Like many American kids of my generation, I grew up eating red meat six nights a week. (On the seventh night, we had a little break: chicken or frozen fish.) And when it came to vegetables, I thought they grew in the freezer. I didn't really taste fresh vegetables other than carrot sticks and iceberg lettuce salad until I was 12. That was the year I visited a rural area where a friend's mother had a small vegetable garden. After that, things were never quite the same.

We picked fresh green beans -- a revelation! They weren't "French-cut," and they didn't come out of the freezer in a perfect solid block! We had them steamed and drizzled with fresh cream for dinner. They were crisp and sweet. They tasted like the most wonderful shade of green. I was smitten. And I still am.

A garden-based cuisine
Now, somewhere along the way, I became known as a spokesperson for vegetarianism. But there's something I'd like to clear up. When I choose to cook and eat vegetarian food (which I do most but not all the time), my version of vegetarianism is not about an ascetic "lifestyle" that carries with it promises of being a better, purer person. It's not about abstinence and "taboo foods." In fact, it's not really about rules or "isms" at all. To tell you the truth, it's not even about meat. It's about being in love with vegetables and wanting my life, my work and my plate to be as filled with them as possible.

What I'm really a proponent of is a garden- and orchard-based cuisine in which vegetables and their cousins from the southern end of the food chain -- fresh and dried fruit, whole grains, legumes, nuts, herbs, spices and high-quality dairy products -- are the star players. That doesn't mean I wake up every morning and plow the north 40. I do a little gardening, but mostly I harvest what's fresh at my favorite farmers market and the family-owned store near my house that carries a lot of locally grown produce.

To me, "vegetarianism" means caring about the quality of food (organic when possible, responsibly grown or raised) and linking up concerns about our own health and nutrition with an awareness of the health of our environment.

Approaching food with mindfulness
It also means having an appreciation of the sensual and visual beauty of good food well prepared -- an appreciation for the simple genius of nature that comes from approaching food with mindfulness and respect. In other words, it is as much an attitude as it is a regimen.

Today, more and more people are interested in cooking vegetarian meals on a regular basis. From the mail I get responding to my vegetarian cookbooks, I find that most of my readers don't identify themselves as strict vegetarians. I'm glad about that. I've never been one for labels. You don't need to "be" anything to love great plant-based food.

I'm also glad that the stigma of vegetarian meals being "rabbit food," "crunchy" hippie food, or just plain Spartan and unsatisfying food seems to be fading away for good. In its place, we're all learning that vegetables, carefully grown and lovingly prepared, can be the most satisfying food imaginable.

So, I wish we could find a new word for vegetarianism -- one with less baggage. A word like "pro-vegetable-ism" that simply expressed the positive side of the equation. A word that could capture the sense of pure wonder and delight I felt all those years ago when I fell in love for the first time over a forkful of tender green beans.