Sampler Platter: Best beers map, squirrel pie & defeating terrorism one cookie at a time

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Your next meal could be walking around your garden gathering nuts as you read this — at least if you’re British.

• Map of the best beers in America. (California wins with 474!) Strange Maps
• ‘The most successful interrogation of an Al Qaeda operative by U.S. officials required no sleep deprivation, no slapping or ‘walling’ and no waterboarding. All it took to soften up Abu Jandal, who had been closer to Osama bin Laden than any other terrorist ever captured, was a handful of sugar-free cookies.’ Time
• Just in time for National Doughnut Day (June 5), the 99 Cent Chef takes you from Krispy Kreme to his kitchen for a step-by-step glazed doughnut recipe.
• Frank Bruni decries the ‘predictability’ of the Obamas’ date night restaurant of choice: Blue Hill. Diner’s Journal
• Hot new British food trend: squirrel pie. BBC
• From the Department of Mixed Messages: After her big People cover story about losing 42 pounds, Melissa Joan Hart opens Sweetharts, a candy store in Sherman Oaks. (Who says our culture has schizophrenic expectations about food, dieting and women’s bodies? Hush, hush.) LAist

— Elina Shatkin