Caffeine, sugar, and carbs. They're the holy trinity of the American diet, and today's roundup has news on all of 'em.

• The Internet Food Association is twisting itself into a pretzel over the proper age to consume jelly beans. One thinks the habit is crude and immature for grown adults. (Why does that sentence sound funnier in a Southern accent?) Another thinks jellybean popping is perfect at any age. Y&H thinks jellybeans make for great projectiles.

• Diner's Journal explains the scam that has caused Ethiopia to shut off exports of its famous coffee beans. Y&H thinks exporters better their get Yirgacheffe together soon.
• Metrocurean gathers some intelligence on two new places on the budding 14th Street NW restaurant scene. Y&H thinks graffiti artists have totally sold out.
• District Plates suffers for his dough. He's been working on this pizza/calzone/bread dough for years, so the least you could do is check it out.
• Serious Eats has published a beginner's guide to Passover soft drinks. It boils down to this: No corn syrup in soft drinks during Passover. Hey, can we claim the holiday is year 'round?

Photo by gj_the White

So the Yanks want the proles to subsist on Nathan's Famous in their new playpen, eh? The very stadium that taxpayers, both rich and poor, are helping to bankroll? And what does Alice Waters think about the new White House garden? Today's roundup has the answers.

• Eater tells Yankee Stadium operators to eat it after learning the best food in the ball park will be reserved for the upper crust only.  Y&H has heard a rumor that A-Rod will be supplying hookers for those in the pricey seats, too.

• Corby's Fresh Feeds gives a call to Alice Waters to gauge her reaction on the White House garden. Well, gee, what do you think her reaction is?
• Best Bites Blog continues its Burger Brackets contest, this one pitting Matchbox vs. EatBar. Y&H believes the best burgers have already crumbled.
• Obama Foodorama finds out who in the administration are real foodies. Rahm is a member of a Chicago CSA? We suspect he wants bitter greens only.
• ZagatBuzz has compiled a short list of restaurants that will celebrate the Cherry Blossom Festival with dishes actually incorporating the famous Japanese tree. No, this is not a Euell Gibbons moment.

Photo by Yogma

It's time Y&H gave some of its alt brothers and sisters a little love—and Web traffic. Very little Web traffic, we're sure. We expect little in return.

• Fork in the Road has tapped into the latest H2O trend: designer tap water. Y&H wonders what pairs well with lead?

• The Hot Dish argues that Snickers' new "Snacklish" campaign is nothing but a language previously thought dead. The critics are getting Snarkilicious over the ads.
• The Style Council has posted pics of a Japanese chef's attempt to recreate Obama's likeness out of rice. I'm sorry, but he looks more like a Cosby kid.
• Eating Our Words reports on a Florida magazine that plagiarized critic Robb Walsh, who's quickly becoming the go-to writer for food plagiarists everywhere.
• Short Order wonders if Rogue's Morimoto Signature Hazelnut Brown Ale is merely a clever, celebrity chef repackaging of the brewery's Hazelnut Brown Nectar. Well, dude, the brewery is called Rogue.

• Endless Simmer draws comparisons between March Madness and food. It is indeed madness.

• Ruhlman thinks duck confit rates right up there with bacon and wonders aloud why more folks don't make it at home. And don't give him the two quarts of duck fat excuse, either!
• Offal Good is fighting for his right to foie gras, despite protesters threatening to descend upon his restaurant. He even has handouts.
• The Accidental Hedonist reviews the Czech lager that would be Budweiser. AH finds it as middling as the American brand.
• cook eat fret (which wins this week's prize for best-named food blog) has been eating a lot of beans lately, which must have affected her memory. She can't remember the recipes well. Does it all amount to a hill of beans?

Easier solution: A late edition of the roundup.

• Capital Spice gives some love to Sidamo, which is one of my absolute favorite coffee shops in the District. I really hope the ugly street construction down there doesn't do to H Street NE businesses what it did to some along P Street NW near Dupont Circle.

• Mouthing Off reminds us that Saturday is National Corn Dog Day, which can mean only one thing: Many of us aren't going to feel so good on Sunday.
• Slashfood tells us about Marvin "Popcorn" Sutton, a Tennessee moonshiner who apparently killed himself rather than report to prison.  There's got to be a joke about sour mash here somewhere, but I don't have the heart to make it.
• Diner's Journal has the details on Per Se's concession to the recession: a limited a la carte menu in the lounge. Has the economy made Per Se more Pas Se?
• DCFud wants brunch to become a daily habit, not just one reserved for the weekends. Hmm, Y&H smells a smackdown with Jule Banville over this subject.

Sometimes Y&H doesn't know how he ever lived without food blogs. How else would he learn about the rotten-egg alternative to Viagra or read with fascination one woman's campaign to avoid meat for five weeks? You're not gonna find this stuff on CNN, people!

• Gut Check surveys the meat mongers popping up in Northern Virginia. Must...control...breathing...lest...I...hyperventilate...

• The Feisty Foodie chronicles Week 2 of her five-week campaign to go meatless, which would be more impressive if she actually excluded fish, too.  Mmmm, Cheez Doodles for breakfast.
• Epi-log tries to get a grasp on whether the recession has increased sales of small kitchen appliances as cash-strapped families stop eating at restaurants. Do remote control beer pagers count as appliances?
• EatWashington suggests an alternative to Viagra: eating stinky egg sandwiches inside a running car.  Lubricant already available.
• Sauce on the Side deconstructs the Cointreau pearls that float in Champagne at Adour at the St. Regis hotel. Sounds so much classier than Cointreau poppers.

Photo by dullhunk

Something about the nature of the Web, it doesn't like to look back. It's sort of a deeply ingrained, Orpheus-like fear that if we glance briefly over our shoulders, we'll somehow forever miss the latest post on Wonkette or DCist or, hell, even Prince of Petworth and our entire future will be blacker than Bernie Madoff's heart. No, the Web is all about the new, the now, the bacon. This morning, Y&H is breaking ranks and serving up a few older posts to review some of America's great regional foods.

• Civil Eats explains why Northern California doesn't have a regional cuisine. Y&H thinks Washingtonians should pay attention.

• Smokin' Chokin' and Chowing with the King visits Rosangela's to roll out Chicago's other style of pie: tavern-style pizza. Y&H suspects he could actually eat two of these slices without the aid of Tums.  
• Skoolie's blog thinks vacationers should take their heads out of Mickey's ass and try some of Central Florida's regional foods. Well, she wouldn't use such crude language to describe America's favorite mouse. But Y&H and Carl Hiaasen would.
• The Northstar Chronicle lays out the three dishes that Minnesota has contributed to "world cuisine." One has become so famous that its name now describes your favorite kind of e-mail.
• Cooking with Herb St. Absinthe explains the difference between Cajun and Creole cuisines.

Photo by inuyaki

The newspaper business is totally in the crapper, to use an old expression that's not likely to jumpstart your appetite this morning.  Y&H just read this piece in Time magazine. Pretty depressing stuff for ink-stained wretches like us. So let's get to the daily newspaper Food sections while they're still around.

• Green Inc. reports that the wine industry has been laggingbehind beer and soda manufacturers in creating lighter bottles. Well, they better get wid it. Could prevent crimes such as this.

• The New York Times profiles writer Bill Barich who says real Irish pubs don't push beertoo hard. Hmm, maybe that's because no one has to force an Irishman to drink?
• The Daily Dish is reporting more bad news for Gordon Ramsay: He sold his LA restaurant, Gordon Ramsay at the London West Hollywood Hotel, to the hotel's owners. This really can't be good news for the Maestro deal at the Ritz-Carlton in Tysons, could it? The guy's bleeding money, like a  contestant on his Kitchen Nightmares show.
• The Washington Post notes that there may be a way to save the bluefin tuna—without pulling away from the table. That's conservation even Dick Cheney could love.
• The San Francisco Chronicle leaves no crumb behind. It has 33 ways to use old stale bread. Good idea. Unfortunately I already ate all of my new favorite baguette.
• The Boston Globe celebrates the Iranian new year with recipes for two classic Persian dishes.

Photo by John Picken

People are brilliant. People are mindless cows. Today's roundup has a bit of both. 

• Chow.com tells us how London's fast-food chicken outlets have escaped the Colonel's hatchetmen, including the creatively named Kent's Tuck Inn Fried Chicken.

• Yours for Good Fermentables gives us a small peek into the Washington Post's annual Beer Madness contest, which is in mid-drink right now. There was already a major upset in the first round: Bud Light Lime won by a squirt over Leinenkugel Honey Weiss, which pretty much makes Y&H want to go shoot a Clydesdale.
• DCist has rounded up five of its favorite breakfast spots, which, naturally, has griddled a few waffles. Y&H just hopes DCist's next list won't be so white bread. (White toast?) Other cultures eat breakfast, too, you know.
• Chubby Hubby breaks out the Buddha molds for these Milo-based desserts. Eat one and enjoy bad karma for life.
• Smiley's Sweets and Creations has combined two of the trendiest foods, sliders and cupcakes, into one amazing-looking treat. But where's the Asian fusion?

Photo from Smiley's Sweets and Creations.

Let's start the week with the online equivalent of wingsuit flying: Bloggers willing to tear down institutions and destroy old ideas. Hey, if we desk jockeys can't exercise anymore, then we might as well get our endorphin rush from little shots of e-schadenfreude.

• Less Is Enough chronicles Day 27 of a campaign to eat for a month on $1 a day.  LIE got all pissed off after reading one couple's struggle to do the same thing and decided to prove that the vegans were just amateur ascetics (and lousy cooks).

• There's a Queer in My Soup wonders if Gordon Ramsay is going broke following the news of his group's "financial breaches" with its bank. Y&H wonders whether this helps confirm a persistent rumor that Ramsay won't be taking over the Maestro space after all?
• Waiter Rant takes to the shooting range to dis on the gun skills of security cops. As if they don't have enough image problems already.
• Obama Foodorama thinks that appointing irradiation-happy Michael Osterholm to oversee the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service (which is the current speculation) would be "a continuation of Bush-era policies in which Big Ag will still run wild like a pack of rabid coyotes."
• Anthony Bourdain is suffering a crisis of hate over Rachael Ray, one of his favorite punching bags. Apparently Ray likes the New York Dolls (which Bourdain calls "one of the greatest, most important, criminally neglected, wildly influential bands in the history of well ...the freakin' UNIVERSE!!") and recently said nice things about the bad boy on Nightline, which is Y&H's preferred program for food gossip. Writes Bourdain (way down in the post):

I don't know whether to go out and shoot a puppy-or send Rachael a fruit basket. It just does me no good at all to think of Rachael as a Dolls fan. It's really only a matter of time now until my daughter looks up from her grilled cheese and says "Yummo!!"

Image by Flickr user Dave Pullig