Years ago, when I had 5/8ths of my stomach removed (bleeding ulcer), recovery was slow and life, on a number of different levels, was difficult.. I stopped reading—well, I didn’t stop exactly, not entirely. I just stopped caring about fictional characters’ dire straits. I had my own dire straits.

During the development of my ulcer, when I was gulping Tums, I was able to read a little Neville Shute and Daphne du Maurier. Frenchman’s Creek comes to mind. (I think it was serialized in Ladies Home Journal.) Not Rebecca . I read it before a whole industry grew up around that famous novel: movies and sequels and prequels and spin-offs. Later, after my surgery, I couldn’t even cope with stories . I read cookbooks. I found them very soothing.

I’m reading cookbooks again, even buying the odd one. I thought this is because I have someone to cook for—my son Matt who is with me for the duration—and certainly that is a pressure, having to come up with three complete meals a day when I frequently do not feel like cooking or eating anything and wish I could take a break. I realized that today as I served lunch: cauliflower steaks.

I’ve been reading the recipe for some time, but I had never got around to buying one until recently when I discovered riced cauliflower for stir-fries or a substitute for mashed potatoes. For years, my definition of eternity had been one person and a cauliflower, or even two. Full disclosure: That’s an alteration of the Bombecks’ definition of eternity: two people and a ham. But I was reading recipes this morning and I had a big cauliflower in the fridge and suddenly…!

It was good, for us and the planet.