“I’m (expletive deleted) starving,” said Batali, who’s on the board of the food relief agency Food Bank for New York City, which issued the challenge to celeb pals like Batali and anybody else who wants to know what it’s like.

Batali said his first reaction when asked to join was a big “gulp,” then he realized while shopping for Friday’s start of the challenge that with a little forethought it wouldn’t be all that brutal.

One lesson: forget organic and anything pesticide- or hormone-free. “The organic word slides out and saves you about 50 percent.”

So what’s on the Batali menu through Thursday? Lentil chili with onion, water and cumin was one dinner that came with a complaint from his wife when he bought two bags of lentils instead of one, until he convinced her the extra cost would mean cheap eats for the next day.

“Rice and beans is in my lunch every day,” Batali said. “We got a bag of mini gala apples for $3. We bought a pork shoulder roast for $8 and got two and a half meals out of it. I got a whole chicken for $5, but it was spoiled so I had to return it and got a $7 chicken instead. They were out of $5 chickens.”

Convenience also has been sacrificed, like the afternoon his boys, 14 and 15, were running late and the family really wanted to grab hot dogs before a basketball game but couldn’t.

His kids are doing well and didn’t have to be dragged into what Batali described as less of a publicity stunt and more of a conversation starter about what it means to be hungry in America today.

“They’re having more peanut butter and jelly than they’ve had in the last 10 years because bread is inexpensive and peanut butter and jelly, if you buy it at the right place at the right time, is cheap,” Batali said.

Also, the boys are eating school lunch, as those in low-income families do for free.

The Batalis have been joined on the weeklong challenge by wholesale meat purveyor Pat LaFrieda, who has a new Food Network series, “Meat Men,” Margarette Purvis, who heads the food bank, as well as more than 200 others who registered to complete the challenge. And anti-hunger groups in Las Vegas, Philadelphia and parts of Maryland and Ohio have led similar challenges over the last several months.

“Nearly 3 million New Yorkers have difficulty paying for the food they need,” Purvis said. “They live in every single neighborhood. We’re not trying to compare the food stamp challenge to the very real challenges people face. We’re just trying to raise awareness that it’s no longer just the homeless. It’s working families who use the food stamp program. It’s seniors. It’s a lot more children, in every single neighborhood.”

Any surprises for the chef?

“I thought spare ribs were cheap,” Batali said. “Spare ribs this week are $5.95, so I’m making pasta sauce with two pork chops that were $1.39 a pound. It won’t have as many bones to chew on but it’ll have more edible meat, which at the end of the day is probably a better deal.”

Batali has taken his challenge to “The Chew,” where he and his crew will be chatting all week about eating on less.

“We, hopefully, aren’t pretending or being like a bunch of yuppies saying, ‘Oh yeah, this is how you can do it. Look, we can grind our own oats!’ We want people to think about calling and talking to their representation about cuts to the Farm Bill and the food stamp program,” he said.

Subsisting on food stamps, especially when food is made from scratch, is doable, he said, “as a way to live, but certainly not as a way to thrive. You can always have pasta with tomato, but that’s not thriving.”

There was no Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or sexting when several fellow students at a posh Detroit-area prep school say 18-year-old Romney led a boy posse to hold down one among them perceived as different and snip off his bleached blond hair.

The victim, John Lauber, is dead now, but The Washington Post reported when it broke the story that he was “perpetually teased for his nonconformity and presumed homosexuality” and screamed for help. Though he eventually left the school — kicked out for smoking a cigarette while Romney was not punished — indications are Lauber simply endured, as many of today’s victims are forced to do despite the flood of anti-bullying campaigns in schools and out, advocates said.

Romney said he can’t recall the incident but did participate in “hijinks” in his younger days. Later, he told Fox News that if he was involved, he’s sorry.

Lee Hirsch, director of the recent documentary “Bully” that spotlights several intense cases, said the Republican presidential candidate’s response to the controversy falls short.

“I would really invite Mitt Romney to see the movie. This weekend,” he said. “This is an extraordinary opportunity for him to really lead and to help redefine the way, unfortunately, too many Americans still see bullying.”

Romney has said that his Mormon faith was deepened and his life’s outlook altered for the better soon after the reported Lauber incident, when a van he was driving in France was in a crash that killed a passenger and nearly killed him as well.

And certainly ideas about bullying have changed in the intervening years, especially following the suicides of several bullied gay teens.

“Back in the day you would get beaten up or punched in the yard and you’d tell a teacher and they’d just tell you to suck it up, you know, or that’s just what boys do or that’s just how girls are and ‘You two knock it off,’ and that was the extent of it,” said psychologist Jerry Weichman, who works with adolescents at the Hoag Neurosciences Institute in Newport Beach, Calif.

Some of that still exists today, he said, though there are usually more tangible consequences for bullies, along with a greater awareness of “what’s appropriate and what’s not,” but many young victims remain terrified to speak out, contributing to a higher prevalence of depression, anxiety, cutting and suicides.

“There’s still that level of embarrassment there, where you don’t want to go public with it,” he said, because the backlash on the Internet is so great and savvy young perpetrators are better at flying under the radar of punishment.

According to the National Education Association, 160,000 kids stay home from school every day because of bullying and 42 percent have been bullied online. One in five teens has been bullied at school in the last year.

While the victims in Hirsch’s film suffered outright, some with the knowledge of grown-ups who failed to act, those bullies in zero-tolerance atmospheres do know how to avoid adults.

“Now they’ll do shoulder-checking, tripping. Just subtle stuff but consistently where it’s really hard to see and really hard for somebody else to see,” said Weichman, 36, a victim himself as he endured teasing and physical abuse at the hands of high school peers over his prosthetic leg.

Like Weichman, Hirsch sees a tipping point as the national conversation about bullying has amped up.

The country is poised for change, the advocates said, though zero tolerance may not be the answer.

“Schools feels helpless and lost and they really don’t know what to do about this,” said Rob Goldman, 44, a New York City area attorney who serves as a court-appointed psychologist for the Suffolk County court system.

Part of his job is find other ways through, including victim and perpetrator meeting, talking and working out their differences rather than the more common punitive approach.

“As a kid I had swastikas drawn on my locker when I was in public school,” he said. “My principal said, ‘Suck it up, Goldman. I was called a wop in school and I survived.’ I had a recent case where, guess what, a kid had swastikas drawn on his locker.

“We need to focus on prevention,” he said, “the power and the ability to forgive and move forward.”

Count Svingen and other grateful parents — and their kids — among those around the world to bid Sendak a fond farewell Tuesday, when he died in Danbury, Conn., at age 83. Many devoured his books as children themselves.

“Sendak reminds adults about the best parts of childhood: the freedom, the boundless energy, the possibilities, the security, the fantasies, a time where the rules can bend any way your imagination desires,” said Nicole Forsyth, whose 4-year-old, Audrey, likes “In the Night Kitchen” the best.

“But he also reminds us of the pain of childhood: the frustrations, fear, loneliness and confusion, the unfinished mind in its extremes of pure joy and raw, untempered ego,” said Forsyth, in Sacramento, Calif.

From the naughty Max of “Wild Things” to the foul-tempered Pierre from Sendak’s bite-size Nutshell Library, parents said Sendak understood the inner world of childhood like few other writers for kids. It’s a world, Forsyth said, that “I created, that I had control over, that somehow made more sense than the world seems today.”

Anna Patterson’s journey of mischief-making began 15 years ago in Tupelo, Miss., when she first fell in love with the wild boy Max, who returns home in the end, his supper still warm.

“He wasn’t your typical knight in shining armor or dragon-slaying prince,” said Patterson, now a 19-year-old sophomore at the University of Mississippi in Oxford.

“It was a different kind of main character, someone with real fears and a real imagination I could relate to. That one book was enough to start a love of reading that’s lasted a lifetime,” she said.

Kate Shamon Rushford’s 11-year-old Matthew is an avid reader in Wellesley, Mass., and has loved “Wild Things” since he was 3. Now, he’s old enough to reflect himself on the passing of one of his favorite book creators.

“He let kids know that it’s OK to sometimes be a wild thing,” the boy said. “A lot of kids want to escape when they’re in trouble. My favorite part was how Max grows up after his adventure and returns home to find his dinner waiting for him.”

One of the great pleasures of having children, said dad William Webb in Memphis, Tenn., is happily losing yourself in the books you loved while also discovering new nuggets, like Sendak’s “Pierre: A Cautionary Tale in Five Chapters and a Prologue.”

That’s a long title for a tiny book included in Sendak’s Nutshell box set and also published as a standalone. No matter what his parents say, sour-faced Pierre just “doesn’t care,” not even when a lion gobbles him up, then falls ill for his trouble only to spit him out in one piece at the end.

“It makes us laugh,” said Webb, who has two boys ages 4 and 2. “That’s my older son’s favorite part, when he comes out of the lion and learns that he really does care after all.”

Joshua Steen in Corinth, Miss., has a fan in 2-year-old daughter, Lucy. “She especially loves the ‘Wild Things,’ and she’ll growl and howl at the moon. Sendak’s illustrations really have a life of their own. He makes learning to use your imagination so much easier.”

Chris McLeod is all grown up at 28 and living in Quincy, Mass., away from his mom, Joan Gaylord in Bedford, N.Y. His memories of “Wild Things,” a childhood favorite, are muted now, though his mother hasn’t forgotten her years of reading it aloud.

“At this point, I remember only one line: ‘We’ll eat you up — we love you so!’ The funny thing is that, in my mind, the wild things aren’t saying it. My mom is,” McLeod said. “I vividly recall my mom reading that line aloud, adopting her best husky monster howl.”

David Caughran, 45, has a 7-year-old son who has sadly already moved on from Sendak, a writer dad has never forgotten.

“My favorite growing up was ‘In the Night Kitchen,’” said Caughran, in Vancouver, British Columbia. “I can still recite lines.”

He fears that Sendak, a lush illustrator, might already be lost like other picture book creators to children reading e-books exclusively. “I truly hope that real books don’t get supplanted,” for when it comes to writers like Sendak, “There’s something about the experience of holding and reading a true paper book.”

Count Svingen and other grateful parents — and their kids — among those around the world to bid Sendak a fond farewell Tuesday, when he died in Danbury, Conn., at age 83. Many devoured his books as children themselves.

“Sendak reminds adults about the best parts of childhood: the freedom, the boundless energy, the possibilities, the security, the fantasies, a time where the rules can bend any way your imagination desires,” said Nicole Forsyth, whose 4-year-old, Audrey, likes “In the Night Kitchen” the best.

“But he also reminds us of the pain of childhood: the frustrations, fear, loneliness and confusion, the unfinished mind in its extremes of pure joy and raw, untempered ego,” said Forsyth, in Sacramento, Calif.

From the naughty Max of “Wild Things” to the foul-tempered Pierre from Sendak’s bite-size Nutshell Library, parents said Sendak understood the inner world of childhood like few other writers for kids. It’s a world, Forsyth said, that “I created, that I had control over, that somehow made more sense than the world seems today.”

Anna Patterson’s journey of mischief-making began 15 years ago in Tupelo, Miss., when she first fell in love with the wild boy Max, who returns home in the end, his supper still warm.

“He wasn’t your typical knight in shining armor or dragon-slaying prince,” said Patterson, now a 19-year-old sophomore at the University of Mississippi in Oxford.

“It was a different kind of main character, someone with real fears and a real imagination I could relate to. That one book was enough to start a love of reading that’s lasted a lifetime,” she said.

Kate Shamon Rushford’s 11-year-old Matthew is an avid reader in Wellesley, Mass., and has loved “Wild Things” since he was 3. Now, he’s old enough to reflect himself on the passing of one of his favorite book creators.

“He let kids know that it’s OK to sometimes be a wild thing,” the boy said. “A lot of kids want to escape when they’re in trouble. My favorite part was how Max grows up after his adventure and returns home to find his dinner waiting for him.”

One of the great pleasures of having children, said dad William Webb in Memphis, Tenn., is happily losing yourself in the books you loved while also discovering new nuggets, like Sendak’s “Pierre: A Cautionary Tale in Five Chapters and a Prologue.”

That’s a long title for a tiny book included in Sendak’s Nutshell box set and also published as a standalone. No matter what his parents say, sour-faced Pierre just “doesn’t care,” not even when a lion gobbles him up, then falls ill for his trouble only to spit him out in one piece at the end.

“It makes us laugh,” said Webb, who has two boys ages 4 and 2. “That’s my older son’s favorite part, when he comes out of the lion and learns that he really does care after all.”

Joshua Steen in Corinth, Miss., has a fan in 2-year-old daughter, Lucy. “She especially loves the ‘Wild Things,’ and she’ll growl and howl at the moon. Sendak’s illustrations really have a life of their own. He makes learning to use your imagination so much easier.”

Chris McLeod is all grown up at 28 and living in Quincy, Mass., away from his mom, Joan Gaylord in Bedford, N.Y. His memories of “Wild Things,” a childhood favorite, are muted now, though his mother hasn’t forgotten her years of reading it aloud.

“At this point, I remember only one line: ‘We’ll eat you up — we love you so!’ The funny thing is that, in my mind, the wild things aren’t saying it. My mom is,” McLeod said. “I vividly recall my mom reading that line aloud, adopting her best husky monster howl.”

David Caughran, 45, has a 7-year-old son who has sadly already moved on from Sendak, a writer dad has never forgotten.

“My favorite growing up was ‘In the Night Kitchen,’” said Caughran, in Vancouver, British Columbia. “I can still recite lines.”

He fears that Sendak, a lush illustrator, might already be lost like other picture book creators to children reading e-books exclusively. “I truly hope that real books don’t get supplanted,” for when it comes to writers like Sendak, “There’s something about the experience of holding and reading a true paper book.”

Others knew exactly what they were getting into, buying into the buzz since the venerable imprint Knopf took on publishing rights, shoring up a story that began as “Twilight” fan fiction and putting it out in handy trade paperback on April 3.

There’s flogging and bondage and sex toys. And a steely control freak of a gazillionaire Christian Grey, a damaged sexual “dominant” who enlists the virginal (not for long) college coed Anastasia Steele for rough-but-consensual role play.

Jeremiah Wirth, a grad student and Iraqi war vet in Maine, said the opening book was nothing short of a life-changer. He read it on a business trip to “magical” Hawaii, returning home to Bangor a better man.

“I was away from my girlfriend. I was lonely and I was reading this book in this beautiful place and I thought it would be something fun and easy,” said the 26-year-old Kurt Vonnegut and Star Wars fan, just a year younger than the fictional Grey.

“People hear about flogging and stuff like that in this book, and they don’t get it. I became emotionally invested in the love story, especially from the female’s perspective. That was important to me, to put myself in Ana’s shoes. It was overwhelming, and I’ll never forget it,” Wirth said.

He was moved to send James an email, “apologizing for assuming that your book was anything less than it is: wonderful.” And she responded, his deep interest surprising even her, “given that you don’t fit the demographic of the readership (women 17-100) but I am delighted that you enjoyed it.”

The book didn’t shatter 66-year-old David Shobin in Smithtown, N.Y. The semi-retired gynecologist and newbie romance reader who writes medical thrillers on the side picked up the first “Fifty Shades” to see for himself “what all the hullabaloo was about.”

He liked it well enough and received hundreds of responses to a funny review he wrote on Amazon.

“At my age, my arthritis flared up just reading about Ana’s sexual gymnastics,” Shobin wrote, adding that her “pyrotechnic climaxes resembled repetitively watching porn: after a while, it leaves me bored and yawning.”

He conceded a “definite infectiousness to the plot” but found it hard to believe Ana had absolutely no sexual experience before literally stumbling into Grey’s office to interview him for her college newspaper.

“I had an intellectual curiosity,” Shobin added in an interview. “I don’t quite know what to make of this sort of sexual activity but as a love story, it did succeed.”

Will his wife, a regular volunteer at their church, be reading?

“Probably not,” Shobin said. “I told her a little bit about the bondage part and she showed very little interest in that, so it was a short conversation. She mainly reads memoirs.”

John Puckett, who is gay, spared no superlative from San Dimas, Calif., where he works as a theatrical manager about 20 miles east of downtown Los Angeles. Usually preferring autobiography and true crime stories, he’s now reading all three “Fifty Shades” books for a second time.

“I was pretty much hooked from the beginning,” said Puckett, 45. “It grabs a hold of you and it doesn’t let go.”

Most appealing, he said, is Grey’s slowly unpeeled vulnerability, that “lost, hurt little boy who craves nothing more than to be deserving of unconditional love.”

The books are flying off the shelves at the Books & Books stores in south Florida. James opens her first U.S. tour in Miami on Sunday.

“I first found out about the books back in December, from men who wanted to buy them for their wives,” said Mitchell Kaplan, the chain’s owner. “You really got the sense that these books are helping relationships in some way.”

Dr. Mehmet Oz sees that potential, dedicating Wednesday’s show to exploring the books with an audience of women and, yes, men who have read them.

“This woman has gotten people talking about sex in a way that no one else could get them to talk about it,” he said Tuesday night from the red carpet of a gala honoring Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world — James included with the likes of President Obama and Rihanna.

Are sex lives changing, marriages evolving?

“They’re not tying up their women. It’s not about sadism,” Oz said of men drawn to the books. “What it is about is people having an honest conversation about what sex should be like, what makes it feel better, what are the timing issues, how do we make it an important issue in our life rather than an afterthought. When the guys get into it I know we’ve got something going.”

James, a Londoner and former TV producer with two teen sons, didn’t attend the event but has said she wrote the books to de-stress. She replaced her original Twi-names as her story jumped from free downloads promoted on fan sites to not-free e-books and hard copy from an Australian publisher, then finally Knopf, home to Toni Morrison and John Updike.

Bob James, an ex-Marine and dad of four grown children, has heard of those two, but he’s also a regular romance reader and a “Twilight” fan. He first read “Fifty Shades” when it was still fan fiction, coming across it on Facebook and a site for “Twi-moms.”

“Most people who criticize it haven’t read it,” said James, 50, who is not related to the author. “They take things out of context and just pick the sex scenes out. I liked the romance. Ana is drawing him away from all the bondage stuff.”

Has he picked up any marital pointers from the attentive yet troubled Grey?

“I learned that I do need to show more of a protective nature toward her in public,” said James, in Manassas, Va. “There’s something that’s drawing women to read it and it would behoove a man to know what that is.”

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Associated Press Writer Nicole Evatt in New York contributed to this report.

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Follow Leanne Italie on Twitter at http://twitter.com/litalie