So yesterday I wanted to make an apple cake that I’d made before. It wasn’t in any of our dozens of cookbooks — I’d gotten the recipe from a Penzey’s spice catalog a few years ago. I misplaced the catalog but found the recipe online the last time I needed it. This time, however, Penzey’s no longer had the recipe online. I ended up finding it, using the Internet Wayback Machine, but it took a freaking long time.

This kind of thing has happened before. Whenever I want to make my mother-in-law’s cole slaw or cucumber salad I have to email my sister-in-law for the recipes. I’m pretty sure she’s tired of sending them to me. (although I may need to ask her one last time).

My cookbook recipes are safe (except for the ones that I use a lot and are falling out of the books) but my other recipes — the ones that I’ve either cut out of the newspaper or people have given me — are a mess as you can see in the illustration on this entry. Yes, that’s my recipe pile.

So, I thought, how can I keep a database of these recipes in a place that will be safe and tidy and be fun to update.

A blog of course!

Presenting Recipes our Family Loves Although I may change the name to Recipes that at least one member of our family has eaten and not said “Oh Gross!” because we don’t all love the same recipes.