Billy's Pan Pizza

If you've read Stieg Larsson's second thriller The Girl Who Played With Fire, you'll recognize the amazing character Lisbeth Salander's favorite food: Billy's Pan Pizza. In her millionaire's apartment, purchased with money she obtained in the course of the first thriller, she has a dream kitchen with "a shiny French gourmet stove with a gas oven as the focus" and a Jura espresso machine, "the espresso equivalent of a Rolls-Royce." But Salander shops at 7-Eleven and other convenience stores and she eats only ready-to-microwave food or ready-made cheese sandwiches while chasing nearly superhuman public enemies and working for truth and justice. When she has time, she makes coffee. Otherwise, a few gulps of water from the tap keep her going. And going.

Living on odd bits of instant food, of course, is only one of Salander's amazing capabilities. She's a mathematical genius (including her achievement of the utterly improbable discovery of Fermat's own solution to the famous theorem). She has a photographic memory. She can hack into any computer on the planet. She's brave and honest and agile, out smarts the wiliest criminals, and wins hand-to-hand fights with men several times her size. But the fact that she eats a nerd's diet is indicative of how the late, great Larsson put together his portrayal of this remarkable character.

PS -- It's a good read. Both of the books are. But I'm suspicious of the mathematical elements of the second book.