[each individual image in the grid above links to a recipe]

Thomas Keller sent me on a madcap scavenger hunt on Friday.

It started out as a simple google search to verify an in-store appearance/book signing of his brand new cookbook Ad Hoc at Home released this month, but somewhere around “blowtorch,” I took a distracted turn, immediately got tangled up in a web of results, and then spent all of the daylight hours of Friday and pretty deep into the darkness of Friday night thrashing my way through my special, psychotic, web-food-point-oh version of Amazing Race.

I made it out alive. Barely.

And with a tiny treasure, too

That is if 18 of the 200 recipes from Ad Hoc at Home all available in one place (here) is considered a treasure.

It is. It is a treasure! Just tell me it is so I don’t go crying hot tears of wasteful shame into the bowl of buttery, fatty feelings, aka TKells’ Butter Poached Marble Potatoes, that I will eat to cope.

Yes, I spent the better (and worse) part of Friday hunting down every single recipe from Ad Hoc at Home that is reprinted on the web, or at least on the web as deep as page 34 of search results. It wasn’t the actual searching for recipes that took time. Google collected 12 million findings in 0.12 seconds and I filtered out 18 in the two hours between lunch and afternoon snack. However, while 18 recipes seems insignificant in the grand scheme of TKells’ 200, copying, pasting, linking, double checking, downloading, cropping, uploading and formatting 18 links and images takes, well, and entire uninterrupted Friday.

Apparently, the cookbook does not have a formal Table of Contents, but Grub Street took on the task of typing one out. I’ve organized my findings (18 valuable findings!) into an outline based on their list. As a special treat, all of the images in the above grid link to a recipe, too, same order left to right, as below.

And if the only recipe you could ever hope and dream for is one that involves a blowtorch, well, I will not let you down. Check back in a day or two.

Recipes from Ad Hoc at Home by Thomas Keller

POULTRY Recipes from Ad Hoc at Home

Buttermilk Fried Chicken

• The Kitchn
• Bitten Word
• Inuyaki (who adds his own sous vide step)
• Food & Wine magazine
• Between Courses
• Wallpaper Magazine (as part of their global “Ultimate Happy Meal,” including duck fat French fries)

Whole Roasted Chicken on a Bed of Root Vegetables

• Bewitching Kitchen

Sauteed Chicken Breasts with Tarragon

• New York Times

Chicken Mar i Muntanya

• Grub Street | San Francisco

Crispy Braised Chicken Thighs

• The Los Angeles Times

MEAT Recipes from Ad Hoc at Home

Confit of Pork Belly

• Eat it, Atlanta (no recipe, just pure, adulterated pork porn)

FISH Recipes from Ad Hoc at Home

Caramelized Sea Scallops

• Food Gal

SOUPS from Ad Hoc at Home

Chicken Soup with Dumplings

• Wall Street Journal

SALADS from Ad Hoc at Home

Iceberg Lettuce Slices

• NPR

VEGETABLES and SIDES from Ad Hoc at Home

Honey Glazed Cippollini Onions

• Dine-o-mite

Rainbow Chard

• NPR

Leek Bread Pudding

• New York Times
• San Francisco Chronicle
• Food Gal
• Seattle Post

DESSERT Recipes from Ad Hoc at Home

Apple Fritters

• LAist

Banana Bread Pudding

• The Los Angeles Times

Brownies

• Kitchen Musings

Pineapple Upside Down Cake

• Food Gal

Caramel Ice Cream

• Wall Street Journal

Chocolate Chip Cookies

• Daily Dish | The Los Angeles Times
• Food Gal
• Chaos in the Kitchen
• Pixie Baker
• Escape Hatch Dallas
• Foodista

OTHER RECIPES BY Thomas Keller ON THE WEB

• Nutter Butter Cookies from Bouchon Bakery at Italian Dish
• Thomas Keller Oreos from Bouchon Bakery at Jumbo Empanadas
• Gingerbread Cookies from Bouchon Bakery at Shine
• BLT Fried Egg and Cheese Sandwich at Food & Wine
• Confit of Peaches with Mint at Food & Wine
• Whole Grilled Chicken with Wilted Arugula at Food & Wine
• Orange Chiffon Cake with Rhubarb Jam at Food & Wine
• Endive Watercress Saald with Candied Walnuts at Food & Wine
• Crostini Toasts at Food & Wine
• Braised Short Ribs with Whole Grain Mustard at Food & Wine
• Heirloom Tomatoes with Summer Succotash at Food and Wine
• Over the Top Mushroom Quiche at Food and Wine
  Smoked Salmon Crisps at Food & Wine
• Favorite Roast Chicken from the Bouchon Cookbook at Epicurious

The memory has been stored in my mind, safe forever, like the last bit of kimchee in the dirty, cloudy jar at the back of the bottom shelf of the refrigerator.

And after sitting there all this time in my sick little psyche, it’s probably safe to say that the memory has fermented into just as fetid a gurgling, rotting mess as cabbage, pepper, and bacteria.

My Blood Runs Cold, My Memory…

He was laughing. Perhaps he thought it was actually funny. Or perhaps he was nervous that I might turn out to be some sort of freakish packrat cougar precougar who has trunks full of mix tapes and jean jackets with shoulder pads in the attic.

He was referring to a book in my bookshelf, and by the version number in the title, it was very clearly outdated. Not outdated in a charming, nostalgic, sentimental “this is my high school yearbook and I will probably look at page 134 again like I always do around this time of year to remind myself of what it was like to be a smart, PYT-in-my-own-mind cheerleader” way, but in a sad, clingy, melodramatic “10 year old textbook that is outdated before the class is even over because that’s how fast programming languages change” kind of way.

“You don’t throw anything out do you?” is what he said, pointing at HTML 4, copyright 1998.

No. No, I don’t throw anything out.

“We’re going to have to change that. I don’t live like that,” he said, laughing again. This time I knew exactly what kind of laugh it was, but back then, I guess I just let myself ignore it.

Later, he would mention the CRT computer monitor in the corner of my bedroom, the stereo with dual cassette deck, the six bridesmaid dresses, my baby blanket “binkie,” each subsequent mention with increasing irritation.

Saving Private Writing

I have kept so much more than I should, so much more than any sane person would. I am not sure why I hold onto things so tightly and for so long, but that is part of a long, twisted therapy session I award its own blog post about “abandonment issues” rooted in teenage years spent almost entirely in isolation. Sure, I’ve gotten rid of a few things here and there. I just have a particularly clingy attachment to products of my education – from books *ahem* to lecture notes to exam booklets to reports to essays. Particularly essays.

They are words that I have written and I guess I like to hold onto those.

Forever.

Pintxo, my group’s business plan for an LA tapas restaurant at Anderson? In a D-ring binder, bottom shelf of bookcase.

Guns and Butter: The Perfect Recipe for Economic Growth, a term paper for my major at Cal? File cabinet, passenger side of my bed.

Sir Gatsby and the Green Light: A Thematic Comparison of The Great Gatsby and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight from 11th grade English? File box, top shelf, clothes closet. (I got an A. Obviously. Just the title alone…)

Every creative writing assignment from junior high? Every book report I ever wrote in elementary school, including the Call of the Wild report that my teacher read aloud in class and looking back now, I realize may be the single greatest academic achievement of my entire life?!

Buck my life.

Essays.

I kept them, still have them all, but there is one essay I do not have. Don’t be so quick to point that finger of inconsistent hypocrisy at me! I kept all *my* writings. I don’t have this one because I never wrote a “What I Did on My Summer Vacation” essay. (Did you really think I would have written such a glorious history at any time in my illustrious child- and early adulthood and at some point discarded it?!) Not sure why any of the many, many school systems in which I spent short, stability-reducing periods of time never made that a standard essay to ease students back into the classroom.

But, eh.

So, anyway, I’m writing it now.

How I Spent My Summer Fake-ation

Of course, I realize that it is technically no longer summer in LA. It is, however, summer somewhere, some-southern-hemispherical-where…where they’re eating panzanella. Let’s also be real. Realistically, it is year-round summer in LA, save that one day in late January when it is 50 degrees during the daytime.

And it rains.

Okay, sprinkles. And even “when it sprinkles,” that’s just cupcakes, because let’s really be real now. There is no precipitation in this urban desert that is LA.

But! I am reserving those precious thoughts of LA weather for a future post entitled “Eternal Flaming Fountain of Youth Syndrome,” and return to the lecture at hand, which is “How Sarah Spent 2009 Summer Fake-ation.”

Summer started on June 21 then unraveled for three months thereafter, accordingly:

• Celebrated my thirty-*cough cough* th birthday
• Launched the first ever direct ad campaign on TasteSpotting
• Applied for my dream job
• Had my job dreams crushed
• Spoke on a panel at the Dwell on Design Conference
• Showed up for Jury Duty
• Attended a (blogger) Prom
• Exploded out of the blogging closet
• Got sick
• Retreated back into the blogging closet
• Mourned my grandmother’s passing
• Planned a baby shower
• Welcomed my new nephew
• Interviewed Frank Bruni

Posts about these somewhat notable events are sure to come. Maybe. At the very least, I’ve got to write about the adventure that was jury duty. I almost got arrested at the Airport Courthouse. It involved Tapatio.

Oh, now you’re paying attention!

…My Memory Has Just Been Sold. Or at Least Recycled.

Parallel to the stream of (surprisingly few) singular events of Summer 2009, there was that slightly erratic undercurrent of “regular life.” I spent time with family. I met a lot of people, made new friends, got reacquainted with old friends, for one is silver and the other gold…I cooked a little. I dined out a lot. I worked harder than I’ve ever worked in my life.

And I threw out a lot of “things.”

The first pass was through my clothes closet. Though it was easy to clean out, I almost destroyed my couture confidence when a secondhand store rejected the four foot high stack of semi-designer jeans as “not very stylish.” So, they were at least 10 years old. Have they never heard of “retro?!” But it hurt even more to hand over to Goodwill what was the equivalent of three thousand dollars-worth of denim when new.

The computer monitor was gone with the second rev a few weekends later, which included other electronics that I had to convince myself would never sell for more than a shipping cost on eBay. I balked at myself, “What do I mean no one will want this Palm Pilot? It was the top of the line…in 2001!”

It was difficult to let go, but I eventually tossed it onto the Out pile.

The third cycle started some time in late August with plastic trash bags and a paper shredder. I attacked every file cabinet in my house, sneezing through decade-old dust that lay like a protective trapper keeper cover over all my papers. I pulled out course syllabi, lecture notes, scantrons and shredded them semester at a time. I was the picture of textbook efficiency. Literally. I pulled every textbook out of the bookshelf and, well, okay, I couldn’t do it. I slid most of them right back into their same spot on the shelf. I mean, what if I need to some day look up the Hotelling model?!

I don’t trust this invisible “information highway” on the “internet.”

Never Forget, But Finally, Forgive

The last wave was the hardest. No, not “was”; it is the hardest, as I am still in the midst of it, albeit crouching at the tail end of the slow, cathartic tornado that actually started months before I ever stumbled across a box of cell phones that bore the logo for LA Cellular (pre-cursor to Cingular, the precursor to ATT), then spun nearly out of control at just about the same time as that paper purge. I shredded photographs, destroyed videos, and threw away almost every physical thing associated a relationship that took three months to end last summer, and eventually, yes, finally, a year to forgive.

“Things” are easy to discard. Things with some memory attached to them are not as easy. The memories themselves, impossible.

The memory will always stay with me. I never forget. Memories are eternal. It’s the unresolved emotions, the festering feelings, the leftover hurt haunting my head and all the other little chopped up pieces of my heart from that I finally pulled out of my life this summer and threw out.

But the HTML 4 book is still in my bookshelf.

Why save it when the adventure itself is a special occasion?

Variety is the spice of life, if variety is black, white, green and pink and life, is a grinding, crushing peppermill or something.

Quickly. First. (Slow seconds coming in a future post). Because everything about and around this man requires calculation, lightning speed, and laser precision in execution, including how you interact with him.

Getting a reservation. Eating in his restaurants. Cooking his recipes.

Formulating a solid strategy so you can show up to work early Monday morning, then slowly but surely “contract” some fast-acting email-borne-only-to-you spam flu virus that has you out the door by oh, say about 11:30 with a surgical mask hiding your evil gleeful smile because you weren’t really lying when you mentioned something about “swine.”

You just meant “pork belly confit.”

(That’s one of the recipes in Thomas Keller’s new cookbook, Ad Hoc at Home.)

Over the next two weeks, Thomas Keller will be signing copies of Ad Hoc at Home at Williams-Sonoma and Borders stores in Los Angeles and Orange County. The schedule itemizes his in-store appearances below.

Strategize wisely. TKells’ first appearance is Monday, November 9 at 12 PM in Santa Monica.

That’s this Monday.

We’ll write you a doctor’s note.

Obviously, the books are all available on Amazon: Ad Hoc at Home, Bouchon, The French Laundry cookbook and Under Pressure

Letting the chips fall where they may is not so easy in the popularity contest that is…the web.

We may rationalize it as pumpkin “bread,” but it’s really a cake without the fashion of frosting.

This is the Pumpkin Bread that I make every year at least twice, probably three times. If I get crazy, I’ll bake it four times, but I never “get” crazy.

I’m already there.

If you put a $10 bill under your pillow before you go to bed, you might wake up to a gift from the Sausage Fairy.

I want to have everything on it, but want to reserve the right to pick off what I don’t like (which isn’t much).

It’s not the worst I’ve ever had, but it’s certainly not pizza for which I’d drive to West Hollywood. It’s pizza of convenience.

Panini’s Pizza

8849 W Sunset Blvd
West Hollywood, CA 90069
(310) 652-4726
www.SunsetPanini.com

It says “candied” on the bag, but this isn’t what I had in mind for Halloween leftovers.

I always hope for good leftover Halloween candy. Snickers. Those are the best. No, second best, because king size PayDay is the best, but who gives out PayDay, let alone king size? I’d take a leftover Milky Way because it has caramel, but never Three Musketeers. Who actually likes Three Musketeers? It looks like sponge and tastes like sticky foam. Three Musketeers is a whole lot of nougat nothing.

But that is the paradox of the Halloween candy hierarchy, isn’t it? There will never be good leftover Halloween candy because if it were good candy, it wouldn’t be leftover. You eat Snickers as soon as they hit the pillowcase, suck off the chocolate from a Heath bar between neighborhoods before you chew up all the toffee, and take the Tier Two candy to the office the next day to make yourself a sugar high heroin to all those people who had more dignity than your thirty-something slutty angel to go trick-or-treating.

(I did not go trick-or-treating this year, or any year after the age of 8 for that matter, mostly due to year 8 being the traumatic Halloween on which I was reduced to wearing my hahn-bohk and Mom’s fuschia lipstick as a “Korean girl” costume that no one understood because they were all dressed as bunnies and devils. I was ridiculed and have not gotten over it. I did, however, dress up Saturday night in full, knee-high booted, boobed, blonde wigged-out costume…and reclined on the couch to watch Stealing Home.)

What is inevitably leftover from Halloween are The Untouchables. I won’t get into how color plays a role in this (because I didn’t even plan it but damn if this a great analogy), but they are the Special Darks of the Hershey’s Miniatures bag. The Three Musketeers of the Mars brands family. Individual packages of candy corn, or worse, homemade packages of candy corn made of non-zipping plastic sandwich bags and an orange twist-tie. Tootsie Rolls.

Tootsie rolls?! I fucking hate those things.

It’s not even the weirdly long, skinny Tootsie Rolls that upset me, but the offensive mini tootsie nuggets that make you want to explode into a Which Hunt for the cheapskate neighbor who gave out one mini tootsie roll per person. They put mini Tootsie rolls in bowls at each teller’s station at the bank, which makes me wonder if that neighbor didn’t just dump the bowl into her purse while she was depositing her fifty cent rolls of pennies.

They told me that ginger was calming.