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Bon Appetit magazine has released its sixth annual "How America Eats" survey on the subject of eating, drinking and entertaining. Some interesting tidbits emerge:

• Seventy four percent of Americans believe comfort food is a rising trend, while 61 percent feel that way about health food and 59 percent about organics. More than two-thirds of respondents said they felt fast food was a waning trend, though the responses here depended to an extent on age -- people older than 50 were less likely to believe fast food is on the way out and the healthy stuff is here to stay.



• The magazine reports that when no one is watching, Americans can't resist ice cream (15%), chocolate (13%), cake (7%), cheesecake (6%), and potato chips (5%).



• Pasta (69 percent) is the comfort food Americans can't live without. Pizza (57 percent) comes in second, closely followed by ice cream (54 percent). A surprising 43 percent of respondents said they could do without macaroni and cheese.



• Only two percent of respondents said they could barely boil water, while almost two thirds said they were almost as good in the kitchen as a professional, and another third said they do "an okay job" in the kitchen. Men seemed to think more of their own culinary skills than women, and more people (54 percent) said their mothers were lousy cooks than did not.



• For the sixth straight year, San Francisco (97%) is rated top restaurant town in America. New York (96%) and New Orleans (93%) also top the list. When it comes to restaurants beyond US borders, Tuscany (96%), Provence (95%) and Paris (92%) are tops.



• Asked about food preferences, people seemed to like tomatoes, asparagus, rice, polenta,, soy sauce and salsa a lot more than they liked turnips, figs, apricots, barley, and chutney.