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patti43

I have a problem

patti43
12 years ago

I have a confession to make. I have an addiction and it's really becoming a problem. I hope you will try to understand and not judge me too harshly. It started out simply enough with thinking I could just give it a try, but now I have no control. I realized that today when I printed out 34 recipes this morning--and that was just cake and icing recipes!

I am addicted to recipes and making them. So far I have five 3" binders full of recipes. That may not sound so bad but each page fits about 3 recipes. And I need more binders. I should never had learned to cut and paste. I have to give myself credit for being organized--at least for the moment. Everything is in categories, at least. But I need help badly and I can't ask you. Moi, you say? Yes, you. You my friends, are enablers. You keep posting recipes I just can't resist. And I love reading them and making them. I can't tell Harry or ask for his help because he is an enabler, too. I make one of your recipes and he oohs and aahs all over the place and asks me to make it again. Sigh!

Next thing you know, you'll be seeing me on "Hoarders" surrounded by clippings from newspapers, old magazines I want to try recipes out of, and there are so many that some are tacked to the walls. I can just see this narrow path through the house, the kitchen so full of dirty pots and pans you can hardly see the stove and in the bedroom, just enough room to get in among the recipe boxes, binders, cookie crumbs, empty dishes and stacked up coupons. The kids will refuse to come to the house and eat, but ask we bring the food to their house. (They may be clean, but they ain't dummies.) When I pass away, I'll weigh 400 pounds and the kids will just have the house condemned.

So now you see where my life is headed. Is there a Betty Ford clinic for my problem? What is a formerly normal girl supposed to do?

The above is only half-way tongue-in-cheek. You are all such good cooks and I really appreciate your sharing your recipes. So thank you so much for sharing them.

Comments (31)

  • Jasdip
    12 years ago

    Oh my, Patti!!!

    I think you and others here have the same addiction. Me included. I have binders of recipes too! And cookbooks and magazines. I'm trying to pare down the magazines....just keep the recipes and get rid of the mag. Some magazines are worth keeping though, and I will.

    Addictions are horrible. Something starts out as a lark, and look where it gets us! Too much time spent on sites, and blogs as well. I figure I've got all the blogs and sites I will ever need in my bookmarks and heavens! Look at THAT blog! Look at the Food! Another one gets marked.

    I fear there may be no end. How DO you stop the internet and stop our friends from cooking and sharing?
    As long as there is a Kitchen Table; I'll Share My Recipe; and all of us asking for recipes, there WILL be recipes.

    We are terminally doomed....

  • ravencajun Zone 8b TX
    12 years ago

    Thanks for the laugh! I have a visual! Well what ever you do don't join pinterest or visit there!! I have a pile of them from there to try.
    I have had your addiction, how ever I keep all of mine in a recipe folder on my pc so it is easy to keep categories and then I print it only when making it, saves trees! There are some very good recipe management programs free online. Perhaps you should start doing them that way and not buy more binders, you will be less likely to get buried under your recipes then!

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  • Marilyn Sue McClintock
    12 years ago

    I think it is contagious and you may have caught it from me. I have 58 plus years of recipes! Somewhere I have my recipes from school. Binders, books, drawers, shelves and recipe boxes of them, plus what I have on my computer. I like writing mine on shorthand tablets as they stand nice as you cook. I am happy in my recipes :)

    Sue

  • gazania_gw
    12 years ago

    I feel your pain! We need a support orginization. We can call it "Recipe Clippers Anonymous". I am sure someone can expand on that. I have to go find that recipe for Baba Ghanoush and make it before the eggplant dies.

  • User
    12 years ago

    I'm a big member in the binder club too. I think I have about 12 or more full of recipes. I know I'll never make them especially now... but I keep getting more.

    Patti, go to Weebly.com and make yourself a website (its free) just for your own recipes. Then you can copy & paste them in there (like I do in Our Recipes) That may just solve some of you problems.

  • patti43
    Original Author
    12 years ago

    Gazania, a support group made up of addicts would be a hoot. I can see it now--Hi, I'm Patti and I have.... A GREAT RECIPE FOR CHICKEN! Then we'd all sit around copying each others recipes. LOL!

  • glenda_al
    12 years ago

    Fat and happy :o)

  • marie_ndcal
    12 years ago

    Yes there is a silver lining. I use to collect recipes, magazines, books, etc. THEN!!!! I reached a certain point about 2 years ago, started giving/throwing things away. I will be 80 next Oct, and could care less about collecting recipes--just don't ask me about my stamp collecting etc. Our appetites went down as DH cannot eat as much and after some digestive problems (me) I am on limited diets also. So now I just collect Food Network Magazine and look and try some new ones occasionally. We just don't eat as much. So yes there is hope for all.

  • kayjones
    12 years ago

    Patti, I must confess - I gave this disease to you when you and I emailed each other - sorry! I have a 4" binder full of printed out recipes, but I rarely make them. I cringe when I think of all the paper and ink I have used/wasted over the years!

  • Jasdip
    12 years ago

    Joann, that's a great idea, to use Weebly! DH uses Weebly for his band website and he said it's very user-friendly.

    Someone at the cooking forum uses Recipe Circus dot com, and I looked at the site, but don't care for it. Maybe it's just me.

    But, I still like my hard copy (handwritten, no less) in my binders!

  • kathi_mdgd
    12 years ago

    LOL @ glendas picture,also at patti's posting.Well patti,you won't ever have to say i contributed to your addiction,as i hate to cook.DH does 99% of the cooking here,and has been doing so since my surgeries in 2008.Before that i cooked,because we needed to eat,and he didn't know how to cook then.I was/am a very plain and simple cook,but i can follow a recipe.I've just never been a fan of cooking.

    I'm one of 8 girls and they all loved to cook,and do it all the time,they always tell me i got the crafting gene instead,and that's quite all right with me.

    I just recently started baking again as dh likes his sweets,and i can make them cheaper and better than some of those he's bought.

    Kathi

  • lynn_d
    12 years ago

    Patti, I have a couple of 3" binders that aren't being used....want me to send them? I know, I'm an enabler!!! LOL!!!

  • Amazing Aunt Audrey
    12 years ago

    Unless you have a computer in the kitchen where it's handy the website isn't really useful. I know from experience. But you can take your android phone to the kitchen. There are several apps for recipes. You just load your recipes into it, then they go with you. Just a thought.

  • Fun2BHere
    12 years ago

    I keep mine in digital form. I haven't stopped buying cookbooks because I enjoy reading them so much, but I don't print recipes to paper any longer. If someone gives me a paper recipe, I scan it to save it. I even back up my recipes on a separate flash drive so I can store them in a safe place.

  • OklaMoni
    12 years ago

    since I got a laptop now, it isn't an issue anymore, having the recipes on the computer. :)

    Small apartment helps too.

    Moni

  • Georgysmom
    12 years ago

    About 20 years ago I started making a cookbook of all my favorite recipes for my kids. I only had one done and before I could make copies, I found myself grabbing that book whenever I was going to make something. It was so much easier than going to the cookbook and having to look it up. End result, nobody got a cookbook and like you, it has grown to three. Instead of going to them to make something, I find myself looking up something on the net. In my lifetime (what's left of it) I couldn't go through all the recipes I have.

  • nanny98
    12 years ago

    I will have to sneak into the confessional too. Never was a committed cook...then the KT and Cooking forum and my 4 binders on the shelf....AND in my email: I have 'MAILBOXES FULL OF CUT AND PASTED want to try gems. (That is in caps because they really are hidden from sight; but I know how the long the list is and how full the boxes are) I won't live long enough to read all of them, let alone cook them. Help US.

  • chessey24
    12 years ago

    I have a similar problem but mine are all tucked neatly into folders on my computer where I never look at them. I just continue to save them. I can't bring myself to unsubscribe to all the recipe sites I've subscribed to.

  • jannie
    12 years ago

    I had a day at work where I was bored, so I found myself just surfing the web. Found some great recipes and printed them out. I must have printed 200 pages! Brought them all home, threw them in a box in my hall coat closet. That was 7 years ago. They are still there. DH asks, what's all those papers in the closet? "It's for a project." You know I'll never get them filed. I look up recipes constantly on the internet, plus I have about six good cookbooks, everything from Joy of Cooking to Emeril. I'm sure my kids will one day (after I'm gone) clean out that closet. So you are not alone.

  • threejs
    12 years ago

    Got tired of running back and forth to the computer when making something from a recipe I had kept there. Got hold of an old laptop ....set it up in the kitchen and keep it as a BIG cookbook. It not on the net and I have a couple of games on it to play while watching something in the oven. Everytime I have a new bunch of recipes on here I put them on a flash drive and add them to my Kitchen cookbook...takes up so much less room than all my cookbooks. Also guilty of taking pictures (instead of copying from a real cookbook) of recipes and filing them too.

  • patti43
    Original Author
    12 years ago

    Lynn, shame on you! How about I pick them up on my way to the shrink's office?

    Kathi mdgd, if we were all as smart as you and knew how to get our husband's to love cooking, we wouldn't be in this mess!

    Aunt Audrey, my computer IS in the kitchen. Now what!! I still like my paper copies. When I make a new recipe I write on the margin when I made it, who was here for dinner (if it was for company), what I served with it and how we liked it, where I took it, etc. I also jot down changes I made or would make next time. Hopefully, one of the girls will find it interesting reading someday.

    Seriously, I'm so glad to have so much good company. I'd never given it a thought until I was printing out those cakes. I must have a few hundred cake recipes in my dessert binder. I thought to myself, "WTH are you doing?" But for how, I'll just keep Hewlett-Packard in business and enjoy! See, now you've enabled me to feel good about my problem :-)

  • nicole__
    12 years ago

    I relate. I started liking to bake....and trying new dishes. Soooooooooooooooo......I got a job working the late shift at a grocery store....in the bakery! I started out loving it. I copied down the recipes that made 500 cookies or 100 loafs of french bread, thinking I would size it down. :0) After 4 months of being "The bakery janitor"(late person cleans up after the entire crew) AND "Baker", 2 nights off a week, working for minimum wage with no benefits......

    I was cured! I quit! It took me good year before I liked cooking again.....:0) :0)

  • vannie
    12 years ago

    I'm so glad y'all don't have a harmful obsession!! LOL

  • joyfulguy
    12 years ago

    Anyone around here half-baked?

    (Except me).

    o j

  • patti43
    Original Author
    12 years ago

    Vannie, it's only harmful in the weight department or if the house caught fire. I'd be grabbing binders on my way out the door :-(

  • jude31
    12 years ago

    Oh my. I could put myself in you shoes Patti. I guess my saving grace is not knowing that much about using my computor. I have stuff saved everywhere on my computer, don't remember where I saved it or how to get to it.

    I told DH a long time ago to just put "she died of stuff" on my tombstone and it would still work now, just different "stuff". Sue I like the stenographer's notebook idea. I most often grab whatever is handy whether it's an envelope or a scrap of paper. When I first got married my most used cookbook was a stenograper's notebook. I called around to various people whose cooking I liked and got their recipes. I don't use my HUNDREDS of cookbooks much anymore...it's quicker to go to the internet.

    Marie-ndcal, so you think "going to be eighty" is motivation? Honey, I've been there and done that and it hasn't affected me yet!

    So, may I join the "club"?

    jude

  • Jasdip
    12 years ago

    Patti, I was thinking of this thread yesterday and burst out laughing (all by myself) remembering the part....."Hi, my name is Patti, and....I've got a great chicken recipe!"

    I had to bring it to the top again. :-)

  • sheilajoyce_gw
    12 years ago

    As a bride in the mid to late 1960s, I had my evenings to myself after work and correcting papers most of the night. We were living in a state where we knew no one, and DH was in graduate school and working full time at night too. So many an evening, I would read my Good Housekeeping magazine and the food section of the Washington Post and cut out recipes. I glued them to recipe cards and filed them in my recipe box. I got some good recipes that way, but I still have recipes in my recipe box that I never have tried from those few years of cutting recipes before the babies came. Time to go cold turkey.

  • carol_in_california
    12 years ago

    My addiction is much worse than yours......and I hate to discuss it.
    I am addicted to watching reruns of America's Next Top Model.
    Be glad yours in only recipes.

  • paula_pa
    12 years ago

    Well, saving recipes in binders is better than having a cookbook addiction. I can't seem to stop buying them. We all need a vice I guess. I am planning on weeding some out soon - I hope.

    Here is a link that might be useful: My cookbooks

  • joyfulguy
    12 years ago

    When do you figure they may run a show, "America's Next Topless Model"?

    o j