How Did You Go Hard When You Were Cooking?

I always tried to incorporate some sort of intellectual or literary pursuit into my cooking. And I always had doubts about becoming a 100% cook or chef. That was never my ambition. During this long gestation period, which sounds like it was an organic gestation period, were there other books that you really went harder and what were they? Were they fiction? Was it other nonfiction? Well, it wasn't so much that I went hard. It was just that I was so desperate to write,. whenever an opportunity seemed within grasp that I just like desperately reached for it.