You know how those clipped recipes just pile up on your counter or get stuffed into books and junk drawers, maybe packed into shoeboxes?

For longtime reader Helen Porter, the clippings came in the form of stacks of old Taste sections. Porter, who died this year at age 97, had saved all four decades of the food section, which she stored in her closet.

"I'm not interested in another way to make macaroni and cheese. I'm looking for something different, some variety," she told us last fall. In other words, she liked what she found in Taste.

At left is what 2,080 issues of Taste look like (more than 12,000 pages).

LEE SVITAK DEAN