World's Best Food

The Guardian lists the 50 best things to eat in the world, and where to find them. A good number of them are in NYC: Ravioli - Babbo, Pork - Gramercy, Pastrami - Katz, Hamburger - Little Owl. I am tempted to do a power week and hit them all, and with the 3 remaining days:

• Vietnamese - Pho Xe Lua
• Steak - Ben & Jack's
• Japanese - Yakitori Tory

Drool.

False Fruits

Did you eat your daily allowance of fruit today? What is fruit? Sure, you knew tomatoes oddly are, but what else? Apparently, not much.

Strawberries, you will be glad to know, are a 'false fruit'. Which seems reasonable enough. But at this point a small doubt started to grow in my mind... what, actually, then, was a real fruit? Oranges? No, they're a modified berry. Bananas? Leathery berry. Plums? Drupe -- fleshy bit with one stone inside.

Downsizing Hits Girl Scout Cookies

You'll be paying the same price for less Thin Mints this year.

"It's shorter. It's smaller. It's an ounce less," laughs customer Suzanne Taylor.

Eating like an Olympian

The Michael Phelps Diet amounts to about 12,000 calories a day. For context, an average joe takes in 2,200-2,800.

Here we go then: The Michael Phelps Diet for Health, Happiness and More Olympic Gold Medals Than Anyone Else Ever. We'll ignore, momentarily, the fact that the best swimmer the world has seen stands 6ft 4in tall, has a wingspan - fingertip to fingertip - of 6ft 7in, and weighs in at 192lb. We'll ignore also the fact that he spends most of his life in a pool, swimming at least 50 miles a week very fast indeed, and the rest of it in a gym. We'll ignore, finally, the fact that I am not quite as big as him, and do not, most days, get quite as much exercise.

I am going to see what it is like to eat what Michael Phelps eats in a day.

What happens with a Guardian journalist tries to replicate it? You got it- nausea. Lots of it.

Foodie-llectualism

Illuminating talk by Mark Bittman about food.

Coming from an adamant carnivore, this is still worth chewing on.