One of the best Christmas presents of the year was, of course, not necessarily one of my own.  Not to be ungrateful or trite, it’s just honestly hard to beat the over three hundred glossy—oh so glossy—wide and satisfying pages in Thomas Keller’s newest book Ad Hoc. For anyone even vaguely interested in food, so most of the well-fed and happily pneumatic human race, it’s a sort of pilgrimage to Mecca Delicious, reading that book.  A strange and delicious enlightenment if I may be excessively hyperbolic.  Excited to fangirl status am I, really, and Trekkies got nothing on me.

But even in the midst of my slightly embarrassing infatuation, there are moments when, reading Keller’s instructions, I just have to sigh.  “Really, Thomas Keller?” I ask, sometimes aloud.  It’s like my best Seth Meyer’s impersonation. “Really, Thomas Keller, really?”