It's hard to be good. Especially when it comes to food. And if you're like me, it's downright dangerous to be good.

Out of the blue, totally unprovoked, the food editor deposited a vegan cookbook on my desk.

He was actually thinking I'd write something about it. And I probably will write about this book for the food section, because I am not even into the entrees yet and have already done myself an injury. If that isn't the mark of a good cookbook, I don't know what is.

I can't tell you the title, because it contains a bad word. In fact, the whole book is laced with words ranging from comically naughty to really extremely bad, because it was written by angry women who aren't eating properly. If I were all full of soy bacon and seaweed and tofu, I'd be abusive too.

(All right, all right, all you Lola Granolas. I'm a wicked carnivore and you're going straight to heaven. But guess what: I'm getting there before you, because I eat real cheese and mercury-laden fish. And I LOVE it.)

So the first thing I have to do, because you can use stronger language in cookbooks now than in the Post-Gazette, is to sanitize the title for your protection. I will be substituting the letter W for the letter B in a time-honored tradition that will add mail from practitioners of Earth religions to the mail I'm already going to get from vegans.

The book is almost called "Skinny Witch in the Kitch," and it's a sort of sequel to "Skinny Witch" (also not its real name), which was a best-selling manifesto that didn't explain how to actually prepare the alleged food it so forcefully advocated. I haven't read "Skinny Witch," because the less I know about where my food comes from and what the evil government is putting into it, the better it tastes. Especially the diet soda. Which is good with booze.

Anyway, I haven't met a recipe yet that I couldn't improve, so for dinner one night I attempted the Denver Witchlette for Two. (They really like that word I'm not using.)

Now, I'm pretty willing to play along with going out to the health-food store and spending four times what I would ordinarily spend on groceries without even getting any discount on gas, but these ingredients -- I ask you:

9 to 10 ounces firm or extra firm tofu, crumbled

3 ounces vegan Jack, cheddar or American cheese, shredded

4 teaspoons nutritional yeast flakes

2 teaspoons Ener-G egg replacer ...

Have you ever crumbled firm tofu? It's easy to be skinny if you've lost your appetite. I almost lost my will to live.

So I used real cheese and a real egg. And when I got to the part where you brown the tofu mixture and fold it over the fillings, the tofu didn't brown and it really, really didn't fold. It was all lumpy and granular, possibly because it was crumbled tofu and not the nice beaten eggs that God intended.

To be fair, despite looking like vomit, the omelet tasted great. The real ham I put in was delicious.

Inspired by this relative success, I moved on to Crabby Cakes with Remoulade Sauce. I was curious about how to make crab cakes without crab, which is a living creature with a face and therefore not on the menu.

(Eyes, yes, but a face? Really? Potatoes have eyes. And I gouge them out with a paring knife. Now who's a witch?)

The fake-seafood savor is provided by kelp powder. But that's not even the tricky part. The tricky part is that the recipe calls for 2 cups -- two whole cups -- of finely shredded parsnip.

I halved the recipe, but do you have any idea how long it takes to finely shred even one cup of parsnip? It's a lot of damn parsnip, and they don't shred easily. I used my Microplane, because it shreds things finely. In happier days, things like chocolate and cheese.

After 15 minutes, about halfway through the first parsnip, I had to switch hands because my right (shredding) arm was beginning to smoke. Unfortunately, my left lacks the fine motor skills needed for the job, and suddenly I found I had finely shredded a couple of fingers.

I don't know if you've ever noticed, but fingers contain a lot of blood. Quicker than you can say "I could have had sea legs, at least," there was blood on my Microplane, blood on my sweater -- and blood in my parsnip. Which kind of ruins the vegan purity of the dish, I suspect.

I'm the only person I know who can fight a root vegetable and lose.

Also, I'm gaining weight. Despite the blood loss.