PSA: Do You Have Backups of Your Recipes?
Losing your business in a fire is a tragedy but Archie Marlin, owner of Alps Candy Store in picturesque Leavenworth, WA has a much larger loss to contend with: 600 recipes. The original recipes, which represent 35 years of Marlin's work at the store, went up in flames along with the building. Fortunately, the building was insured. But there is no insurance for the years of work that those recipes represent.
Marlin has a great attitude about this. (Better than mine would be, I think.) Asked if he can recreate the formulas, he says, ""Sure, I can do it. They might not taste the same but they will have the same names — if I can remember the names." (Fire badly damages Alps candy store)
Having spent much of the last two decades as an IT consultant, I'd like to pass along the first question I ask clients who are having computer problems - it applies here as well.
Well, do you?
If you do, the computer can crash (or the store can burn) and your work survives intact. If not, well...are you feeling lucky?
It's a simple thing to do. Make copies of your files, archive your blog, photocopy those stained 3x5 cards from your Nana. But do it. Please. We'll all sleep better tonight.
...and Mr Marlin, I wish you all the best of luck in your quest to recreate your candy recipes. The thoughts of many, many a cook are with you.
