At Christmas I told my friend Mary-Ellis that I had gotten rid of all my cookbooks and was devoting the rest of my life to Joshua McFadden’s new one.  She wanted to hear more about that and here is my answer to her:

I have not been a good cook since the 1970s. When I was first out of college, I exulted in being in the kitchen without anyone yelling at me.  As I recall I had several specialties: cinnamon rolls, cardamom bread, pea soup and cornbread, quiche, which at the time was quite nouvelle in the United States. We were all trying to be vegetarian at the time on account of Frances Moore Lappe.  And we did the best we could with Adele Davis even though her recipes were awful and Euell Gibbons even though we lived in the city.

I remember a later golden period where I made orange cake. It was like a vanilla cake only with orange juice and orange peel with creamsicle orange butter cream frosting. And ooh, ooh: the orange bread recipe from the Nantucket Diet Murders, one of the first of the mystery genre that has recipes stirred into the narrative. It’s the only one I ever read, not having a taste for them, really, but I think I made that orange bread several times a year for a long time.

Somewhere in there I learned to make chicken soup, roast a turkey and make gravy. I started making my mother’s celery almondine, which probably sounds awful to you but it is delicious and I still make it several times a year. My finest culinary accomplishments came about when there seemed to be nothing in house to eat. I could open the refrigerator and cupboards, muse for a bit and put together a meal. That was fun.

Then I started having digestive problems and “joint issues,” which I immediately diagnosed as diet-related. I had taken over this practice from my mother. (“Your problem is you don’t get enough broccoli”)I didn’t need her to blame my diet, I did it myself. I commenced upon a series of experimental diets which did absolutely nothing for me and which I don’t want to re-live here. In any case, most American women reading this know exactly what I’m talking about.

When I first started eschewing –as opposed to chewing—gluten, I made awful mock graham crackers and swore I liked them. In the 90s, gluten free eating was a desolate business. There were no tasty substitutes or decent recipes. After expensive experiments with xantham gum and rice flour, I stopped trying. In the end, I gave up bread and cake and pretty much everything I loved to eat.

Then there was Abascal Diet craze, which I faithfully followed for three years. Here’s the diet: shop for vegetables, chop vegetables, roast vegetables with a little olive oil, salt and pepper. Eat. Repeat. There’s no time for anything else.

This is what was going on with me when everyone else was watching cooking shows and raving about Elizabeth David and MFK Fischer and Julia Child and Craig Claiborne and Irma S Rombauer and Julee Rosso and Ina Garten and I can’t think of any more without resorting to research. The point is that everyone was cooking and everyone had their favorite book and show and everyone was developing fusion tastes except me. I was chewing weeds and tree bark and herb tea bags.

I have two friends who are ingenious cooks and who somehow have made it their practice to feed me. Former professionals, they have both taken on the challenge of cooking within my diet restrictions, which fortunately now are few.

Four times a year, once a season, Tim invites me and a mutual friend, Julie to a soiree at his apartment. He spends the entire day cleaning his place (because he is the child of 1950s’ parents) and cooking. The meal always consists of some surprise cocktail, a plate of three different hors d’oeurves and preliminary conversation. We move to the table for the entrée, two sides and a livelier, if not heated conversation about books, movies, politics, religion, our childhoods, the book I’m writing, Julie’s Mexican family and whatever Neil de Grasse Tyson said recently. Then dessert.

Every few months I go down to Burien to have lunch with my friends Susan and Mike. Susan’s kitchen could be in a cooking show. Her cookbooks could stock an entire bookstore. She says she likes just looking through them. When her grandchildren were babies, she read to them from the cookbooks in a soothing voice.

Susan’s lunches start with a display of appetizers, artistically presented. I sit at the bar and chomp away on homemade and fresh everything while Susan puts the finishing touches on the main meal and the three of us talk.

The meal is always splendid. There’s dessert and usually some chocolate for Afters. Then we play poker or Scrabble or the Great Dalmuti or a card game, which I believe is called “Oh, Hell,” or “Go to Hell.”

My point in going into all this is that Susan and Tim have inspired me to believe that I can re-learn to cook. Or up my game, anyway.  I was itching with this aspiration when I happened upon a cookbook in the Peak Picks section of the library. Six Seasons, a New Way with Vegetables by Joshua McFadden.  Part of the attraction besides all the lovely photographs were the chapters on the late winter vegetables that come in my Imperfect Produce box and I’m not sure what to do with them except roast à la Abascal. I checked out the book. Three recipes in I ordered my own copy.

Part of my difficulty, I have learned, is that today’s cuisine does not lend itself to the mindset from the Betty Crocker kitchen of my childhood. Recipes in old cookbooks tend to have a list of six ingredients and three sentences of instruction. They are begging for improvisation. That is how I learned to cook: by trying whatever is available. Today’s recipes are like chemical experiments and you have to approximate exactness.

In the past if it called for parsnips, I might substitute carrots and potatoes. If it called for lemon zest, I might use Rose’s lime juice. A yellow onion would substitute for shallots, chives or leeks. If I don’t happen to have marjoram or oregano, I’d use thyme. If I didn’t have parsley, I’d leave it out. I almost never had parsley. And don’t get me started on vinegars. Apple cider vinegar was all anybody needed. I would try a recipe according to these slovenly standards and end up with some shlock and think, well, that recipe’s no good.

So when I bought this cookbook I told myself I had to follow the recipes exactly. It takes some doing. Halfway down the list of ingredients will be some concoction I was supposed to have made ahead of time and those instructions are on page 30.  This might require me to wait another day to try the dish. More than once I have put off a recipe because I needed golden raisins and I only had currants in the house. But I have been amazed at how wonderful food can taste when prepared with enthusiasm for the details.

“Parsnip Soup with Pine Nut, Currant, and Celery Leaf Relish: Its flavor was just astonishing.

“Brussels Sprouts with Pickled Carrots, Walnuts, Cilantro and Citrus Vinaigrette:” Here are my notes from my first attempt: “Next time I wouldn’t use the burnt walnuts and I’d want the pickled carrots to be more pickly. Use the vinegars he says and let it pickle for more than two hours.” I made myself try the recipe again exactly as it’s written, even including the cilantro, which I didn’t think I liked. I ate it for two meals that day: a pound of Brussels Sprouts and all the trimmings. I thought nothing could taste so good as this.

One day I’ll have Tim and Julie and Susan and Mike over for dinner. And Mary-Ellis.