This thing is huge. I didn't have a banana for scale, but if you're in the US, know that it completely filled out the medium Priority Box. I was shocked to open my gift and find this monster of a cookbook. So I did what any , and looked it up on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Modernist-Cuisine-Home-Nathan-Myhrvold/dp/0982761015/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1387941732&sr=8-1&keywords=modernist+cuisine

Wow.

I've never had anyone spend so much on a gift for me, so that boggled my mind. More important than that, I've never been given such a well-thought out and observant git.

I mentioned that I really love cooking in my profile (well, I might have done a bit more than mention), and my santa went full throttle. This is a cookbook for people who want to know the science behind it, who want to do it better, who think of cooking as a craft and wish to hone it.

I had never heard of this book before, I'd never heard of sous vide cooking, and I'm only now learning what a pressure cooker does. To say this is different than what I'm used to in cooking is an understatement.

Sous vide is essentially putting food in air-tight bags and cooking in big water baths. This is apparently how professional cooks get their food so juicy/delicate/subtle/delicious. Like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wiw_EqGA8IA

Also got a tote bag from MIT's List Visual Arts Center, from which my santa hails. My santa is apparently a person of great intelligence and discipline and I've been rubbing the bag and book on my face in the hopes that both characteristics will rub off on me. Next semester starts soon, so I can only hope.

Now on to why I took so long with posting this. I really wanted to make something out to show off with my post. All the redditors would look in awe and claim that they wish THEY could have a taste of the four course meal I created, that they could have such skill and kitchen genius.

That didn't happen.

Here's a tip: If any of you ever get a recipe that involves cooking sous vide, you should actually purchase the tools to make it, rather than think, "Nah, I don't need a digital thermometer or a good water bath, I've got a rice cooker and a heat resistant finger, it'll be fine."

My lemon egg custard turned to hard boiled eggs in a bag pretty quickly. Hubris is not only the downfall of man, but also this pie.

I fixed up some raspberry sauce to cover my failure. It was ugly, and the crust was burnt (crust cooks a lot faster than custard, FYI) but as we all know, it's the inside that counts. And my family said it tasted really delicious! Even better, so did I.

When it comes to cooking, I usually play it safe. The only recipes I use are those that were given five stars by hundreds of people. I'm used to getting compliments on almost everything I make and people have told me I should open my own restaurant. It was a bit painful, but strangely more encouraging to see my family make faces and look hesitant at what I made. It shows just how long the journey ahead of me lies. I mean, the pie is also an indication that I'm no 3 star chef yet, but the difficulty I had in making the it was a bigger sign of how far I have to go in experience.

And like Zig Ziglar said, if you learn from defeat, you haven't really lost.

I really can't get over how thoughtful the gift is. Most things I receive fall either into the "I was sort of paying attention to what you like, but not really, enjoy this comic book I picked up from a garage sale" or gift cards. I cannot express how ecstatic I was, getting a gift that wasn't just guesswork, that it was something that my Santa clearly gave a lot of thought about before purchasing.

Thank you Santa! I'll be sending you an email later.