When my little book was prematurely being taken out of print, the asshat publisher offered to let me buy as many remainders as I wanted for like five bucks a copy, and I stocked up on three cases mostly to dispense as gifts. Now I see I should have scarfed the whole press run in hopes of jacking up the price of a rarity. How else to explain the $100-a-copy going rate for one of the more disappointing collections of recipes from an influential chef? The thing landed with a serious kathud after at least a year of gossip about the wrong collaborator, and now it’s selling for the price of appetizers at Per Se while Nancy Silverton’s Caremesque “Desserts” can be ordered online for as little as 40 cents in hardcover. My own grain of sea salt comes from remembering how hard it was to find a copy of Pierre Franey’s “More 60-Minute Gourmet” for my consort while he was off cooking solo in Middle Earth. I paid like 30 bucks for an apparently untouched hardcover online. And when he got home and we went to donate a few bags of high-end detritus to the church thrift shop down the block, what did I spot in the book bin but that very same title in pristine form selling for $2. Got a craving for troublesome coconut tapioca? Pray to St. Vincent de Paul.