Do You Keep a Cooking Notebook?

I was reading this post on keeping a lab notebook over on Make (one of my favorite blogs), when it occurred to me that I don't really keep a formal cooking notebook.

Shocking! I know.

I should, though. I often treat cooking in an experimental manner, and I rely on my memory too-often. I sometimes have scraps of paper around the kitchen with notes and bits of recipes on them, but these tend to get lost or destroyed before I think to catalog them. I keep a notebook for blogging, but it is the sort of thing I carry around with me during the day to jot ideas into. I don't keep it in the kitchen. With a good lab-style notebook, I could keep all my results (good and less-than-good) in one place, learn from them, and maybe even share what I learn...

I'm debating the Maker's Notebook. It looks like a solid book: blank headings for project names and such on every page, 150 blank pages of 1/8" graph paper (useful for depicting sizes of things - say the leaf of a fresh herb - accurately as well as for writing), a table of contents, and 20 pages of reference tables (including useful conversions and such). The original $20 price tag that Make charges is a bit steep, but Amazon's price seems like a deal, particularly given the cost of nice notebooksthese days.

Comments

The link to the post on keeping a lab notebook is wrong. It should be Home Chemistry excerpt: Keeping a Lab Notebook.

Thanks for the idea. It's something I've been trying to do in an unstructured way by writing on my blog about recipes I try and scribbling notes in cookbooks (when I remember). Putting all my notes in one place is a great idea I'm definitely going to try this weekend.

Stuart Broz's picture

I appreciate the heads up. Fixed now.