"Ask yourself if it sparks joy" Marie Kondo
I decided today to return to my folders of collected recipes - partly looking for inspiration for a post and partly looking to declutter, but in a very minor way.
This particular folder, as well as having many newish, torn out from magazines, recipes and some from my delicious. database, also had quite a lot of vintage newspaper and magazine recipes as well as a large number of hand-written ones. So I decided to make this the topic of today's post. Which to choose to keep, which not and why.
I have thrown out some - however old, because there was no sentimental attachment and I just wasn't interested in the recipe anymore, which leaves me with nine items to contemplate.
I began by trying to find a quote for a heading - as you know it's something I like to do. Other people say things much better than me and hopefully it's a hook to invite you in. Today's quote is from a decluttering guru - a Japanese lady who has written, apparently, one of the model texts on decluttering. Mostly the advice I saw about making decisions on what to throw out and what not was along the lines of whether you had used the item in a year - well some decided-upon time-frame. Very pragmatic but taking no account of the emotions involved in throwing things out. That quote from Marie Kodo, however, struck a chord. But what does she mean by joy? Well apparently she describes it as "a little thrill, as if the cells in your body are slowly rising," which now that I look at it is a little over the top. Nevertheless I get it, although there are emotions other than joy which might induce you to keep something. Emotions described by Josie Sargent an ABC Podcast producer, when faced with a whole lot of boxes of her childhood stuff that her parents were throwing out:
"A few days later, I was on the floor, surrounded by boxes, floating in a sea of memories — letters, cards, sports trophies that had long lost their shine, photos of blurry nights out, high school diaries plastered with Keanu Reeves and signed uniforms from my last day of Year 12. ... It was a rollercoaster — I laughed, I cried, I cringed. A lot." Josie Sargent/ABC
I too have lots of that sort of stuff that currently I cannot bring myself to throw out, although I have not looked at it for some time. Today's exercise however, is much more limited, and, as I started out, I thought, much easier to sort through, because there is surely no personal attachement here. They are just items collected over time to preserve a recipe. Surely the only decision is whether I still want to make the recipe from time to time.
Not the case at all. Yes some of it was easy but let's look at those nine items for they all evoke different emotions. Beginning with the pamphlet depicted at the top of the page and here, which I have actually decided to throw out, although I now wonder whether I should donate it to the State Library or some such institution. Or maybe it's worth money! Ephemera such as this does become valuable over time because these are the things that show how people actually lived, although we consider them as unimportant and so throw them out. But no I can't be bothered - thus increasing the value of other people's that might someday come to light. I can't recall where I got it, but I kept it for the recipe for Ricotta cheesecake, shown on this page. I was unfamiliar with cheesecake before I came to Australia, but although I did make this version a few times, I ended up using one from a friend mostly, and nowadays I just use recipes from here and there. So this one is for the recycling bin. With a minor feeling of guilt in not donating it to the State Library or somewhere similar.
I have also thrown out this one. I don't think I ever made the almond bread from the recipe shown here, which I think was obtained from a gourmet friend, whose husband worked with David at ICL - the British computer company. This one is here, not for the recipe but for the computer punchcard - 80 column punchcards David tells me. Punchcards - remember them? There were no personal computers back then, let alone smartphones and watches. It's ancient - another archaeological piece for a museum somewhere. So I contemplated for a moment long ago memories of those friends - whom we still see from time to time - and also how times have changed so much. But no - it's gone. No emotional attachment - just a curiosity really.
Before there were glossy food magazines there were women's magazines and the newspapers, who hosted many now famous cooks and chefs. This one is an example from The Age of Beverley Sutherland Smith's column. this one is on blueberries. She is one of my favourite cooks and I probably, at one time, had cut out many of her columns. Now lost and gone. I also have a modern collected edition of those articles, but this one is not one of those that were selected for 'real' publication. I wonder why, because the recipes are all quite interesting and very doable. In fact maybe I'll try the Blueberry delicious and the Blueberres in cassis syrup some time soon. Blueberries after all are still a thing. A modern superfood. So this one has been slotted back into it's plastic sleeve. Probably to be forgotten all over again. But maybe not.
This one has been kept - for so many sentimental memories. It's a recipe for apricot teacake, written on a scrap of paper by my friend Faye - one of the most wonderful primary school teachers - and human beings - I have ever known - who died recently - well it may even be 2 years ago now, but it feels recent. It evoked memories of Faye and also what a wonderful cake maker she was. For a time she belonged to one of my book groups and this may well be where this recipe comes from.
The other reason I am keeping it is for it's - well not beauty - shall I say texture and a sort of odd beauty? A stain of ink in the corner - remember ink? although how that got there I have no idea. And what is the yellow. Will I ever make it? Very possibly not because some of the recipe is obscured by the ink. And what is the yellow stain? Egg yolk? Did it evoke joy? Not really. In fact it probably more aptly evoked sadness and regret. I don't think I have ever made this cake, and I certainly did not do enough to maintain the friendship when she and her husband moved to Phillip Island. Maybe it is therefore not keepable. I think it is in another category that I saw - "If it's not a definite yes, it's a no." The 'yes' in this instance referring to discarding, not keeping. Discarding this is almost like discarding the person.
Clustered together in another plastic sleeve were more cake recipes - all chocolate -including another one from Faye - her 2 minute Chocolate cake. There is a photocopied typewritte one for Beat it, Bake it Chocolate Cake and another which is simply called Chocolate cake. Obviously at some point in time I was trying to master the chocolate cake. I have now given up, mostly because I'm basically not a fan of chocolate cake, but I must have thought these worth keeping. Indeed I must have asked for the recipes. Together with these three I have also added Aunt Evelyne's Coffee Cake, though whose Aunt Evelyne I have no idea. It's just marginally evocative. I'm not sure why I'm keeping these. Possibly simply because they are so old. We'll see.
This one is handwritten by me, and there are others on the other side: Chicken kebabs, Soup-sausage dinner, Marinated pork and Beans Provençal. The soup sausage dinner is rather weird in that some of the lentils for the soup are added to the sauce for the sausages. Why would you do that? Why on earth did I think it worth writing down? The chicken kebabs are Indonesian/Malaysian style as peanut butter is involved. That one might be worth revisiting, maybe even as a subject for a post, but the others are really too similar to a multitude of recipes that now fill our bookshelves and the internet. I have no idea where they come from or whether I have ever made them, but I'm keeping them for the moment because of the faded nature of the paper and because I did that. Probably a mistake. Another 'not a definite' discard.
On the left below is another one of those celebrity newspaper columns - in this case Jill Dupleix - who still delights from time to time. This article was about coffee and the recipes involved: Roast lamb with coffee, Browned ice-cream with coffee-bean toffees and Espresso mascarpone are all tempting enough to try some time soon. So this is a keeper.
On the right is a page from an old Family Circle magazine, which I tore out simply for the recipe at the bottom right - Cerola cake - a cake I still make from time to time. The cake batter contains toasted muesli and stewed apples are sandwiched between the two cake layers. The end of the recipe is missing but it is indeed a real keeper. We love this cake. Funny isn't it how some recipes stick and others don't? I have made many apple cakes in my time. Some even more delicious than this one but this is the one that keeps on getting remade. Why? Is it really that good, is it habit - even laziness, is it nostalgia?
Last one and this is definitely a keeper. Yes it's Nigel - a much younger Nigel without the beard or semi-beard. My sister sent me this, from one of the British Sunday colour supplements. I think David was into buying sourdough bread at the time and she found this in the magazine. It's a recipe for how to make your sourdough starter, and recounts Nigel's experience using Dan Lepard's recipe. It's encouraging because there were disasters along the way. Being Nigel - well no, being anyone really, he didn't follow the recipe to the letter, because he didn't have raisins so used sultanas, and had no low fat yoghurt and so used goat's milk yoghurt - which he always used - well he would wouldn't he? So three days in:
"Yuck. My starter resembles cold porridge and smells faintly of the athlete's foot I once had. I am now officially depressed. Starting again will set me back four days. I gaze grumpily at the delectable shattered crust of the loaves in the book. I want to cry, but for some reason I continue to follow my master ... Thursday I come downstairs to the Amityville Horror. What seems to be pints of frothing beige slurry are cascading all over the counter and dripping on the stone flags. ... 'By now the fermentation should be clearly evident' says Mr. Lepard. Oh, ha bloody ha. I stir in another 100g of water and 125g of flour, just for a laugh."
All of course ends well - as indeed it has for David who continues to make sourdough bread from his original Nigel Slater/Dan Lepard starter - and it approximates Nigel's description of his successful loaf:
"It is quite simply the most beautiful, flour-dusted, crisp-crusted heaven-scented, honey-coloured loaf I could ever have hoped for. It is the loaf of my dreams, a loaf with which to celebrate not just the ending of a diet, but life itself."
There is no way that this particular recipe is going to be thrown out. Maybe it will be passed on - we have done so a couple of times - but it's not just the recipe itself it's the revolution in our consumption of bread. There is always some of DD's bread as the grandchildren call it - and demand I might say. It's the quiet satisfaction I'm sure that David feels every time he makes it. And over time he has made his own adaptations which continue to evolve. No way will this recipe be thrown out.
So this is a small beginning to a possible more large-scale process of decluttering our crowded - but not yet full house. We are, after all, trying to downsize, and then we really shall have to get on to it. At least I now have space in that folder for a few more torn out, copied recipes.
You have to be careful however. I forever regret losing those folders of Robert Carrier newspaper columns - they were precious and I have no idea how they disappeared. A whole box of precious children's books as well. And my mother, for a reason none of we siblings understood, burnt so much when my father died. So sad.
"Only 5 per cent of our stuff is meaningful — we need just 10 photos and 10 objects to tell our life story. It's about distilling your stuff down to the essence of you and your life." Josie Sargent/ABC
Alas my mother discarded just about all of it. Even if we spend just an hour or so crying over a box of 'stuff' from our past, surely that's worth keeping it and maybe one day our grandchildren will too?
"Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful." ~ William Morris
An excellent resolve - but so difficult to follow.
POSTSCRIPT
More nostalgia perhaps:
2023 - I missed this one
2021 - Roses and sesame seeds
2020 - it was deleted from the net - but it was What happened to Chateau Quercy and Stéphane Appelbaum
2019 - Spring greens
2017 - away on our last holiday in France
2016 - Purple food My second ever post
🤣 memories are always 5 star
The more faded the more valuable the item. Memories like thier keepsakes faded and scarred with usage, but loved none the less! A little sad too of course 🤔😥