The stuff major life decisions are based upon. Photograph courtesy of Chick-Fil-A.

Ann Limpert, food and wine editor

• New York Post critic Steve Cuozzo pays an opening-night visit to Joanne, the restaurant owned by Lady Gaga’s parents and featuring the cooking of Michelle Obama fave and Art and Soul chef-owner Art Smith. He finds a room that’s “loud as an avalanche,” “calamari like leather,” and “flaccid pasta commonly doled out along Long Island’s Jericho Turnpike.” Not even a Tony Bennett sighting could save the evening. You’ll Gag on the Food at Gaga’s 

• This isn’t so insane to me. Cassanova McKinzy Cites Chick-Fil-A in Choosing Auburn Over Clemson 

Jessica Voelker, online dining editor

• How do you know when the fancy ice trend has gone too far? When someone steals a hunk from a melting glacier in order to sell it to swanky cocktail bars. Man arrested for stealing glaciers 

• “Can’t you see it’s made of chemicals and fat and dead, lost dreams?” Oh my God please do not eat this

No cupcakes for Harry Reid's staff; no Komi for Drew Barrymore.

Todd Kliman, food and wine editor

• Asked how he intended to address questions of anti-Latino bias in the wake of the arrest of four East Haven, Connecticut, policemen described by the FBI as “bullies with badges,” Mayor Joseph Maturo on Wednesday said, “I might have tacos for dinner.” Yesterday, activists flooded his office with hundreds of tacos. With Trays of Tacos, Joining in Condemnation of a Mayor

• So you can’t get into Komi. So? Neither can Drew Barrymore. Drew Barrymore Spotted in Washington, DC, at Komi—No, Wait, Shake Shack! [PHOTOS] 

• David Foster Wallace asked us to “consider the lobster.” These days, we might also want to consider the jack mackerel. As it goes—one scientist refers to it as “the last of the buffaloes”—so goes our fish supply. In Mackerel’s Plunder, Hints of Epic Fish Collapse

Still lovin' it? Wait until you see the pink stuff. Photograph courtesy McDonalds.com.

Todd Kliman, food and wine editor

• Slate with a pizza lecture. Thin dough, good toppings, fresh mozzarella. Um, yeah. You’re Doing It Wrong: Pizza

• Think popcorn is some space-age snack? Think again. Researchers have discovered it dates back to at least 4700 BC. Study suggests ancient Peruvians “ate popcorn”

 Jessica Voelker, online dining editor

• In February’s Vanity Fair, Bob Colacello revisits the Manhattan of past decades, when the city’s most fashionable women whiled away the afternoon over endless lunches at restaurants like the Colony and La Côte Basque. It’s a shame they wasted all that lovely food (no one really ate, apparently), but the Chanel suits were pretty great. Here’s to the Ladies Who Lunched!

Paul Deen's diabetes made headlines this week. Photograph courtesy of Pauladeen.com.

Todd Kliman, food and wine editor

• I love when people say, “I only read the Times,” because it gives me a chance to trot out a story like this one. In the Gray Lady’s grand old tradition of probing, thoughtful reporting: a considered examination of binge drinking. With a map! America’s Drinking Binge

• The federal minimum wage for tipped restaurant workers in 1992: $2.13 per hour. The federal minimum wage for tipped restaurant workers in 2012: $2.13 per hour. The Web site Moms Rising reports that “while employers are supposed to make sure tips make up the difference between $2.13 and $7.25 (the federal minimum wage for non-tipped workers) . . . enforcement is difficult, and tip theft—when restaurant owners take a cut of employees’ tips—is a major problem. Further, tips are very inconsistent, varying widely by day, week, and season, which leaves restaurant workers vulnerable to the $2.13-per-hour base pay.” Read the stories.

The great American restaurant? Photograph courtesy of Waffle House.

Todd Kliman, food and wine editor

• My friend Jason Tesauro—writer, raconteur, wine expert, manners maven, fashion plate, cunning charmer—takes us on a lively tour of the wines of Moldova and discovers a patch of velvet behind the former Iron Curtain. I got to taste some of these wines this summer at JT’s home in Richmond—that’s me, in the last graf—and now this piece has me eager to try more. The Wines of Moldova: Discovering velvet behind the Iron Curtain

The omnivore's dilemma, indeed. Would Michael Pollan eat squirrel? Photograph courtesy of Alia Malley

Todd Kliman, food and wine editor

• Mmmm, just what I want to dig into on a cold, winter day: ash, the new It ingredient. And not just ash—artisanal ash! Key Ingredient: Ash 

• Crunchy-trendy types think eating local is all about cheeses and chickens from local farms. This Seattle woman has a more traditional notion of local—one that Michael Pollan and others might turn up their freshly exfoliated noses at, but which speaks right to the heart of what they so high-mindedly champion. I can almost taste her risotto di rodentia now: Eastern gray squirrel braised in Lopez Island white wine, with mushrooms and rice. Dinner gets very local for squirrel-eating Seattleite

Chain pizza, enviromental no-no? Photograph Courtesy Domino's Pizza

Todd Kliman, food and wine editor

• The Economist takes a fascinating look at the Cairo cafe that abetted the revolutionaries who toppled Hosni Mubarak. Turns out the belle époque restaurant has enjoyed a long history as a political symbol and activist redoubt: King Farouk sought to distance himself from cries of corruption and establish his populist bona fides by announcing that he met his commoner wife there, while a generation later Colonel Nasser “plotted his coup over cardamom-scented coffee.” A Riche History

• Big Oil, Big Agriculture . . . Big Pizza? Men’s Health says the multinational takeout pizza joints are hurting the planet. The Domino’s Effect

• Kim Jong Il may have been a petty and vindictive tyrant, but the North Korean leader, who died last weekend, has at least one thing in common with Thomas Jefferson, his philosophical opposite: The guy loved wine, and was a voracious collector. (For the sake of dictatorial comparison, Saddam Hussein was apparently as cultivated as he was empathetic: Mateus Rose—a $5 Portuguese sparkler—was his house wine.) The Bed Head is Dead, and the Fine Wine Market Has Evidently Lost a Major Buyer