Figure to cook eats for a woman (5)
I believe the answer is:
vesta
'a woman' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both people as well as being singular nouns.
Maybe you can see an association between them that I don't see?
'figure to cook eats' is the wordplay.
'figure' becomes 'v' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'to' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'cook' indicates an anagram.
'eats' with letters rearranged gives 'esta'.
'v'+'esta'='VESTA'
'for' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for vesta that I've seen before include "heavenly body" , "Roman goddess of the hearth" , "Asteroid; goddess; match" , "Stave (anag.)" , "Hearth goddess; a match" .)