A couple of weeks ago Kid 1 brought home a trophy for her cookies. I have to say, I was puffed up with pride. I have a big box of blue ribbons--now crisp and creased with a great deal of age--from cooking in years of 4-H. Kid 1 would likely squint her eyes ever so slightly in gentle dismay if I mentioned how she's a chip off the old block.

The cookie recipe came from one of my favorite cookbooks, The King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion. Flipping through the book with Kid 1, I realized it's been quite awhile since I've pulled out a cookbook to simply browse and seek temptation. For a very long time, life's been too busy to give much attention to anything cooking-related besides thinking up the quickest meals possible, but skimming through cookbooks used to be a favorite pastime. It's a refreshing hobby to rediscover.

In fact, I used to ponder choosing one cookbook from my collection and working my way through it to make every recipe in it. In the dust of life, I'd forgotten that had been a potential goal. Like most of my favorite cookbooks, I'd already started on that endeavor in the Baker's Companion, adding my comments as I made each recipe and dating it as if it were my chemistry lab notebook. I have a number of favorites in here and a number of pages dog-eared to make in the future…bagels, crepes, breads. And now that I've pulled it out, I'm loath to put it away. I'm afraid I'll forget this rediscovered pleasure all too quickly. Alas, my house is up for sale and I never know when it's going to be shown. It's an absolute violation of the "Make Your House Look Like It Stays Effortlessly Clean" Rule to leave anything laying out. So back on the shelf goes the Companion until temptation raises its luscious form yet again. I'm betting it will be in the guise of crepes.

ANISE RAE