Did you know there are books out there comprised entirely of recipes? That’s it. Nothing else… Not even a crossword puzzle or a Why Do I Care I share A Birthday With Robert Redford Celebrity Birthday Column. A few days ago, Husband strolled-up next to me, dropped one of these books on the dining room table, cracked it open and stuck a finger to one of the pages. “We should make this.”

I stopped Googling “how to avoid cooking at all costs” and looked up at him. “Where did you get that?”

“The kitchen..now I was thin -“

“Impossible, we don’t own any cook books.”

“We have entire stack, on the counter..”

Putting up a hand, I stopped him. “You moved my paperweights?”

“What? No..look, there’s quite a few recipes in here, and since you always say you don’t know what to cook, I thought this would help. See?..” His finger tapped a line in bold, “Beef stew”.

“The only “stewing” I’ll be doing is over why you moved my paperweights. Not to mention, half the chairs in the house are going to be crooked, now that they don’t have a prop. Do you think anyone’s going to visit us when they hear we have crooked chairs?.. Just because you don’t want to eat frozen pizzas five days a week, doesn’t mean we have to lose all our friends.”

“So that means you’ll take a crack at it?”

“I might as well, now that I’m a social outcast.”

So yesterday, I dragged the book back out and, with Butch and Sundance peering over each shoulder, flipped through the index of witches’ brews and backwoods recipes. Things like “hamburgers” and “pasta salad”.. Who were these authors?… Magicians?

Instead of randomly picking something, I tried to narrow it down, turning to the section on “Easy Meals”, but seeing the laundry-list of ingredients, I kept going. “Meals With Five Ingredients” caught my eye – Still too much work. Finally I saw it, “Two Minute Meals With One Ingredient”. I ruffled Butch’s hair and gave Sundance a squeeze. “Babies, this is it.” Rifling to page 235, I found what we were having for dinner. It read:

You are trying to boil water. You will need: A pot and some water

I could already tell Husband would be too picky to eat it, so I went back to the five-ingredient-we-hope-you-have-your-doctorate-before-you-start-this concoctions, and settled on Beef Au Jus. Lovingly I gazed upon the recipe. My recipe. The “made it all by myself because it’s easier to prove my love by throwing things in a crock pot, instead of myself, in front of a bus” recipe. The babies nodded their approval. I read out loud:

Beef Au Jus:

You Will Need: beef, a pot, some water

The phone rang. “Hey Hon, how’s it goin’?”

“Good..just picked a recipe.”

“Great! What are we having?”

“Beef water.”

There was a long pause on the other end. “You’re right..We’re not going to have any friends left.”

“Don’t worry.” I replied. “I found something else to prop the chairs up with…”