The Food Section: Anchovies & Olives Gets a Nod, Bears and Worms

GQ's Alan Richman picks his top 10 new restaurants for 2009, and Ethan Stowell's Anchovies & Olives makes the list.

The Wall Street Journal reports that McDonald's is going to start offering free WiFi at many of its restaurants, yet another surge in the fast-food empire's campaign to supplant Starbucks as the nation's favorite "third place." What's next? "Central Valley Mall Hamburgers (inspired by McDonald's)" stands?

Eat Me Daily reports that Michael Ruhlman has just released his best-selling Ratio cookbook, which provides ideal ratios of ingredients for common foods (sausages, cookies, etc.), as a $4.99 iPhone app.

Here's a story from the Cleveland Plain Dealer about the most uncomfortable Christmas theme meal on the planet.

The New York Times tells of a new CDC report tracing many of the (very rare) cases of trichnosis in America to bear meat. Apparently, cooking bear well done doesn't necessarily kill the parasite. If you've gone hunting bar, one solution the NYT didn't mention was to take your giant, stinking carcass to a custom game processor. I once talked to a custom butcher who told me that, to kill parasites, he stores bear meat in a special -68° freezer for a month before thawing and processing it.

Bonus link: Still looking for holiday gifts? Village Voice's food blog suggests a taste- (-ful/-less, you decide) portrait of Rachael Ray, painted à la Birth of Venus. Why has no one bid on this?