Ny Safidinao

No, it doesn't have the sexy allure of chocolate, the glamour of raspberry or the Southern charm of peach. But we had to have it, even when the price soared to about $8 for a measly 2-ounce bottle of extract last year. We yearned for the wholesome, comforting, slightly exotic flavor. Vanilla prices are falling now, so it's time to break out the recipes. Lavish the stuff in a homemade cream soda, a double vanilla pound cake with rum-vanilla sauce or a luxuriously rich vanilla custard sauce for berries. Or make some vanilla extract to steep all summer and fall, and bottle for gifts in December. For the pound cake, you'll need a vanilla bean, vanilla sugar and vanilla extract. The cream soda, homemade extract and custard sauce are made with whole vanilla beans. Whole vanilla beans are available in the spice aisle of many supermarkets. The pliable, dark-brown pods usually are packaged in a bottle or glass tube. Some stores sell vanilla sugar, or you could make your own by buryi

All it took to make us appreciate plain old vanilla was a couple of cyclones, an oil boom and political unrest. By the time vanilla extract prices peaked in December at $4 to $10 an ounce, the tropical spice seemed downright exotic. But hold on to your recipes, because happy days for vanilla lovers are almost here again. Vanilla extract soon may be inexpensive enough to bathe in — or to at least make a batch of homemade cream soda or a double vanilla pound cake. "Prices started coming down in February," said Jim Trout, vice president of merchandising and sales for the Fred W. Albrecht Grocery Co., parent firm of Acme stores. Predictions in December of a lush 2005 harvest in Madagascar, the world's top producer of vanilla, helped drive down the price. Unprecedented harvests worldwide are expected this year, which should send the wholesale price of vanilla beans through the floor. "This is the first year (since 1999) we have more than enough — roughly double what the w