Back in the early nineteen eighties, it was known that we would all use our personal computers to store recipes. Even though it’s the twenty first century now, and we don’t have to be modern any more we now keep recipes on the computer at our house! Usually ones we have sought out on the web, and there’s no system to it yet. I’m interested in systematizing this storage, but beyond the recipe, I want to remember the instance, the meal via a sort of review.
Readers who are less afflicted with creeping gourmetism than I, or who have never used a video camera to see how they’d look as a TV chef may want to avert their gazes.
For a few years I have been poorly maintaining a diary, which contains entries like this, from when we lived out of town:
2001-12-31
Found a snake skin in the sewing garage. Yet to measure it, maybe 70cm. Guess it’s a python like the others.
Dinner was a BBQ - tandoori chicken. Prawns (big ones 6 = 500g) in pineapple juice, fish sauce and coriander (too much fish sauce). Kofta meatballs with mint, cumin etc. Grilled veggies. Salad. Kids got extravagant sundaes. Pineapple, mango, ice cream, strawberry topping, little chocolate bits, etc. A didn’t get half an inch into his, too tired. Remainder was for smoothies.
S and Pt watched Swordfish and failed to eat either our cheese platter or our special sundaes.
So that’s what they do in regional ostraya on New Year’s Eve. Sad, but as far as I recall, true.
There are recipes implied here and there is a kind of review, but I can’t remember where I might find the recipes again and whether we guessed them, made them up or had them thrust upon us. How much is too much?
If I had marked up the recipes with a link or a reference to a book or magazine, then the next time I come into possession of some big prawns, I could search on my own culinary history to find a recipe and my comments, and I could go easy on the nam pla. I could also have typed in what I thought of it all as well.
And, if web publishing software and/or practice can support a few simple conventions for reviewing a recipe as well as publishing one, such as those I proposed for recipe markup last time then we have a new niche for search in the blogging world. Little Technorati-style talk bubbles could pop up next to ingredients to elaborate. How does “Yes, you can eat Pumpkin leaves, we found out from a visitor to our new inner city place” this recipe work, what with pumpkin leaves at $30/kg so you need to substitute bok choy? Please, make this, write up the results, and invent all the machinery to let me know automatically. You can have some of our feral pumpkin leaves if you like.