Most Nail-It-On-The-Head Song Title: "It's Hard to Kiss the Lips At
Night That Chewed Your [Butt] Out All Day Long" by the Notorious
Cherry Bombs. Timeless wisdom there. It's a country song. Surprise!
The Greatest Contribution to the Culinary Arts: No, this is not a
tribute to the doyenne of American cooking known as the French
Chef, Julia Child, who died earlier this year. This is a tribute to
deep-fried cheesecake. Talk about your haute cuisine. Submerge
wedge of fat into boiling fat. Make sure hot fat seeps into every
molecule of wedge of fat. Remove wedge of fat from boiling fat. As
Julia would say, bon appétit.
Most Scintillating Protest: In late September, demonstrators in
England protested against a proposal to ban fox hunting. As part of
the protest, several women doffed their tops and plunged into the
English Channel. Americans are justly proud of their right to
protest, but clearly they still have much to learn from jolly old
England.
Most Valuable Advancement in Scientific Knowledge: Swimming in
syrup is as easy as swimming in water. (Female English protestors,
are you listening?) Edward Cussler of the University of Minnesota,
Minneapolis, led an experiment that included filling a pool full of
syrup to see if it took swimmers longer to glide through the glop
or the water. The answer? No difference. Next up: Can a person swim
as fast in fried cheesecake as in water?
Most Enduring Moment in Competitive Sports: Okay, the New England
Patriots waning-seconds victory over the Carolina Panthers with a
41-yard field goal in the Super Bowl was thrilling. And the
trouncing of the ego-bloated Los Angeles Lakers by the
who-are-these-guys Detroit Pistons in the NBA championship was
glorious. But the moment that best epitomizes sport's dig-deep
spirit is the 2004 World Hot Dog Eating Championship, when
131-pounder Takeru Kobayashi devoured a record 53.5 hot dogs in 12
minutes. It was his fourth year in a row to win the championship.
"He will always be the greatest," says George Shea, cofounder of
the International Federation of Competitive Eating. "Women want
him, men want to be him, and all forms of beef and beef byproducts
fear him." That pretty much says it all.