My mother once told me, "If you can read, you can cook." I was six years old at the time and could read, so I followed her advice and got started. Chocolate chip cookies were my specialty. There's not much else to do during cold Wisconsin winters, so my volume of cookie baking went up dramatically. I baked with no consideration as to whether I had an audience big enough to eat my production.

Hey, they say you're supposed to "exercise your gifts," so I was exercising!

Later, by mistake I discovered another "gift." I was on one of those drastic diets (I guess I had eaten too much of my own production). I had 50 pounds to lose, so I went to the doctor and got on a supervised sort of fast, similar to Oprah Winfrey's famous "jeans" diet. The first two weeks I became more and more depressed -- this from someone who usually has a pretty sunny outlook on life. Then I figured it out. I didn't have to EAT food but I HAD to MAKE it! I had to exercise my creativity and smell the results.

The "gift" relates back to my reading skills. I was "devouring" cooking magazines by reading them. Every week I cooked loads of dinners without licking my fingers even once! I served these elaborate meals and sat at the table drinking my diet shake. My friends thought I was nuts, but they got great meals, so who cared?

How could I plan a meal, taking ideas from several magazines, and have the food make sense on the plate -- taste, texture, etc.? I discovered that I could read a recipe and "taste" it in my mind. I could combine foods and recipes from different sources and never again had to follow one of those suggested meals in cooking magazines. I could do it myself.

Maybe you have this gift too. I've asked around and found out that many a good cook shares the talent -- the gift of being able to taste what you read about.

I'm a bit of a betting woman (CEOs like me make "bets" every day), so I'd venture to speculate that if you don't have this talent of "read and taste," you can develop it. It takes practice (similar to Evelyn Woods' Speed Reading Course). Read the recipe and try to formulate the taste in your mind. Cook it and see if you were on target. The more you "exercise" this gift, the better you'll be at it. Then you can combine recipes from anywhere and produce meals that will always be a hit.

Enjoy! Zola

You know you're getting the real hang of cooking if you can taste something and then go produce it yourself at home. You have no list of ingredients. Nothing to read. You have to figure it out. That's where this recipe came from. Years ago I tried pumpkin ice cream and just had to make my own. In Zola-style, I made it as simple as possible so everyone can do it. Enjoy the ice cream -- and if you want to make one of the simplest "gourmet" cake and ice cream desserts, you can add the ginger-carrot cake recipe and serve the ice cream on top. It's easy! Find the cake recipe and a picture of the ice cream (http://www.apexperformancesystems.com/recipe/00000072) and explore www.dinnerwithzola.com for other dessert recipes.

You can also access the picture and recipe by pasting this link into your browser window:

http://www.apexperformancesystems.com/recipe/00000072

Zola's Pumpkin Ice Cream

2 cups heavy cream
2 cups half and half
1 cup white sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/8 tsp salt
3/4 can prepared pumpkin
2 tsp pumpkin pie spice

Put all ingredients in your ice cream maker container. Follow your regular directions for making and freezing the ice cream. That's it! Be sure to taste the ice cream right when it's processed and before you put it in the freezer. You'll be amazed at the taste. Best bet is to make it about 3 or 4 hours before you serve it, but that's only so it's not completely solid when you do. If it's been in the freezer more hours, try to take it out ahead of time and let it soften up a bit before serving -- maybe 20 minutes. It's great for about 5 days before it starts to crystallize.