A bird in hand.well, you know the rest. For the cook this also means an ace in the hole: either prepared or ready-to-prepare food to thwart the "Nothing to eat. Let's order" impulse.

By Liz Biro, Liz.Biro@StarNewsOnline.com Two crew-cut young men are downing beers and playfully if loudly arguing sports at Mugsy's Pub on a late afternoon. One of them quickly apologizes to a polished woman he's suddenly noticed at the bar. "We just got back," he says, meaning from over there, in Iraq.