I dropped my phone into a bowl of brownie batter. Its speakers have never been the same (but the brownies were unharmed). Potential kitchen mishaps are one reason I want to change my habit of using my phone when I cook. My other reason is that it’s too tempting to multitask if my phone is in one hand and I’m sauteing with the other. I like cooking and baking. I don’t want to miss the smell of thyme or the taste of chocolate because I’m on my phone (probably researching the filmography of an obscure actor or something equally useful). My phone functions as my sous chef, however, so this isn’t an easy habit to change. I need my phone in order to cook. All the recipes I’ve liked and the ones I hope to try are organized on Pinterest. Yet, they don’t have to be. 

When my grandma passed away two years ago, I was given her recipe collection: a simple wooden box stuffed with mismatched index cards. Some of the recipes are written in her familiar hand and others are not. Recipe boxes were once commonplace, of course. Growing up, my family had a recipe binder with little plastic sleeves the cards slid into. All of the family standards were in the binder–my mom’s French bread, peanut blossom cookies, pizza hotdish (“casserole” for non-Minnesotans). The best recipes always had the dirtiest cards. Often they were dotted with fossilized batter or wrinkled from repeated spills. (Note: In this way, paper recipes hold up better than iPhones.)

A recipe box may be an old-fashioned idea, but I think it’s one worth revisiting (along with Oxford shoes and Downton Abbey). Going forward, I still plan to use Pinterest to find and categorize my recipes. But when I find a keeper, I’ll print it out and file it in a recipe binder. When I cook, my phone won’t be in my hand, and my mind will be on cooking. I hope.