Meet The Team / Nanette Maxim

Even happy-go-lucky Chuck E. Cheese is feeling the pinch of the sour economy. With the price of cheese spiking, and company income slipping by almost 48 percent, the mouse that roars with the sound of arcade games and toddler birthday bashes had to come up with a few ideas to bring the kiddies (and their earplug-wearing parents) in for more.

Kids may love Chuck E. Cheese, but their flavorless pizza is notorious in parent circles. Who wants to endure terrible food AND the noise assult that comes with a trip to Chucky's? So executives have gone back to the kitchen to coax in customers. A new pizza recipe will be rolled out soon -- this time, with fresh ingredients.

Could there be a new Oscars Diet in the works? Seems most of the nominees were on an egg kick to get them through the big night, according to Entertainment Tonight. Before Best Supporting Actress winner Melissa Leo dropped the F-bomb at last night's Academy Awards ceremony, she told ET that she'd chowed down on some "soft-boiled eggs and rye toast."

She wasn't alone. Seems that many stars went with brunch-like meals before the ceremony, which started at 5:30 p.m. Los Angeles time. Leo's fellow Fighter nominee Amy Adams forgot the yolks and went with egg whites and tomato, for "protein and vitamin C," and Wolverine Hugh Jackman noshed on a 12-egg-white omelet (along with steak and chicken). X-Men, we guess, require more protein than the average Joe. But Wolvie, watch the cholesterol.

Not every star was on the "Incredible, Edible Egg" plan. The winner of the "I Eat Like a Teenager, Dammit" category, was True Grit star, 14-year-old Hailee Steinfeld, who told ET she had a burger and pizza. Yep, only someone under 18 wouldn't bat an eye about lumping the two together.

To fall for As Always, Julia: The Letters of Julia Child & Avis DeVoto (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $26), it doesn't matter if you know a beef bourguignon from a beef patty. It doesn't matter if you've never even lifted the cover of Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, or, for that matter, even heard of Julia Child. For As Always, Julia is, beyond the correspondence that helped launch one of the greatest cookbooks of our time, an intimate portrait of a deep and enduring friendship.

Little did Julia Child know, when she wrote a letter congratulating scholar/journalist Bernard DeVoto on his Harper's story about the trouble with American knives, that she would find, in her own words, "a soul mate," in DeVoto's wife, Avis. As secretary to her husband, Avis answered Julia's letter, and from an exchange about the glories of French knives, the two (Child then living in Paris, and DeVoto in Cambridge, Mass.) rapidly progressed in letters to matters of the heart and of the kitchen, and often where the two intertwined.

Julia, of course, also found an unflagging champion for her expansive work with Simone Beck in the sophisticated, politically savvy, and intellectual Avis, with her Harvard ties and Boston literary connections and her culinary prowess. It was Avis who brought the massive project to Houghton Mifflin, and, later, when HM thought it too ungainly, to Knopf, where it found a home with the renowned editor Judith Jones, then early in her brilliant career.

Continue reading, and hear Julia and Avis, in their own words, after the jump.

Men like Alton Brown sink their big manly teeth into a bone-in chop; women like Nigella Lawson get to lick an ice-cream cone. Or maybe, like Paula Deen, just poise a forkful of cream pie in front of their open mouths, with just an eensy dab of cream clinging to their lower lip. Are photos of women with food just plain soft-core, and can we make it stop? Or at least have Tony Bourdain nuzzling up to an oyster? We love you, man. Head over to Serious Eats to get the full story.

Looking for the best bacon and eggs in Tampa? How do you find a Twin Cities food truck that serves kofta meatball sandwiches? Or what about a good old Cleveland clambake? The crackerjack local reporters at City's Best, covering 25 cities across the country, give you the 411. And yes, folks, it's brought to you by our parent company, AOL. Expanding and relaunching the ten-year-old site with more neighborhood guides, events calendars, editors' picks, and pro reviews, super-local coverage, along with the "Best Of" ratings that have made its name, you'll never need to go wandering around looking for good eats again.