July 17th, 2019

Seems like I have a  tendency to lose things lately.   And this is something fairly new to me.  I'm always so excruciatingly organized and tidy that everything is exactly where it ought to be. I never lost anything. And now?  Well, it wasn't that long ago that I wrote about nearly losing an earrings. And of course I have often been accused have having lost my mind.  But this time it was a recipe. An entire recipe!  How on earth could I have lost a recipe?

Here's what happened.  I said something to Tim recently about noticing that we had more ground beef in the freezer than usual and I was wondering what he would prefer that I use some of it for.  I came up with an impressive of list of ideas:  meatballs, stuffed peppers, chili, spaghetti with meatballs or meat sauce, tacos and then before I could continue he said, 'Or hamburgers. "  And because I always want to please him as much as he pleases me, I agreed.  "Hamburgers it is!", I declared and then I debated what to make to serve with the burgers.

I had, not that long ago made a macaroni salad. And while it was good, it was too recent to repeat.  And then I made a potato salad not long before that.  Again, too soon for a rerun.   Then it occurred to me.  Cole Slaw!  I haven't made Cole Slaw in quite some time but I knew that I had a really good recipe.  Tim loves Cole Slaw.  There!  Decisions made.

Now then, while I do own more than a few cookbooks, I have to be honest and tell you that the vast majority of my recipes come from a difference place.

These giant 3-ring binders hold my most precious and often made recipes.  Some of the recipes are gifted to me by friends and family, some I have made up myself, others I have cut out of magazines or newspapers or even from the backs of product packaging.  The only recipes in the confines of these binders are ones that I have tried and presented to great reviews.  Basically, if it ain't good, it ain't in these binders.

You see that one binder is for sweets and one for savories.  I'm organized that way.  So I had no doubt at all that I would find the recipe I had in mind, in the salad section of the green binder.  I had no reason to believe otherwise.  I had no hesitation yesterday when I hauled the binder out and opening it to the section on salad so I could add any ingredients to my grocery list that I didn't already have on hand.

To my great surprise, it wasn't there.  How could it not be there?  Where else could it possibly be?  I slowed down and flipped through the salad section one more time.  It was probably right there in front of me but I didn't see it.  One page at a time, I carefully checked and.....nope.  No recipe for Cole Slaw.  Dang!

Could I have lost my mind entirely one day I accidentally put it in a different section?  Doubtful, but I suppose anything is possible, So I went through the entire book, soups, appetizers, casseroles, entrees by carnivore and.......nothing.  Dang again!

So, defeated I began looking on line.  I couldn't remember the name of the recipe other than, Cole Slaw, but I knew that one of the ingredients that might be considered unusual, was buttermilk.  So I began my online search for Cole Slaw recipes containing buttermilk.  There were many of them.  ( I think you could type in "recipe" followed by almost any noun and something would pop up)  But none of them were the one I had in mind. I was discouraged.  I really wanted to make this doggone Cole Slaw for Tim.  And the more I couldn't find it, the more important making it seemed to become.

This afternoon when I got home from the museum, I calmly decided to look through the book one more time.  I pulled out the big green Savory Recipe Binder, opened it to the salad section, turned two pages and there it was.  Right there in front of me.  the recipe I had cut out of a newspaper  at least a million years ago,  for Kentucky Slaw.  Weird eh?  House Pixies!  That's who I am blaming.  Well known mischievious house pixies.

Quickly before it disappeared again, I wrote down the necessary items to pick up on my way home from teaching tomorrow.  I've carefully left the binder open on the counter to that very recipe so it cannot vanish again.  ​

Now don't even try telling me that this sort of thing has never happened to you because if you do, I will know you are lying to me.  I hear all of the time about people losing their keys, their cell phones, their appointment cards or glasses only to find them again a short time later.  So I know I'm not the only one. 

​ House Pixies.  It's an epidemic!