Best of Beth Ashley: The pleasure of cooking, and handing over the apron

Editor’s note: The IJ is reprinting some of the late Beth Ashley’s columns. This is from 2013.

We were expecting friends for dinner recently, and I thought it was time for me to do the cooking.

My husband plays chef most of the time. Way back when, I could put on a pretty good dinner party, but by now I’m nervous from sheer lack of practice.

I got out my recipe file and started looking for something I knew how to make. What a trip, thumbing through old recipe cards.

They represented dinner parties past ...