It is important to view a recipe book as one that you use daily and what we in our family call "a living book" — a book that you use all the time, not just read once and discard on the shelf. It is in a sense a spell book, a book of magical enchantments, to be consulted, used and altered as needed.

My cooking spoon,My magic wand, Of this dish,You will be fond.

Healing Magic I instill,Far Greater this,Than any pill!

Cookbooks are almost a substitution for a lost sense of culture. People want some other life than the one they're living, so they buy a cookbook with pictures and imagine themselves as part of that life.

None of this Mad Mario showmanship- orange clogs and Bermuda shorts fit for Babar, sweetbreads garnished with squash blossoms stuffed with cheese from the milk of Angora goats who live in the Pyrenees. Litchi sorbet veined with coconut milk and honey from Crete.

But what little we did know, we brandished wildly like cavemen’s clubs, slinging out stuff we felt tasted good. That was as intricate as ourgame plan ever was—to make food that tasted good.

Things to know from books to read

She is my "Soul Dog" and I totally get it now.