The Binder

Do you ever think about what you might do if disaster struck and you had to leave your home in a hurry? I think about that when I see hurricanes and fires in the news, and people scramble to grab possessions as they leave their homes behind. Of course the living things in one's home are irreplaceable and of the highest priority to save. But if there were time, what else might I try to take with me? Phone, laptop, wallet, family photo albums, the binder...

Oh, the binder. It's been around so long, I can't even remember when it started. But I know it was after I got married and started doing adult things, like learning to cook and getting excited about vacuum cleaners. At that time, actual cookbooks were less of a thing and I was using the interwebs to find recipes. I would print a recipe, try it out, and if I liked it, I would set it aside to use again. But after a while, I had a pretty unruly pile of paper. What to do?

Let's keep in mind that I am, at heart, someone who loves using my Dymo label maker. So this wasn't going to be some half-baked mission to organize my recipes. Every printed recipe was put into a binder-friendly sheet protector and the Dymo label maker was used to make divider tabs. I divided the recipes into different categories such as appetizers, breakfast, side dishes, vegetables, chicken, seafood, beef, and desserts, This made it super simple to add new recipes. And I learned (the hard way!) to make notes on my recipe printouts of what I changed or would change next time.

The binder morphs with the needs and preferences of my family. Obsolete recipes get taken out. New ones gets added. New tabs get made (like Instant Pot). Only recipes that I have actually tried and that the family approves get put into the binder (there are very strict protocol!) But now it is my own personal cookbook, curated with love, and complete with battle marks (like dried sauce splattered across the sheet protector). It is a critical part of my weekly food routine. And I someday hope to pass the binder (or at least a replica) on to my kids. By then, my kids will probably be making their meals on a 3D printer, but they can have it for posterity ;)

Here are some pictures of the binder!