As I was growing up, my emerging taste for international food was encouraged by several cookbooks ensconced on a small shelf in our kitchen. Because of the many inspiring dishes that emanated from those books, when I began cooking, I primarily looked to similar cookbooks for recipes. I occasionally augmented the books with a few handouts from a local Indian grocer or by glancing at a few newspaper articles that my mother had saved.

There was another source of recipes in our kitchen; on the counter sat an unassuming green metal file box filled with a large number of index cards including some real gems. “Mama’s Hamburgers,” my grandmother’s recipe, consisted of a single sentence on the back of a card that used Armenian flavors to elevate standard hamburgs: minced tomatoes, parsley and onions.

going online — lots of downloads

Cookbooks, recipe cards, newspaper recipes; all of this was before I was introduced to the world wide web. Like everyone else, when I first got on the internet proper — AOL doesn’t count — I was blown away with, well everything! I didn’t know where to start. One of the my earliest cooking finds was the The Graduate Student’s Guide to Indian Recipes.

After I became a bit more acclimated, I began to find long lists of recipes, many of which I downloaded and saved, semi-organized, to my computer. I printed a few of these recipes right away, but most remained in the folders for “later.” For one dal recipe “later” came just recently, 20 years (!) after I had initially downloaded it.

By the early 2000s I was reading cooking blogs during lunch at work and late at night. And you guessed it, collecting even more recipes. I tried a few of these, but most never came out quite right. Still, I saved everything, and briefly annotated the ones I tried for “later.”

a sea of changes leads to…confusion

A few of these recipes I would make again incorporating my initial changes which typically lead to more notes in the margins. Eventually the additional annotations, scrawled in my “best” handwriting, began to hinder rather than help. “What did I write here?” or “Two teaspoons of which spice?” were not uncommon utterances as I cooked on a Sunday night.

My initial solution was straightforward. Decipher and integrate all my notes with the original recipe which was then saved as a new file on my computer. This eventually presented me with a conundrum: how do I tell which file is which? While I could check the modification dates, I thought it prudent to version the recipes: 1, 1.5, 1.6, 2 etc…

Versioning was only partially successful though. Because I insisted on saving every version of every recipe (especially the associated printed copies), there was plenty of opportunity for confusion. The curse of the pack rat!

What would happen if I wanted to revisit a recipe from a few years ago? Would I be able to pull the master version from three overpopulated pocket folders? (No!) How about from the hundreds of files on my computer? (Even worse!) More than once I suspected that the “latest” version was not always the best one. The disorganization was fast becoming more than a distraction.

a (mostly) paperless approach emerges

By the time I decided a change was in order, I knew a database was going to be my best bet. I had been using SQL for my website and to upgrade FileMaker databases on my computer and while far from proficient, I knew enough to be dangerous. My fledgling database was born with two tables: ingredients and instructions. But I quickly realized that I would also need a table for comments, since my rampant modifications had created the problem to start with.

One of my hesitations about SQL, however, was the lack of a friendly user interface like FileMaker. I wanted something that looked good and was easy to set up and modify. Eventually, I opted for a simple web front end which wasn’t the simple set up I had been hoping for. Regardless, the first version worked, sort of. I created a second version a few years later which was an improvement although a bit difficult to use. I avoided it for the most part, which defeated the purpose.

Which brings us to 2020, a challenging year for many. Despite the dreary environment everywhere, being stuck at home for most of that year provided me a golden opportunity to improve the database (and more). Most days, before and after work, I worked towards rebuilding the front-end of all my databases; but especially the one for my recipes. What emerged was a usable web front end, which I still use weekly more than five years later.

promoting a recipe

The database solved the problem of determining the current version of a recipe. Each recipe was allotted one record which was, by default, the master. A field with a modification date helped ascertain when a recipe was last updated and I also added a status field with the following options: Dev, Beta, Book or Comment Only. The comments provided a journal of what I had already tried which prevented me from making the same mistake twice. If I still had multiple printouts, I could check them against the database.

With the database in place, I began adding recipes: dishes I was developing; promising ones downloaded from the web; and even a few from books that I wanted to modify to my liking. I generally added comments a day or two after cooking a dish for the next time I made it.

As a new recipe progressed, I would change the status from Dev to Beta and continued to fine-tune it; maybe a bit less salt or a change in the cooking process. When I felt a recipe had reached a good state I upgraded the status to Book.

Which brings us to “The Book"…

the dark spices

Everyone has their own method of storing their own recipes. My mother had the file box; my brother writes them down in a notebook “if I am on top of it otherwise I just hold on to it in my steel trap memory”; and a good friend says, “I have a food folder and use the search to find recipes. I’ve also printed out some recipes.”

And now I had my updated database, which was starting to fill up with all sorts of recipes and comments. Organized, finally! The database was making it easy for me to find and edit recipes, but what about when I needed to use one to cook dinner? My computer is not a laptop, and I don’t have something like an iPad, so I needed a different solution.

I wound up taking a technological step backwards as I reluctantly opted to print recipes again. Completed recipes were slid into plastic sleeves and placed in a small three-ring binder that I referred to as The Book. When I wanted to cook a recipe, I removed it from its sleeve and hung it on my refrigerator with magnets. This provided a convenient way to reference a recipe while cooking. It’s actually easier than using a cookbook.

Very quickly I decided that The Book was not going to be a great name for my recipe collection. So I returned to brainstorming mode for awhile, and finally settled on a title: The Dark Spices. An interesting name, no? It was related at least. But how did I come up with it?

The Great Curries of India introduced me the technique of gently sizzling whole spices in oil. And not just cumin or mustard seeds. Quite often, they might be joined by black cardamon, its green cousin, cinnamon or cloves. When done correctly — which took some practice — the spices lend a deep, dark flavor to the base of a dish. After detecting this nuanced flavor, I began to refer to those ingredients as the “dark spices.” Which seemed to be an ideal title for my recipe collection.

making adjustments

As much as I was hoping that once a recipe graduated to The Dark Spices it would be the ultimate version, I am an inveterate tweaker. There always seems to be one more thing I could adjust to achieve “perfection.” Thus it wasn’t long before I started to find notes scribbled on newly “approved” recipes. At first it was just a small change to a quantity, or a quick spelling correction. Eventually some recipes collected so many “minor” changes, that I was back to where I had been before the database! I had to go back and update the ingredients or instructions in the database, then replace the recipe in the book with a fresh (dated) copy.

A challenge that surfaced after using this system for a few years was that I did not always remember to refer to my comments as I was developing a recipe or cooking dinner. Even worse, I even caught myself going back to the original cookbook recipes rather than using my “improved” version.

To address this I devised two bookmarks — Comments and Customized Recipe — which I placed with the original recipe. A Comment bookmark would remind me to check the comments section of the database while a Customized Recipe bookmark directed me to use the The Dark Spices recipe rather than the original one from the cookbook.

Comments themselves would be printed out — especially when complicated or when they came from multiple dates. At first, I generally just made a mental note if there was only one or two small changes since I didn’t think it was worth printing minor changes. This was hardly foolproof since I would often forget those changes in the midst of cooking.

To assist, I got a white board for the fridge, which has turned out to be a better idea than I expected. Now when there are only a few comments about a recipe, I write them on the board and hang the recipe to the side. I can also jot down additional ideas while I’m cooking which I can transfer to the database later. Problem solved? Yes, I think so!

a system in place

The Dark Spices started with only a few recipes, but in just a few years the number grew to nearly 40! Browsing through the recipes today, I notice several that I do not make too often or even any longer. A number tend to be seasonal (spiced ice coffee); others are basic (best method to make rice or chapati); and even a few (Lamb Vindaloo), that have been superseded by improved versions (Paneer Vindaloo).

Although it took a long time to devise this system, I have been quite satisfied with it, and have only made slight adjustments such as the bookmarks and white board. As I occasionally browse The Dark Spices, I still see room for improvement, but these will be small: better organization; dividers for different sections; remove some recipes that really don’t belong there anymore and perhaps even graduate to a bigger binder!