Berachos 40a

Gemara: "Rabbi Chiya bar Ashi said in Rav's name: One who regularly eats small fish will not get intestinal diseases. Additionally, small fish make one's whole body fruitful, multiplicitous and healthy."
Contrast with the gemara on 44b: "The Rabbis learned: Small, salted fish, kills at times..." (Look there for the full context.)

Berachos 38b

Gemara: "...What vegetable originally has the beracha "Borei p'ri ha'adama," and yet when it's cooked the beracha "She'hakol nihyeh b'dvoro" applies? [In other words, cooking makes this kind of vegetable worse and it isn't eaten this way, and therefore the more generic beracha applies to it. The gemara answers:] Rabbi Nachman bar Yitzchak says: We find this by garlic and leek."
The problem with this gemara is that on 44b the gemara says that leek is good for the intestines and bad for the teeth, and therefore one should cook it before eating so it shouldn't need to be chewed. We see from this that leek is eaten cooked - so the beracha "Borei p'ri ha'adama" should apply even when it is cooked!

Sorry...

about the lack of posts, lately. I've been busy and will Iy"H start posting again very soon!

Berachos 34a

Gemara: "Once a student went down to pray for the congregation in front of Rabbi Eliezer and he was being overly lengthy. [Rabbi Eliezer's] students said to him, 'This person is a real lengthener' (couldn't think of a word - sorry). He said to them, 'Is he taking longer than Moshe Rabbeinu...' "
A source for this concept that one who is the Shaliach Tzibbur should not be overly lengthy (Rabbi Eliezer's students' contention), is from a gemara earlier, on 31a: "Rabbi Yehuda said: 'This was Rabbi Akiva's custom: When he would pray in the synagogue he would shorten [his prayers] and go up [from the Amud] because of inconvenience to the public...' " Interestingly, Rabbi Akiva himself was a student of Rabbi Eliezer.

Berachos 33a

Gemara: "There was a story about a place that had an ערוד..." Look in Rashi for the definition. However, on 9b Rashi says that ערוד is a wild donkey. Perhaps the answer can be based on a gemara in Chullin 127a, that is clearly talking about the same ערוד as our gemara is, and the Shitta Mekubetzes (on the page), note 3 says to pronounce it "arvad." So, an arod is a wild donkey, and an arvad is the animal that bit R' Chanina ben Dosa in our gemara, although the spelling is the same.

Berachos 32b

Gemara: "The Rabbis learned: The Chasidim HaRishonim would wait one hour (in preparation for prayer), pray for one hour, and then wait one more hour (coming out of the experiance, so to speak, through more prayers - like Ashrei U'va L'tzion that we say)." The gemara asks, "Since they spent nine hours during the day praying, how was their Torah protected and their work completed?" The gemara answers, "Since they were Chasidim, their Torah was protected and their work was blessed."
One could ask that to be consistant the gemara should have asked, "How was their Torah learned and their work completed?" The answer is that the gemara accepts the fact that they may not have been able to learn much more new Torah. However, (as we all know), Chasidim are made - not born. So, until a person reached the level of Chasidus he had time to learn. On that the gemara asks how was the Torah that he learned in the past protected, surely he would forget it.

Take a 24 hour day. Subtract 8 hours for sleep = 16. Subtract 9 hours for praying = 7. Subtract 2 hours for personal needs = 5. We see that the gemara considers that 5 hours is not long enough to review one's learning and also to work in.

Exactly what is the definition of a Chasid (in the times of the gemara)? Hmm...