I got to meet Christopher Kimball of Cook's Illustrated and America's Test Kitchen last night. Leonard and I went to the Berkeley Sur La Table kitchen supply store, where he gave a class.

Christopher Kimball, when cooking or talking about cooking, really has the competent, no-nonsense demeanor I admire. I may not see eye-to-eye with him on the matter of eating raw egg, but on the whole I love his philosophy and admire his work.

I got pretty fangirlish and possibly squealed when I got to cook beside him. I rubbed salt and pepper into a hank of meat, sauteéd it, rolled it around in hot maple syrup, and put it in an oven (highly supervised, thank goodness). Evidently I did a good job for someone who has never cooked meat before.

As so many people have discovered, I find it unpleasant to cook for one. As I have discovered, Leonard is a good cook and likes to cook for him and me. So I ain't cooking as much as I did last year. I don't know whether that will change.

Update, next day: Leonard has told his side of the tale and put up pictures. You may derive Kimball's stereotypical gesture from my favorite.