Q:Help, please. I have the "bun" portion of sticky buns down pretty well but I keep having trouble with the "sticky" part. The topping is OK the first day but the sugar starts to recrystallize very quickly. I have tried using corn syrup, lemon juice for acid, cooking the sugar/butter/corn syrup a little longer. We cannot eat a whole batch the first day and they don't have much appeal when the sugar is gritty on the second day. Thanks, Meg.

A: It sounds as if you're using a recipe that calls for granulated sugar. You are probably not cooking the syrup quite long enough. Try simmering it for another 2 or 3 minutes.

To completely avoid the problem, use a brown sugar recipe. To me, the flavor is much better also!

Here's the syrup recipe for a brown sugar sticky bun. Use your own roll recipe to accompany!

1 c. light corn syrup
1 stick plus 1 tbsp. unsalted (sweet) butter
1 c. packed light brown sugar
½ c. chopped pecans

Melt butter in heavy saucepan over medium heat. Add sugar and syrup and stir constantly until sugar is completely dissolved. Add pecans and simmer 2 minutes.

Q: Are molasses and sorghum molasses the same thing? I want to make gingerbread cookies and didn't know if it is the same and, if not, if it can be used to make gingerbread cookies. I have the sorghum molasses. Have never used it before so don't know anything about them. Could sure use your help.

A: From my childhood years near the cane fields in Louisiana and my research as an adult, I've never known there to be a difference.

For those of you who think of things like molasses and cane syrup as "throwback" or "countryfied" products, you don't know what you're missing! The sharp, sweet taste of some Steen's pure cane syrup on a stack of pancakes is like nothing else on earth, and can truly be addicting. My favorite way to eat cane syrup is stirred into a hot bowl of grits.

Uh-oh. I mentioned cane syrup and grits in the same sentence. I see some eyes glazing over out there among some of my north-of-the-Mason/Dixon readers.

Q: When a recipe calls for just red wine or white wine, what kind of wine is best to use for cooking? G. Shiffer

A: As long as you don't buy "cooking wine," which is generally poor quality hooch with additives, you can't go too far wrong. I use the cheapest table wine I can lay hands on, and I've never found a difference.

What you're doing with the wine is creating a chemical reaction, bringing out flavors in your food that water doesn't. This is most pronounced when you're cooking with tomatoes. There are flavors locked in that little red fruit that you'll never taste until you add a splash of wine to your tomato sauce.

Q: I have a question that my wife and I have a "sharp" disagreement about. We always cut food on a wood block, however, I sometimes put a paper towel on top of the block if the food is likely to spill juices - it makes it easy to clean up. My wife says that cutting against a paper towel will dull the knife. I say it is counterintuitive that such a soft material would damage the edge. Can you straighten us out on this? --Brian O.

A: Paper is just wood pulped and made into sheets, so you're basically putting wood on top of wood. I can't see any reason why your method would damage a knife.

That said, I'd be afraid of getting wood fibers from the paper towel in my food. They wouldn't be toxic, but as anyone who's ever ended up with a scrap of paper towel in a soup pot can tell you, they're incredibly bitter.

This would be a good time to talk a little about hygeine and food safety.

Show of hands, how many of you cut meat and poultry on your trusty old wooden cutting board? You'd better stock up on Kaopectate and Pepto-Bismol, because you've got a food-borne illness just waiting to happen.

Wood is porous, and things like meat juices just LOVE to penetrate its surface and make themselves at home, raising little colonies of bacteria, sending them off to college, and slipping them into your salad greens the next time you cut vegetables on the board. You can try sanitizing the board in the diswasher, but it's not necessarily going to work completely.

A better solution is to buy a plastic board for meats. You can even get them with a lip to keep those meat juices from flowing all over the place. The one I use I paid the princely sum of $6 for at Bed, Bath and Beyond and it's lasted me two years of hard use so far.

Sanitize the board in the dishwasher when you wash your dishes, and it'll be safe for use over and over!

Q: We have wondered for some time about the shelf-life of "'pop-top" canned food items like liquid soups and the like, in comparison to the traditional can that one opened with a can opener?

Now we are finding cans with foil and plastic tops on coffee for instance. How do they stand up in reqards to freshness against the coffee in the traditional can? Anna K.

A: As long as the airtight seal is maintained, there's really no difference in the packaging. The new foil tops are simply more convenient and a bit more environmentally friendly. However, should you ever find a top that feels loose, or has a hole in it, of course steer clear!

I want to purchase some new cookware. Presently, I just have T-Fal (cheap stuff). Any suggestions? What do I look for. I don't want nonstick (except for one pan for eggs, possibly). Should I buy a set or pick and choose from different kinds/brands depending on what is needed. --Michelle M.

A: Let's get that egg pan first, OK? Your egg pan should be fairly cheap nonstick.

The rest of your question becomes much a matter of personal preference. Since I am, technically, a person, and have preferences, I'll use mine.

If you put a gun to my head and made me choose five pots and pans I had to use for the rest of my life ... well, I'd whimper like a dog and beg you not to shoot me. That's not a good illustration.

I love my cast iron. My 12-inch chicken frying skillet, Big Bertha, is the ultimate "do anything" pan. Her little brother, my 8-inch skillet, is the perfect pancake/seared ribeye pan. I haven't named him yet.

For everyday saucepans, I use a set of stainless steel copper-bottomed pots I picked up on sale at Target a couple years back. They're heavy enough to take my hamhanded knocking around, but light enough to give the burners a break from the stress test of cast iron.

For spaghetti sauce, chili and pasta boiling, I use a steel "speckleware" stock pot I've had for a decade. It holds about four gallons, which is about one normal recipe of spaghetti sauce for me.

If I were picked for the next "Survivor," and had to pick just one of those to take with me, Big Bertha would be my luxury item faster than you can say "edible bugs."

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