If books document the chef’s research obsessions, his menus are a more personal collection. Blank’s friend Charlie Schneider introduced him to menu signing during the 1970’s. At private dinners, Schneider posted handwritten menus he sometimes invited diners to inscribe. Blank’s continuing practice of passing bills of fare around a table has left behind scrawlings of scientists, celebrities, students, and friends on thousands of menus as a culinary diary noting when, where, what and with whom he has eaten over thirty years.

While books are the chef’s manifest obsession, food menus are a strong passion. His practice of passing menus around a table to be signed has built a more personal collection that annotated when, where, what and with whom he has eaten over thirty years. His efforts to secure those menus have not always been above the table. When Blank wants a restaurant’s menu and is rebuffed by cost-conscious staff, he may slyly acquire a copy anyway: “Up the back of my shirt is how I usually do it.”