Big Mac

Thank you, Robert Hilburn, for an insightful cover story on five of the most talented individuals in pop music today ("Big Mac Is Back," June 14). The article managed to pinpoint one of the major reasons for Fleetwood Mac's enduring success over the last dozen years: The band is composed of five distinct personalities who are not afraid to exercise their creativity outside the realm of Fleetwood Mac. When the band manages to come together to work on a project, the creative energy in the air is bound to result in friction.

McDonald's now has its eye on the KFC customer, launching its new Chicken McBites in the U.S. on the same day that it announced record revenue of $27 billion for 2011. The variation on popcorn chicken, featuring chicken breast and home-style seasoning, will complement the fast food giant's existing poultry menu items such as the McNuggets and McChicken sandwiches. The McBites will be available in 3-ounce snack, 5-ounce regular and 10-ounce sharable sizes through April 20. The new offering is one of the many tactics McDonald's is trying to stay ahead of what Chief Executive James A. Skinner called “significant headwinds” in the industry, including flat to slow growth, low consumer confidence and volatile commodity prices that are expected to rise as much as 5.5% in the U.S. this year.

In a burger battle royal, a rival to McDonald's Corp. came out swinging Wednesday, taking on the venerable Big Mac and talking smack about the Golden Arches' new Angus burger. Carl's Jr. launched the Big Carl, a double burger with cheese and a Thousand Island-style sauce. The burger is being launched with an ad campaign aimed at belittling the Big Mac. Carpinteria, Calif.-based CKE Restaurants Inc., which earlier this decade pioneered the Angus burger concept, at least among fast-food chains, owns Carl's Jr., along with Hardee's.

If an average Big Mac in the U.S. costs $4.20, the $6.81 price tag for the same burger in Switzerland may mean that the Swiss Franc is 62% overvalued, according to an analysis by The Economist . The publication's occasional Big Mac Index takes the price of the popular McDonald's sandwich around the world and uses it to calculate the value of international currencies. The exercise is based on an economic theory known as purchasing power parity, which holds that exchange rates should balance out over the long run to equal the cost of a basket of goods and services in different countries.

St. Louis Cardinal slugger Mark McGwire doesn't think highly of a new section of upper-deck seats in Busch Stadium just inside the left-field foul pole that is called, in neon letters, Big Mac Land. McGwire is quick to point out it's a hamburger promotion and not a McGwire spinoff that will add to his $9-million salary. Moreover, Big Mac, the player that is, isn't overly fond of hamburgers. * Trivia time: What is regarded as the longest putt ever made in the Masters?

McDonald's has been invited to India--but told not to bring its Big Mac. To sell beef in the land of the sacred cow requires a special license that is granted only to luxury-class hotels catering to foreign tourists. Beef is taboo to Hindus, who are 82% of India's 875 million people. Muslims, who are 12% and the country's largest minority, don't eat pork. So if McDonald's goes ahead with its planned $20-million investment deal, it probably will do what the British-based Wimpy's does.

I dislike fast food and malls. So why am I dragging Andrea to a McDonald's in the sprawling Siam Discovery Center shopping complex in downtown Bangkok? I'm in search of America. Prolonged travel can warp the sensibilities. Four months of strange menus and stranger sights have sent me scurrying for the familiar--even though the familiar is the stuff I usually detest. We've flown from Nepal to Thailand, laying over for five days en route to Vietnam.

Muscovites say they will go on eating Big Macs, even at double the price. "Of course the food is very expensive for us, but where else can we get a hamburger that tastes like this?" asked Elena Dachenko, as she munched a cheeseburger today. "This restaurant has so much culture," said Katya Zavapovskaya. "I'll probably continue eating here even though the prices are higher." McDonald's doubled its prices Monday, making the capital's first American-style fast-food restaurant unaffordable for many.

Some people just can't resist a challenge. A teenager with a computer and laser printer is the first known person to counterfeit the new $100 bill, which the U.S. Treasury redesigned to try to foil counterfeiters, authorities said. While his attempts were not that convincing--some of the bills featured the teen's picture instead of Benjamin Franklin's--his uncle was arrested for allegedly trying to use one of them at McDonald's in this town 50 miles south of Charleston, W. Va.

St. Louis might be Mark McGwire's town, but Keith McDonald has assumed temporary custody. With the slugging McGwire, nicknamed Big Mac, out with a knee injury, the former Pepperdine catcher has been tabbed by St. Louis media as the New Mac, Mini Mac and Temporary Big Mac. A seven-year minor leaguer with 27 career home runs, McDonald went deep in his first two major league at-bats last week against the Cincinnati Reds, becoming only the second player ever to accomplish the feat.

McDonald's customers will soon be able to have local school sports, movie previews and heartwarming human interest stories to go with their fries -- McTV is here and in high definition. In one of the most unusual twists in niche programming, the global fast-food chain is launching the McDonald's Channel, a digital network of exclusive original content targeted at dine-in customers. The programming will be customized to specific communities around the individual restaurants, and will include local news and entertainment features, such as spotlights on upcoming films, albums and TV shows.

Try to visualize it: You walk away from the counter at McDonald's carrying a Quarter Pounder with cheese and side order of fries on your tray. You cross over to the soda machine and fill a large cup with Coke. Then you visit the condiment bar and grab packets of ketchup, mustard ... and a statin ? This is the brilliant idea put forth by a group of British doctors and public health experts in next Sunday's edition of the American Journal of Cardiology . The logic of their proposal is hard to refute.

In a burger battle royal, a rival to McDonald's Corp. came out swinging Wednesday, taking on the venerable Big Mac and talking smack about the Golden Arches' new Angus burger. Carl's Jr. launched the Big Carl, a double burger with cheese and a Thousand Island-style sauce. The burger is being launched with an ad campaign aimed at belittling the Big Mac. Carpinteria, Calif.-based CKE Restaurants Inc., which earlier this decade pioneered the Angus burger concept, at least among fast-food chains, owns Carl's Jr., along with Hardee's.

Don't do it. Don't tune in to this year's political conventions. For two decades, Americans have been wising up and increasingly tuning out those quadrennial made-for-television pageants that pass for participatory democracy. In 1976, roughly 22 million people watched Jimmy Carter receive his party's nomination. By contrast, four years ago, only 16 million viewers enjoyed the high jinks at the GOP convention. Over the years, declining interest has persuaded broadcast networks to scale back their coverage, and I think a lot of us suspect we didn't miss much.

Strangely enough, December is "body image month" on BBC America, which translates into five hourlong documentaries looking at issues as varied as small breasts, obesity and transgenderism. In "Super Skinny Me," which kicks off the series, two female journalists go on five-week crash diets to see what it takes to whittle their normal-sized bodies down to a model- esque size 0. No, wait. That's what the documentary would have been about if it had been made in the U.S.

What a joke. Bill Plaschke's faux mea culpa regarding the stupidity of the sportswriters, in not voting for Mark McGwire for election to the Hall of Fame, is just that, faux. What crime was McGwire sentenced to? Oh, he wasn't. So he should be in the Hall of Fame because of his numbers, impact on the game, championships he contributed to, and role in bringing people back to a strike-damaged sport? According to our pundit here, no. Why? Because he wouldn't answer questions from a stacked deck of politicians with all the brain power of a flea.

Bernie Miklasz of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch wasn't exactly reticent when commenting on Mark McGwire's 70th home run. "That's not a home-run total; that's an interstate," Miklasz wrote. "Come to think of it, the stretch of I-70 that runs through St. Louis needs to be renamed as soon as possible. It has to be I-Mac. While we're at it, let's erect a giant, Bunyanesque McGwire statue along I-70. "Make this monument bigger than the Arch.

Bernie Miklasz of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Mark McGwire's retirement announcement: "Big Mac fanned on Sunday night. The retirement fax to ESPN was fine, but McGwire didn't play baseball for ESPN. "McGwire owed a phone call to Cardinal General Manager Walt Jocketty. And McGwire certainly should have informed his friend and longtime manager, Tony La Russa. "Then again, maybe there was a reason for McGwire's lapse in manners.

When it became apparent late in spring training that Dallas McPherson would start the season at Salt Lake, the frustrated third baseman, who lost his job to Chone Figgins, said he had "nothing left to prove in triple A." Those words might come back to haunt him. After nine games at Salt Lake, McPherson was batting .143 with 22 strikeouts in 35 at-bats. "You have to prove yourself every day wherever you are," Angel Manager Mike Scioscia said. "Right now he's having a rough go of it.

Maybe it was one Rachael Ray cookbook too many, but when a memoir called "Last Chance to Eat" by an author I had never heard of landed on my desk, I picked it up and didn't stop reading until I had finished two more food books with more writing than recipes. Since coming up for air, I notice I am not alone in my craving for meat over glitz. Of the last six review copies publishers have sent me, exactly one is credited to a face way too familiar from the Food Network.