and temperatures, it's also a useful thing to take away to holiday cottages, and it doesn't matter in the least how battered it gets as it wasn't pretty to start with.
I like that it's alphabetical even if I can't always precisely remember if I would have put something like a rhubarb muffin under rhubarb or muffin, I like that I can scribble all over the thing adding notes and improvements, and the way that I can chart how my understanding of food and flavour is developing over time. Like all the best books this one has become an old friend, I only wish I hadn't written so much in it with a fountain pen - not waterproof.
I read your post just before running out to the store for something, where I found myself in the office supplies section, thinking, "Look at all these perfect little notebooks, I need one of those" - which I don't, really, but your post convinced me I do!
ReplyDeleteI keep telling myself 'It'll be useful one day'...
DeleteI use a website called Eat Your Books - it's $25 per year but all my 300 cookbooks are already indexed by the site staff, and I can search by ingredient to find which of my cookbooks that have recipes that allow me to use up ingredients I have on hand, or recipes that fit whatever I'm in the mood to make and eat, or to find recipes I've made before that I want to make again. I think it's a bargain since I make much better use of the many cookbooks I have -- and save my notebooks (I love collecting them) for writing about the meals.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds like a brilliant idea. I love looking through my cookbooks, better ways to use them are always interesting. I don't think I'll give up my notebook though - it's perfect for taking away with me, and I find writing something down helps fix it in my mind.
DeleteI keep a kitchen notebook too, but I only started a couple of months ago. I was starting to cook more frequently from recipes found online and realised I really couldn't rely on web bookmarks and reading from my laptop as a good long term measure. I love that yours is an A-Z notebook, mine is chronological with an index at the back but A-Z seems more practical I think.
ReplyDeleteI had a chronological one but it became a faff to find things in it which was the thinking behind an A-Z. I find more recipes online now as well (especially Hugh F-W and Dan Lepard ones from The Guardian) and I'm far to messy a cook to be comfortable with my laptop in the kitchen.
DeleteI have the exercise book I started when I was at high school doing home economics (domestic science?), and it has stayed faithfully with me these last almost 30 years - it is like a palimpsest as I kept sticking new finds in, or recipes people gave me. I absolutely treasure it and still cook from favourites all the time. It is a mangy and tired exercise book, but very precious. (I had heard about Eat Your Books, so I'm pleased to see some good feedback from AJ - it sounds very useful. I too have too many cookbooks to make finding anything easy.)
ReplyDeleteI wish I still had my high school exercise book from cookery class, long gone now but there was a cracking Swiss roll recipe in there amongst others. There's nothing quite like your own note book.
DeleteThese are such lovely notebooks. I keep a record of all the books I've read in a notebook and have done for many years. I've occasionally thought about transferring the lot to a Word document or to my blog but it doesn't appeal and not just because of the effort involved. It seems more satisfying to write down the details somehow.
ReplyDeleteI wish I'd kept a book notebook, in the end I started blogging which serves much the same purpose for me. Some things however need to be written down the old fashioned way - I have a notebook for poetry and quotes as well.
DeleteI am so with you on the old notebook and fountain pen thing, two of life's essentials. I like to make fabric covers for the very plainest notebooks. Jo
ReplyDeleteI used to use lovely Japanese paper with that sticky plastic stuff but this one gets to dirty for that!
DeleteI have lots of pristine notebooks, too. Love them, but all of my blog posts and thoughts on reading seem to be scrawled on the back of receipts, old envelopes and bus tickets!
ReplyDelete