Drowning in Paper

As I am sure you can imagine, I have a lot of recipes.  I have hundreds of cookbooks, not one of which I can live without.  They are on bookshelves all over my house -- upstairs, downstairs, in the kitchen, and in the family room.  My friend Ellen is also a cookbook collector and she has so many that they're even under her bed.  I haven't gone that far yet but I'm close.

I also have drawers stuffed full of recipes I've clipped out of newspapers and magazines.  Then there are the hundreds of recipes friends and strangers have given me over the years.  I am literally drowning in paper.

For a person like me, an admitted "A" type personality, this level of disorganization is unacceptable.  You just never know when you're going to need a recipe.  Just recently a friend and reader, Wende, asked me if I had a recipe for braised radicchio and lo and behold I did.  While it was a miracle the I could actually find said recipe, if I had thrown it out, I could never have helped her out.

My real problem is that I am basically computer illiterate.  Yes, it's true that despite writing this blog everyday on a computer my technological expertise stops there.  I have no idea what I'm doing.  I have about 1,000 folders set up that each have one thing in them.  I have hundreds of pictures in hundreds of separate folders.  It's just a mess and I need help.

Ted is really good on the computer as is Kate.  They have offered to step in and help me out.  I don't think they actually know what they have signed on for.  Ted, being a lawyer, lives his life my complicated filing systems.  You should see the household files upstairs.  The Library of Congress isn't so organized.  Ted has "graciously" offered to clean out my mess of an online filing system and to set up a system that will work for me.  Kate has offered to consult.  I am sure her consultation will be mostly in the form of nasty comments about how bad I am at the computer.

So the point of all this is that I am about to empty my desk drawers of all those clipped recipes and organize them on my computer.  I'm going paperless, or at least I'm going more paperless.  This will be good for all of you because I expect that I will unearth lots of fabulous recipes I have completely forgotten about.  Despite my being somewhat behind the eight ball when it comes or recipe organization, I do have a good memory.  You know how every picture tells a story.  Well, so does every recipe.  Stay tuned...