I am often asked where I learned to cook. I am someone who cooks regularly, and enthusiastically and sometimes even ambitiously, so I suppose this is a simple and obvious question. But the answer is multilayered. I learned to cook from my family, though I don’t remember many sessions of standing by someone’s side as they explained some technique or recipe to me. I learned to cook from eating, since long practice and exposure to good food has given me experience in what tastes good. But most of all (and I suppose this is fitting given that I am the child of two English professors and a confirmed bibliophile) I learned to cook from the written word. [...]