Ingredients: a telephone book and a phone.

Forty-five minutes later, a knock at the door means dinner is served.

Serving up a delightful meal for one shouldn’t require pressing the telephone redial button to a favorite restaurant.

“It’s hard, but you have to adapt,” said single chef Barry Reid of Knoxville, Tenn.

“In a sense, you have to learn to cook all over again,” he said, especially in regard to those who have suddenly become a family of one through divorce, death or the empty-nest syndrome.

Cooking solo can be achieved in a family-serving sized world in which many cookbooks and sales at grocery stores cater to the image of a couple and their two kids.

“When you are single,” Reid said, “you have to avoid the frustration of scaling a recipe down from four to one serving. This usually leads to avoidance of cooking altogether.

“Home cooking is worthwhile just because it is healthier. Â You know exactly what you are getting.”