The end of a long project
EATING AN ELEPHANT AND DIGITAL VS PAPER
“A little at a time until less becomes more and more becomes less on the other side.” Johnnie Dent Jr.
For the last few years I have been slowly working my way through all the old foodie magazines I have collected over the last few years, picking out recipes I wanted to keep and transferring them to a Bento database. More or less every day, but with some gaps here and there, I entered one recipe - first scanning the photo of the dish so that that also could be added to the database. I have no idea when I started doing this. Anyway it is sort of finished (as is Bento - to which I shall come shortly). So I should be cracking some of that bubbly I talked about and celebrating - if it wasn't a fasting day that is.
There are a few things I want to say about this.
The first thing is a question. Why bother? "Why indeed?", I sometimes say to myself. And truth to say I think sometimes that it has just become a habit. A little task that I can do each day and that makes me feel good. It doesn't use any brainpower, so it's not really exercising my brain, but it's eating the elephant - even if I don't need to eat it.
It was an idea that I had, because prior to this I either just kept the whole magazines and piled them up all over the house, tore out a page here and there and put them in a pile, or else just threw them out. The magazines now decorate my new kitchen, in that they are stored on a very high, practically inaccessible shelf above my pantry. I did think of just throwing them out, but decided in the end that they decorated what would otherwise be a useless shelf - the shelf was already there. The torn out pages and recipes I would collect from here and there - torn out of newspapers, scribbled on scraps of paper ... were initially all kept higgledy-piggledy in a box. Indeed I had a box of very old Robert Carrier, etc. articles from the 60s, which have become lost - somebody, maybe me, must have thrown them out. What a tragedy I now think. Eventually, with respect to the bits and pieces, I decided to go through them and keep just some which I filed in those plastic display folders - again with no real order but at least they were a bit tidier. But only marginally.
Then I decided to go through all the magazines, mark which recipes were worth storing, and enter them into a computer database. Bento was the chosen software application - another wonderfully simple, but efficient bit of software from Apple. And herein is demonstrated the modern day problem of archiving things - for I guess that is what I am doing - creating an archive.
Every archive all over the world is busily digitising their collections, to a greater or lesser degree, according to the funds available to them. It's a digital world after all, and we all look for information online. But what software/hardware do you use, and where do you store it and then what do you do with the originals? In my case I chose to go with Bento because:
"it was a slick database app that enabled users to create nice-looking relational databases without requiring much more than an interest in organizing your personal data. Turns out, finding a capable replacement is a pretty tall order." Macworld
Because I probably should try to find a replacement. It was created back in 2008, went through four, I think, different versions and was discontinued in 2013. It still works on my computer, but sooner or later, as the systems software evolves, it won't. So all those hours inputting all that data, and organising the database so that I can easily find things - recipes for apples, for example - will one day be lost. It seems the only software that will take everything I have created is File Maker Pro which is a 'professional' database and costs more. Can I be bothered? At the moment the answer is definitely no - and anyway there is no guarantee that Filemaker Pro itself will continue indefinitely into the future. It too will die one day. As will my computer.
Having just finished my project - for I have ceased buying foodie magazines - do I now throw out all those magazines? I am tempted I have to say - other than those on that inaccessible shelf. Do all those archives still keep their originals? To be honest I'm not sure. I suspect that mostly they do, but paper takes up a lot of space and needs quite careful and expensive air-conditioning, etc. or else it will perish. So maybe some is thrown out. But on the other hand if it is digitised, you need to keep the software and hardware that makes it readable - microfilm, microfiche, floppy disks, CDs, DVDs, USB sticks - all either now dead or dying or will be dead in the future. And what about the computers the information is stored on? Constant conversion is required - not just data creation. As for the Cloud - well really the Cloud is just a huge collection of computers somewhere - what happens if the company that owns them goes bust - even mega companies fail every now and then. Not to mention natural and man-made disasters.
My problem is tiny of course, and, as I said at the beginning of this piece, why bother anyway? I do use it now and then, and having it in the database form is very useful. If I want a recipe for a particular ingredient for example I can easily find one. And during the years I have used it as a very useful source for recipes for the recipe books I have made for my children now and then. Though I haven't done that for a while. But here's the thing. When I find a recipe that I want to use - what do I do? I print it out and store it in those display files - which are getting more numerous and therefore more disorganised, so that I have to leaf through more and more pages to find what I want. Or else I have to organise those in some way. And so it goes - round and round, on and on.
Because I have now 'finished' I thought I would look to see what were the first and the last recipes that I put in. Well, as it happens, both of them are somewhat minor. All the recipes for main meals are somewhere in the middle. Here are the first and last:
LEFTOVER QUINCE PASTE
From the August 2008 edition of delicious come these ideas:
Stir 3 tbsp paste with 2 tbsp boiling water until smooth, then use to coat vegetables before roasting.
Stir in some quince paste when making gravy for lamb roast
Stir 1/2 cup paste, zest and juice of 1 orange and 1 tbsp water over low heat until smooth. Cool, then fold through mascarpone and serve with poached fruit.
If you are buying your quince paste, then I think the last recipe is hardly for leftover quince paste. You barely get 1/2 cup in the containers you buy. So delicious obviously thinks you make your own. Tried it once. Very tedious.
MUSTARD TARRAGON SAUCE
This was from a very old Australian Gourmet magazine - February 1987. It was to serve with smoked trout and is pretty simple.
30g softened butter
1/2 cup cream
1 egg yolk
2 teaspoons snipped chives
2 teaspoons chopped fresh tarragon
3 teaspoons Dijon mustard
Whisk together butter, cream and egg yolk until thickened. Season well with salt and pepper. Stir in chives, tarragon and mustard, mix well.
So how do I feel now that I have finished this particular project? A bit flat actually, because I now wonder why I bothered at all. Yes it was quite satisfying I suppose, and not entirely wasted because I do use it every now and then. But Bento will shortly die, and I cannot be bothered transferring it all over. It's not important enough - not like the old negatives and slides that I have scanned in a similar bit by bit process.
I did look for quotes about finishing things and I will end with a couple of them, because maybe I should be focussing on their rather more uplifting messages, rather than thinking I have just wasted a lot of time.
Getting organized in the normal routines of life and finishing little projects you've started is an important first step toward realizing larger goals. If you can't get a handle on the small things, how will you ever get it together to focus on the big things? Joyce Meyer
“Whatever it takes to finish things, finish. You will learn more from a glorious failure than you ever will from something you never finished.” Neil Gaiman
Not that I'd call my little database a glorious failure - or success either.
