It's not mine, but it's hard to do much better than Marcella Hazan's recipe for ragu: [www.seriouseats.com]

"Not $20 billion these days, especially judging by that camera."

I thought you were CRAZY. And then I used google. And google told me you can use whole eggs too.

Ithaca: Gimme Coffee. Excellent stuff.

It's pretty clear that you don't want to allow condensation on beans, which is what happens when you open a bag of beans from the freezer that's still cold. If you leave the beans sealed in the bag they came in, however, and don't open it till it's at room temperature, they should be good to go. Cold is good. …

Open a bunch of small CDs at Ally. The rate on the 5yr CD is 1.69%, and the penalty is only 60 days. So as long as you leave the money there for about 180 days, you'll break-even with a savings account that gives you 0.85%.

If inflation is 5-15%, I hope you're taking out a gigantic mortgage at ~4% and buying TIPS with that money...

The price is $19/12oz, not $18/12oz. Also, it's not "approximately," it's exactly $19/12oz. #corrections

Almost any roaster will ship you beans. I'd by a one-month supply and stash the unopened bag in the freezer to save on shipping coasts.

I'd add a toaster oven if you can. They're cheap (like, $20-30 for a new one) and they're great for cooking meat and vegetables. They get hot enough to actually do some browning, and they give you a source of dry heat that your microwave can't provide. Heck, you could make yourself a little mini lasagna in there…

The public library is a often a good source for cookbooks. Once you go through a couple of loan periods, you have a pretty good idea where or not the book is good for you.

The best rescue for too much salt is some acid—lemon juice, vinegar, wine, etc. It doesn't work magic, but it's better than nothing.

Speaking of Bittman, his cookbooks, like How To Cook Everything and The Best Recipes in the World are a great way to get started. They're generally simple recipes that taste great with plenty of commentary on shortcuts and substitutions. Whereas Joy of Cooking feel encyclopedic, Bittman's books feel much more like…

If you're just getting into cooking for yourself and it's replacing takeout/restaurant meals, don't worry about the cost of ingredients. You can splurge and still come in well below the cost of a restaurant meal (in the Northeast you could cook yourself lobster every day for $10).

"For most people, the MID doesn't kick in until you have a substantial mortgage"

Nit-pick: Stand-alone gas grills use propane. Gas stoves use methane (natural gas).

Index funds aren't hard to figure out. Just buy a book that advocates passive investing and do what it says. The hard part is the self-control that rebalancing requires: you need to sell the funds that are doing well and buy the funds that are doing poorly.

Or the library.

Partly because of the cost of producing and printing it, and partly because they can.

"Tivoli says the headphones reduce outside noise by 85 percent, though that seems like it may be a bit generous after a quick listen."