Best of the Best

Don’t be surprised if you get a busy signal the next time you try ordering from your favorite mail-order source. More and more people now shop by phone. One in two American adults, or 97.7 million people, shopped at home by phone or mail last year, according to the Direct Marketing Association, a New York-based trade group.

Ordering by telephone is everything you want it to be: convenient, time-saving (you can do comparison shopping without leaving your chair), and without the wear and tear on your nerves from jammed parking lots and long check-out lines. Besides, some gifts just can’t be bought at the mall.

While not all of the following come with fancy gift wrap, they make wonderful presents and can be delivered in time for Christmas--if you order now.

* You may not be able to cook like a chef, but you can look like one, thanks to Chefwear ((800) 568-2433), a Chicago company run by two former L.A. pastry chefs, Rochelle Huppin-Flack (formerly of Granita) and Kathleen Magee (formerly of Eureka). Order the same 100% cotton unisex pants, jackets and toques that trendy chefs wear in some of the country’s top restaurant kitchens. Chef pants, available in 19 designs, including the traditional black-and-white houndstooth, start at $33; classic white jackets (including embroidered name) cost $50 apiece; toques and baseball-type hats cost $15.

* At Fortuna’s Deli in Greenville, Rhode Island, ((800) 427-6879), owner Paul Stannard makes dense, flavorful sausages much the way some people make wine: by hand, in small batches, using only the very best ingredients. And like fine wine, he ages his product slowly, dry-curing it. Stannard’s pepperoni, abruzze , caciatorini and capicola are all wonderful. But the smooth-textured soppressata , made from extra-lean pork and spices and then cured for months, is the deli’s signature sausage. It comes in three degrees of spiciness and costs $12.95 a pound.

* What’s the secret of the fabulous plump roasted peanuts from Nuts Devine ((800) 334-0492), and why do they smell so incredibly good when you open the package? Simple. They’re fresh. All peanuts from this Edenton, North Carolina, company are shipped within a week of being roasted. For $25.75, plus $2.95 shipping and handling, you can get a 10-pound bushel basket of the goobers (salted or unsalted) delivered to any door in the country. Mail never smelled so good.

* A perfect cup of espresso is hazel brown with a reddish tinge, has a strong rich aroma and very thick crema. Anyone who makes espresso knows that, in order to achieve this, the grounds need to be tightly packed into the filter holder. The tamper, a knobbed gadget that resembles a chess piece, makes the job of compressing the beans a lot easier. For $25 you can own one invented by Mark Romano for Illy Espresso, a 60-year-old family-owned business based in Trieste, Italy, and the world’s leading espresso producer. The perfectly weighted tamper is sleek, available in five colors and--best of all--comes with a book on espresso and a can of Illycaffe. Call (800) USA-ILLY.

* Anderson’s Candy Shop in Richmond, Ill., ((815) 678-6000), run by the founder’s grandsons, Lars and Leif Anderson, is famous for its chocolate butter creams. The brothers are so picky about their product, none of their candy is more than two weeks old. And they even make their own cream: They buy the milk from a local farm and separate it. The result is cream that contains as much as 50% to 60% butterfat (the whipping cream in most supermarkets contains about 30%). A pound of chocolates runs between $8 and $12, plus shipping.

* Stollen has been the traditional Christmas bread of Germany since about 1400. Rich in butter, almonds and rum-soaked fruit, the loaf is dusted with powdered sugar and shaped into an oval that symbolizes the manger in Bethlehem. For the real thing, try the loaf at Ye Olde Sweet Shoppe Bakery in Sheperdstown, W.Va., ((800) 922-5379). A 2 1/2-pound loaf costs $18.95, plus shipping.

* Schwartz Candies’ ((800) 522-2462) chocolate-covered marshmallows are truly incredible. Each light and pillow-y square is doused in a special blend of dark chocolate and then packed in a distinctive red-and-white checkered chocolate box. Besides the original vanilla version, the New Hyde Park, N.Y., candy shop makes several other flavors to choose from, including chocolate, strawberry and maple. A one-pound, two-ounce box of all vanilla or assorted flavors costs $27.50, including shipping.

* Cole Porter was so crazy about the fudge from Arnold’s Candies in his hometown of Peru, Ind., ((317) 473-5363), that he ordered 12 pounds a month until his death in 1964. The fudge is hand-mixed, hand-poured and made from real butter and cream. A pound of the rich, creamy concoction costs $5.60 plus shipping. You may want to order an extra box or two. As Porter put it, possibly about Arnold’s fudge: “It’s the tops.”

* A good baking powder biscuit should double in height while it’s in the oven. It should emerge light and tender and have a golden-brown crust. In the South, where biscuits are an important part of life, White Lily in Knoxville, Tenn., ((615) 546-5511) has been the flour of choice for more than 100 years. It’s the stuff of tender biscuits. The low-gluten flour is sold only in the South, but the company will ship five-pound bags of flour anywhere in the country. The cost is $4 per bag west of the Mississippi, postage paid.

* Cheesemakers Letty and Bob Kilmoyer ((508) 928-5110), have a herd of 65 goats on their 20-acre farm in Hubbardston, Mass., and they inoculate the surface of their fresh goat cheese with blue mold. Westfield Farm’s fresh blue Classic ($4.08 for seven ounces) is tangy with good blue flavor. Milder, with a soft texture almost like Brie, is the aged Hubbardston ($2.79 for five ounces). Shipping is extra.