I try my best to live a healthy lifestyle, and I often turn to my trusty Healthy Cooking magazines when I’m asked to bring a dish to a party. The scenario often goes something like this:

Host: I’m having a little get-together this Saturday. Can you come?
Me: Oh, yes! Thanks for the invite. What can I bring?

Host: Well, you don’t have to bring anything, but if you really want to, how about a dessert?
Me: Perfect! I know exactly what I’ll make!

And then I think, “Ok, I remember seeing this summery-looking dessert on a right-hand page in Healthy Cooking. It was on a green plate, and I think there was a bite taken out of it. But darned if I can remember what issue it was in!”

As the layout designer for Healthy Cooking magazine, I am extremely familiar with all the pictures that have appeared in each issue. I often spend my days placing the pictures on the page and adjusting them to make the food look as scrumptious as possible.

So when I’m asked to bring a dish to a party, I can quickly picture the dish I’d like to bring, but unfortunately, after a year on the job, I have a hard time remembering which image appeared in which issue.

I encountered this exact situation this past Memorial Day. I wanted to bring a salad to dinner at my parents’ house, and instantly recalled a delicious-looking salad with romaine lettuce, black beans and corn. So I pulled out my old issues and thumbed through them…twice. I couldn’t find it anywhere. Was I wrong? Did I see the salad in, gasp, another magazine?

I went through the issues one last time and discovered that I was missing the very first issue: April/May 2008. Of course, it just had to be in the one issue I didn’t have at home! So, quick thinker that I am, I turned to the Internet.

I went to my computer and pulled up www.tasteofhome.com. I made my way to the Healthy Cooking archives and clicked on the link for the April/May 2008 issue. I scrolled down a bit, and that’s when I saw it:  to Fiesta Salad. As soon as I clicked the link and saw the picture, I knew it was the mystery salad I was looking for. Hooray!

I skimmed the list of ingredients and decided to make a few alterations. Instead of using chopped carrot and celery, I use red onion and green pepper because I wanted it to have more of a Mexican vibe. It was a snap to prepare and made a colorful addition to my mom’s dinner of grilled chicken, zucchini and eggplant, potato salad and Berry Cheese Torte (Taste of Home, June/July 2009, p. 21). What a lifesaver those archives are!

Kristen Johnson

Layout Designer