AS IT IS presidential election season, we must all be on the lookout for gaffes. My latest contribution to gaffedom – pointed out to me by several alert readers, including an affected party – was to misidentify the chef at Bix in my recent piece about eating out (or in) on Valentine's Day, "Love among the Ruins" (2/11/04). I did manage to get half the name right; the chef is indeed called Bruce, but the surname is Hill, not Cost. Bruce Cost was the man behind Monsoon, in Opera Plaza, and then Ginger Island, in Berkeley's Fourth Street complex, whereas Hill was for many years the chef at Oritalia before moving on to other projects, among them the culinary refurbishing (or perhaps just the furbishing) of the Waterfront.

Embarrassing. Fortunately I am not running for president – at any rate not at this time, as gaffe-prone R.M. Nixon and his wicked factotums were wont to say. For that matter, I would think not at any time. The desire to be president is not consistent with healthy personality, as experience richly demonstrates.

Café Cuvée est fermée At the end of this month, Anne O'Driscoll, chef and owner of the seven-year-old Café Cuvée, is closing the restaurant in favor of giving cooking classes. The restaurant was a small jewel, with regular rotation of menus. But it could be drafty if you sat by the door, and the traffic along Market Street was – and is – brutal – and the shadow cast by the bigger and glitzier Mecca, a few steps away, was – and is – a long one.

The joy of acid The day after Valentine's Day I walked into Bi-Rite Market and straight into – well, all right, to – a bin of bergamot fruit. These are the sour citrus, of Asian provenance, whose strong perfume is best known to Occidentals as the scent of Earl Grey tea. The placard described them as "sour oranges," which would-be makers of orange marmalade will know are not easy to come by here in the sweet, sunny land of the Valencia and the navel. The fruits are about the size of medium navels and of a pale, yellow-gold color. I snapped up a sackful (for a not-inconsiderable $2.49 a pound), along with some sample wedges on toothpicks. My companion took one tentative slurp and made a face. Perfect! I thought, my plans for a new batch of orangecello (or bergamotcello, if there can possibly be such a thing) coalescing nicely. Sweet, even-tempered oranges don't work in this application; something harsher is needed. Soon we will know.