And this is why the cluelessness matters: Everyone should have such problems, but my consort emailed me from Costa Rica to ask me to reserve somewhere nice for his first night back/my birthday, and it was hell trying to find a place with both exciting food and creature comforts. As taken as I am with the Changization of fine dining, there are times when you want pampering with your pyrotechnics, particularly when you’re reconnecting with someone who’s been in another world for 10 days. We settled on Aldea, and it was the right settling, at the chef’s counter, but it really made me realize how big a revolution is happening on the food front. Redwoods are falling in a shrinking forest. But we can put pickles up ourselves.