.000001%* of the population will be paid actual cash money to step foot into the on deck circle at Yankee Stadium. Still, that doesn't stop hordes of fans from TiVoing Inside Baseball, poring over box scores and suiting up in team regalia on game day. For some of us, food holds an equally compelling balance of gut-level devotion and wonkish stat-based compulsion. A reservation at elBulli is akin to scoring home team dugout seats for the seventh game of the World Series. Food fans -- here's your program.

It's said that 2,000,000 requests a year come in for just 8000 seats at Ferran Adrià's Spanish temple of molecular gastronomy. The closest many of us will come is grazing through this brand new 528 page play-by-play, A Day at elBulli An insight into the the ideas, methods and creativity of Ferran Adrià. It's not so much the common parlance's "food porn" as it is a post-millennial culinary junkie's process orgy, documenting each staff motion and motivation, every microgram of alginate and liquid nitrogen, and fetishistically breaking down quantity and custom and customer/server semiotics.

The proverbial sausage has never been so obsessively, graphically made for public consumption, and rarely has it been so deliciously presented. There are pleasing pictures and recipes, to be sure (Hazelnut praline air, anyone? Perhaps some Garrapi-nitro pine nuts?), but sans easy access to an Isomalt-R-Us, it's a fever-dream cookbook. It is, however, a deeply heartening food-ifesto.

• Try Thanksgiving with a flair that includes a recipe for roasted brussels sprouts with sunflower or pumpkin seeds.
  
• Recipe: Red wine, pear, and almond tart
• As the economy slows and the wallets thin, new Vancouver restaurants keep opening while others try to survive without excess.
  
• More on Ferran Adria and his Toronto visit.

• Pie pumpkins hit the shelves and gives us the means to lather in pumpkin flavoring.
• And while you make those pumpkin foods, drink Great Lakes Brewery Pumpkin Ale.
• Bread and butter -- it's not longer just a throw-off food for prisoners; it's a gourmet experience.
• Molecular gastronomy: Ferran Adrià talks about food and context, travels to Toronto to discuss A Day at elBulli: An Insight into the Ideas, Methods and Creativity of Ferran Adrià, and The Star makes Consommé.
• Recipe: Corn, Scallop, and Mussel Chowder

Check out this hilarious essay, in which Slate's Sarah Dickerman outfits her kitchen with molecular gastronomy tools in an effort to see whether her picky, veggie-shy 4-year-old is more likely to eat broccoli that's been turned into a gelatinized orb.

Dickerman buys a $200 Texturas kit, produced by molecular gastronomy king Ferran Adria of Spain's El Bulli, which contains calcium gluconolactate, powdered xanthan gum, agar agar, and lecithin, along with a giant syringe. She and her son mix and stir the various powders like mad scientists, producing tomato spheres and tadpole-shaped broccoli balls (pictured).

Does he like it? Not so much. Carrot juice "air" is more successful. Plus, all the weird, slippery gelatinized, foamed food, the kid's ready for some real dinner.

Not every home cook is content with working with the usual tools of the home kitchen, especially not if they follow the ideas and techniques of molecular gastronomists like Grant Achatz or Ferran Adria (or Steven and Marcel from Top Chef, for that matter). Wired has come up with a gift list for cooks interested in practicing nanogastronomy in their own home.

The first, and most obvious, gift that they suggest is a trip to one of the havens of molecular gastronomy, like El Bulli in Spain, Alinea or Moto in Chicago, WD-50 in New York, or The Fat Duck in England. Heston Blumenthal's Kitchen Chemistry includes a cd with video clips to help provide visuals for the technical information included in the book. Once the basics are in place, all the would-be chef needs are tools. Try an insulated whipped cream maker for experimenting with hot and cold mousses, a vacuum sealer for sous vide cooking or a dehydrator (also useful for raw foodists who need gifts) for turning otherwise wet foods into powders and garnishes.

Espesso is here.

No, you're not reading incorrectly and I didn't make a typo. Espesso is a creation of El Bulli chef/alchemist Ferran Adria and it is solid coffee. It is not frozen, but is made by combining "espresso and an ingredient [Lavazza, the company offering the product,] won't divulge, combined in a pressurized canister and left to set for 12 hours." The product is then sprayed out into cups, where it is so thick that it can be turned upside down and needs to be eaten with a spoon, much like a mousse with a strong coffee aroma. It is available in espresso, espresso macchiato and cappuccino flavors and the latter two flavors use milk that is solidified in much the same way.

Espesso was introduced at some locations in Europe in 2002. For the moment, it is available in three Chicago-area coffee shops - the only stores that Lavazza runs in the US - but if it is successful, we could see it spread to other coffee shops around the country.

Update: Dominic Armato, one of our busiest commenters, said that he had a chance to try this already at one of his local coffee shops. He noted that the espresso flavor "was POTENT. It had sort of a dense, wet mousse consistency" and that the macciato version, made with half-milk, half-espresso, was the best of the three espessos he tasted. Take a look at his full report, with great pictures of the product.

Is it a close-up of a cornflake? Or a piece of coral from the bottom of a tropical sea? Perhaps a tiny nugget of 24 karat gold?

No. No. No. It is from Ideas in Food, and it's what you might call a "cracklin' " - something like a fried pork rind, but better. It is made from kimchee. Inspired first as a child by Cheetos, then "puffed" Japanese snacks and chips, and now professionally by puffs/crisps produced by Grant Achatz at Chicago's Alinea and Ferran Adria of El Bulli, Ideas in Food has created a Kimchee "Cracklin" made from tapioca flour, kimchee, and kimchee juice.

Hey it might not be a real nugget, but kimchee to snack on sure sounds like pure gold to me.

The kitchen at El Bulli, recently chosen again as the best restaurant in the world, is at the forefront of culinary innovation. Diners wonder how the food is done and chefs take sabbaticals just for the chance to visit. Without dropping everything and going to Spain, you can take a tour of the kitchen, too, via the Decoding Ferran Adria DVD. The DVD is hosted by Anthony Bourdain, who visits the "lab" in Barcelona and tracks the progress of food at the restaurant from a mere idea to a plated dinner, a process which can take up to 6 months.

A few short clips of the film are available, to get a taste of what you'll find on the full-length, hour-long DVD.

Nestlé, the world's largest food manufacturer, has hired the three-star chef of the world's most popular restaurant to help raise the profile of its chocolates. Ferran Adrià's El Bulli, located on Spain's remote Costa Brava, receives 300,000 reservation requests annually though it takes only 8,000. 

Nestlé is hoping that Adria can help bolster the sales of its chocolate in the face of competition from private-label makers and small premium chocolatiers reports Bloomberg News. Adria will help introduce new varieties of Swiss Cailler chocolate such as jasmine tea. No word yet on whether the wildly creative Adria will help create a confection that involves a blast of liquid nitrogen when the wrapper is torn open.