In 1979, Christopher Kimball was a gangly 28-year-old getting ready to launch a food magazine out of the garage of his Weston, Conn., home. He didn’t have much experience at publishing; he didn’t have much training as a cook. What he did have was $110,000 raised from investors, a stubborn dedication to home cooking and a shrewd business sense that his ideas would eventually pay off.
Twenty five years later, they have. Kimball, who at 53 is still gangly and stubborn, heads up a publishing empire that racked up $25 million in sales last year, thanks to its flagship, advertising-free, magazine Cook’s Illustrated, a bimonthly that has turned obsessive recipe testing into a gold mine. In the past five years, the magazine has expanded its success with a spinoff public television show, “America’s Test Kitchen,” plus two subscription Web sites (cooksillustrated.com and americastestkitchen.com), and a steady flow of cookbooks. Washington Post

Valentine’s Day Cake @ La Brioche. It’s come to this…..