Eat Your VegeBeatles

Linda McCartney--yes, Paul’s tambourine-player--introduced a line of frozen dinners called Linda McCartney’s Home Style Cooking Meatless Entrees this spring. She plans to market them nationally this year.

The Jerkiest Jerky

So you think you know Italian food; ever hear of musciame ? It’s sun-dried dolphin meat. Every so often fishermen off the Tuscan and Ligurian coasts accidentally harpoon a dolphin. There’s no market for it, so they hang strips of the meat in the rigging until it turns into a sort of black, leathery jerky. You wipe off the green mold with a cloth dipped in vinegar, marinate it in olive oil and chew on it with raw garlic.

Truly Flourless Chocolate Cake

Life is tough for people who are allergic to wheat gluten--just imagine cooking without flour. Fortunately for them, Authentic Foods, founded by a restaurant entrepreneur who has a degree in biochemistry, specializes in wheat-free flours and mixes. The basic product, a flour made from garbanzo and fava beans, is used for breadings, a felafel mix and vegetable burgers. Another mix, which adds brown rice flour, is used for pancakes, muffins and cookies; there’s even a bean-based chocolate cake mix. Available at health food stores such as Wild Oats in Pasadena and (oddly) the Whole Wheatery in Lancaster, or you can inquire at (800) 692-7323/FAX (714) 248-2581.

Big Brock Candy

Business note: Brock Candy, founded in 1906, is being bought up by competitor E.J. Brach. The combined company will be known as Brock & Brach Confections.

What’s That Scent You’re Wearing, My Deer?

Hunting season is coming up, and Thomas Canino worries that a lot of hunters will bring home deer that their families will never eat because they don’t like the flavor. But Canino says he knows how to eliminate unpleasant odors, and the secret is in his “Mountain Man Cookbook,” which contains 30 recipes for deer and elk, and another 70 for rabbit, squirrel, pheasant and duck. You can order “Mountain Man Cookbook” from (800) 999-7900.

Give This Man Some Ethiopian Sidamo, He’s Had Too Much Oatmeal Stout

For people who don’t have a gourmet coffee store handy, there’s Coffee Quest, a coffee of the month club. For $15.95 a month, plus shipping and handling, they send two pounds of coffee (one straight and one flavored, or two straight); if you find one you really like, you can just tell them to send two pounds a month from then on. The phone number is (800) 205-5282 (yes, that’s 205-JAVA). The founders have a track record--they started the first microbrewery beer of the month club, Beer Across America.