A Baklava-Hunter’s Guide

“Ethnic Cookbooks and Food Marketplace” is a book with a somewhat more specific aim than its title implies: It lists 2,100 restaurants, markets, caterers and food makers in the United States and Canada who specialize in the food of Greece, Armenia, the Arab countries, Israel and Afghanistan, all indexed by ethnic category, name and state, and 265 titles of cookbooks in English covering Near Eastern cuisines. It’s $24.95 (plus $2 shipping and $2.06 sales tax for Californians) from Armenian Reference Books Co., P.O. Box 231, Glendale, Calif. 91209.

Gooey to the Last Drop

With the Last Dropp ICBD (Inverted Condiment Bottle Disk) Kit, we hear, you can make a device for holding bottles of gooey things such as catsup, honey and fudge sauce so that when the bottles are nearly empty, they can be inverted and the last bit can drain out. We haven’t tried it and we understand the maker’s phone number is actually that of a construction company, but it’s been touted in the food trade magazines. Send $3.99 plus $1 shipping to P.O. Box 7781, Aspen, Col. 81612.

You Know They’re Serious

The reduced-fat Milky Way II Bar will have 25% fewer calories and 52% fewer calories from fat than the original Milky Way when it comes on the West Coast market in April. So it was announced at a press conference held Jan. 15 . . . at Spago.

Please Wait for Your Order

Toshiba has developed a machine to take verbal orders at a drive-through restaurant. It asks you what you want and then repeats your order while a video screen shows an animated face making appropriate expressions. The trouble is, we all talk a little differently, and so far every electronic speech recognition system has had to register a sample of each user’s speech before it could be used. Toshiba says this project may take a couple of years.

Beyond the Cola Wars

Coca Cola has already announced a joint venture with Nestle in canned coffee. Don’t think that PepsiCo is sitting on its hands--it’s going into the canned tea business with Lipton.

How to Make Your Own Fortune

We can never remember: Do you have to eat a Chinese fortune cookie for the fortune to come true, or do you have to eat it to keep it from coming true? A fortune cookie must go down easier when dipped in chocolate, of course, and now you can get just that, and even pick (or write) your own fortune. These giant fortune cookies, 20 times as large as the regular kind, are $12 apiece at any Chin Chin restaurant (West Hollywood, Studio City, Brentwood, Marina Del Rey). Phone (213) 913-0936. For an extra charge, they’ll deliver.