If you're like me and compulsively watch every episode of Top Chef and find yourself yelling at the TV and thinking, "Oh man!!! I could have done that!" or "Why did he/she make THAT choice?" or "How could that dish have been a loser? What were those judges thinking?" - then perhaps you'll "get" why, when the release of TOP CHEF: The Cookbook was announced, I had to have it, and I had to try out some of the recipes. If you're also like me, you may have some OCD (um, that would be "obsessive compulsive disorder" - I'm writing this "tongue in cheek," of course; no offense meant) tendencies. You may also have the habit of writing endless and highly detailed e-mails of your fun adventures, and have this incessant need to share share share... So, here I am...sharing (blogging, in fact!).

I am making all (I repeat - ALL) of the recipes in the Top Chef cookbook, and I'm sharing the results with my friends and all of you. Well, my friends get the physical spoils of my cooking up close and personal - the actual dishes themselves, all the fun (i.e., the wonderful smells from simmering saucepans, lots of wine, laughter, great conversation, the lyrical sounds of "yum" and "mmmmmmmm," etc.) and all the mayhem (i.e., occasional flying utensils, me gracefully wiping perspiration and stray hairs from my brow, bowls of prepped side dishes precariously set in the fridge, just to come flying out upon opening the door and shattering and spraying all over the kitchen floor, etc.). All of YOU - well, you at least get to read detailed accounts of every step that went into the cooking process (and sometimes even the shopping-for-ingredients process), my views on what could have made the recipe better, or what would make the recipe easier for the home cook, anecdotes of the great successes and failures, and how all this relates back to the particular episode the dish came from, or the cast member who created the dish.