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01/28/2003 Archived Entry: "Finding Recipes: Like Lentils and Pasta"

I think it is time for me to explain once again how to find recipes on this website.

What brings this up is that I am now doing segments on the WOR morning program (Mondays and Wednesdays at about 6:50 and repeated at about 8:50) and last week I rattled off a recipe for lentils and pasta that I said was on my website. It is. Still, emails came in requesting the recipe, some wondering how to find it, some insisting that the recipe is not there (or here, I should say).

Recipes can be found in various places on the website. There are hundreds of them now. But you don’t need to know where they are. All of them, no matter in which section they are housed, can be found very easily in two ways:

1. by using either the “search” function
or
2. the The Food Maven’s Index

The “search” box can be found in the upper right hand corner of every page on the site. Simply put a keyword or two in the box – in this case, “lentils and pasta” – and all the references to those words will appear in a list that also gives some text from the item. Click on the item that seems most appropriate and it will appear on your screen. In the case of “lentils and pasta,” the second item is it and it is housed in the section that gives sample recipes from my book, Naples At Table

I love indexes, and The Food Maven’s Index has elicited compliments from several professional editors and librarians, people who understand the importance of a good index. It is complete and very well cross-referenced. The only problem with my index is that it is not totally up to date. I update it every two or three months. It is not possible to do it more often.

Still, if you look for “lentils” in the alphabetical index, it will refer you to “beans” and you can easily find the recipe for “lentils and pasta.” Indeed, you will see that there are two recipes for lentils and pasta – the Italian one I rattled off on the morning show, and Rashta, a Lebanese recipe that calls for egg noodles instead of macaroni. Also, if you look under “pasta” in the index, you also will see both recipes.

Okay, lesson is over.