Cookbooks have a life cycle: when a book is new, it’s exciting, it might get cover to cover, torn bits of paper sprouting up like so many shoots in the spring marking promising recipes. Then comes experimentation: making each of those recipes, seeing which work and which don’t. And finally — tragically — the third age of cookbookdom; sad years spent languishing on the shelf, ignored but for the one or two recipes that keep the book from being sent off to the big cookbook library in the sky.

Some cookbooks can avoid this fate — maybe a copy of the Joy of Cooking that gets referenced for everything (I prefer Cook’s Illustrated’s New Best Recipe) — but most are destined to become so much shelf decoration.

Take Curried Favors: Family Recipes from South India by Maya Kaimal MacMillan. When I received this book as a gift, I was into Indian food in a big way. The book was a perfect gateway into the cuisine: easy, apparently authentic recipes that produced great food. In the first months I had this book I cooked widely from it, even preparing the multi-course dinner menus suggested in the back. We had such good times, Curried Favors and I. But, eventually, my enthusiasm for Indian food was crowded out by other cuisines and Curried Favors joined the other disgraced books of yesteryear on the shelf, pulled down only when I had a craving for that one recipe; in this case cholé — a curry of chickpeas and tomatoes.

Cholé is a household favorite for Martha and me, made so many times we don’t really need to look at the recipe anymore. But for whatever reason last week I got the urge to double check the recipe — maybe just to be sure I had the spice mixture right. What page was cholé on? The paper scrap bookmark had long since fallen out. To the index! C… ch.. hey, cabbage! In all my excitement for the familiar flavors of cholé I hadn’t forgotten that we had half a cabbage sitting in the crisper drawer, on its way to being thrown out, rotten in two weeks unless fate intervened.

And as fate would have it I found myself turning not to Cholé on page 93 but to Cabbage Thoren on page 73. Scanning the list of ingredients — coconut, a green chile, garlic, cumin, coriander, cayenne, turmeric, salt, mustard seeds, dried red peppers, bay leaves, rice, the aforementioned cabbage — we had everything on hand: it was meant to be.

I had never made Cabbage Thoren before that night — in spite of having the recipe in my possession more than eight years — and it’s a shame, because it was very good. And it got me thinking, maybe it’s time to start exploring Curried Favors again. Paging through to the elaborate suggested menus at the back, I started to plan another Indian feast.

This month is replete with bloggers’ suggestions for food resolutions. Here’s mine: find a cookbook you own that you have more or less forgotten, dust it off, and see what new things it has in store.

I’m not Catholic, nor did I grow up Catholic, but ever since I started working for the Catholic Church I’ve noticed oddchanges in my behavior. Like saying “God Bless you” to people in contexts not involving sneezing. Also as a result of work, I am well aware that yesterday was the first friday of Lent; that means no meat. So in observance of Catholic laws of abstinence, I decided to make some fish. Thai-curried cod, to be exact.

Anybody who knows me probably finds this odd for two reasons; the first addressed above in reference to my not being Catholic. But the second, more substantial cause for surprise and amazement is that for most of my life, in addition to avoiding eggs, I have refused to let the flesh of fish pass through my lips (with a few exceptions). As of a year or two ago I decided it was time to grow up and start eating our friends from the sea and stream. Not having eaten much fish, though, I still don’t have much of a taste for it, so it’s rare that I get the urge to make it. And when I do get the urge I am at a disadvantage from inexperience cooking fish. Poorly cooked fish does not breed desire to eat fish.

The most important factor in my enjoyment of fish is not overcooking it. Overcooked beef is a waste but not the end of the world, overcooked chicken gets dry but can still be eaten, but overcooked fish is disgusting. Once it starts to get on the medium side of medium rare the mealy texture is unbearable and all those bad fish flavors of my childhood nightmares start to come out. Too raw is not a problem, in fact, nigirizushi is probably my favorite way to eat fish. So when I am making fish I am vigilant with my paring knife, looking for the point when the flesh just begins to lose its translucent sheen. Notice the level of opacity of the bite on the left, and the overall texture, on the right.

The cod was very mild so this dish was mostly about the curry, which was very good, if a little rich since it was mostly coconut milk; I woke up the next morning feeling a little polluted. That might also have had to do with the (copious amounts of) Michigan wine this was beautifully paired with: Good Harbor Fishtown White.

Since this is a “recipe” post, here’s a recipe:

• 1/2# cod filet
• flour
• oil
• salt
• pepper
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 2 t ginger, minced
• 2 t red curry paste
• 1/2 t brown sugar
• 1 c coconut milk
• 1 1/2 T lime juice
• 2 t fish sauce
• 3 T water
• 2 t minced cilantro

Heat some oil in a saucepan until it shimmers. Take off heat and add garlic, ginger, curry paste and sugar and stir till fragrant. Add coconut milk, lime juice, fish sauce and water then bring to a boil. Reduce to one cup. Off heat stir in cilantro and season with salt and pepper, then lid to keep warm.

Divide the cod filets into a couple of pieces of equal thickness. Salt and pepper the pieces, then coat with flour. Heat oil in a non-stick skillet until shimmering, then add the cod. Cook without touching it for 2-3 minutes, then flip. Cook for about 1-2 minutes more, making sure to check carefully after the first minute for the moment when the fish is perfectly cooked.

Cod on plate. Sauce on cod. Rice on side.