And then there are the magazines….

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Magazine pile

 

My day is cut out for me.  I have been looking at this pile since last October and today I am going to tackle them! My family is chuckling as they read this because they know this is not all I have.  There is more than just this pile from last fall.  Down in the Culinary Cellar is an area filled with grocery bags of more magazines to go through and clip recipes.  Oh, and I think there are some in the garage too.  You get the picture.  I am behind on this task. Way behind.

Some of my all-time favorite recipes have come from food magazines and food sections of newspapers.  I know it is a huge undertaking to sort through them all year after year, but that’s part of what The Culinary Cellar work is all about and it’s a job I love.  It’s just a matter of getting it done.  I have plenty of storage.  Some recipes get cut out of the magazines or newspapers and are glued onto 3-by-5 index cards and filed into my beloved old authentic library card catalog.  I don’t know what I would do without it.  I wish I had two, but they are hard to come by.

 

card catalog open 1

Most of these 88 drawers are filled with recipes I have lovingly clipped and glued over decades.  They are divided into hundreds of categories and it’s easy to find any recipe your heart desires.  The recipes that are too large to fit onto cards are stapled together and filed into my huge filing cabinet that I bought used from a doctor’s office.

file2

Inside each drawer are files of the recipe clippings, divided the same general way as the recipe cards in the card catalog.

file1

 

And so my day begins and I’m going to get busy.  I have no doubt I will find lots of great recipes to share with you; probably enough to last through the next century!

6 Responses to And then there are the magazines….

  1. May 6, 2015 at 4:24 am #

    I am forever amazed at your collection. It would overwhelm me as I would wonder which recipe am I going to pick today to make. How do you decide which new one to make? And I would think that making a recipe twice or more doesn’t happen too often. I bet those recipes you make more than twice are really special.

    • May 6, 2015 at 8:00 am #

      Barb, sometimes I just go into a file and reach in and grab one and that’s what I’ll make. In fact, I was thinking about doing a weekly blog about that because I get asked that question a lot! I have lots of favorites that I have been making for many years, mostly family requests. And it’s funny, but even though I have thousands of cookbooks and recipes, I know them very well and can find just about anything that I remember making even decades ago.

  2. May 6, 2015 at 5:24 am #

    a true labor of love–oh the stories those recipes could tell

    • May 6, 2015 at 8:02 am #

      Some recipes and cookbooks have lots and lots of stories, and it’s one of the reasons I started this blog in the first place. Food has memories and it talks.

  3. May 7, 2015 at 12:17 pm #

    Debbie…We are all very lucky to have you and your blog to remind us all why we so love magazine articles, newspaper food sections and cook books. Thanks for being our guide through food cooking history!

    • May 7, 2015 at 1:39 pm #

      Thank you so much for the kind words, Scott!

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