Why I keep a kitchen notebook
Recipes change a little every time you cook them. A cheap notebook by the stove is how I remember what worked, what did not and what to try next time.
For years I cooked the same dishes slightly differently each time and never remembered which version was the good one. Was it more lemon, or less? Was the oven at 200 or 220? The notebook started as a way to stop asking myself the same questions.
What goes in it
- The date and what I made. Even a single line is useful a year later.
- What I changed. Swapped an ingredient, cut the sugar, used a different tin.
- How it turned out. Honest notes, including the disasters.
- What to try next time. This is the line that makes the next attempt better.
A recipe tells you what someone else did once. Your notes tell you what works in your kitchen, with your oven and your pans.
Keep it simple
Mine is a cheap lined notebook that lives in a drawer next to the stove. It has oil stains, flour in the spine and a few pages stuck together. A phone note works too, but there is something about writing it down with floury hands that makes it stick.
Many of the recipes on this site began as a few scribbled lines in that notebook. If you cook something here and change it, write it down. That version is yours now.
