"Miss Dahl's Voluptuous Delights: Recipes for Every Season, Mood, and Appetite" by Sophie Dahl (William Morrow Cookbooks, $35).

I have found that season after season, the cookbook I return to for mood enhancement is "Miss Dahl's Voluptuous Delights: Recipes for Every Season, Mood, and Appetite."

When my friend told me he eats chocolate based on mood — dark for, well, dark moods; milk for less onerous days; mocha-flavored for go-go busy times and orange-scented for happy-go-lucky afternoons — I thought he was onto something. Sophie Dahl, on the other hand, I found was absolutely certain of it.

Dahl, a London-based model-turned-popular food columnist, structured her cookbook around foods that directly affect her disposition. After testing on family and friends, she thinks they just may have the same effect on you, too.

It started in childhood when Dahl, who fills the book with cute stories, often dreamed vividly about food.

"As a small child," she writes, "food occupied both my waking and nocturnal thoughts; I had clammy nightmares about dreadful men made from school mashed potato wearing striped tights, chasing me into dense forests."

Sometimes, eating makes Dahl feel sinful. (She thinks she was born during the wrong times, which are too restrictive regarding diet, and would have done better during the court of Henry VIII). Other times, she feels passionate, reflective or ecstatic from eating.

Additional factors, she has found, can intensify or deflate accompanying frame of mind, too, and I've found that emulating her is wonderfully wise. She turns the mood to relaxing, for instance, by serving a garden-filled dish right in the middle of the garden.

Fun is in the air when she prepares strawberry pudding (in England, called milk jelly). The pretty-in-pink dish, which is accented with cream and chocolate, is served in glass cups, one on top of another, making a whimsical, glittering mountain. And the cook, of course, wears a light pink shirt to match the treat.

Cooking, though, isn't always needed when it comes to food and mood, Dahl notes. "When I get sad," she recalls, "all I want are jelly beans."

The mix of innovative and traditional recipes is organized by season, incorporating the best of what's fresh. Wild mushrooms dot a risotto for fall. Fava beans, pecorino and asparagus shine in a spring salad. Zucchini fills a cold, goat-cheese summer frittata.

For a winter breakfast, Dahl suggests these pear-ginger muffins and makes clear why you can turn your mood to righteous after indulging: "They are really rather virtuous and ideal," she writes, "if you are hankering for something sweet, but have been overdoing it a bit; these are airy-fairy spongy little things without the density of a traditional muffin."

PEAR-GINGER MUFFINS

Sunflower oil, for greasing muffin pan

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 / 4 teaspoon (preferably freshly) ground nutmeg

1 1 / 4 cups spelt flour

1 1 / 2 cups rolled oats

1 cup pear fruit puree (Dahl uses organic baby food)

4 egg whites, lightly beaten

1 / 2 cup plain yogurt

3 / 4 cup agave syrup or honey

1 firm pear, peeled, cored and diced

3 / 4 cup raisins

Yields 12 muffins.

Preheat oven to 375 F.

Grease a 12-hole muffin pan (preferably nonstick) with sunflower oil. (You can also use individual paper liners, which can look very pretty to serve the muffins in — and, as an optional extra, add a slice of pear to the top of the muffin mix as a lovely garnish.)

Sift the baking powder, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon and nutmeg into a large mixing bowl. Stir in the spelt flour and the oats. Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients and add in all the wet ingredients, the diced pear and raisins. Stir very gently, until all the dry ingredients are folded into the batter. Pour the batter into the pan, filling each cup two-thirds full.

Put in the oven and bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until the tops of the muffins are brown. Serve warm with apple butter if you can get it; it's also delicious with marmalade.

CURRIED PARSNIP SOUP

4 large parsnips

1 medium onion, chopped

1 clove garlic, peeled and crushed

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 tablespoon curry powder

2 cups chicken stock

2 tablespoons light cream

Handful of chopped fresh chives

Salt, to taste

Pepper, to taste

Handful of chopped fresh parsley

Yields 4 servings.

Peel and chop parsnips, cutting them into rough chunks.

In a large soup pan, gently sweat onion and garlic in 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Add curry powder and stir. Pour chicken stock into the pan and add parsnips. Bring to a boil and then simmer until parsnips are tender, around 15 to 20 minutes.

Puree and put back into the soup pan, adding the cream and the chives. Season and serve garnished with the chopped parsley.

Lisa Messinger is a first-place winner in food writing from the Association of Food Journalists and the author of seven food books, including "Mrs. Cubbison's Best Stuffing Cookbook" and "The Sourdough Bread Bowl Cookbook." She also writes the Creators News Service "After-Work Gourmet" column. To find out more about Lisa Messinger and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.