title: Is it possible to create a dictionary "template"?
body: <p>I'm creating a recipe selector of sorts and am looking to create a unified dictionary template.  I currently have something like this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>menu_item_var = {'name': "Menu Item", 'ing': (ingredients)}
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I'm concerned about retyping <code>name</code> and <code>ing</code> for every <code>menu_item_var</code>, for time's sake and the likely disaster of a mis-key.  I know I could add <code>Menu Item</code> as item 0 in my <code>tuple,</code> erase the <code>dict</code> and run a <code>for</code> loop to make the dictionaries safer, but that wouldn't convert the original <code>menu_item_var</code> from a <code>tuple</code> to <code>dict</code>.  Is there a "smarter" way of doing this?</p>