Dr. Funk

I love his books, read the preview of the cookbook, made the Boeuf Bourgignon (which my wife says is the best she's ever tasted), but this cements it - I'm buying this cookbook for myself and my step-daughters. I'd buy it for my grand-daughters, but they're a little young.

It took you awhile, but you apparently discovered the concept of a bed of coals. I have, however, discovered in your writing the root of your problems - 4 hours and three beers? Beer consumption way too low. But then again, drinking the product of the brewery that made Billy Beer might be tough. David from Dixon

Overcooking elk is a crime against humanity. Anything past medium-rare is overdone.

As for the pomeganate myth, my brother has a pomegranate tree and we set out one day to test it out. We had some as low as 400 seeds and some over 1000. For 10 pomegranates, the average was 642. So much for that.

A fat doe who likes to eat the tops of my tomato and pepper plants. Luckily, in this state it's legal to shoot her without a license if I catch her in the act. I also have wild plums, chokecherries, horseradish (8 patches) and wild asparagus. Oh, I forgot the hop vines.

THis stuff is easy. I tried his version of Boeuf Bourgignon and my wife and I agreed that it was the best I'd ever made. I don't think there's a difficult recipe in the book.

The only time I was ever in Philadelphia, my second ex-wife took me to a place just off the Penn campus called Smokey Joe's. Good cheese steak, good beer, good people. She even had a diploma from the place.

When your food cost is 28% of your menu price, it's hard to give a big discount on a half order. After all, all your other costs are still the same so to expect a 50% discount is silly. I've had half orders in many restaurants and it's usually 25%. Fine by me, I wasn't going to eat it anyway. It is true that portions are getting insanely large. I haven't been able to eat a 24 oz Porterhouse since I was 18, why would I want one at 57? I don't even have a dog.

Mario has probably taught me more about cooking than any other TV chef. Martha can't teach cooking - hell, she can't even cook, same goes for Emeril. Sarah Moulton is an excellent teacher. I saw recently that Alton Brown got some sort of award for teaching. Whoever gave him that should be taken out and shot. The man is a mine of misinformation. I'm a practicing chemist and about half of what he says is wrong, provably wrong, have you read your high school text wrong. It's sad that FN is eliminating its good shows in favor of populist crap. How many times do we have to see Rachel's block party in prime time?

22 more if you include Kitchen Confidential