There is no olfactory equivalent to a white noise machine. The only way to combat a bad smell is with a good one.

I love to cook because I love to eat, but secondarily because I love to smell.

One recent Fall weekend, when Martin Seay and I got back to Chicago after being away for a wedding in Cleveland, the lobby and stairwell of our condo building smelled godawful. That afternoon, the common areas—typically lemon-fresh—stank inexplicably. Like fecal matter. Or a corpse. Or both. “Deathpoop,” said Martin.

One of the favors from the reception was a scented candle. Guests could pick one from among a selection of three. The first smelled like a Dreamsicle or orange soda. The second like red hot candies or Big Red gum. The third, the one we chose, was called “Cinnamon Vanilla,” and smelled like the generalized concept of “baking.” We were not unhappy to have it, especially because decorative seasonal kitsch makes me think fondly of my mom.

But nothing beats the genuine article. So Martin—always my kitchen collaborator—and I decided to conjure not one, but two good smells to counter any possible vapors of deathpoop that might have followed us upstairs. We used the three bananas we’d returned to find in a serious state of over-ripeness to bake some Crackly Banana Bread (recipe courtesy of Smitten Kitchen). And because we like to pack and bring our lunches to work, we decided to make Roasted Pumpkin Salad for the week (recipe courtesy of 101 Cookbooks), but with kabocha squash instead of pumpkin and with the cilantro blended into the dressing, quasi-pesto-style.

Irritating smells are like loud noises to me—distracting, disturbing, and hard to shut out. The motel where we stayed in the Cleveland suburbs, for instance, was mostly fine, but smelled faintly like old sweat, like the entire room was an outfit that someone wore and perspired nervously in and they needed to really wash it, but they only got it drycleaned instead. It smelled like a distant armpit. I could turn on our white noise machine to block out the footsteps in the hall and the upstairs guests, but I had to try to make myself get used to the noisy smell and go to sleep.

Back at home, though, we were in control. A huge part of the appeal of writing fiction is being able to exert absolute control over a world, imaginary though it may be. Cooking and baking—and the creativity and control that yield the best results in each respectively—are different from, but highly compatible with, the creativity and control that yield the best results in imaginative writing.

And with cooking, not only are you making something, you are also changing your environment. Your chilly early autumn kitchen is now a few degrees warmer. The nagging smell of deathpoop is now erased by the savory smell of roasted shallots and the spicy smells of cloves and nutmeg. The random container of millet that was taking up space in your cabinet is now a delicious treat. And the bananas that were going bad are now going awesome.

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