I, Kirstin, feel lucky to be married to such a wonderful spouse. He makes me laugh, helps guide my ethics and is building such a compassionate, loving family for us.

Frank also — and I mean this with nothing but care and admiration in my heart — has a tendency toward pedantic musing. He recently spent an entire car ride regaling me with thoughts on what sort of video games other animal species would enjoy playing.

“All art is grounded in the cognitive framework of the intended audience. Like the shrill, fast songs that human cellist recorded for tamarin monkeys. But I’ll bet that crows could enjoy the social deception game Among Us.”

I knew about game Among Us from my high school students. Apparently, players control tiny pixelated characters who inhabit an alien-infested space station. Some of the players are attempting to salvage a research mission; other players secretly control alien invaders and attempt to commandeer the ship.

Apparently Frank thinks that crows could enjoy the game because they often hide food from each other. When a crow thinks other crows are watching, it might pretend to bury treats, only to fly off and actually stash its treasure somewhere else.

Then he speculated that rabbits would be more likely than squirrels to enjoy Pac-Man.  Both species are accustomed to fleeing predators, but squirrels rarely find themselves confined to two dimensions.

My spouse kept this up for an entire 20-minute car ride — we were driving to the Ivy Tech library where a friend helped our children explore the virtual human anatomy and dissection table — even though I haven’t touched a video game since I was 8 years old and played hours of Tetris at a neighbor kid’s house.

Frank thought that bowerbirds could play Tetris: male bowerbirds use found objects to build elaborate domes, hoping to impress potential paramours. But a wide range of species might enjoy the elegance of neatly-filled rows of Tetris blocks. Charles Darwin conducted experiments with earthworms and found that even worms are sensitive to the shape and texture of leaves when building barricades at the entrances of their burrows.  It would probably be difficult to design a video game controller that worms could use, though.

And yet, despite the extreme detail that my spouse proffers when expounding on animal cognition, whenever I ask him how to cook a certain food for dinner, he says “You put it in a pan and heat it up.” 

I feel shocked every time he actually types recipes for this column, because I had thought him the sort to compose a cookbook where every single page read, “Put the ingredients in a pan and heat it up.” And I’ve never seen him use measuring cups or spoons unless he’s testing a recipe for the newspaper.

Luckily, he’s a fabulous cook and usually prepares our meals. While he’s in the kitchen, I can frantically work on the next week’s lesson plans for my classes, or catch up on grading, or feel despair that so many state legislatures are proposing bills that would undermine my efforts to create a safe space for all my students to engage in authentic scientific practice.

Every now and again, though, I cook for our family. And on those occasions, I’m so grateful to find cookbook authors who offer more detail about the secrets of their culinary wizardry. 

The waffle recipe is from a slender pamphlet sent to us by Country Life Natural Foods, a plant-based nonprofit that sells bulk nuts, grains and dried fruit. (My spouse was so pleased when they sent a truck to drop off a 30-pound sack of peanuts!)  And the soup is from a lovely cookbook by NPR’s Laura Theodore, which seems like an excellent starter guide for an aspiring plant-based cook. Theodore’s recipes also happen to be entirely gluten-free, if that’s of interest to you or your family.

Both recipes from the cookbook were enthusiastically received. Our 5-year-old said the soup was one of the most delicious foods she’s ever eaten, and it was soft enough to elicit only minimal grumbling from our 7-year-old who’d recently received some irksome dental care. A culinary win all around for me!

From "Easy Vegan Home Cooking" by Laura Theodore

Frank deeply dislikes cornbread in general (too dry! too grainy!), but he took several slices of this one while my kids cheered. To make this recipe truly gluten-free, be sure to purchase gluten-free oats or oat flour and cornmeal.

1/4 cup plus 1 teaspoon extra-virgin olive oil, divided

2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

1 1/4 cups (firmly packed) freshly ground oat flour, plus more as needed (see note below)

1/3 cup very firmly packed dark brown sugar

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Lightly coat a 9-inch round or square cake pan with 1 teaspoon olive oil.

To make the vegan "buttermilk," put the dairy-free milk and lemon juice into a small bowl. Stir and let stand for 5-10 minutes while you prepare the dry ingredients.

Put the cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder and salt into a large bowl and stir with a dry whisk to combine. Pour in the dairy-free milk/lemon juice mixture and 1/4 cup olive oil. Stir together using a large spoon until combined. The batter should be the consistency of cake batter, but will be a bit lumpy. Add 2-3 more tablespoons of oat flour if the batter seems too loose (see note below).

Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake for 30-40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cornbread comes out clean.

Put the pan on a wire rack and gently run a table knife around the perimeter of the cornbread so it will come out later. Cool for 20-30 minutes before slicing and serving. The cornbread will be crumbly but not dry and will hold its shape if treated gently. Covered tightly and stored in the refrigerator, leftover cornbread will keep for about three days.

From "Easy Vegan Home Cooking" by Laura Theodore

We cooked this soup in a pressure cooker, since that speeds things up and lets you work on something else while your food gets made, but if you’d like crunchier texture from the cauliflower and red lentils, stovetop would be best. Lentils cooked in a pressure cooker often seem to dissolve and result in a thick stew instead of soup.

1 1/4 cups red lentils, sorted (this means making sure there aren't pebbles in there) and rinsed

1 can (14-15 ounces) diced fire-roasted tomatoes, with juice

7 cups cauliflower florets (cut from about 1 medium head)

1 medium sweet onion, sliced or chopped

4 cups cubed white or yellow potatoes or, yes, peewee Dutch potatoes (peeling is optional)

8 cups very strong vegetable broth

8 cups (loosely packed) baby spinach

Put the lentils, tomatoes, cauliflower, onion, potatoes, curry powder, salt, vegetable broth and water in a large soup pot over medium-high heat. Cover loosely and bring to a boil.

Decrease the heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer, stirring occasionally for 40 minutes. Add the olive oil and spinach and cook, stirring occasionally, for a few minutes more. Serve hot.

You can also make this soup in a multicooker like an Instant Pot or a conventional pressure cooker. Around 8 minutes of pressurized cooking time will do.

From "Wholesome Recipes," a Country Life Natural Foods recipe pamphlet 

2 cups gluten-free oat flour (see today's cornbread recipe for how to make this)

3 tablespoons agave or maple syrup

Mix all ingredients well. If the batter is too thick to mix well, add a tiny bit of water or dairy-free milk to fully mix.

Heat waffle maker to high. These waffles cook best in a Belgian waffle maker.

Spray waffle iron with oil and scoop batter into the waffle maker according to the manufacturer's directions. Cook on high until golden brown, about 5 minutes.

These will be quite soft when they come out but will firm up nicely on a cooling rack. Be prepared to use tongs and proceed slowly.