“Often in the morning he drove a long hour or more to the markets in the city, there to behold what would determine the day’s special. With the crates of fresh selections snuggled into his station wagon, his thoughts on the ride back confronted the culinary equivalent of the writer’s blank page. Sometimes his head swirled with exciting ideas; other mornings he was in a panic upon returning with the same old eggplant and squash and zucchini and nothing but the dullness of the word ratatouille standing by to mock him.”