You're doing it, Peter.

Observations from this year's Michelin Guide awards.

When I was an editor at Seventeen magazine, my work wife and I would whisper “You’re doing it, Peter!” as encouragement when the other was pulling off something long-dreamt about or bold—texting that guy, getting good notes on a story, telling our bosses to shove it (in corporatespeak). Maybe millennials will get it immediately, but we were quoting the scene from Hook when the Lost Boys recognize that Peter Pan has finally returned to himself, to his childlike spirit of fantasy.

The sentiment was on my mind this week attending the 2024 Michelin Guide ceremony and reception as my husband’s plus one. We moved here in 2022 in part for him to follow his dream of opening and leading a fine-dining restaurant. Ad Astra got their first Michelin star in 2023, and for 2024 they retained their star and he was selected as one of the five local chefs to cook for the event. As I watched the crowd rush his station to grab at hamachi tartlets and tiny bowls of caviar-topped peas, took in the reporters and other chefs reaching out to shake his hand, and glimpsed his giddy, sleepless staff posing for photos, I heard: You’re doing it. You’re doing it!

Snapshot: As a former mascot myself, I felt a real kinship with the Michelin man standing up there and high-fiving chefs under hot lights for two straight hours.