Being a good cook means I’ll be loved when I’m unlovable. It means I’ll be popular when I’m my most cynical. It means I’ll be the perfect mother even when I’m often self-involved. It means I’m the dream wife even when I have a headache. It means I’m a daughter to be proud of even though I didn’t become a concert pianist.

On Thanksgiving I never have to brave the traveling hordes because mine is the house to go to. No one cares if I’m a grumpy basket case from a week of cooking. So what if I’m in a coma before dessert? My guests are simply grateful for my golden brown mashed potatoes baked with cream cheese, green beans studded with ham and garlic, spicy Chilean squash, lemon-glazed carrots and pumpkin tart.

Although I am Jewish, on Christmas Day my Gentile in-laws will miss church for the promise of my Lasagna Bolognese. No matter if the recipe rightly belongs to Mario Batali, all they know is a holy trinity of savory meat sauce, rich béchamel and delicate sheets of pasta melt together into a blessed event.

Cooking is power. Serve my kids chicken tenders with a crispy panko crust, and they give me hugs and kisses (when they really wish I’d just leave them alone). Offer them tortellinis coated with creamy tomato sauce, and they just might reward me with straight A’s.

Put some tender roasted pork products on a plate, and my husband will put up with my bitchy moods. Fill the house with the aroma of sautéing onions and garlic, and he’ll make a pass at me even though I look like crap. Who knew a stained apron could be sexy?

To painstakingly stir Arborio rice, homemade chicken stock, saffron and aged Parmigiano-Reggiano and witness the birth of a velvety Risotto Milanese is more curative than meditation. To turn out a lovingly braised Boeuf Bourgignon makes me feel like a beauty queen. These efforts cause my mother to kvell and earn me many free bottles of pretty decent wine.

Friends, family and sometimes even people I don’t know fill my house and surround me with affection not because I’m especially nice or fun. All I did was buy some high-quality ingredients and follow instructions. And to think I did it in my underwear while swilling sauvignon blanc.

I know that if I didn’t cook food well, I’d be an orphaned spinster shut-in, opening cans of tuna for a trio of tabbies, microwaving a Stouffer’s Salisbury Steak and chasing it all with a can of what’s on sale. 

So there’s clearly no choice in life is there — if I want a life worth living, that is — but to cook food really damn well.