Asheville: Best small town for food?

Thedailymeal.com, the Web site started by Colman Andrews (Saveur, books, etc.) posted a list today naming picks for "9 Great Small Food Towns."

To clarify, that would not be towns with small food. (That would be New York, where you get very small portion for very high prices.) No, this list is small towns with great food.

The first town on Daily Meal's list: Asheville, the best-kept secret in the food world. Between the local-food mania, the incredible turn-of-the-century architecture and all those students from UNC-A and Warren Wilson keeping it lively, it gives much bigger food towns like San Francisco a run for their diners' money.

Daily Meal named restaurants like Corner Kitchen, Table and Fig, but I'd also add Tupelo Honey, Early Girl and The Admiral in west Asheville. I ate at the Admiral last fall and loved it, for the eclectic setting, the wide-ranging menu and the creative cocktail list.

I can also make another nomination: Everybody visits the N.C. mountains in the fall, but the spring is even more beautiful and not packed with everybody who is visiting in the fall. Not that I'm dropping a hint or anything, but if you have a weekend to spare this time of year, you ought to consider it.

In the meantime, what's your pick for best small food town? Surely Carrboro/Chapel Hill deserve some love, too.

Who's the most powerful in the food world?

Expect a lot of debate over the 50 Most Powerful People In Food, released this week by the web site TheDailyMeal.com. Of course it will be a debate: The Daily Meal is headed by Colman Andrews, who was founder of Saveur magazine.

You'll have to go to here to see the whole list. But to give you an idea of Andrews' reasoning, here are the top 10:

1. You. "The reader. The consumer. The restaurant-goer. The home cook."

2. Thomas J. Vilsack, secretary of the Department of Agriculture.

3. Hugh Grant. Not the actor. The chairman and CEO of Monsanto.

4. Michelle Obama. For her White House garden and her "Let's Move" initiative.

5. Steve Jobs. Yes, the Apple chair. For all those food-related aps.

6. Alice Waters. For, well, I suppose for being Alice Waters.

7. Brooke Johnson. The woman in charge of Food Network and its new spinoff, the Cooking Channel.

8. Mike Duke. CEO of Wal-Mart, not only the world's largest grocer but now the nation's No. 1 purchaser of organic foods.

9. Sam Sifton. The New York Times restaurant reviewer.

10. Jim Skinner. CEO of McDonald's. Who knew Mickey D is now the largest purchaser of apples in the U.S.?

The rest of the list will certainly be parsed and diced. Wolfgang Puck and Rachael Ray are almost evenly matched, at Nos. 13 and 14 respectively. Tom Colicchio is on there, at No. 30, but "Top Chef" co-host Padma Lakshmi isn't. And fellow judge Tony Bourdain didn't make the cut, but Martha Stewart did (No. 47).

Read the full list