Walter Nicholls used to report on food for the Washington Post's Food Section. Now he's plunged more deeply into the subject and with a single focus: to bring the best possible flavoring ingredients to cooks. He's joined the Paso Robles, CA, Cook Flavoring Company. Already he's managed to sway several prime Washington pastry chefs to use its vanilla.

He'd never before seen beans "as terrific in every way as Cook's". So far signed up in the capital to use Cook's plump, highly scented vine-ripened beans and vanilla and other flavor extracts are CityZen pastry chef Amanda Cook (not related), Ruth Poupon of Patisserie Poupon, the Georgetown Cupcake sisters, and Kendall Barrett, Falls Church custom cake maker.

You can order them too, direct from Walter at walter@cooksvanilla.com or 202 625 0611, or from Cook Flavoring Company. To buy them at once, nip over to The Griffin Market at 1425 28th St. NW, 202 965 1222.

Vanilla is expensive. It's easy to see why. It's an evergreen climbing orchid, native to Central America whose production methods explain its price.

For commercial use, the flowers are pollinated by hand. There is only one day a year on which the inches-long beans become suitable for picking. If that day is missed, another year must go by before the gathering opportunity comes round again.

The moment it is picked, the bean is plunged into boiling water to stop its growth. Then it is cured in the sun for six months, to encourage the crystallization of vanillin, its aromatic essence, on the outside of the seed pod.

Much commercial vanilla is now manufactured by artificially synthesizing vanillin, producing a flavoring that offers little in intensity by comparison with the pure extract It's really not worth buying anything except the real McCoy.

Good vanilla extract and vanilla sugar are both so expensive, it's tempting to leave it out of a recipe that it isn't starring in. But it's an ingredient that's often called for in desserts that may be a platform for a strong flavor like chocolate or coffee, to round out the taste.  But you can reduce its cost by making your own.

To make your own vanilla extract,  buy a bottle of cheap vodka, fill it with at least twelve whole vanilla beans - here is where it's worth buying the best, like Cook's - and leave it in a dark cupboard to steep for several months till the liquid turns a dark burnt brown.

To make vanilla sugar, grind two whole vanilla beans (again, Cook's are worth the investment) with 1/2 lb granulated sugar in a blender or processor till the sugar powder is flecked with brown. If you've used a vanilla pod to infuse cream and scraped out its seeds, you can wash the pod clean, let it get dry, then save it to add to others to make vanilla sugar.

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