Thank you for this entertaining and engaging read.

"You cook like a chemistry experiment," was how my ex-wife had kept me out of the kitchen when we were married. She was decidedly the better cook.

When I got divorced, wanting shared custody of my then-little child, I had to learn how to cook. I learned as much from asking people as from cookbooks, sometimes keeping an open phone line to my mother while baking or making dinner. Now after ten years, I rarely follow a recipe, measure and time things by sight, and readily substitute ingredients, to the point that I never make the exact same dish twice.

What really helped was farm program I joined, where I get weekly fresh produce that's in season. What I get each week depends on the weather, so I cannot plan meals - rather, I have to come up with recipes that use the ingredients I have.