Some thoughts on recipes and recipe boxes and oh yeah, some knitting

Lately I have been cooking more, and looking at more food blogs and recipe books, and I have noticed something. Cookbook writers and food bloggers will go on. Gluten-free Girl, for example, who has a really excellent recipe for pasta sauce that runs to a whole page, takes a paragraph to say "heat up some oil in a pan." That's just for example; I see a lot of gooey rhapsodic undisciplined length in food blogging that makes me think about recipe boxes.

Remember them? Our grandmother and mothers used them, because all their recipes fitted on little cards. That's what I'm nostalgic for these days. And about the time I was savaging a stack of food-blog printouts with my red pen, subliminally editing things down to recipe-card size, Kay got a notion to run a recipe-box contest.

If you stayed awake during first semester econ (I know I did, out of sheer terror), you'll know that the day Kay decides to have a vintage recipe-box contest is not a good day to shop eBay for vintage recipe boxes. Kay and Ann have the power to make or break whole economies; everybody knows that. Nevertheless, I was able to secure one I liked for $2.99. Plus shipping, of course; that's how they getcha.

It's actually sort of semi-vintage; it's from the 70s, pretending to be from the 30s. The 70s really had a thing for the 3os, which is why I love the 70s. That and the fact that I'm from the 70s. Anyway, it's got a really nice view of Niagara Falls on the side of the box, which adds class. (Up top is my dad's recipe for bran muffins; it's one of the few examples of his handwriting I own. It's precious, though I prefer how Ed Brown's come out.)

So I hear we're in for a wintry mix this weekend, and I plan to spend it organizing my recipe box. Because I finished my Joelle's Favorite Yoke Sweater. Yay! There wasn't much light today; I'll have to take a picture tomorrow.