Let me tell you -- my friend, Al The Gadget God, knows the blues. He caught some last summer, but more importantly, he smoked 'em, and the result was heaven. Al is my pal. He's blessed with techno-tendencies. He's got a gift for gadgets, and he's as much at home with sophisticated computer software as he is with a boning knife. I turn to him for help with installing a modem and advice on baking bread. He's the all-purpose flour of a friend. Everyone should have one.

Al loves to cook and he loves to cook what he catches on fishing trips on the Chesapeake with Capt. Ed Darwin. He's got a propane-fueled, commercial-style smoker as big as a filing cabinet on his deck in Linthicum. He gave me a slab of last fall's smoked bluefish, and this is what I did with it: I chopped it up in little pieces and threw it into a sauce pan with a jar of Bertolli's garlic Alfredo sauce (on sale at Giant), adding two shots of dry vermouth. I let it simmer a bit, then ladled it over a pile of fettuccine. Let me tell you -- that was my blue heaven. Delicious. (And please, no cracks about the Bertolli's. In a pinch, itza not bad.)