It may be sacrilege to say so, but I did have a moment's wonder at Julie Powell dedicating a whole year to cooking out Julia Childs. Life is surely too short. But I admired her staying power. Most cookbooks contain only a handful of recipes you actually want to tackle - though heaven forfend that I should level this criticism towards Mastering the Art of French Cookery.

Anyway, here's someone who really slackened my jaw. Meet Todd Wilbur, who spends his time to trying to recreate food made by the industrial giants. (Sorry about the fuzzy photo but I came over all funny just reading about him...) He wants to cook Krispy Kremes exactly like the factory original. He wants to clone Big Macs, Yoo Hoo chocolate drinks, and dozens more junk foods, to taste just like the real (or unreal) McKoy.

On his web site Top Secret Recipes, there are 17 pages of recipes, 20 per page, that recreate foods you can buy in boxes, cans, packages and some even without getting out of your car. They're his attempts to reproduce hundreds of confections, from Applebee's® Almond Rice Pilaf to Z'Tejas® Southwestern Grill Famous Chambord Raspberry Margarita, with a new one every week. And he has books of them published! Not quite in the same class as Julie Powell, though. And certainly not in Julia Childs'.

For some lucky people, life isn't too short.