BBC: Well, they should have plenty of leftovers. Survivalists, calling themselves "preppers," have been storing food for Friday's apocalypse, which may or may not have been predicted by the ancient Mayans. - Glenn Collins YouTube: Extra Credit Christmas Baking: What can compete with a "Downton Abbey" gingerbread house? -- Susan Edgerley Yahoo: Eleven things important to know about the McDonald's McRib sandwich, including the 70 ingredients that go into it, just because. -- Eric Asimov YouTube: Jimmy Fallon airs the latest review of Daym Drops, the gangsta culinarian who critiques fast food. On camera. In his car. He holds forth on that McRib reintroduction. Only three and a half stars. - Glenn Collins LA Weekly: "In some ways it's almost laughable, this room with its two communal tables, 28 seats, one woolly beast's pelt on the wall for decoration, a clientele of gorgeously aging hipsters and a menu of brussels sprouts with hazelnuts," Besha Rodell writes of Cortez, a new restaurant that seems to specialize in (and triumph with) the kind of rootsy, figs-on-a-plate California cooking that some chefs like to mock. -- Jeff Gordinier NPR: Health claims are usually heralded on packages of processed foods, but the makers of products like Ritz crackers and Ragu spaghetti sauce have been quietly reducing their sodium and hoping we won't notice. -- Patrick Farrell Imbibe: The cocktail writer David Wondrich digs into the history of the classic Boston tipple, the Ward Eight. ... Alcademic: ... And the liquor writer Camper English asks whether the grenadines used in the original Ward Eight, Jack Rose and Monkey Gland cocktails were made with real pomegranate. -- Robert Simonson Chicago Reader: Let's hear from Martin Kastner, the Czech-born craftsman who designs the cool gear that the chef Grant Achatz puts into use. -- Jeff Gordinier The Village Voice: Restaurant critics are by definition fearless omnivores. Robert Sietsema tallies up the consequences: his 10 most challenging dishes this year, from bull penis and pig blood soup to spaghetti with creamed corn and Spam. -- Patrick Farrell Nature: Jamie Goode on how global warming is affecting wine (by way of PDF). ... -- Eric Asimov The New York Times: ... And another costly casualty of global warning: European truffles, whose astronomical prices are headed into a parallel universe. For most of us, though, the more immediate threat at the market is a spike in milk prices because of the languishing farm bill. -- Patrick Farrell The New York Times: The $18 million maple-syrup caper. The Quebec police have arrested three men for stealing six million pounds of the stuff from - no, really - the Canadian global maple syrup reserve, a petroleum-reserve-like cache of valuable syrup that protects 70 percent of the world's supply. - Glenn Collins Slate: Opponents of genetically modified foods has made a big mistake by focusing on debatable claims of health hazards, Frederick Kaufman writes. The real danger, he says, is how G.M.O.-promoting companies are wielding patent laws to the detriment of agriculture and science. -- Patrick Farrell