I can cook, too

Cause I can bake too...my oven's the hottest you'll find!

I've a lot receipts, or recipes if you will. I like calling them receipts. Most call them recipes. I have a lot of them, that's the point. I collect them from numerous sources: friends, relatives, television, magazines, etc. Most of the ones I've retained have gone untested. Of course, I have multiples of the same thing. But there are little caveats from these multiples that I like. I enjoy adapting recipes and I'm not opposed to jamming two together for one fabulous outcome.

My attitude toward food is not the average American's attitude of food. I detest and despise the sameness of American food, how everything seems to be cheese covered and drown in some sort of sauce or condiment. I like to take my time with food. Actually, I should that I prefer to take my time with food. There is nothing I like better than a long meal with friends, where the conversation is just as important as the delicious food. My European friends avow that I have a more European sensibility toward life and, indeed, food. I like to think that I do as well.

I'm a member of the Slow Food movement. I don't like to cook or bake from a mix. I prefer fresh flavors and seasonal fare. I adore ethnic food (if it's Asian, I'm there), but can let me Southern roots shine in the kitchen as well (my banana pudding will make you wanna smack yo' mama).

With the plethora of receipts in my possession that are not already bound in some delicious and inspiring tome, I have tried and tried to come up with a system of organization that reflects my personality and my way of thinking when it comes to cooking. I know what I want, but haven't found the perfect means of achieving it.

First off, I want ultimate, master receipts. I make a mean cheesecake and hardly ever do it the same way. I want an entry entitled cheesecake, with all of the basics needed and then all of the variations. I want the entry to be filed under desserts, but I also want it to be filed under baked goods. I want it filed under its main ingredients, cream cheese to be sure, but also under various themes that I have employed in the past, by flavor, etc. I want an image, a delicious image. I want the receipts to all be in one handy place. And I want to be able to go to that place and find the receipts of a particular type easily. If I know that I want cheesecake, then I want to see all of the cheesecakes. If, on the other hand, I have some cream cheese or some lemons, I want to see all of my recipes that include cream cheese or lemons.

And there's the rub. So far, the best I've been able to come up with is a binder with the recipes in sheet protectors. But when you go to organize them by ingredient and theme, it gets tiresome. You need multiple copies of the same item, and I don't want that. They don't all have pictures, in fact most don't. I don't like the way they look with notes scribbled in the margins. I just don't like it. But I do want a fabulous book of fabulous receipts.

I don't want to wait until I have that fabulous book to have my fabulous collection. So a new blog is in order. I struck upon it last evening on the drive home. What I want is exactly like a blog. A blog gives me space to comment and note without it being sloppy. A blog gives me a place for a gorgeous image of my own. And I can tag the entries with the different themes and ingredients, allowing me to search by the tags. And it's a wonderful way for me to share recipes with friends.

So now there is In the Kitchen with Krafty Bitch. Please enjoy.