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Wouldn't this make a terrific buddy icon?

Ever wonder how your cookbook sausage gets made? Metaphorically speaking, that is. Well, we could tell you some stories from the oh-so-boring editorial end, but what about the glamorous life of a contributing essayist? Michael Nagrant contributed a piece to the Alinea cookbook, and Andrew Huff, our favorite be-sideburned blogger, interviews Mister Ludicrously Prolific for Drive Thru.

It's a really fun interview, totally worth reading in its entirety (Nagrant's got his characteristic wit going on — when asked how he got his foot in the door on this project, he archly replies "Basically, I slipped Nick Kokonas, Alinea managing partner, and Grant Achatz a potent drug cocktail, bound them, and fed them a steady diet of McDonald's until they conceded to allow me in."), but one particular element stands out for us:

You know, I spent most of my time on the phone, in the kitchen, in the dining room and on Gmail chat with Achatz.

PEOPLE. GRANT ACHATZ IS ON GCHAT. For the love of xanthan gum, we are on gChat right this very second and, no offense intended to the lovely friends and colleagues with whom we are chatting, but basically every moment we spend on gChat that we are not swapping hilarious links and riffing on OMGWTFBBQ with Grant Achatz* is a moment of our lives that is a horrible, tragic, wasted failure. Holy hell.

Behind Alinea, the Book: an Interview with Michael Nagrant [Drive Thru]
Alinea [MenuPages]
Alinea [Official Site]

[Photo of Grant Achatz via Gourmet]

*We will also settle for Nick Kokonas, or Michael Nagrant just copy/pasting his chat history with Grant.