The thing about food people that I love above all the other things that can be loved about people who love food is the precious way in which they embrace the edible. Food MATTERS to food people, and they can talk to you about it tirelessly, for hours and hours on end.

Diane Unger stole my heart and captured exactly what I mean when she introduced her recipe for Crumb-Coated Baked Hame (April/ May 2013) with a simple conundrum: "We wanted a moist ham with crispy crumbs. But we kept getting dry ham and wet crumbs. How could we reverse the two?"

Food people, the kind that steal my heart, lay awake at night pondering things like crispy-crumb-coated hams. They work to solve the problems that stand in the way of making life a little more delicious for everyone else. It's their mission to help people find and savor their very best bite.

I'm lucky. I work with a group of culinary titans that love food just that much. Today I emailed one of them, asking how a fan who had had a bad experience with truffles could get better results the next time.

I don't know what I expected by way of reply. Technical jargon, perhaps. Or maybe even just a simple recipe for the fan to try instead of something more complicated. I was caught off guard and reminded of my affection for the lovers-of-food when the email instead started with, "Aw. This makes me sad. It’s sad to be disappointed by a special food."

And she gave me three paragraphs of information for the fan-- vital information. Information that has the potential to save this fan's relationship with truffles. ​(And let's be honest, truffles are a food worth saving a relationship for.)

​I work with truly great people. I work with Food People.