Last week, it was Sausage and Eggplant Penne and Szechuan Chicken Stir-Fry. Yesterday, it was Bourbon-Roasted Pork Tenderloin and Sausage and Herb Dressing.
This morning, it was Honey Ginger Pork and Beans and Butternut Squash and Sweet Potato Soup.
“What are you doing there?” the husband asked, as I set my eyes on Sticky Ginger-Lime Chicken.
“Clipping,” I said.
“Oh,” he said. “Of course.”
The husband had seen this movie before — the clipping, that is. I am, after all, an inveterate clipper when it comes to recipes. You might even say: I clip, therefore I am.
It’s something of an addiction, this business of opening a magazine, eyeballing something or other, then reaching for the scissors.
It begins at the grocery store checkout. Oh, I will think, spying the cover of a magazine. There will be a picture of some pasta dish, some Sunday roast, some slow-cooker concoction. I might want to make that, I will say to myself, tossing the magazine in my cart.
Odds are, however, that the recipe will never be converted — to a meal, that is. The clipping, like all clippings before it, will be placed in a binder and destined to live out its days in a drawer in the kitchen.
“What shall we have for tonight tomorrow?” the husband will wonder on a Tuesday.
“How about spaghetti?” I will suggest. “Or macaroni and cheese?”
Spaghetti and macaroni and cheese are what you might call my go-to meals. Seldom am I likely to remember that I have several hundred mealtime possibilities — or perhaps several thousand — on a shelf beneath the counter. It’s spaghetti that comes to mind first.
“How about, oh, chicken wings?” the husband might counter. “Maybe with some new-fangled soy and honey and garlic sauce?”
On occasion, the question will lead to alarm bells.
“Oh,” I will say. “I think I clipped out a recipe for that not long ago. But it’s buried in the pile. We’ll have spaghetti.”
The Sausage and Eggplant Penne, as brilliant as it looks, is not likely to make an appearance, and nor is the Szechuan Chicken Stir-Fry.
Still, I continue to clip away.
“What’s that one?” the husband asked the other day. I was in front of the TV, doing you know what.
“Oh,” I said. “This is a recipe for Spinach-Stuffed Pasta Shells. Doesn’t it look yummy?”
“It does,” said the husband. “Do you think you’ll make it?”
I shrugged my shoulders.
Maybe, I said. For the time being, however, the recipe would retire to a binder in a drawer. It may be converted someday down the road. But first, I will make macaroni.
