An unexpected duck-scovery. My former grocery store, which is the kind of high-priced, high-brow affair you'll find in certain metropolitan areas, has a modest shelf near the deli which is occupied by various pâtés and non-dessert mousses. [From reading Bourdain, I've developed an amateurish, half-assed interest in French cuisine, and have sampled a few of these items.] I dropped by the old place the other day and encountered something quite unexpected on this shelf - an unassuming, black-and-white box labeled foie gras de canard. [It was a product of Les Trois Petits Cochons, which is fun to say with a heavy French accent, try it with me - lay TWA pe-TEE coo-SHONE.] Along with the vaunted truffle [a single truffle sold at an auction last year for the equivalent of $160,000], foie gras, which is the liver of a controversially force-fed duck or goose, is the absolute apex of delicacies in French cuisine. It was cool to see foie gras at the grocery store, but I did not, nor will I, buy it there - I can barely make a bowl of cereal, let alone prepare fine French cuisine, no matter how simple. Oh, and then there's the cost. Six ounces of fatty duck liver at your local grocery store: $36.99.