What to send your list when you have no new recipe
Send five old recipes that belong together right now, with a one-line reason; the list does not know what is new on the blog and does not care, it wants dinner.
The week with no new recipe is most weeks, for most blogs. It is also the week that decides whether the list stays warm. The answer is never to skip it; it is to send what you already have, chosen well.
Here are four ways to find the issue, in the order we try them.
1. What is in season this minute
Not the season. This minute. The thing that is in the store, on sale, or coming out of the garden right now. Rhubarb in April. Corn in August. Cranberries in October. Citrus in January.
Search the catalog for the ingredient. If five or more recipes come back and none went out last month, that is the issue. The reason writes itself: "The cranberries are back in the store, so here is what I do with them."
This is the issue we reach for first, and it is the easiest to find. The catalog has had years to accumulate recipes for every season; the only thing that changes is the date.
2. A holiday four weeks out
Thanksgiving, Christmas, the Fourth. Four weeks ahead is when readers start thinking about the menu, and the issue that arrives then is the one that gets saved. Sides, make-ahead, desserts that are not the obvious one.
Closer to the day, a second issue: the timeline, the leftovers. When to start pinning for a holiday has the dates for the year.
3. A dinner that goes together
Pick a main that fits the weather. Add two sides that go with it and a dessert. Four recipes, one plan. "Sunday: pot roast, mashed potatoes, green beans, apple crisp."
The dinner issue gets more clicks per recipe than a roundup because the reader is not browsing, she is deciding. It also uses the sides and desserts that never lead a roundup on their own.
4. One recipe with a story
The old post that deserves a second life. The one that gets traffic every October and you have never emailed. The one your family actually makes. Three recipes beside it that belong with it, and an opening that says why it matters to you.
This is the issue that sounds most like a person, and the one to send when you have something to say.
The belonging test
Five recipes belong in one email if a reader could say in one sentence why they are together, and the sentence is not "these are recipes". A shared ingredient passes. A shared course passes (five soups). A shared occasion passes (five things to bring to a potluck). A shared season is weaker but passes if the recipes also share a mood: five cozy things for the first cold week.
"Five recipes I like" does not pass. Neither does "chocolate", unless the five are actually about chocolate and not merely containing it. A roundup of recipes that happen to have garlic in them is not a garlic roundup.
How many is enough
Five to seven. Fewer than five and the email is thin; more than seven and the reader stops scrolling. If only four fit, add one that belongs beside them even if it does not share the ingredient: a bread next to four jams, a salad next to four grilled mains. Readers do not notice the odd one out; they notice the gap.
The reason is the opening
Whichever way you found the issue, the reason you found it is the opening paragraph. "The cranberries are back." "Thanksgiving is four weeks out and the sides are the hard part." "It is soup weather." One or two paragraphs that connect the reason to the first recipe, in your voice. Not a story about your week unless the story is the reason.
Do it on Monday
The looking takes twenty minutes if you do it every week and an hour if you do it once a month, because once a month you have forgotten what went out. Monday morning, the catalog, one of the four questions above, five recipes, a reason. Then send it, or schedule it for the day your list opens email.