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My first cookbook was called "Good Food for Poor Poets" or something like that; a friend & roommate gave it to me. Up until then I had been making things I learned to make at home from my mother, and various not-so-successful ad hoc el cheapo refrigerator surprise creations. First thing I made was that book's recipe for anise biscotti. What a revelation! Made a batch to take to a friend's for dinner, but we ate more than half of them on the way. Always put the dinner contribution in the trunk. Or tape it shut with duct tape.

I used to find pressure cookers quite alarming. A friend had an old jiggle-top model she used all the time --she learned to use it in France, where it was quite common--and I would disappear around the corner. But when my son was born, we were given one of the new, safer pressure cookers (Fagor) and after circling it for a while I got Lorna Sass's books from the library and started using it several times a week. They are extremely useful, and allow a person to make good meals quickly without being impressively organized (or even somewhat organized). I know a lot of people use them for meat; we're vegetarians & I swear by it. And even the cats have grown accustomed to the steamy sounds of quick-pressure-release.

Our favorite cool weather veg. meal is a middle-eastern sort of lentil stew, with roasted squash & lots of onions, garlic, aleppo pepper & tomato cooked down into a dense flavoring to stir in. Braised greens or reg. salad with sharp dressing on the side. In this short stretch of hot New England weather, we've been making variations of corn risotto with lots of vegetables cooked in a kind of succotash-style salad to go with it. And the region's peaches are ready, so we're eating those several times a day. Gelles' new book sounds very interesting.

Corn on the cob, freshly cooked green beans, home grown tomatoes, peaches. Heaven. What DO we eat the rest of the year?

We live in Cambridge, Mass, where it has been raining for a month & our garden is producing toadstools and a few brave but tentative, pale seedlings. I had to stop reading the posts above because they were causing extreme envy. Our local farmers are managing to bring in some produce, but the water content is so high the race against decay is intense. My favorite vendor is the Nicewicz Farm; they grow wonderful apples, plums, peaches nectarines. Also the Herb Lyceum, whose gorgeous plants are an inspiration.

Please sell "certified humane raised and handled" eggs. Marking containers "cage free" or "free range" or "organic" doesn't say anything concrete about conditions, and once a person knows what happens to creatures in many of the supposedly "natural" chicken farms, believe me, you don't want to buy them or stare at them in the pan. The "certified humane raised and handled" guarantee is the only way one can be sure these creatures haven't been mutilated and worse. None of the eggs Whole Foods currently sells qualify.

Madison's books are great, and I would also recommend Didi Emmons' books very highly. Since you're on a budget, I would urge you to browse around in the veg. section of the library, and look at a few blogs. 101 Cookbooks is great, and would help you with the most confusing part of the shift: how to plan meals that used to be organized around meat. It can take a while for that shift to happen, to not feel like there's a gap on your plate. (I made this shift for other reasons 15 years ago & was surprised by the way all the factors the doctors track have improved. This year my doctor said "your blood work is perfect." )

The flat breads are a great idea; also you can get small aseptically packaged tube-like containers (seem like a kind of sturdy waxed cardboardy material, not plastic, but they're tough; we've carried them hiking) filled with hummus. I would think even those small cheeses would get too hot/mushy/unappetizing after a morning in the heat. I would suggest jars of peanut or other nut butter that they could spread on flat breads in the morning & roll up (we do that hiking too), but that probably is not realistic for kids this age who aren't accustomed to thinking/preparing ahead.

My introduction to Indian cooking was intoxicating: weeknight, starving after work, ran into grocery store without my list. Brain dead from hunger, I wandered with no clue what to get (was trying to resist the dreaded impulse purchases...sauteed oreos, anyone?). The store had a small cookbook section which I raided for ideas. Picked up "World of the East Vegetarian Cooking" (was not vegetarian at the time), by Madhur Jaffrey, and was tantalized by the first few recipes. Scooped up cauliflower, green beans, a couple spices, and ate the entire "serves 6" cauliflower with cashew sauce by myself. Really wonderful book, great glossary/explanation section in back. This was years ago, my copy is taped & heavily spattered, I have internalized many of her methods, but still enjoy reading around in it.

We'll vote twice for Petsi Pies in Somerville, Ma. My son & I are huge pie fans & her pies are way up there among the best we've eaten.

My secret: the library! Great wealth of cookbooks & food essays. Browse around, avoid books with words like "perfect", "entertaining", or "fabulous". And then read the ones that appeal to you--really read them, don't skip to the recipes. There's a wealth of information there. 2 books that might provide a friendly, enjoyable lead-in: Laurie Colwin's HOMECOOKING and the 2nd one, MORE HOMECOOKING. Her writing is very amusing, and there are enough stories of odd outcomes & quirky preferences to embolden most rattled cook. And then just pick a few things you really like to eat & make them over & over until you can do it without thinking. Then branch out. Good luck! Enjoy!

A tie: Peter Reinhart's multigrain bread, and the buckwheat-raisin bread recipe in Deborah Madison's Veg. Cooking for Everyone. Both are seriously delicious, my son & husband love them, and they are satisfying to make.

Pistou soup. Its been our favorite for years.