Organization?

I remember that my mom had one big gray notebook that contained any and all recipes that she used. Even JC’s mother had a box in which she had crammed clippings and cards and scraps of paper with recipes noted down—along with their source. I am nowhere near as organized. I have a recipe box, of course, designed for a neat cook who files all recipes on 3x5 cards in their proper categories. I also have a clipping file, whose only organizational principle is alphabetical index tabs. Then there is my laptop, where files may be in several different locations, filed under any number of categories. And my IPad, which has recipes that I might want to use when I’m in San Diego. And DropBox, Evernote, and I-Disk—all of which store information somewhere in the vast never-neverland of the internet. I don’t think I have anything on my IPhone, but give me time.

                  Plus, one can never forget the 4+ shelves of cookbooks I lay claim to, each volume of which may contain one or two recipes that are family favorites.  Stuffed away in desk, drawers, notebooks, magazines, and assorted other unlikely places are directions for interesting dishes that might come in handy one day.

                  Finding the required recipe has become a veritable game of Concentration. Where did the original recipe come from? My mom? Probably on the 4x6 cards in the gray plastic box upstairs. From a magazine? Probably in the clipping file. Unless I made it before and liked it, which might have forced me to copy it onto a card for the main shoebox-style file. But wait! Did I promise the recipe to someone? I may have typed it and filed it online when I emailed it to them. Thank God for the ‘search’ feature on my Mac. Now what had I called it?

                  I have tired myself out just reviewing the scope of my problem. However, two weeks ago, at the local farmers’ market, I found a wooden box, with beautiful grain and dove-tailed corners, and a lid. Just the right size for 3x5 cards arranged in neat categories, with pristine tabs that would make finding THE recipe an easy task. It would look lovely on my granite countertop. So neat and clean-looking and organized. If I worked at it, I could transfer my rag-tag pile of recipes to sleek cards that aren’t smudged with oily fingerprints and breaded with a crust of ancient flour. I’d type them of course, and wouldn’t have to puzzle over the washed-out ink of that crucial ingredient—is that ¼ or ½ cup? My recipe for meatloaf would not be stuck irretrievably to the previous page and I could be absolutely sure that that tomato sauce and cheese measurement is not part of the page-before’s stuffed peppers. I could consolidate my cooking knowledge into a single beautiful box. When I am dead and gone, my daughters would fight for possession. (Yeah, I know that’s not true, but one of them may at least want the box.)

                  I have begun. However, like many of my enthusiasms, it was countermanded by—guests for brunch. Away goes the shoebox, the clipping file, the piles of cookbooks and index tabs and 3x5 cards. Gone and subsequently forgotten, at least for the succeeding week. But last night we were invited (or JC invited us) to a friend’s for dinner and offered to have me bring appetizers. Fortunately, I had just the thing!

                  Now. The salami, orange and cream cheese things came from a Craig Claiborne NYTimes pamphlet back in the ‘70s, and the little tomato/mozzarella-basil leaf kabob came from Debbie at church a couple years ago—and what about those olives and cheese cubes marinated in lemon olive oil? Kay Phillippe down the street gave that to me, and I wrote it down..was it in the back of my checkbook?

                  Obviously, I’m never going to have that beautiful box, standing alone on my kitchen counter, but it’s good to have a dream.