a professional kitchen. They just like to get home from work, open a bottle of something, and do more than hit minute-plus and wait for the beeps. And despite my preface running into the body of my response,- a rambling preamble, if you will- let me continue it by also saying that I like Michael Ruhlman. I read this blog often. I retweet him. I think his guest spots with Anthony Bourdain show a personality that I find amicable. And I *read* Charcuterie. Like a novel. Like a preteen who can not put down the Twilight series looking for a deeper meaning in their twinkly, true love. But when I read people tell me they have a cookbook to write, asking for advice, and I almost always do my best to discourage them , I was taken aback with utter disagreement. His argument that, basically, people shouldn't write a cookbook unless they have something earth shattering to say or have a felonious collection of food porn to (expensively) add to their composition is far, far from something I can get on board with. By buttressing his argument with his own books as examples of successes (which I am in no way disagreeing with), he comes across as a self self serving bastion of the old guard yelling, 'Get off my lawn,' to the new comers that, while probably lacking the same talents, share the same passions. They're not realistically setting their expectations on book tours, celebrity and piles, upon piles