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The method evolved in the EGCI braising class works beautifully for fatty, bony cuts such as short ribs and oxtail. With 1/2" of beef stock in a Le Creuset pot, they come out unctious and wonderfully flavored. In fact, they're too rich to eat unless I refrigerate them overnight, remove the fat from the sauce and pull most of the fat lumps out of the meat. I've had less luck with boneless cuts like chuck, butt and rump. I got a 4-pound chuck pot roast at Fairway last weekend that had a nice fat cap, but when I unwrapped it I saw almost no intramuscular fat. Even after cooking 4-1/2 hours, when I stuck a kitchen fork in vertically, it lifted the entire piece out of the pot. At 5-1/2 hours it was edible but still firm, and quite dry, though edible and well flavored with plenty of the liquid. Lobel's prices will surely be astronomical even for chuck, but the meat is almost certain to be well marbled. I'd love to try it, but not when I can get short ribs from the local butcher at an affordable price. Perhaps the compromise would be to get high-choice chuck at Jefferson.

If you want relaxation rather than excitement, they practically give away seafood in the Canadian Maritimes, even in the summer. We stopped in a town on the Bay of Fundy to watch the gigantic tides roll in (very unexciting) and had lobsters for $5.00 Canadian per pound. Then we went inland to Moose Lake, saw our moose and breathed fresh air until New York City was just a memory.

Zemurray, One Hundred Unusual Dinners and How to Prepare Them, has a recipe for moose nose. I got this one from my mother, who never prepared it. Larousse Gastronomique is full of weird stuff. I opened it at random to "agami," an African chicken-like bird. The first step of the recipe is "Choose as tender an agami as possible." Under "otter," it says, "its meat, which is stringy and oily, has a horrible taste."

Here, at least, we should use reason instead of emotion. There's a tiny reason to be suspicious of genetically modified foods. They're NOT what they were before, and people can work up fear of them even though selective breeding has been used from before the dawn of history. By contrast, a cloned animal is identical to the prior generation. Cloning is far too expensive to use to create herd animals for slaughter. It's used to duplicate the best breeding stock.

Do the unthinkable and put them in your refrigerator. The skin turns brown, but the banana inside ripens overnight.

Oxalic acid crystallizes in tiny, thin spikes that puncture the skin and are almost impossible to remove. Be careful to keep it away from your mouth or eyes, and always wear gloves. It will make your tongue swell up so badly that some people have suffocated. It's the principal irritant in Dieffenbachia, a/k/a Dumb Cane, which is a lovely decorative plant with large striped leaves, but which should never be in a house with children (or plant-chewing dogs).

There's a good Chowhound thread, too. As of now, we're up to cane syrup for the sweetener, plus brown sugar and guanciale. You'll die in a diabetic coma, but you'll experience a bit of heaven before you go.

Read the EGCI braising class and Q&A threads. You should braise with only 1/2" of liquid. Additional liquid comes out of the meat, but it cooks down pretty quickly. Too much liquid makes a stew rather than a braise. Also, the experimenters were unanimous in saying that you should use no wine at all, but just stock. The liquid therefore starts out rich and thickens up quickly when reduced. With what you have, you should be able to put the liquid in a large frying pan or saute pan and reduce it quite well inside of an hour. Since the fond already exists in the braising pot, I deglaze it and do the reduction in a nonstick pan, which the thickened sauce comes out of easily. On the other hand, with so much wine you run the risk that concentrating its flavor will overwhelm everything else, so the suggestions up the thread may work best. Perhaps you could reduce half the liquid and thicken the rest.

Well, there's a Bacon of the Month club, which is almost as good as cheesecake. My brother gave me the Harry & David Fruit of the Month last year for the holidays. Their "Royal Riviera" (i.e., comice) pears are really great. The rest of the months were merely good. Their service is top notch. I'd say stick with the pears. I've given them for years. If you'd rather not give food, they also have very nice amaryllises.

I handled one in a shop, but the rear of the blade was flat instead of curved so it banged hard on the board. There's apparently enough variation that you should check before buying. Rock it from front to back to make sure it keeps rolling all the way to the end. Rather than a ceramic sharpener, try a smooth steel from Hand American. I got the long one (S-14) and use it most of the time, with only an occasional swipe on the ceramic.

Their guacamole, made in a pot carved from lava, is the best thing they have. A flight of tequila tasters is always a good idea. Avoid the chicken roasted in parchment paper. Wonderfully described but truly awful.

Chocolate chip cookies. The recipes on the Hershey's and Nestle's bags are identical and good, though REALLY sweet. Use better chocolate, and more of it. If you can find an old-fashioned Scandanavian bakery, get several Fyrstekakes -- "first" (i.e., new-year's) cakes. They don't look like much, but are seriously addictive. Butter, marzipan, enough dough to hold it together, and a thin line of concentrated raspberry jam that keeps you from getting cloyed. Here's a recipe.

The NY Times said roast the breast to 150 and let it rest. It will rise to 165, which will kill all bacteria, but will avoid drying it out to the tasteless approaching sawdust level the FDA schoolmarms recommend.

Park Avenue Liquor (292 Madison Ave.) carries Vya in NYC, as well as all the others. I've also gotten Boissiere at Astor Place. I use it a lot for deglazing.

D&D usually has a good selection, at their usual astronomical prices, but what can you do?

Fore Street (in Portland, ME) fully deserves being listed (#26). I go there every time I'm in the area, and it was so good a couple of weeks ago that I came back three days later. There's an open kitchen with a wood-fired stove, and everything is impeccably sourced and perfectly cooked. The spiced-rubbed rotisserie pork (an enormous double chop) is as good as anything I've ever had. For this quality, their prices are low -- most entrees in the low $20s, none over $30 -- $100 for two, including a glass of wine.

Old joke: French speaker dines with an American who had 2 years of French in high school: Perhaps you'dmight let me do the rest of the ordering. Of course not! I know exactly how to order. Maybe so, but I distinctly heard you order a flight of stairs as an appetizer [l'escalier for l'escargot].

My wife, who grew up on a farm that grew corn for the Jolly Green Giant, says that there's no need to peel back the husk. Just feel gently at the tip. She says you should feel a few undeveloped kernels at the very tip (only a row or two), to make sure that it isn't over-ripe, and everything else should be filled out. It's OK if there are dark areas at the tips of the very outside husk leaves, but the rest should be green, the silk should be gold and un-wilted, and the bottom, where the ear was broken from the stalk, shouldn't be dark or dried out. We reliably get good corn from the NYC Union Square farmer's market using this method. Worms are in fact a sign that the corn is healthy. It's a bit disgusting to peel back the leaves and see a worm on the tip of the cob, but just cut off an inch or so, and that cob is always an exceptional one.

Great ideas, but frankly, I'd rather taste the peas. Frozen peas are fresher than anything other than what you just picked in the garden, and certainly MUCH fresher than what's been in the supermarket display bins practically forever. According to a story in either the NY Times or the LA times about a year ago, premium and store brands are identical, and the best quality comes in plastic bags, not cardboard. Heft a bag to check that the peas are separate. A hard lump means it has thawed and been re-frozen, and is therefore tasteless. Warm gently, add a tiny bit of chopped fresh basil and an even tinier bit of butter or EVOO. Pure heaven.

Easy. A just-made warm chocolate truffle, dusted with cocoa powder, put out as a sample at the late, lamented Krön Chocolatier store, upstairs on Madison Avenue around 52nd Street. I tasted one and my vision went dim. There wasn't enough brain power left over to do anything except absorb that addictive flavor. He seems to still exist at Krön Chocolatier, 5 Bond Street, Great Neck, NY 11021, 516/829-5550, 800/564-5766, but the truffles are too delicate to ship, even by FedEx.

MAGNETS? Puhleeze. Order now and I'll inlude one for the end of the gas pump, 100 mpg guaranteed. Oh yes, I also have a large bridge for sale.

I got one, tried it for a while and gave it away. It was too light to hold heat, yet didn't respond well to changes in heat. I tried hard to build up a seasoned surface, using methods that woked on cast iron, but it always stuck badly. Eggs were impossible, and discolored to boot. I use stainless-coated copper when I need fond and teflon when I don't.

Basil is not great for windowboxes. You need a lot of it, and the stems grow high. Better to buy it at the greenmarket, or plant a stem or two for chopped garnish. Chervil dies immediately in a box. Dill and chives are great for boxes. So is rosemary, but start with a substantial plant.

Try Bridge Kitchenware.

But if olive oil leaves almost no flavor, why use it at all? Wassa matta wit peanut or safflowah?