Vinegar

It's a situation many of us face each Easter night: The Easter Bunny has come and gone, the egg hunt is over and the kids have overdosed on chocolate and jelly beans. You're cleaning up the last of the festivities when suddenly, reality in every shade of pastel seems to stare you down. What do you do with all those hard-boiled eggs? RECIPES: 22 recipes for hard-boiled eggs We did a story on creative ways to "repurpose" those leftover Easter eggs last year, including everything from deviled eggs and egg salad sandwiches to empanadas and appetizers.

This year, skip the master gardening class about how to keep whiteflies out of your orange trees. Forget the annual pilgrimage to the nursery for zucchini starts. Plant your own truffle trees and grow something your friends will actually want. That's what I've done, with the help of a truffle grower, Mother Nature and all the patience I can muster. The most prized truffle varieties are the white truffle of Alba, Italy (Tuber magnatum pico), and the Perigord black truffle (Tuber melanosporum).

I promise you this isn't a story about dog treats. If you've been dining out at some of L.A.'s hippest chef-driven restaurants lately, you might have noticed a recurring ingredient on the menu. Pig ears. You heard me, pig ears. Recently, at the L.A. Times Taste event, I decided to serve a pig ear terrine dish from my restaurant Lukshon. Cold, thinly sliced pig ears marinated in black vinegar, Sichuan spices and white sesame oil with thin slices of pickled carrots and scallions.

Small but mighty, that's the recipe: One part vinegar, three or four parts oil, a little salt and pepper, perhaps a dash of mustard, and you and your salad are in business. Add some garlic, a minced shallot or two, a handful of fragrant herbs, and just about any basic food--vegetable, starch or meat--will be deliciously dressed. Vinaigrette, a.k.a. Italian dressing, was called French dressing in my youth, before the craze for all things Italian switched the label.

I've got a problem with "Vineland." (McConnell's) was a fine review--succinct, balanced, obviously informed and well considered. It sounds like a great book, an important new work from an important author. As a long-time Pynchon fan and student of serious literature, I can hardly wait to read it. The problem is that I do have to wait to read it. I am told, upon inquiring, that the book won't be available to the ordinary working stiff like myself until sometime in February.

Paul Prudhomme is happy. "I'm mobile. I work 18 hours a day. I wake up every morning feeling wonderful," he says. But about two years ago, at 485 pounds, he was not so happy. "I got to an uncomfortable weight and I had to do something," he says. First, he tried powdered diet products and even got creative with them, inventing new recipes. "I got sick of it and decided it was time to get serious," he says. "With my ability to cook, I changed to food."

If you love outdoor cooking, there's nothing like taming a tough cut of meat through the mastery of a low and slow fire, or deftly handling a lean cut quickly over a hot grill. But often it's that signature touch -- a thoughtfully honed sauce -- that separates barbecue masters from weekend warriors. At once sweet, sour and spicy, the best sauces achieve a controlled balance of what might initially seem like contradictory flavors.