Well, sure. Just like with humans, an oyster’s unhealthy fixation on its own naughty bits are sure to bring chafing, hairy palms and STDs. “Oh, that’s just a cold sore!” Sure, you pretty little huitre plate, you keep telling yourself that.

According to Reuters, oyster herpes actually kills the little guys — to the tune of 40-100% in most French cultivating beds this year — instead of merely making them social outcasts whose only goal is to spread the disease through lies and casual sex. Apparently, the cause is simple – when the weather is warm and there’s plenty of food, oysters spend all their available energy pumping up their sexual organs at the expense of their immune systems. Hard to blame ‘em.

Brilliant reporting Reuters, by the way. No mention at all whether infected oysters can transfer their seaborne herpes to people who down them with a nice Sancerre and capable mignonette. Nobody’d be interested in that, I imagine.

I hate to say I told you so, but Sarasota chef Darwin Santa Maria of oft-lauded Selva Grill made the same prediction about Peruvian food almost a year ago right here in CL’s blogs. Sarasota is home to no less than four decent Peruvian joints. Only question is: what about the Bay area? Know any great places to grab some ceviche, causa and sauces laced with glorious aji pepper?

(Thanks to Grub Street.)

For stainless steel cookware, typical dish soap and water will take care of daily use – and you can even throw most brands in the dishwasher — but you’ll want to have an abrasive cleanser on hand. Don’t scrub with anything metal and stay away from harsh powders and liquids like Comet or Soft Scrub; those will clean well enough but could scratch the surface of your beautiful pans.

Look for abrasives that are made for pans – like my fave Barkeepers Friend, available in most supermarkets. The powder is much finer and made from stuff that won’t mar the steel. They work best when the pan is just barely damp, scrubbed into surface with a nylon pad like you find on the back of most cleaning sponges. For tough jobs, soak the gunked-up pan for a while first. Even if you don’t have tough-to-remove food caked onto your steel, these cleansers will remove the inevitable discoloration and water spotting that comes from steady use. Giving them a good scrub every so often will keep your babies looking bright and fresh.

Copper is just as simple – you can use the same soft abrasives that you use on steel – but you’ll also want to add a commercial copper polish to remove the inevitable tarnish and discoloration. Squirt on, wax-off.

Tending cast iron is more troublesome, but rewarding when you put in the time. I’ve never been good at it, but the fine people at Lodge – the undeniable kings of cast iron – recommend heating your cast iron slowly when preparing to cook, with a thin layer of vegetable oil no matter what you’re preparing.

When you’re done, don’t use soap. Fine layers of caramelized food built up on the surface of the pan are what makes cast-iron non-stick, as well as adding flava’. Just scrub gently in hot water (cold can warp the hot metal) with a nylon brush. Loosen tough, caked-on food by filling the pan with water and boiling for a few minutes. After cleaning, wipe the pan with a touch more oil and store without the lid on to encourage air flow. Our own copy editor Anthony Salveggi likes to cover the pan with a towel to keep off dust that may stick to the oiled surface.

If you let the pan go south, or find an old one at a garage sale, rust is not a problem. Just scour the rust away with steel wool and re-season. You’ll want to coat the entire pan – inside and out – with melted shortening and bake in a 350-400 degree oven for an hour. After it cools in the oven, you’re golden.

Some food – like salt — can pit the surface of steel, iron and copper if it remains in contact with the pan for even a short time. If you’re boiling water for pasta, wait until it starts bubbling before adding the salt. Try to clean or rinse and soak your pans quickly after cooking to stop or slow the negative impact of sodium rich foods. The pits won’t stop the pans from cooking a fine meal, but who wants a $100 skillet that’s cratered like a 14-year-old’s face?

Like taking care of your coif or skin-care regime, maintaining your cook-gear takes a little time and a little effort, but the years of beauty are worth it.

This week features a culinary guide to passive aggressive appetizers perfect for any gathering. Best snippet: “Have you ever noticed how sun-dried tomatoes and top-grade peyote look exactly the same? Not a suggestion, really. Just saying.”

After years of not trying, those Seattle-ish coffee merchants are really scrambling, aren’t they? Heck, I’m all for it. Anything beats that left-in-the-oven-for-days flavor of the corporate giant’s burnt coffee.

Rocky Aoki, creator of the Benihana restaurant chain and the vaudevillean-style of American teppan-yaki cuisine, died last week. He led an amazing life that rivals anything Richard Branson might try. Check it out.

Before some friends and I tried flavor tripping for the first time, I’ll admit I had some unrealistic expectations. I thought the newly popularized miracle fruit would make my palate go temporarily insane; olives would taste like licorice, rice would taste like pudding, soap would taste like marmalade. We’d be licking the ambrosial sweat from each other’s armpits!

This past weekend, a friend from Ft. Lauderdale bought berries (at $3 each) from a local horticulturist, and seven of us prepared a smorgasbord. We each chewed a berry, swished it around in our mouths for a minute, then began to taste.

First, we did lemons and limes. Some said they tasted like tangerines, but there was more to the flavor than that: essence-of-lime without the sourness. We sliced them up and squeezed them one after another into our mouths.

“It has buttery notes!” said the person next to me.

Heineken became very drinkable on the miracle fruit. Some of the tasters thought it evoked cream soda. One friend suggested writing a letter to the brewer: “Dear Heineken, we had to pay $3 to enjoy your beer.”

Ranch dressing tasted like custard.

Bordeaux tasted like Riesling.

Goat cheese tasted like cream cheese.

Dubliner cheese tasted like a milder cheese.

Tequila tasted like tequila. (Tequila will not be moved.)

As you can see, the flavor conversions weren’t as wild as I’d thought they’d be. From the fruit’s Wikipedia entry: “The berry is sweet, and contains an active glycoprotein molecule, with some trailing carbohydrate chains, called miraculin. When the fleshy part of the fruit is eaten, this molecule binds to the tongue’s taste buds, causing bitter and sour foods (such as lemons and limes) consumed later to taste sweet.”

So new flavors aren’t really introduced. Fruits are in a way streamlined down to their sweet essences. This can kind of dumb down more complex flavors, as happened with the wine.

We also noticed that when we tried foods like vinegar, which went down smooth at first, it seemed you could taste them once you swallowed. Strange, I remarked, since you can’t taste with your throat.

“But you can smell,” someone said, “and once it gets past your mouth, your olfactory system takes over.”

The effects of the fruit are supposed to last at least an hour, but ours was wearing off after about 20 minutes. Drinking all that vinegar, eating all those lemons and limes, we probably burned away the miraculin with tasty acid. That’s probably why, at the flavor-tripping parties held in New York and San Francisco, guests try just a little bit of everything.

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Although it wasn’t psilocybin for the tongue, as I had expected, the fruit did influence me to eat more lemon-and-goat-cheese than appeals to me right now.

For more, head here.