Appetizing Muse

One of the least enjoyable tasks of maintaining Food Fare is typing the recipes I'm going to include in the next update.

I spent most of Sunday afternoon sifting through my notes and schedules, typing each recipe with an eye for mistakes and verifying exact measurements. Sometimes my notes are scattered and I end up having to go back and make further corrections. I type the recipes in Microsoft Word first, and then copy/paste them onto their respective pages in the rather large Front Page file I have for Food Fare. I typically keep a monthly calendar on which I make notations and reminders. When it comes time for updating, I go through three months worth of calendars a second time to make sure I have attended to all of my annotations.

I keep track of new recipes by jotting them down on lined sheets of paper (one for each recipe page). When updates draw close I cross-reference the recipes with what has been added to the pages and the recipe index offline. Another way I check myself is to leave all new recipes unlinked in the recipe index, which allows me to note the new dishes and make sure they are appearing on the corresponding recipe pages. Once I'm satisfied all is in order, I link the recipes in the index to their respective pages and back-up each document to disk.

I follow pretty much the same procedure with new Kitchen & Cooking Tips, Reader's Mail, Food Links and items being added to the Herbs & Spices page. When I have added a new page to the site, I have to reorganize all of the navigation links on each page to include the new addition to the site. It's a long process from start to finish, and doesn't include the time spent researching the food articles, writing them and getting individual pages ready.

By the time the actual update rolls around, I'm as ready as I'll ever be.