Butcher

For nearly a decade, Celeste Morello hawked her slim paperback, The Philadelphia Italian Market Cookbook: The Tastes of South 9th Street, through a profit-sharing deal with a Ninth Street butcher, periodic signings beneath a banner on the street, and bookstores across the city. Copies sold to date: 25,000. But beginning in July, says Morello, the butcher suddenly stopped carrying the book, some market merchants seemed to shun her, and her taste of South Ninth Street turned increasingly bitter.

Although Comics Guy tries not to review the same book twice in a short period of time since there are so many quality books out there, I am breaking that rule with "The Boys. " Issue No. 17 reinforces the fact that there isn't another book like it on the stands. It includes perhaps the greatest, most memorable scene in comics this year, a scene so hilarious, Comics Guy was laughing out loud more than half an hour after he put it down. Which reminded Comics Guy that when he reviewed "The Boys" three months ago, I had focused on the (literally)

On the cover of the latest issue of "The Boys," No. 14, Butcher - the star of the book - is standing in a virtual river of blood and covered with quite a bit of it. Which is appropriate, since "The Boys" has quite a bit of violence, and scenes that are not for the squeamish. It is also not for those who have a problem with comics depicting nudity or sexual situations. Or those who don't like profanity, since the characters - especially Butcher - use it frequently. Finally, if you consider yourself to be politically correct, you probably won't enjoy the terms and situations in "The Boys" that are practically guaranteed to offend, well, just about everyone.

The Dallas Cowboys thought it a little funny when Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb proclaimed that the NFC East title still comes through Philadelphia. Last night at Lincoln Financial Field, they truly laughed at the notion. From start to finish, in every way, the Cowboys displayed their dominance with a 38-17 rout that buried the Eagles deeper at the bottom of the division standings. By the end of the evening, the stands at the Linc were half-empty, the Eagles' players were clearly frustrated, and the inevitable questions about the head coach and the starting quarterback were no doubt being raised in cyberspace and a lot of other places across the region.

Peter Tat says he and his family got into the restaurant business for a simple reason: "We just love to cook. " He and his relatives, who emigrated from Vietnam in 1979, had been working in hotels and living in South Jersey. (Tat, for example, was a manager at the former Shula's in Center City.) This summer, they opened Taste of Saigon , a white-tablecloth BYOB, in Sewell's New Market shopping center (279-A Egg Harbor Rd., 856-256-7700). It's open Tuesdays through Fridays for lunch, Tuesdays through Sundays for dinner.

If the labor movement is dying, it's not because of Eric Grumbrecht, 42, an Acme butcher from Warminster. He would say it's the fault of his union, the United Food and Commercial Workers. "They are the laziest organizers on the planet," he said. "I've never seen anyone in the UFCW organize squat. " So Grumbrecht decided to start his own union to organize butchers, bakers and deli workers at Genuardi's, a division of Safeway Inc. That sets up this $21.27-an-hour butcher in a fight with a corporate giant that books $40.2 billion in annual revenue, and a union with 1.3 million members nationwide and a $230 million budget.

RE CHRISTINE FLOWERS' op-ed on the execution of Saddam Hussein, "Justice was served": Ms. Flowers begins her justification for the "revenge" killing by discussing philosophical ideals - "And for a moment, the people of Iraq had a glimpse of hope. " She says "some cosmic balance had been restored. " She speaks of misguided mercy by the likes of the pope, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. Then she finishes her article with her view that "Revenge might not be sweet.

Certain supermarkets these days overflow with whimsy and rare cheeses. Whole Foods Markets and Trader Joe's stores especially market themselves as food fun houses in which humor and a passion for all things edible are meant to be part of the shopping adventure. Enhancing the experience is the food art. Each Whole Foods and Trader Joe's employs artists who create signs, murals, chalkboards and graphics to communicate the corporate wit, along with the prices. Katie Lanciano, a 28-year-old graduate of Moore College of Art and Design, is the full-time, in-store artist at the Whole Foods Market on Callowhill Street in Philadelphia.

A place called Le Virt? is teed up next, though late last month its future dining room was still stripped to the studs, one more eatery on East Passyunk Avenue - in this case, in the old offices of the Italian Newspaper - waiting to happen, to wring a second act from The Avenue, South Philadelphia's alternative universe; "downtown," as old-timers still call it. By late spring, the restaurant (it takes its name from a traditional springtime Abruzzese...

Wherever a natural environment is the wildest and most chaotic, there, too, is the most profound beauty, photographer Clyde Butcher says. "My favorite spot is wherever man hasn't messed it up - virgin places," Butcher said by telephone from his Florida home last week. Butcher's latest exhibit of large-format, black-and-white nature photographs, "Visions of the Next Millennium," is on display through Jan. 29 at the Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art at Ursinus College. Taken in locations around the country - waterways, redwood forests, mountains - the 37 photographs examine some of the last relatively undisturbed natural places in the United States.