A rich and rewarding life doesn’t just happen. You need to surround yourself with interesting people, have a sense of occasion, and know how to make your own fun. My schooling in this began when I was very young.

One mentor I always think of this time of year is Aunt Eloise—in truth, a longtime friend of my mother’s—who sent the most exotic, imaginative presents in the world. One year, the rich, sweet bread called panettone arrived, packed in a bright red and gold box. It had come all the way from Italy, and even after every crumb was eaten, the glamorous box occupied a place of honor on the sideboard. Once she sent a set of chopsticks, which upset family discipline at the dining table for a solid week. Another time, a box of serapes arrived, and then there was the year my brother, Bart, received Indian moccasins, and I received a Cheyenne buckskin dress with fringe, a gift so overwhelming I burst into tears.

When Aunt Eloise was not off adventuring, she would visit us during the holidays. She always arrived in an immaculately maintained Buick, and she insisted on carrying her own  suitcase into our wide hall, setting it down with a thump and a little sigh. (“Always travel light, darling,” she counseled, years before I ever went anywhere. “You might have to move fast.” Today, it occurs to me that I have no idea what her husband did for a living.)

Bart and I couldn’t wait to present ourselves before Aunt Eloise because we knew exactly what would happen. She would shake her head in amazement at how much we had grown and hug us thoroughly before rummaging through a capacious alligator handbag. “Oh, they are here somewhere,” she would mutter to herself, before triumphantly producing two chocolate bars, wrapped in thin gold foil and glossy paper. To this day, the scent of a chocolate bar is inextricably bound up with the thrill of arrival in my mind. I’m not a chocolate person by any means, but I really, really love finding one on my pillow in a hotel.

We had to open the chocolate bars very carefully, because Aunt Eloise always wanted the foil back. Like my parents, she had grown up during the Depression, and never wasted a thing. She would smooth the sheets and look mysterious. We knew what was up, and stayed close, so as not to miss anything.

The days before Christmas were filled with tree cutting and decoration, setting up the crèche, which had an expanded cast (my father trolled thrift shops and pawn shops looking, in particular, for Baby Jesuses—he couldn’t bear the thought of them being adrift), and frantic gift wrapping, often in paper that was soft from reuse. I would, under great duress, practice carols under Mom’s energetic direction. “O for the weengs, the weengs of a dove,” I would sing, and anyone within earshot would slip, very quietly, as far away as possible.

The annual greens-gathering expedition—magnolia, pine, holly, box, and spooky mistletoe—was made easy by one of Aunt E.’s gifts to my parents: two machetes. None of the adults, taking turns sipping from a sterling flask, had any qualms about teaching me how to use one. “You’ll do,” said Aunt Eloise. “Do you know how to shoot yet?”

And then, of course, there was the gingerbread. Dark, moist, and spicy, it was Aunt E.’s specialty. That year, she turned to face my brother and me in the kitchen. “I have always made gingerbread for you,” she said, removing her apron and hitching it up, neat and workmanlike, around me. “Now, it’s your turn.” She switched on the oven and then got comfortable at the kitchen table. Mom made cups of tea for them both and buttered the pan.

Bart stirred the flour, baking soda, and spices together. Wielding a machete had given me the confidence to plug in the Sunbeam and to cream the butter and dark brown sugar, then beat in the eggs and cane syrup—preferred by all in our house to molasses. I stopped, startled, when the mixture looked curdled, but Aunt Eloise peered into the bowl and said, “Oh, it’s fine! Just keep going and see what happens.”

After beating in the flour mixture and a little hot water, everything miraculously came together. After my mother helped me pour the batter into the pan, she tucked it into the hot oven.

By the time the dishes were done, so was the gingerbread. Aunt Eloise patted several pockets—she had a magician’s knack for misdirection—before unerringly settling on the right one, then fished out an envelope full of small gold stars, cut out of foil. They smelled, very faintly, of chocolate, as Bart and I pressed them into the warm cake.

I don’t have Aunt Eloise’s recipe, but this is a close approximation. It’s based on the Tropical Gingerbread (minus the canned coconut) in Charleston Receipts—a standard reference for both Aunt E. and my mother—and the Old-Fashioned Gingerbread in the big yellow Gourmet Cookbook.

You could dress it up with a glaze made from lemon juice and confectioners sugar, or with billows of whipped cream flavored with a little bourbon. Both options are absolutely delicious.

But nothing is prettier than gold stars, glimmering in candlelight. I’ve used edible gold leaf instead of foil, but the problem with being so rarified is that you don’t get to slowly peel off the gold stars and make Christmas wishes with them.

CHRISTMAS GINGERBREAD

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1½ teaspoons ground ginger

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

¼ teaspoon cloves or allspice

½ teaspoon salt

1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature

¾ cup firmly packed dark brown sugar

2 large eggs

½ cup pure ribbon cane syrup* or molasses (not robust or blackstrap)

2/3 cup hot water

Preheat the oven to 350° and butter a 9-inch square baking pan. In one bowl, stir together the flour, baking soda, spices, and salt. In another bowl with an electric mixer beat together the butter and brown sugar at medium-high speed until nice and fluffy. I prefer dark brown sugar because it makes the top of the cake slightly crunchy, but light brown sugar is perfectly fine; it will just result in a softer crust.

Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then beat in the cane syrup or molasses. At this point, the batter might look curdled, but, as Aunt Eloise would tell you, don’t worry about it. Reduce the mixer speed to low and beat in the flour mixture, then the water. Continue to beat until the batter is smooth, a minute or so.

Pour the batter into the pan and bake in the middle of the oven until a wooden skewer inserted in the center of the gingerbread comes out perfectly clean, around 35 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.

* The syrup made from ribbon cane has a little whang to it, like all types of molasses, but it’s lighter and sweeter. Not only is it a versatile baking ingredient, it makes the ultimate condiment for pancakes, waffles, or hot biscuits. Cane syrup is a supermarket item south of the Mason-Dixon; one tried-and-true mail-order source is Steen’s Syrup, from Louisiana.

I don’t think I’ve ever met a condiment I didn’t like. I love to get them as presents under the Christmas tree—I feel like a world traveler without getting out of my pajamas—and I love giving them—Branston pickle to a homesick Englishman, a big beautiful jar of preserved lemons or mostarda as a hostess gift, Ocracoke fig preserves to someone who thought she could never go home again, Thai red curry paste to people who like playing with fire, Duke’s mayonnaise to, well, pretty much anybody. (I consider myself sort of an unofficial Duke’s ambassador.)

Southerners, in fact, are a condiment-appreciating crowd. Artichoke pickle (which is made, not with true artichokes, but Jerusalem artichokes, a wild-growing tuber). Spiced grapes. Chowchow. Pickled okra and pepper jelly (two regional “classics” that post-date World War II). Shrimp butter. “Bourbonated” peaches. (The ones served at our wedding, overlooking a Savannah salt marsh, were from heirloom trees upcountry and were served with a syllabub spoon. They almost upstaged the wedding cake, they were that good. Because their juices were so voluptuous and sweet, we thought the bourbon was overkill, and never bothered to put it in. But I digress.)

I would travel back in time—hang the consequences—for the chance to have one of Aunt Roxie’s watermelon-rind pickles—and for the chance to coax the recipe out of her. Those pickles were superb, the best I’ve ever had; just looking at them cooled you off. Aunt Roxie also made a pepper Sherry that was as suave as Fred Astaire.

Pepper Sherry is my go-to condiment, the one I would want most on a desert island. (Let’s be realistic: Duke’s wouldn’t last in the heat.) It used to be so commonplace in the American South (as well as the West Indies) that it was never recorded in cookbooks. And then it gradually fell out of fashion and disappeared.

When the southern food historian and cookbook author Damon Lee Fowler discovered a jar of vintage pepper Sherry, analyzed its contents, and then published the recipe in his masterful Savannah Cookbook two years ago, it rocked my world, and I’ve gone through bottles of the stuff ever since. It somehow manages to be both delicate and devastatingly potent—rather like Aunt Roxie and other southern cooks of her generation—and a sprinkle or two is enough to add a little mystery and spicy-nutty caress to soups (everything from black bean to fish chowder), gumbos and other stews, a plateful of pot greens or rice and beans, even a tomatoey braised beef chuck roast.

By rights, pepper Sherry should  be made with tiny, incendiary bird’s eye peppers. Aunt Roxie grew them on her front porch (I can’t think of them without conjuring lantana and sand spurs), but today, they can be tough to find. Lately, I’ve been using Thai chiles; I scooped up a bunch at the end of the season, and keep them in the freezer. But I think I’m going to track down some bird’s eye peppers in a seed catalog I’ve got here somewhere and grow them next year.

PEPPER SHERRY

From The Savannah Cookbook, by Damon Lee Fowler (Gibbs Smith Publisher, 2008)

1/3 cup bird’s eye peppers or 1/2 cup other small hot peppers

1 cup medium dry Sherry (Amontillado)

1. Rinse the peppers in cold water, drain, and put them in a heatproof bowl. Bring 1 cup water to a rolling boil and pour it over the peppers. Let stand 1 minute and drain.

2. Put the peppers in a clean cruet, jar, or bottle that will hold at least 1½ cups. Pour the Sherry over them, stop or seal it well, and steep for at least 24 hours before using. It helps to distribute the peppery oils if you gently shake the cruet after 24 hours.

As you can see, sometimes the best things in life are staggeringly simple.

The smell of nuts, smoke, and char is in the air, and steam rolls across me like incense at High Mass. I could be in northern Italy, where the chestnut vendors shake their hot pans over a wood fire and shout “Caldaaaaaroste!” when they see you coming.

Or not.

I’m actually on Fifth Avenue, surrounded by a shoal of tourists moving at the speed of cold molasses. The only reason I’m not in a claustrophobic funk is because I’ve just been shoved and nudged—berthed, really—right up against a chestnut cart. Correction: a busy, multitasking chestnut-pretzel-hotdog-sausage-knish cart, made cheery for the holidays by a Middle Eastern vendor, a man who is proud of what he sells. “You need to roast chestnuts over low heat, covered, so they cook properly,” he says. “And they must be cut across the rounded, not the flat side, so that the heat travels evenly.”

His chestnuts are absolutely gorgeous, glossy and fat. And their flavor is wonderful, too. Chestnuts have a rich, round, honeyed sweetness, and these are meaty and moist, with no trace of mealiness or mold. They are genuine new-crop chestnuts, not leftovers from last year’s harvest.

They are not from American chestnut trees. The vast majority of those—an estimated four billion trees—succumbed during the mid-20th century to chestnut blight, a fungus that thumbed a ride on imported Asian trees, perhaps, or packing material. This great American tragedy has all but been forgotten, except by many in rural communities—from Maine to Florida, from the North Carolina Piedmont to the Ohio Valley—whose economy (from fenceposts to livestock feed) and ecosystem (from birds to bears) depended upon the chestnut. And it’s remembered, too, by the plant scientists who are breeding blight-resistant trees to repopulate our eastern woodlands.

I’ve never eaten a native American chestnut. The freshly roasted chestnuts that are warming my hands are from Italy. And they are really, really good. I buy a few more quarter-pound sacks and swing on home, wanting to share.

DIGRESSION: Now, most people don’t have access to roasted chestnut vendors, a vanishing breed. And most people don’t have the time, the inclination, or the martyr complex to roast and peel chestnuts at home. That job, not nearly as romantic as it sounds (your fingers burn, bleed, or both), falls squarely in my “Not No, but Hell, No” category. The pre-roasted chestnuts in a vacuum-packed bottle—available almost everywhere this time of year—are excellent, and will do the job nicely.

Okay, back to supper. I couldn’t get Italy out of my head. That is where I first ate a chestnut risotto, and bought a beautiful book to mark the occasion. Which, naturally, I could not find when I was ready to cook.

Never mind. Risotto is one of those things that sounds luxurious and difficult, but is very straightforward. It can be the basis of many a scratch supper because it’s completely dictated by the contents of your refrigerator (and the plundering you do while running errands). Your jumping-off point is the rice, obviously, but all that’s called for is an Italian medium-grained variety like Arborio, Carnaroli, or Vialone Nano. (Check your supermarket first, before making a trip to an Italian market or fancy-foods shop.) All of them hold their shape and chewy kernel as they virtually suspend themselves in creamy goodness. What could go wrong?

Nothing.

A look into the fridge reveals half a large butternut squash, which is easy enough to peel and cut into small chunks. I toss those with olive oil and some salt on a rimmed baking sheet and shove them into the oven to roast. Sweet potatoes would be delicious, too. And if I had any sausage on hand, I might have crumbled that in a pan, cooked it up, and then added it at the last minute. Sam makes quick work of peeling the street-cart chestnuts, although he must have eaten every third one, and cuts them into half crosswise.

In terms of the cooking liquid, it’s time to use up the last of the chicken stock that’s in the freezer. If that wasn’t around (in easily thawable amounts), I’d turn to the container of Swanson’s chicken broth lurking in the cupboard; it’s my go-to store-bought broth.

While bringing the cooking liquid (about 3½ cups stock, stretched with 2 cups water) to a bare simmer on a back burner, I put my heavy 5-quart pot on the stove and chop half a large onion into fine—all right, fine-ish—dice, then sauté that, along with some minced garlic, in olive oil until it’s soft and translucent but not brown.

Then I add 1½ cups of Arborio and stir it around until every grain is coated with oil. It should look like milk glass. A satisfying glug of white wine comes next—you’d miss that hit of acid if it weren’t there. I let that bubble away for a minute, then I start adding the hot stock,  ½ cup at a time, stirring until it’s absorbed by the rice and finagling the heat to keep the liquid in the rice pot at an energetic simmer.

A risotto is like a braise, in a way, because it makes its own sauce. A medium-grain rice like Arborio has lots of the starch molecules called amylopectins, which make the rice sticky. When you stir the rice, the grains release the amylopectins and thicken the liquid. Schools should require intro chemistry classes to be taught in a kitchen. Surrounded by something that smells this good, how could kids not be intrigued?

Granted, risotto requires you to be on your feet and facing the stove for 20 minutes, but a glass of wine, a little dish of olives, and the culinary alchemy occurring before you make the time pass quickly. (The ability to read and stir at the same time also comes in handy.) The way I tell when I need to add more liquid is to drag a flat-edged wooden spatula—one of the most useful kitchen tools ever—through the center of the rice. If you see only a small bit of liquid, then the rice is thirsty for more.

About halfway through adding the liquid, I stir in the chestnuts to hotten them up. Ten minutes later, there’s still some liquid remaining, but the rice is done—it’s creamy looking and and on the tender side of al dente. I stir in the roasted squash and ½ cup of grated Parmigiano, then cover the pot and let it sit for a few minutes.

A handful of sage leaves, ripped from the pot in our sunniest corner, gets fried until crisp, which takes just seconds, and the remaining cooking liquid—just under a cup—gets added to the risotto so that it is all’ onda, or wavy. Cue sage leaves and a little more Parm, and we are in business.

I really have to get better at taking photos of finished dishes, but our pasta bowls were nice and hot and risotto doesn’t like to hang about too long. So you will just have to use your imagination. I finally found that beautiful book, though.

Our heritage turkey from Bill Niman’s BN Ranch was really expensive. And it was not nearly as chesty as your typical supermarket bird, the aptly named Broad-Breasted White. Sleeker and more streamlined (nice gams!), it reminded me of that great Spencer Tracy line from the picture Pat and Mike: “Not much meat on her, but what’s there is ‘cherce.’ ” In other words, it had the proportions of a wild turkey, which can run, fly, and do everything else nature intended.

That’s all well and good. I mean, I’m delighted that heritage birds—pre-industrial, traditional breeds that enjoy a long life on pasture—only have one bad day (and, as the saying goes, it’s a doozy). But in every turkey of this kind I’ve ever had, the flavor has been canceled out by toughness. Maybe there’s a reason these breeds aren’t widely raised anymore, I’ve thought, and braced myself for a lightning bolt from the God of Local and Sustainable.

Now, I’ve known Bill and his wife, Nicolette, for years, and they are not to be underestimated. Still, I was deeply skeptical about whether tenderness and juiciness—two qualities prized in this day and age—could be achieved in turkeys with such an active, outdoorsy lifestyle. It’s a lot to ask, when you think about it.

But leave it to Bill—who has the most recognized name in the humanely raised “good meat” business—to nail it. It’s old news now, but a few years ago, he walked away from Niman Ranch, the hugely successful meat company he founded in the 1970s. Angry and exhausted after a protracted battle with a new management team over animal protocols and the bottom line, he left without a corporate executive’s golden parachute, without most of the herd of breeding stock he’d built up from scratch, and without a backward look.

Bill reinvented himself with BN Ranch (he is not allowed to use his surname to sell meat), a handful of cattle, a large herd of goats—a meat he thinks has a promising future—and 250 heritage turkey chicks from renowned breeder Frank Reese, of Lindsborg, Kansas, who can track his flock’s lineage back more than 100 generations. Bill, a kindred spirit, pays as much attention to genetics as he does to animal husbandry and how the birds are processed. (If you want to read more about life on the BN Ranch, check out Nicolette’s blog on theatlantic.com.)

The turkey was fabulous, its terrific flavor amplified by the fact that it was beautifully moist and tender. (My very basic, no-frills, no-brine cooking method—just salt, pepper, butter, and basting—only goes so far.) There wasn’t quite as much white meat as you would get from a Butterball, say, but there was an elegant sufficiency. Interestingly, the breast meat wasn’t the dazzling white (like the teeth of a Grade B celebrity) of a commercial bird; it was creamier in color. It looked, and was, delicious.

Admittedly, there is no getting around the cost of one of these birds—$110 for a 12- to 14-pounder at Preferred Meats. But when I think of what people routinely plunk down for a standing beef rib roast, for instance, or porterhouse steaks, I feel thrifty, not extravagant.

After all, we’ve gotten four stellar meals (the main event, turkey soup, plenty of sandwiches, and—my favorite—turkey Tetrazzini) out of our bird, plus a few quarts of glorious stock to see us through a winter’s worth of soups, stews, and chili. We did not waste a scrap of that bird. If it had come with the feet attached (I’m just sayin’, Bill), I would have dried them in the oven and given them to our favorite voudou priestess for Christmas. Even the neck still looked unbelievably meaty after giving its all to the stock. I can’t vouch for how it tasted, though. Sam got me settled in front of the TV with a drink, hid in the kitchen, and very quietly ate the whole thing.

Cradling a bourbon in one hand, my father would always remark during our Thanksgiving celebration—in which the turkey played second fiddle to an oyster roast—that southern colonists were throwing cocktail parties by the time the Pilgrims anchored off Cape Cod.

That must be why milk punch feels so right.

My Thanksgivings here in New York begin in Central Park, at an assembly organized by our friends Thomas Jayne and Rick Ellis. Thomas firmly believes that we are all pilgrims in various ways, and so, for more than 20 years, we’ve gathered to lay a wreath of Indian corn at the base of J. Q. A. Ward’s statue “The Pilgrim” and to read aloud Edward Winslow’s description of the first Thanksgiving feast at Plymouth, Massachusetts, written in 1621.

Today, it was recounted by our friend Alfonso, who just became a citizen this past year. The Mayflower Compact, one of this country’s most important documents, was read by Wendell Garrett, gentleman-scholar and, umpteen years ago, my former boss at Antiques magazine. “I wish our co-op board would adopt something like that,” someone in the crowd muttered.

Stephen Gerth, the rector at the Church of Saint Mary the Virgin, was in charge of the benediction. He prefaced it with the intriguing and comforting notion that perhaps Adam and Eve weren’t expelled from the Garden of Eden because of sin, but because planted within them was the ability and desire to go to someplace new. His benediction was simply four short lines from Pale Fire, written by the 20th-century pilgrim Vladimir Nabokov. “Now I shall spy on beauty as none has /  Spied on it yet. Now I shall cry out as / None has cried out. Now I shall try what none / Has tried. Now I shall do what none has done.”

It dovetailed beautifully with the Mayflower Compact, we all agreed. And then it was time for a drink.

Those of us at the assembly who don’t have a train to catch or dinner to wrangle wander down to the King Cole Bar, in the St. Regis Hotel. We continue the theme of the day with corn-based libations—anything from Diet Coke to a bourbon and branch.

But most of us order a milk punch.

Although lots of people presume milk punch is generically southern, my suspicion that it was a New Orleans libation is confirmed by Rick, a top-drawer food historian. “There are milk punch recipes included in the first cocktail book published in America—How to Mix Drinks, or The Bon Vivant’s Companion,” he says. “It was written by Jerry Thomas and published in New York in 1862.” The first recipe in the book is very similar to recipes one sees today, using brandy and rum instead of bourbon. “One is served hot and the two others are for a rather elaborate preparation called ‘English Milk Punch’—both served cold,” Rick elaborates.

By 1906, a recipe appears in the third edition of The Picayune’s Creole Cook Book. “I don’t have a copy of the first edition [1901],” Rick says longingly. “But I wouldn’t be surprised to see it there.” The recipe, subtitled “Ponche au Lait,” calls for milk, sugar, brandy or whisky, and crushed ice. The sesquicentennial edition of the book includes the same recipe, with an added serving suggestion of a sprinkling of grated nutmeg.

Rick is on a roll. “Mary Land in her Louisiana Cookery—that’s 1954—includes a 30-page chapter devoted to ‘beverages,’ ” he says. “But the only recipe for milk punch is ‘A Milk Punch for the ILL!’—one pint milk, one cup sugar, and two cups sherry. Serve hot.’ ”

Rick and I look at each other. “Honey, I don’t feel well,” we chorus.

My grandmother was relaxed about canning; it was something she did all her life. Her daughter, my mother—not so much. To her, standing over a hot stove stirring boiling jam was the last thing she wanted to do, ever.

My father, who adored homemade relishes, pickles, jellies—I believe I got my condiment gene from him—saw this attitude as a moral failing. “It is her one fault,” he would say nobly, as he scraped away inside the Welch’s grape jelly jar.

Still, this time of year, my mother would start to think about our neighbor’s venison that would soon be in our freezer. Both she and my father loved spiced grapes with game. Then she would sigh heavily, pull her copy of Charleston Receipts down from the shelf, and get to work.

My job was to slip the skins off of eight pounds or so of fruit, which isn’t nearly as time-consuming as it sounds; set the skins aside in a wet, slippery heap; and chuck the pulp into our biggest pot. Next came counting out cinnamon sticks, whole cloves, and blades of mace.

“Cheesecloth,” Mom would say every year, peering at the instructions. “What on earth is that?” Then she would bundle the spices in one of my father’s oldest, softest linen handkerchiefs and expertly tie it with fishing line (much easier to find in our house than kitchen string), sling it into the pot along with the vinegar, and let the grapes cook until they were soft.

The food mill came next, always an adventure, and then the seedless pulp—”It smells like wine,” Mom would say, inhaling deeply—would go back into the pot, along with the skins. After that mixture came to a boil, the salvaged spice bundle and an ungodly amount of sugar would be added. “Boy, this is really hot,” Mom would say, giving the slurry a stir. “Reminds me of boiling oil. Too bad we don’t have ramparts.”

I suppose this was the time in my life when I learned to go to the Webster’s New International Dictionary, Second Edition (unabridged) in the living room and look something up, instead of relying on another person to explain things. It says something about parents when a dictionary stand—and next to it, a child’s step stool—is given pride of place.

That same dictionary resides in my living room now. Of course, of course! I use dictionary.com these days, or my handy desk-friendly Webster’s Third (abridged) instead. Unless, that is, I have a hankering to see those captivating illustrations—printed from mounted copper plates made from line drawings—or finger the notes my parents left over the years. “Spring forward, Fall back,”  my father wrote urgently on index cards filed under both S (“Spreader Car—Spring Tool”) and F (“Fait Nouveau — Fallow Chat).

This afternoon, the apartment is filled with the foxy, funky, half-wild aroma of Concord grapes cooking down for Sam’s jam. We’ll go to sleep tonight hearing the ping of each jar sealing itself. Can’t wait to try it with game.

I’ve been on the road lately, to a few unfamiliar cities. And I’ve been struck by  the fact that whenever I ask the people who live in these places about the most interesting food story going, nine out of ten of them will tell about a restaurant or chef. But 18 rich, full years at Gourmet showed me that food deserves much more than that. It involves what happens in home kitchens and in farmers’ fields, not just what goes on behind a restaurant’s doors.

I got paid, after all, to learn, every single day, and I was fortunate enough to work with some of the best people in the business. It was a very great privilege, and I miss it very much. Still, a year and change down the road, I’ve realized that there are things about that life I’m happy to leave behind. Although having eaten at some of the best restaurants in the world gave me an amazing perspective and an extraordinary education, that sort of thing isn’t really on my personal G.P.S. at the moment. An umpteen-course, four-hour meal? Good grief. Beef cheeks seven ways? I’ll pass. The beef stew simmering on the stove at this very moment is infinitely more appealing.

And here’s why. Aside from the been-there-done-that aspect, there’s—well, there’s the money. Right now, I don’t want to spend money in that particular way.

My parents, who grew up in the crucible of the Great Depression and who weren’t afraid of anything the world could throw at them, get all the credit here; they never spoke of doing without, but of simply making choices.

Both writers, they would have reveled in another inspiration of mine—W. Hodding Carter’s entertaining blog, thefrugalguy.com, which started out as the “Extreme Frugality” series for gourmet.com and then took on a quirky life of its own.

And then there are the broccoli leaves.

Every Saturday morning, you’ll find me at the Union Square Greenmarket with my good friend Kempy Minifie. She headed up Gourmet’s food department, and also happens to be one of the most dedicated home cooks on the planet. (Find her latest recipes at AOL’s kitchendaily.com.) About this time last year, Ron Binaghi, Jr., of Stokes Farm in New Jersey, dragged a huge cardboard box down from his truck and left it next to his crates of beautifully arranged herbs and winter squashes. Kempy and I know our pot greens, but the floppy jade-green leaves were unfamiliar. “They’re broccoli leaves and free for the taking,” we were told. “Otherwise, they’ll be thrown out.”

That day, and for weeks thereafter, we toddled home with fat bags of broccoli leaves. We found that they don’t cook down as much as kale, collards, or mustards do, and their flavor is on the mellow side; they don’t overpower you with broccoli-ness. And although I’d been automatically stripping out and discarding the thick center ribs, Kempy discovered there’s no need to do that: Just chop them along with the leaves and they turn crisp-tender and flavorful when quickly braised with garlic and red pepper flakes.

The weather is once again cool and crisp, and Ron’s broccoli greens are once again free for the asking. This go-round, I’m no longer on automatic pilot; it’s easier to take an interest, a joy, in them. Some nights, they’re an excuse for skillet-seared pork chops or sea scallops. They’re good shoveled over pasta or topped with a fried egg and served with buttery, garlicky toast fingers. Any which way you slice it, dinner often revolves around something that, thanks to a farmer’s generosity and waste-not-want-not philosophy, costs us nothing.

It feels good to have my feet on the ground.

I learned to cook without black pepper in the place where it is king: Tellicherry, a small town in a remote part of southwestern India. Its shadowy warehouses overflow with sacks of the spice, bound for markets all over the world after being harvested from the vines and sun-dried.

I’d traveled to Tellicherry—called Thalassery in Hindi, although that language isn’t spoken in South India—a few years back to explore the rich, complex cuisine of the Mappilas (Muslims), descendants of the Arab traders who plied the Malabar Coast centuries ago.

I’ll never forget my amazement when I discovered that the Mappilas, who originally controlled the pepper trade, have never used the spice in their cooking. The reason stands in prosaic contrast to the rippling Malayalam exchange my translator had with everyone I asked: Why use what you can sell?

I was reminded of this when I recently ordered a new pepper mill. We’ve all fended off an over-eager waiter brandishing this indispensable tool, but, really, how often do we use it simply out of habit?

Cut to a recent dinner with Allen Smith, a cherished friend and, way back when, my first instructor at Peter Kump’s New York Cooking School. There he made me laugh, cry, and develop the confidence—along with the knife skills—to buy interesting things like pheasant or squid or oxtails and turn them into something delicious.

This night, he stoked himself up for an enjoyable rant. I was grateful I was lolling at the dinner table instead of standing in front of him wearing a crumpled, sweaty, smeared apron. “As an instructor,” he said, “I watch students pepper everything, and I constantly read recipes that put the obligatory salt and pepper on the whatever.” His Texas twang got twangier, and he paused for emphasis. “It drives me crazy!”

“My number one rule,” he continued, “is that if you are seasoning a protein with pepper, then the vegetables you are serving it with don’t need pepper as well. The aftertaste is flat, cardboardy. Steak au poivre doesn’t need vegetables au poivre”

I thought back to the years Allen spent cooking in France, and the way he bent, very quiet and focused, over veal sweetbreads in class. Two grinds of the mill— precise, not fussy—were all it took. They enhanced, rather than blanketed, the food.

The hour was late, and I guiltily confessed to loving a baked potato with butter and sour cream, salt and pepper. “Oh, my god, that’s wonderful,” he said. “Eating that on the sofa in front of the TV is heaven, especially in your underwear.”

You’ll die wondering.

“True grits, more grits, fish, grits and collards. Life is good where grits are swallered.”  —Roy Blount, Jr.

One of the many great things about attending the annual Southern Foodways Alliance symposium is that I get to go down to Oxford, Mississippi, and see some of my favorite people on the planet. I often stay with friends who turn the event into a reason for a weekend house party—a way of entertaining that always seems to turn guests into members of the family. The secret is letting everyone contribute.

Take breakfast, for instance. Whoever was in charge of the pound or so of bacon* on the griddle hustled to get the grits working as well. Stone ground and sweet smelling, they were from Georgeanne Ross, a.k.a. Oxford’s Original GritGirl. About ten years ago, her husband, Freddie, cobbled together a restored 1912 Fairbanks Morse flywheel engine and a 1910 Meadows Stone Grist Mill, and soon the couple’s new hobby had turned into a business. (Note to self: Find this sort of hobby.)

By the time the bacon was done, an ambitious early riser had returned from the garden with a bowlful of cherry tomatoes, which were unceremoniously dumped onto the bacon-slicked griddle to cook almost until they burst. Of course, you could use your favorite skillet, too.

Meanwhile, a small, opinionated committee huddled around the grits. Proximity to the coffeepot was the excuse, but, in truth, everyone wanted to be in on the action. Grits are not difficult to cook—you basically stir them into boiling liquid (a combination of water and milk, in our case), bring everything back to a boil, and then simmer them much longer than you think.

But, as with a good soup, attention must be paid.

The thing is, exact measurements are tricky. The usual proportion is four cups liquid to one cup grits, but it depends on the kind of grits you have—stone-ground or supermarket—how fresh they are, and so on. If you are at all phobic about seat-of-the-pants cooking, then make grits every morning for a week and you will get over it.

I grew up eating white grits, so I was struck with how yellow these were—just as sunshiny in color as the eggs that were keeping another pal busy. A long phone chat with Georgeanne yesterday afternoon revealed that yellow grits are common in Mississippi since it is a big yellow corn–growing state, and the brighter the color, the fresher the corn. She purchases her supply from local growers through co-ops and mills it to order every other weekend.

“Corn is so perishable, I never let my products sit around,” she said. “And I have a schedule. People need to understand that sometimes they have to wait for their grits.” (Don’t despair when you read on the website that she sells wholesale only; she will indeed ship to individuals.)

Yellow corn varieties are also higher in starch than white varieties, and because these grits are so fresh, they contain lots of starch.

If you tend to shudder at the thought of starchy food, take a moment to really think it through. This polysaccharide produced by all green plants is an energy store. It is the most important carbohydrate in our diet. We need it to thrive. Eat grits, not energy bars.

And one advantage of starchy grits is that they turn beautifully creamy without much (if any) added fat in the form of cream or butter. You can really taste the deep, sweet earthiness of the corn and understand why it is sometimes referred to as a vegetable grain.

All you need is some scrambled eggs, bacon fried pancetta-crisp, tomatoes that have collapsed in on themselves in a juicy heap, and some of your favorite people on the planet.

* New discovery: Oscar Mayer turkey bacon rocks.

Funny what we take for granted. I never really thought about our cooling rack until I decided to put a number of cookie sheets through their paces. The (gotta love it) Nifty brand “EZ Expanding Cooling Rack” more or less lived on the dining table for several days, and, even when cookie-less, it became an object of desire for everyone who walked through our door.

It has a spare, utilitarian beauty, but I think people really love it for its inherent playfulness: It stretches out when pulled and retracts when pushed, like an accordion or the telescope in Alice in Wonderland.

Elongated, the rack holds two baking sheets–worth of cookies or cheese straws. It’s also ideal for multiple cake layers, pies, or loaves of bread. We dry nests of fresh fettuccine, candied orange peel, or rain-soaked gloves on it. We straddle two burners with it and roast chiles. Tucked into a sheet pan, it keeps latkes or fried okra crisp in a warm oven.

When not in use, the rack has a neat, ship’s-galley quality that I admire: About 14 inches square and only 1½ inches thick, it stows away in a cabinet without fuss. It can also be retrieved just as easily. When we realized this, we deaccessioned the motley assortment of cooling racks we had assembled over the years; they always seemed to tangle like wire hangers, leaving the retriever hot and extremely cross.

We found our rack a few years ago at Lee Valley Tools, in Ottawa, Ontario, and, happily, the company still carries it, along with all sorts of wondrous woodworking and gardening tools.

The folks at Lee Valley, by the way, were the geniuses who discovered that an orange grated on the razor-sharp photo-etched surface of a Microplane rasp yielded piles of fluffy zest in no time flat. They changed the description of the tool in their catalog, and voilà, a new must-have kitchen gadget was born.