Check out this World Hum article on the seven best cities in the world for all you latte-drinkers, java-sippers, and espresso-lovers. Here's the rundown:

1) Vienna, where the huge menus include such can't-find-that-in-America offerings as the Kaisermelange (mocha with an egg yolk, honey and cognac or brandy instead of milk).
2) Coffee house-crazed Amsterdam (yes, some of them actually serve nothing but coffee), where locals sip and chat into the wee hours.
3) Rome, home of delizioso espresso and cappuccino (and despite warnings, I've ordered cappuccino after 10 a.m. in Italy many times, even if the locals consider it "sacrilige").
4) Melbourne, where local coffee culture is so entrenched Starbucks simply can't make inroads.
5) Wellington, said to have as many coffee houses per capita as New York (fun fact: New York City has about twice the population of the entire country of New Zealand).
6) Buenos Aires, where your coffee is likely accompanied by a dulce de leche-centered sandwich cookie called an alfajor (my dream cookie, and subject of an upcoming post).
7) Seattle - famous for Starbucks; worth the trip for indie roasters like Lighthouse Coffee.

To this list I would like to add: Hanoi, where strong, thick coffee is ritually poured over an inch of sweetened condensed milk and stirred with a long-handled spoon; New Orleans, where sipping a chicory-infused cafe au lait and eating powdered sugar-covered beignets at Cafe du Monde is a rite of passage; Havana, where the café cubano at the palatial old Colonial era hotels is served in tiny porcelain cups with a cookie on the side, just like in Hemingway's day.

What are your favorite coffee drinking cities?

Finalists for the James Beard Award, one of the most prestigious prizes in the food industry, were announced on Monday. Awards are given in a number of categories, including Outstanding Restaurateur, Outstanding Chef, Outstanding Restaurant, Best New Restaurant, and Rising Star Chef of the Year, Cookbook of the Year, and Outstanding Service Award.

Here are a few highlights:

Nominees for Outstanding Restaurant: Boulevard and The Slanted Door in San Francisco, Campanile in Los Angeles, and Gramercy Tavern and Jean Georges in New York.

Nominees for Outstanding Chef: Grant Achatz of Alinea in Chicago, Jose Andres of Minibar in Washington, DC, Dan Barber of Blue Hill in New York, Suzanne Goin of Lucques in Los Angeles, and Frank Stitt of Highlands Bar & Grill in Birmingham, Alabama.

For a full list see the James Beard Foundation's website.

The Today show is running a contest in which they are attempting to name the best sandwich in America. They solicited recommendations from all over the country and have now narrowed it down to the top five. The finalists are a New Orleans Muffuletta, Pastrami on Rye from Katz Deli, Vesuvio's Cheesesteak BLT, a Maine Lobster Roll and Chicago's Frenchy's Fantasy.

I'm really excited to see Philly made the list with the Cheesesteak BLT from Vesuvio's (although I must admit that I've never tried that particular sandwich). However, I am sort of surprised that there's no Primanti Bros. sandwich, as that's a fairly outrageous and delicious sandwich concoction. And, where are the options for vegetarians? I can't believe that there's not some amazing sandwich out there constructed of greens, cheese and eggplant. You can cast your vote here, but in the comments, why don't you tell us about your favorite sandwich.

An email I received from Jessica's Biscuit pointed out that the nominees for the International Association of Culinary Professions Awards (IACP) and the James Beard Foundation Awards were both announced yesterday. For those unfamiliar, both awards are akin to receiving an Oscar within the food community. Both recognize outstanding cookbooks, journalism and professionals in the food world, and while there is some overlap, the list of nominees for Beard Foundation Awards is far lengthier. Beard nominees for best food-related website include Leite's Culinaria, Epicurious and Dr. Vino's Wine Blog. There are also categories for webcasts, weekly newspaper sections, magazines, and a diverse array of awards chefs and cookbooks. The IACP is presenting a Lifetime Achievement Award to Knopf VP and editor Judith Jones (who helped launch Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking) and a Humanitarian Award to Frontera Grill's Rick Bayless. Go check out both sites and see if any of your favorites have made the lists of nominees.

So far, Nicole and Sarah have given their thoughts about Alan Richman's GQ list of "The 20 Hamburgers You Must Eat Before You Die." (A .pdf of the entire article is available here.) Since Sarah and Nicole have both hit at least a few spots on Richman's list, I figured it was time I start catching up, especially since I live only minutes away from the restaurant that occupies the number one spot on the list, Le Tub, in Hollywood, Florida. Le Tub has had roughly the last half a century to garner praise for its burgers, and the evidence, in the form numerous framed and yellowing newspaper clippings, is obvious throughout the restaurant. The rest of the decor is also worth mentioning. The rickety, open-air bar and restaurant sits perched on the Intracoastal Waterway, and it's as if the entire place has been whittled from a huge chunk of driftwood and is now held together by little more than fishing nets, banyan roots and the occasional rusty nail. And, of course, there is a bathtub planter outside, as well as a variety of toilets and toilet seats strewn about the lush, overgrown property.

At the end of the year, restaurant critics usually put together lists of the top restaurants - or the top dishes in Frank Bruni's case - creating a new "hit list" of restaurants for their city for the next year. San Francisco's list includes Dosa, Nopa, Coi, Kaygetsu and Thomas Keller's Ad Hoc. Seattle has cheap eats on their list, as well as pricier places, as does New York. All are surely fine eateries, but these lists are not the be-all and end-all of dining in their respective cities. Are your favorite restaurants included?

Restaurants are left off because they aren't trendy, aren't new or are just plain overlooked and I know that some places that I like to eat don't always make the cut. I'm not saying that this makes them the best restaurants in any given city, but that doesn't mean that they don't deserve some recognition. Is anyone up for making our own list of reader favorites from around the country/world? List some of your favorite restaurants in the comments (along with a city and/or website, if applicable) and we'll see if we can't come up with something even better than the standard newspaper top tens.

Rounding out their year of travel and restaurant reviews, Gayot has put out their list of the top restaurants of 2006. Interestingly enough, the way they attempt to give credibility to their list is by putting down bloggers and people who, in their opinion, are too young inexperienced to know a good restaurant when they see one. But to be a really top restaurant, it should be able to appeal to all types of people, not just those who are old with potentially outdated ideas of what high quality cuisine should be. That being said, their list actually has quite a few good picks on it and certainly seems to be in touch with current dining trends. In fact, it pretty much looks like they just picked out some of the hottest spots in the country to make up their list. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Some highlights from their list include the following, but click here to read the whole thing.

• CHICAGO
  - Alinea, TRU
• HEALDSBURG, CA
  - Cyrus
• LAS VEGAS
  - Picasso, Restaurant Guy Savoy
• LOS ANGELES
  - Mélisse, Patina
• NEW YORK
  - Alain Ducasse, Daniel
• SAN FRANCISCO
  - Gary Danko, Michael Mina
• WASHINGTON, D.C.
  - CityZen, Michel Richard
• YOUNTVILLE, CA
  - The French Laundry

Cook's Illustrated is definitely one of the best resources for any food-related technical questions. They test everything - from ingredients to recipes - exhaustively, so you are basically guaranteed a good result just by following their meticulous instructions. Most of the sections on their website require a subscription, so unless you get the magazine through the mail or register with them, your access to their vast resources will be limited to the few things that they keep in the free section of their site. Fortunately, a great article called Mastering Turkey Gravy is available just in time for Thanksgiving. They talk about equipment, as well as the major components of the dish, before getting down to the recipe and the technique. Their recipe calls for a quick turkey stock, a roux to thicken the sauce and the addition of the pan drippings to get the maximum flavor. Take a look at the whole article before the season ends ad it goes back behind the pay wall.

Since we were talking about the best apples to use in making pies last week, it put me in the mood to make one myself. I love making pies because, even though there is some prep work involved, the procedure is very straightforward. Also, I really enjoy making homemade pie crust. It's fun to get your fingers dirty and a flaky, homemade crust is better than one you can buy at the store - especially because you can taste the work that went into making it.

If you've never made a homemade pie before, winter is the perfect time to start and apple is the best kind to start with. Not only are the apples easy to work with, but the fact that the weather is colder makes it easier to handle the dough for the crust. In summer, you need to work faster to keep the butter from melting as you work it in to the flour. After the jump, you'll find a photo-heavy, step-by-step guide to making both the crust and the whole pie. I make my crusts with a combination of shortening (non-hydrogenated, for those who are concerned) and butter. The combination of butter, which adds flavor and some leavening, and shortening, which adds tenderness and flakiness will produce the best crusts. I use a 3-1 ratio, so not much shortening is needed.

The best apple for making a pie, or any sort of baked apple dish, is not necessarily the type that is best for eating out of hand for several reasons. When you choose an eating apple, the primary consideration is flavor, but even though flavor is reasonably important to the apple destined to go into a pie, the most important thing is texture. A pie apple must keep its shape during baking so that you have something to bite into and don't end up with apple sauce pie. The best apples for pies include Jonathan, Jonagold, Winesap, Pippin, and the classic Granny Smith. All, excluding the fairly tart Granny Smith, have a moderate level of tartness, which will be tempered by the sugar in your pie. If you want sweeter apples, Fuji, Pink Lady, Suncrisp, Rome Beauty, and Empire will work well, too. You will probably want to avoid Red Delicious apples, which are popular for eating, but won't hold their shape in the oven, turning watery and mealy instead.

If all else fails, it is a good idea to go for a mixture of apples, not only because you won't have to remember to look for one particular type, but to give the pie a well-rounded flavor.

In Details magazine, Ed Levine recently laid out a list of the best pizza places in the country at the moment. The criteria for the best pie changes from person to person and city to city, but Ed's criteria - crisp but tender crusts, fresh mozzarella, high-quality tomatoes, and a touch of salt - are standards that every pizza lover can agree on and should expect from their pies. Ed's list includes: PIZZERIA BIANCO, Phoenix, NY

• DI FARA, Brooklyn, NY
• TOTONNO'S, Brooklyn, NY
• UNA PIZZA NAPOLETANA, New York, NY
• FRANK PEPE PIZZERIA NAPOLETANA, New Haven, CT
• SALLY'S APIZZA, New Haven, CT
• AL FORNO, Providence, RI
• PICCO, Boston, MA
• 2 AMYS, Washington, D.C.
• PUNCH NEAPOLITAN PIZZA, St. Paul, MN
• NOSTRANA, Portland, OR
• SERIOUS PIE, Seattle, WA
• MOZZA BAR, Los Angeles, CA
• PIZZERIA PICCO, Larkspur, CA
• PIZZAIOLO, Oakland, CA

There are only two small problems with the list, although the lack of inclusion of The Cheese Board is just my own bias and perhaps should not be counted. The real problem is that , aside from the St Paul pizzeria, the only restaurants listed are on either cost. Now, the South isn't necessarily known for their piazza, but there are plenty of Chicagoans who are willing to, loudly, defend their city's top pizzerias. It could be that the best pizzas are only found towards the country's coasts, or perhaps there just haven't been any volunteers willing to take Ed around to the best that the midwest has to offer to see if it holds up to his standards.

[via the food section]

How can you compare a restaurant like Alinea, where some of the dishes test our conceptions of the term "food" to a restaurant like Zuni Cafe, which makes wonderful contemporary bistro fare? You really can't, but Gourmet magazine tried to do just that when they put together their list of America's top 50 restaurants for 2006. The two types of food at Alinea and Zuni are almost at the opposites of the dining spectrum, so the reviewers at Gourmet compared the innovation, execution and satisfaction that arose from dining at both of them, as well as every other restaurant on the list below. Since they are subjective assessments, it is safe to say that the order of this list might not be precisely accurate, at least not for your personal tastes, but it is still a list of excellent restaurants, all of which are worth eating at if you have the chance.

1. Alinea – Chicago, IL
2. Chez Panisse – Berkeley, CA
3. The French Laundry/Per Se – Yountville, CA; New York, NY
4. Spago – Beverly Hills, CA
5. Joël Robuchon at the Mansion – Las Vegas, NV
6. La Rêve – San Antonio, TX
7. Masa – New York, NY
8. Alan Wong's Restaurant – Honolulu, HI
9. Daniel – New York, NY
10. Le Bernardin – New York, NY

In Naples, the annual Pizzafest was just concluded and the title of the world's best pizzaiolo (pizza-maker) was bestowed upon Makoto Onishi, a veritable pizza prodigy from Japan who bested 24 other pizza-makers, many of whom are Naples natives. This is the second time he has won the title; the first was back in 2003. The judges declared that his pie was the "perfect incarnation of 'real Neapolitan pizza.'"

Onishi came to Naples from Japan in 2002, looking for a job in a pizza restaurant and claimed his first title after only a year working in the Ischia pizzeria. After the victory, he was hired by a popular Tokyo pizzeria and enjoyed some media attention from his surprising win.

The secret of the perfect Neapolitan pizza, according to the judges of the Naples Pizzafest, is using traditional, local ingredients. Onishi adds that a "chef must be free of stress" to produce the perfect pizza.

Some beer drinkers will tell you that the best place to drink beer is on the couch, with a sports game on and a couple friends around. Others will point you to their favorite after-work pub. A few will scoff at the notion of American beer entirely and advise you to pick an import, a wine or a cocktail, instead. In truth, there are a lot of great American brews and more people are realizing it all the time. If you're looking for the best, though, you might consider taking a look at the recommendations for the five best places to drink American beer from Christopher O'Hara, author of Great American Beer: 50 Brands that Shaped the 20th Century. His picks include: the Ironworks Barbecue in Austin, Texas; Blue and Gold Tavern in New York City; Straub Brewery in St. Mary's, PA; St. Nick's Pub in Los Angeles, CA; and Axel's Inn in Milwaukee, WI.

Of course, given the number of brewers in the country, there must be far more than five great ones. It never hurts to have a jumping off point if you're going to hit the road (not while drinking, of course), to track them down.

Food bloggers love food to the point where they have made a hobby out of not just finding, cooking and eating it, but out of sharing it with the world. Melissa, at The Traveler's Lunchbox, came up with a brilliant way that food bloggers could share their recommendations on the very best of what and where to eat in the world with the The Foodblogger's Guide to the Globe. The Guide is a meme in which every participating food blogger chooses their top five things to eat before you die. The original post has a shorthand list of all the suggestions, with links to their full descriptions on individual blogs.

The only problem is, of course, that there are so many food bloggers that you might never be able to try them all - or if you decide to start, you could find yourself jet-setting around the globe in search of food.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.