What do I have in common with Ashton Kutchar, Jimmy Fallon, and Al Gore?

I twitter.

I thought Twitter would be a great way to keep folks up-to-date on our travels through Nepal. Who knew I wouldn't have Blackberry access in the remote mountain villages of the Himalayan range? I did manage to send a few "tweets" from Thailand, but did anyone really care that I was "sweltering in Bangkok" or "eating nori-flavored potato chips in a van on the way to Hua Hin"? This past week, I reached a new low ... I posted a picture of the stray Siamese we rescued, which puts me about one step away from being the crazy cat lady.

I have since rallied, however, and have settled on a practical and fun use of Twitter - daily posts about food and drink in the news, items you may not have stumbled upon in your wanderings through the web.

If you're interested in following me, point your browser to my Twitter page.

This just in...

Boris Isayev, a 48-year-old Russian man, paid the ultimate price for his sporting dreams this week, collapsing while receiving first prize for munching 43 banana-and-cream-stuffed pancakes at a competition to mark the end of Maslenitsa, or "pancake week," in the western Russian region of Kaliningrad.

Wow.

Gorge with care, friends.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal health officials on Saturday urged consumers to avoid eating cookies, cakes, ice cream and other foods that contain peanut butter until the authorities can learn more about a deadly outbreak of salmonella contamination.

So what did I think it would be a good idea to eat last night for dinner? A peanut butter and bacon burger at Clocked in Athens. So now I'm waiting for the symptoms to appear ... diarrhea, cramping, fever. If things get really quiet around here (I mean REALLY quiet), you'll know I've succumbed. Faithful readers will recall this isn't the first time we've had a peanut butter scare on Bitey. Two years ago I thought I had inadvertently poisoned our friends Chas and Ellen.

When I last wrote about contaminated foodstuffs, I ended with this advice: live a full, happy, lush, kind, and adventure-filled life. You never know when a tablespoon of tainted tahini (in this case, peanut butter) is going to take you down.

Seems everyone is all a-flutter about the "news" that Julia Child was an operative for the Office of Strategic Services - forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency. But any one who has followed Child's life and career knew about her work for our nation's spy agency. Andrew Ryan, a reporter for the Boston Globe, wrote in an article this week that Child's work as an intelligence officer "was about as top secret as her recipe for Coq au Vin." Now here's something you may not have known. Julia, at 6' 2", was too tall to join the military, but she wanted to serve her country. That's how she ended up in the OSS where, among her many assignments, she helped develop shark repellant. During her OSS service, Julia met Paul Child, a well-traveled OSS officer who would become her husband. It was he who introduced her to French cuisine. Next month would have been their 62nd wedding anniversary. So let's all raise a glass to Julia and Paul and those sneaky bastards at the CIA who, oddly enough, are partly responsible for bringing the world of French cuisine to American kitchens. 

This just in from CNN ... Workers in southeast Asia's shrimp industry suffer regular abuse and sometimes live in what amounts to virtual slavery. Sexual and physical abuse! Debt bondage! Child labor! Unsafe working conditions!

Great ... yet another food to add to the "politically incorrect" list. We'll be on bread and water (not bottled) before you know it.

If you're interested in all the details, check out the Solidarity Center's 40-page report - The True Cost of Shrimp.