With a side of carbs, please.

At Mangiamo's, after a long day of driving:

Server: ...and another appetizer special, sweet potato gnocchi, in a sage butter sauce, with roasted garlic, and finished with asiago cheese.

Us: We'll have some of that...

Me: ...and I'll be ordering from the special pasta menu--carbonara.

Server: ...and for your salad?

Me: [puzzled. Please to explain?]

Server: I don't know if you knew this, but since tonight is special pasta night, you also get a salad, like a dinner salad? or a Caesar?

Me: Caesar!

The historian: I'll have the puttanesca. With the dinner salad, and bleu cheese.

Server: So, with those salads, do you still want the gnocchi?

Us: Sure!

Server: And how about bread?

Us: YES.

A whole hell of a lot.

Although there is some dispute as to the ins, the outs, the what have yous, apparently Michael Phelps, in full training mode, eats about 12,000 calories a day.

Twelve. Thousand. Calories. A day.

What does 12,000 calories look like? Here's how it breaks down:

• for breakfast, a large bowl of porridge;
  
• three doorstep-sized sandwiches of white bread, butter, fried egg, fried onion, lettuce, tomato and mayonnaise;
  
• a five-egg omelette tastefully garnished with parsley;
  
• three slices of French toast liberally sprinkled with sugar;
  
• three pancakes topped with chocolate chips;
• two large cups of coffee;
• for lunch, 1lb (that's a very large bowl) of pasta with tomato sauce;
  
• two large ham-and-cheese sandwiches with more lettuce, tomato and don't forget the mayo;
  
• four bottles of a proprietary high-energy sports drink;
  
• for dinner, another pound of pasta;
  
• a large cheese-and-tomato pizza;
• another four bottles of the same proprietary high-energy sports drink.

Here's an article in The Guardian that explains all of this in more detail, as well as how nauseous the reporter became when he attempted to eat all of this in a feat of gonzo journalism.

(got this link via dooce.)