There were two perfume-related articles in the Sunday New York Times Magazine yesterday. The first, by Chandler Burr, explores attitudes towards perfume in Japan, "a culture whose relationship to fragrance is more ambivalent than perhaps any other on the planet."

The second article is about the cookbook Aroma: The Magic of Essential Oils in Food & Fragrance, released last year by perfumer Mandy Aftel of Aftelier and chef Daniel Patterson:

...the two connect in their longing to marry scent and taste. ''There was no template for cooking with essential oils,'' Patterson says. So they decided to create one. First came chilled carrot soup, with fresh ginger and a drop of ginger essential oil. That led to blood orange sorbet; mojitos with spearmint oil; crab salad with coriander oil; and white chocolate with sweet fennel and the essence of tarragon, which pushed the boundaries of chocolate as a comfort food. ''I remember being knocked out by how they just transformed things,'' he says.

The article includes three recipes.