Los Angeles

Invite friends over for a meal at your "chef's table", and they'll be treated to such delicacies as Cheerios, mac 'n cheese, and the slightly more stale Cheerios hiding between the bag and the box. Instead, schedule a custom multi-courser from the Chef's Table at blue on blue restaurant.

Conceived by former Four Seasons chef Gabe Gabreski, CT's a way for culinary idiots to throw together a masterful kitchen experience, unmarred by their lifelong Boyardee phase. The experience begins in the bowels of a farmer's market (your choice, though Gabreski prefers Santa Monica's), where you and the chef'll comb the stalls to pick your ingredients (arugula, elk, fava beans, gummy worms). If you've an eye for the exotic, Gabreski knows which vendors stash forbidden delicacies -- like duck eggs, which he can make into pasta so rich it'll pay the insurance premium hikes you face from eating it. Armed with your picks, Gabreski will repair to blue on blue to create a menu, freeing you to go home to consider why the special features on your Manhunter DVD totally suck.

That evening (or up to three days later), you and six of your friends'll return to the restaurant, where they'll enjoy the fruits of your sort-of-labor (plus included paired wine), while you bask in the glory of not eating Spaghetti a la General Mills.