If you're some boring nobody with a pedestrian name like John Smith or Ann Jones (no offense guys!), it's no big whoop if some book publisher falsely attributes their fancy new pastry cookbook to you. But when you're famous and come with a name as exotic and memorable as, say, Florian Bellanger or Ludovic Augendre, and a publisher does that, then it's a very big deal.

Bellanger and Augendre are two "world renowned master pastry chefs" who co-run a business selling macarons: trendy little sandwich-shaped pastries made of (mostly) sugar, almonds and egg whites and slathered with stuff in the middle. (Bellanger's also a judge on Cupcake Wars.) Because of their elite status in the sugarbomb world, the Berkeley-based publisher Ulysses Press asked them to write a macaron book. After 10 months of noncommittal back-and-forth, the chefs said no and went back to their kitchen. Imagine how surprised they must have been to discover that Ulysses had just gone ahead and "placed advertisements and/or listings for pre-order sale" of the book—titled Macarons: Authentic French Cookie Recipes from the Macaron Café—listing them as the authors.

Bellanger and Augendre are now suing Ulysses in a federal court in New Jersey for invasion of privacy, unjust enrichment, trademark violations, and other things. One of their complaints is that Ulysses hasn't done enough to remove all the "false marketing" for the book, which is still still listed under their names all over the Internet. This is probably the Internet's fault, though.

On Ulysses' website, the book's credited to a different pastry chef named Cecile Cannone. She's not suing anyone, or being sued. Just baking cookies, probably.

[Courthouse News Service. Image of Augendre via Mad Mac USA]