Customer Reviews

Moleskine Passions Recipe Journal

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The Moleskine Passions Recipe Journal is a well made diary sized (5"x8¼") notebook printed on medium/light weight acid free paper with 240 total pages. It contains sections for most typical areas of cooking; Appetizers, First Course, Main Dishes, Deserts, etc. plus several unlabeled sections for the owner to personalize. In addition there are weight, measure and temperature conversion charts, produce and fruit harvest/ripeness charts, food information charts and sections for notes, event or party planning. The cover is cleverly embossed with kitchen utensils and includes an elastic strap to keep the journal securely closed. Also included are three handy attached bookmarks and an expandable pocket in the back which contains the two sheets of stickers (for personalization) that come with the journal.

The pages for recording your recipes have limited space for writing, you'll need write carefully and small to fit most recipes on a page. The pages are not removable and pages cannot be added or moved around. The print in the book (charts, tables, etc.) is nearly microscopic. I found it very hard to read anything in the journal. As well the current and recent prices listed here on Amazon make this a very expensive and hard to justify choice.

I have to be honest - I already have quite a collection of Moleskine notebooks and love them all. However, I will say that I found this recipe journal to be the perfect companion. I consider myself a home cook with a penchant for collecting, organizing and categorizing my recipes into favorites folders within Firefox. However, it isn't always safe for my computer on the kitchen counter.

The pages in the recipe journal give you enough room to record a standard recipe if you don't mind keeping your handwriting pretty small. I had to shrink mine a bit after a few of my longer recipes had ingredients squeezed into the margins. I found the space for rating the recipes - 0 to 5 stars - a little unnecessary. If I think a recipe is worth anything BUT 5 stars, I'm not wasting any Moleskine pages on it at all.

Loved the blank tabbed pages in the back and the adjoining stickers - there are LOTS to choose from - that let you create your own sections. However, the actual layout of those pages isn't really conducive to writing more recipes. You get a page split up into smaller sections horizontally and none of the nifty layout from the pre-labeled recipe sections.

I should also mention that the wine pairing space provided didn't get much use. I actually took it upon myself to LOOK UP wine pairings for some of my favorite recipes though, and to that end at least I've been prompted to learn something about wine/food.

All in all, this is a great companion for any foodie who has an appreciation for Moleskine's craftsmanship. If you ask me, sure beats having a tin full of index cards or a box full of clipped recipes.

Assuming I eventually fill up my recipe journal - I've just begun - I would definitely buy another one. Lets me take ownership of recipes and add my own variations.

I really love the Moleskine Recipe Journal, I come from a family that loves to cook, but we each have our own twist on the same recipes. This is a great way to collect all those recipes you love in one place and to change them however you want! I would say it's deserving of a 5 star rating except there aren't as many pages of the full recipe layout as I would like - the last half of it is divided into 4 blank sections - a little smaller than the size of a recipe card. These sections are great for small recipes or notes, but I would much rather have more of the in depth pages that sold me on this journal in the first place.

This is a small format journal 5 1/4" x 8 1/4". There are a total of 12 tabbed sections each of them can record 16 recipes. 6 of the sections are already identified as Appetizers, First Courses, Main Dishes, Side Dishes, Desserts and Cocktails.

Each page in that section is printed with the recipe journal template that divides the page into pre-labeled sections. About 1/3 of each page is taken up with sections to note difficulty, servings , preparation time, cooking time, cooking process, wine parings, notes, and 1 to 5 star rating. I would prefer not to have that space on each page dedicated so I would have the flexibility to include only the information I feel is necessary and have that extra space to record the recipe or notes. The note section is 1" x 1 1/2", too small to be practical and I don't need a dedicated section to record whether the recipe is prepared in an oven, microwave, or stovetop.
The cocktail section has a different template and includes sections for alcohol content, servings, ideal occasion,tools, suggested glass, decoration, rating and notes.
If you are not able to print neatly in a very small font, 8 -10 point you would have a hard time using this journal. The small journal size will also limit the length of the recipes you could include.

The six tabbed sections that are unmarked also can record 16 recipes but those pages do not use the recipe journal format the pages are divided horizontally into 5 equal sections.
Inside the back cover is a two pocket accordion file where you will find some pages of stickers. Two pages of them have stickers intended to use to identify the unmarked tabs or you could use them to reassign the pre-marked sections. The two other pages one red one grey include stickers like love this!, hate this!, great tip! best ever!

They do include a section at the end with the page numbers so you can create your own index. There are two pages at the beginning of the book to list events with dates and notes. Also a seasonal food calendar and 3 pages with nutritional information of misc foods and a "Useful Measures and Conversions" page.

At the Moleskine web site you can print out a .pdf of 4 blank recipe template pages or you can type in the recipe into the template and print it out. No way to add photos though and you can't save the filled in .pdf on your computer you can only print it out.
When typing into the .pdf it will let you add unlimited information, a scroll bar will show up on the box you are typing in but none of that additional information will print out so if the scroll bar pops up you need to edit and remove words until it disappears.

There is no way to bind those pages into your journal so you would have to tuck them into the pages loose or put them into the accordion pockets, or paste them onto a blank page. I cut the templates out two pages side by side, folded in the center and used one of the ribbon page markers to hold them in place.

I purchased this journal to compliment my massive cookbook collection and recipes found online. I find that I will love a recipe in a cookbook, then promptly forget how much I loved it, where I found it, etc. I rewrite my favorite recipes in this journal as an easy collection of my favorites. The "notes" section on each recipe page has been very useful for writing who I cooked the recipe for, and what I paired with the dish. Like many people, I found that the pre-labeled tabs did not compliment my particular cooking tastes. Fortunately, you can select from the many stickers that come with the journal and cover the original labels with categories that better suit your needs. I've found the back pages (which are divided into 5 sections per page) to be useful for writing basic recipes for sauces, dressings, and preserves.

Like many other reviewers, I would have appreciated this journal being slightly larger, but it's not hard to write smaller.

As a culinary student and professional pastry cook, I think this book is great! I will probably make up my own sections instead of using theirs since this will primarily be for the bakeshop. I think the star rating will be great for me since the recipes here will be my own. A few folks have commented on how little space they have for writing recipes. Number one, it's a recipe, not The Great American Novel. How much space do you really need? Number two. Okay, so you really do need that much space. Well, why not cross-reference a page in a later section. All of the pages are numbered. On the bottom of the page you find so cramped, write in "continued page 123" and continue on page 123! I don't mean to be (that) snarky, but it seems obvious especially when so many of these same people claim that the later sections seem to be useless. In the later sections, I may write in different flavor options for ice cream or cookies, different garnishes or plating options, etc.

I don't see the point of copying all of my recipes that are already written into this book. I do think this is great for anyone, chefs especially, who do any sort of menu development or recipe writing. I LOVE the index. That's too cool. It will make it very easy to find information later. My only complaint is the cocktail section. I could do without it. C'est la vie. I'll most likely use it as another recipe section. I bought three of these books and do not regret it. I only wish I had found these before I started culinary school!

I purchased this Recipe Journal for a friend who was drooling over my Book Journal Moleskine. The friend has been saving recipes and loves to cook, so just the thought of having such a beautiful book to place their loved recipes was awesome! So, I bought it for her! (Why not share Moleskine love, I say!)

When she got the book we opened it to find stickers for her recipes and lots of room to detail all the facts, ease of cooking, time to cook, etc.

She took it right home and started getting out her piles of magazines and began cataloging her favorites.

A GREAT gift for those chefs in your family/friends.

THERE'S NOTHIN' LIKE A MOLESKINE!

I got this book to write down my favorite recipes from the new ones i try.
I found the first sections wonderful, the sections where its actually printed (ingridients, instructions, cooking temp...and more) however half of the book is empty,.... which bothers me. Also the pages are very thin, so you can see writing from the previous page. I do like the page that are printed, they give you alot of choices for your recipe.
overall its an ok book, that i will use to put in recipes that i like. However once its full-- i will transfer the recipes to a better book or maybe type them up and make my own book.

I loved the idea of this journal and did keep it after reviewing it, but It does need some help. Only half of the journal is pre-printed with pages for recipies. Other than having to write small to make a recipe fit on one page there was no problem. The second half of the journal is nothing more than blank pages. I feel these pages could have been put to better use like the first half of pre-printed pages for recipes.

There are also some stickers provided for your use in the journal, which is good, if they made any sense at all. Some of the stickers make sense for use in a recipe journal and others, well I don't know what they are for.

The Recipe Journal is very well constructed and I hope to get lots of use out of it. If you have a chance to review one before you buy one, I would recommend it.

This Recipe Journal would be perfect for someone that is going on a trip and likes to pick up recipes along the way.

Nice idea, and I like the overall feel of the journal. But like others here have said, the page format is a bit restrictive. Now that I have the book in my hands, I don't like the tabs at all -- I would want to put most of my recipes under just two or three headings, and if there are tabs, I want to be able to move pages around between sections. To me, a "journal" suggests that recipes should be entered as you make them, rather than as a catalog -- otherwise, why not just get a basic recipe organizer? I also agree with others who've said that the extra blank pages at the back weren't in an especially handy format.

Looking back, I probably would have been happier just getting a blank journal and customizing it.