"born round" news and stories

B52 on ice. Photo: quinn.anya, Flickr

• Ice isn't solely a drink chiller. It's also a fine art for bartenders concerned with chilling rather than diluting.
• Farm vacations hit stateside. Would you pay hundreds for the chance to work on one?
  
• Frank Bruni's final column notes his (often underrated) favorites around New York City.
  
• After nearly half a century, Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" has finally topped the best-seller list.
• The Minimalist dips into peanut butter.
• Hot baths and other treatments to keep your berries from growing mold too quickly.
  

Frank Bruni (left) and interviewer John Berman. Photo: ABC News "Nightline."

Restaurant devotees tuning into Wednesday night's edition of ABC News "Nightline," slavering for juicy tidbits from the upcoming tell-all penned by departing New York Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni were treated to an intimate portrait of ... uh, the poignant tale of ... OK, the dude wants to sell some books. This was his infomercial.

It's hard to blame the guy. For the past five years, the admitted former bulimic who once sported a 42-inch waistband was the most fear-inducing eater in all of New York's five boroughs, his deft, often hilarious and scathing reviews packing the power to loft or condemn restaurants' fates -- around 270 of them during his tenure at the Times -- despite his intensely conflicted relationship with food and the constant pressure to maintain anonymity by means of unflattering wigs, stick-on facial hair and fake reservation names he'd sometimes forget upon arrival at the host's stand.

In his first network interview since taking on this trencherman's task in 2004, Bruni -- publicly revealing his face on video for the first time to a national audience -- talked about his lifelong battle with overeating and the extreme, often unsuccessful measures he took to combat his epic binges.

"Born Round," the new Frank Bruni memoir. Photo: Amazon.com.

Mark your calendars, fans of "Garlic and Sapphires" and other food critic memoirs. Frank Bruni, the outgoing critic at the New York Times and the man behind the upcoming memoir "Born Round," will be blabbing to the press -- ABC News' "Nightline," to be exact -- about his history with food, including a childhood eating disorder this coming Wednesday night at 11:35 EST.

Choice quotes from a press release reveal that Bruni was on the Atkins diet at age 8 -- "Mom bought it in hardcover ... I remember leafing through it and learning about ketones and ketosis and you know, having no idea what that meant, I was 8 years old, but I thought, 'Oooh that's profound stuff. If I can get into this ketosis thing I'll be home free. I'll be skinny.' " Even later, in college, "I threw up a lot of my meals. Whenever I would eat a meal that would get out of hand, I would throw it up." Now Bruni has an incredible workout routine and -- perhaps most astonishing to those of us who write about food for a living -- is the same weight as when he started his gig five years ago.

We know we'll be watching, and we'll post our deepest thoughts about the interview online the next day.

For healthy ways to stay slim, check out our sister site, thatsfit.com.