I used to sporadically watch Jeopardy and my favorite segment was always the cringe-worthy question and answer sessions between Alex Trebek and the contestants. Trebek has a question for each contestant that's designed to give viewers a glimpse into his/her personality. But for the most part, every contestant clams up and answers awkwardly and Trebek only makes matters worse by never having an appropriate follow-up question prepared.

The questions themselves are usually along the lines of: "So, Adam, you recently went deep-sea fishing. But I heard fish weren't the only thing you caught?" or "Susan, you shared that you're an avid hiker. What trail are you itching to try next?"

I'm not sure how Trebek picks these questions. Maybe the contestant shares a few pieces of personal information and he chooses questions from these details? Maybe the contestants write the questions themselves? If so--and if I were on Jeopardy--everything I'd share would be about food. And I'd hope Trebek would take the hint and ask me a question like "I hear you're an avid cook. If you had to quickly move and only had time to take one cookbook, what would that be?"

I'd answer (charmingly, not awkwardly), River Cottage Veg Everyday.

We've cooked exclusively from this cookbook for the past week and a half, which also corresponds to how long we've had the book. We've tried soups, salads, pastas, and stir fries. Every dish has become the kind of dish that we eat and then immediately turn to each other and say 'when can we cook that again?".

One such combination was a winter soup and raw salad I made last Thursday and then re-created yesterday. This combination embraces Winter better than most combinations I've seen. You won't find potatoes in either recipe! Instead, author (and local food genius) Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall combines the anise-y fennel with dense celeriac for an earthy, sweet soup. And the raw salad, layered with carrots, oranges, and cashews, tastes juicy, crunchy, and unique. February is a notoriously difficult time for eating seasonally, but the vibrant salad and earthy soup ignores this commonly held belief and instead proves to me that it is possible to miss Winter cooking in the warmer months. I'll actually miss this salad and soup combination when Summer comes and celeriac and fennel disappear from the market.

When I recreated these recipes yesterday, I had to laugh at myself. We'd purchased 2 celeriac bulbs at the Greenmarket and used both of them in another Veg Everyday recipe. I had four carrots leftover after I prepared the salad, so I substituted the same weight of carrots for the celeriac. The soup is brighter than the original incarnation, and because I didn't change the quantity of root vegetable, just the root vegetable itself, the soup was just as enjoyable. I'll include the recipe with carrots, but by all means: use celeriac!