"Carefully mix with a paddle attachment until a soft dough is formed." I'm sorry, an attachment to what? Will there be swimming involved? What does hard dough look like? Can I phone a friend?

If there was any justice, recipe writers would have to include their phone number. People like me could then provide helpful feedback such as: "NOW you tell me I need a food processor? In the last freakin' paragraph? A pox on you and your fancy ingredients, I hope you rot in a moderate-to-high fan-forced oven."

Proper accountability would compel them to introduce new categories in their instructions. Ingredients would be divided into "physical" and "mental".

Physical ingredients would include every obscure utensil and appliance to be summoned, including bowls and tins of every fathomable size and machines best used under NASA supervision.

Mental ingredients might stipulate "unwavering patience", "a PhD in physics", "the fortitude of a fingerless Everest climber" and "no life whatsoever".

I might never have ventured back into the kitchen proper if not for lovely Mr J who gave me eight juicy limes from his amazing self-sustaining garden.

What to do but Google "lime recipes" to do his citrus justice? Cue disaster movie soundtrack.

Frankly, I blame all those racy cooking shows, Gordon Ramsay's f-word among them, not to mention everything associated with Jamie "Let's frow togeva a dinner party for the guvna, yeah?" Oliver and Nigella tongue-happy Lawson for sexing up cooking to the point one feels they have to be a part of it lest their bits fall off.

Look, you can either cook or you can't. You either get it or you don't. Enthusiasm matters a smidgen, really. Why else would my lime curd tart have tasted like vicious acid on a bed of uncongealed dough? There's four hours and a burnt flan dish I'll never get back.

It's the same with gardening, or so I thought until a delightfully serendipitous pattern of coincidences led me to the garden of Mr J.

Normally just the word "gardening" sends my eyes rolling, so readily do I associate it with time-wasting and tedium. I mean, I've driven between Melbourne and Cairns and there's plenty growing out there that doesn't require daily watering, prop-up sticks and encouraging chats.

But Mr J somehow lured me into his lair, a stunning kaleidoscope of colour, life, design and inspiration. There is a thriving rainforest, an intoxicating herb garden, a grotto of native bonsais, flowers everywhere and an enormous veggie garden of towering tomato vines, exploding lettuces and spring onions the size of small trees. It is breathtaking.

Mr J's enthusiasm is infectious; moreover it's generous. A large portion of the garden is set aside for trees and plants he is growing for a high school and nearby church. Now 74, Mr J is cleverly combining community service with his own passion.

It is time, I believe, for a systematic sexing-up of this maligned pastime. I could well get excited about growing my own limes - even if I can't do a thing with them.

Carrie Cox, a journalist, author and mum, one day hopes to finish cup of coffee while it's still hot.