American Pie

In his script for the 1999 play "Boston Marriage," Pulitzer Prize-winning writer David Mamet observed: "We must have a pie. Stress cannot exist in the presence of a pie." A lot of famous people have found their refuge in a slice of pie.

• Apple pie a la mode was the favorite dessert of Beat Generation writer Jack Kerouac.
• Sweet potato pie was something that Martin Luther King, Jr. longed for.
• When he was asked about the common practice among New Englanders of eating fruit pie for breakfast, Ralph Waldo Emerson replied, "What else is pie for?"
• Dwight Eisenhower's mother taught him how to cook the family's Sunday dinner, including the apple pie that capped the meal.
• Elvis Presley had a gargantuan appetite for everything, including sweets.  He enjoyed a variety of pies, from so-called Eskimo Pies to fruit pies. For Elvis, pie-eating sometimes meant eating an entire pie, not just a slice. 
• The attorney Clarence Darrow loved eating pie. He recalled that "as a boy, I liked pie better than anything else that I could get to eat; and i have not yet grown so old but that I still like pie."
• President Calvin Coolidge had a low opinion of his wife's cooking and was willing to share it. After Grace Coolidge baked an apple pie, the president attacked the dessert with sarcasm. "Don't you think the road commissioner would be willing to pay my wife something for her recipe for pie crust?" 

Sarkozy Won't Say "Oui" to Brie

As he campaigns for his re-election, French President Nicolas Sarkozy may encounter an unusual obstacle: his diet. News broke this week that Sarkozy no longer eats cheese at the end of meals.

A spokesman for le président cites greater attention to a healthy diet as the reason why Sarkozy now skips the cheese course — something that is inextricably linked with the nation's culinary traditions.

Some Sauce for Your Science?

Nobel Prize-winning physicist Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen was born on this day in 1845.  He and his wife normally enjoyed eating together, and couple always savored the first asparagus of the season.  But for several days during the autumn of 1895, their mealtime harmony was disturbed.

It all began when Röntgen experimented with the flow of an electric current in a vacuum tube.  The physicist became thoroughly frustrated because he couldn’t explain why a nearby piece of paper that was coated with barium platinocyanide became fluorescent while the current flowed.

For several days after his experiment, Röntgen arrived at the dinner table in a sour mood.  His wife recalled that he ate little food, had virtually nothing to say, and gave no reply when asked what was wrong.  On these nights, he would leave the dinner table and return to his laboratory.

Only after repeating his experiment several times did Röntgen finally absorb the magnitude of his discovery: he had produced electromagnetic radiation. 

Why Is This Man Frowning?

Because his diet is not fit for a doctor.  Dr. Conrad Murray, the cardiologist convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the death of pop singing star Michael Jackson, is subsisting on a strange diet while serving his four-year prison sentence.  According to News One, Dr. Murray has complained about prison conditions, including the food.  Instead of eating the prison's standard fare, the physician is purchasing what he calls "cat food" from the prison's commissary — canned tuna, salmon flakes and canned mackerel.

Godfather's Pizza

Well, not exactly. Forty years ago today, the epic film "The Godfather" opened in theaters. The movie, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, ranks #2 on the American Film Institute's list of "the 100 greatest movies ever."  Perhaps "The Godfather" deserves to be ranked by restaurant critics and food aficionados. After all, so many of the film's scenes were connected to food or dining.

Britain's Prospect magazine reminds us of the various ways in which meals played a starring role:

Food is everywhere in this gangster classic, and privy to a lot of trauma. Don Corleone (Marlon Brando) dies in the family tomato patch. The family soldier Clemenza instructs a hitman to "leave the gun, take the cannoli" after a mob execution. But perhaps its most famous food moment is the scene in which the young Michael Corleone, played by Al Pacino, shoots a clan rival and his accomplice over dinner in an Italian restaurant. Coppola builds the tension masterfully. By the time someone says, "Try the veal. It's the best in the city," you want to crawl under the table and cower.