Mormons are a strange species to my mother-in-law. First, there’s that thing about missing her son’s wedding. Add in our odd ideas about what’s OK and what’s not OK to do on Sundays. And don’t forget the dietary rules. So let me get this straight: you can’t drink coffee. I can’t give your children Mountain Dew. Yet you people are all about chocolate. I’m sorry. It just doesn’t add up.

I could tell her the Word of Wisdom is about our health, but she sees right through that one. Who’s the daughter-in-law that steers clear of the veggie plate, but can’t keep her hands out of the Hershey Kisses bowl? Do the wine drinkers at the family Christmas party turn up their noses at the veggies? No, they do not.

I’ve definitely made an impression on this woman, so much so that she’s pretty shocked when I cook up a stir-fry.

I thought you hated vegetables.

I don’t hate them. It’s just that they’re boring unless you do something with them.20150218_192628 (4)

A little butter and olive oil sizzling in a hot pan makes magic out of vegetables. The zucchinis and mushrooms I normally ignore in favor of French fries and Ding-Dongs get my full attention in this Vegetarian Linguine. Read Fast/Eat Slow featured this dish before, back when we called ourselves Bye-bye Nesquik, but that just proves how much I can’t wait for dinner time when this stuff is on the menu.

So I hope this clears my good name with all the wine-bibbers in the family.

I have other reputation troubles too, it seems.

I lugged home Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Mists of Avalon from the library. Mr. Read-Fast evidently knows what kinds of books Ms. Bradley writes and challenged me right away. “I thought you didn’t read fantasy.”

OK, so I haven’t left my chocolate-y fingerprints on many pages full of wizards and distant planets and characters with six eyes. But I can try, can’t I?

And I opened the book and landed in a haunted place called Tintagel.

By page thirty, I knew I was not at home in these parts. Granted, I ran across some people I met a few weeks ago in Mary Stewart’s Crystal Cave. You’d think it would be a happy reunion, but no, it was more like a convoluted dream seen through bad glasses, no offense to Ms. Bradley.

Mr. Read-Fast was right. I don’t read fantasy.

Next I tried A Widow for One Year by John Irving, in spite of what it said on the jacket copy: “ribald and erotic.”

I gave that one up too.

If this keeps up, you might start to wonder whether I like books at all.

Happily, another fat book came along and convinced me that I’m still a reader, that I still laugh out loud at original lines and clever surprises. Tell you about it soon.