Put as simply as possible, it advocated eating from all food groups every day -- two cups of fruit and two and a half cups of vegetables a day, including veggies both dark green (kale, broccoli) and orange (carrots, squash), starches (potatoes, corn), and "other" (artichokes, green beans).

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In his hands, such a challenge hardly seems a chore: Dishes like a warm salad of mushroom and roasted squash, or a lettuce, green onion and cheese tart, are surprising and sustaining "proper food" in every sense.

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Carrots (7 cents per oz.), winter squash (13 cents per oz.) and green beans (16 cents per oz.) are also inexpensive and nutritious.

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Around our house, when not infected by the Birdseye plague, real food often meant chicken-fried steak with mashed potatoes and cream gravy, sugar peas, field peas, black-eyed peas, lima beans, green beans, all greens, ambrosia, okra, corn, tomato aspic, squash casseroles, pot roast, fried fish, chicken and dumplings, hot rolls, biscuits, cornbread, cakes, pies, fudge, divinity and Mama's homemade vegetable soup, which was world famous in our family.

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