If there is one thing the experts seem to agree upon, it is that the Paris restaurant scene - indeed, all of French food - is in a state of revolution. Great chefs who once spent their working lives tending a single gastronomic shrine have become itinerant journeymen, absorbing in their travels the cuisines of exotic cultures. Some even take on vows of abstinence, renouncing the solid meaty staples on which their careers were founded. Once-fixed Michelin stars go shooting across the culinary firmament like heavenly portends, burning out in a blaze of glory.

Amidst all this insecurity, a fortuitous by-product has been the narrowing gap between the traditional and the inventive. A modern bistro is no longer a dusty institution whose menu - or even its regional identity - is engraved on tablets of stone. Young chefs who once worked their way up through the ranks like civil servants, hoping one day to inherit a senior post in a prestigious institution, now set up their own modest establishments, sometimes with the generous backing of the masters who have trained them. They know that there is an excitement in the air and a mood of anticipation which has made the educated dining public attentively receptive to unfamiliar names.

And so, in addition to the old Paris bistros - some still worthy of their traditional clientele, others now fit only for tourists - there is a growing number of newer establishments which, although they could hardly differ more among themselves in detail, have certain distinctive features mostly (though not entirely) in common:

· The front-of-house is managed by a young maitre d' and the kitchen by a young chef.

· The menu changes frequently and includes a few intriguing dishes whose ingredients and preparation one can only guess at.

· The cost of the fixed menu is modest, around 30 €.

· The clientele is a cross-section of age and ethnicity that do not turn the air blue with raucous conversation or cigarette smoke.

· Many diners take an undisguised interest in their food, exchanging comparative samples.

But perhaps the most significant factor of this new movement is what might be called the democratization of excellence. These avant-garde bistros are a far cry from the traditional temples of haute-cuisine gastronomy: from their tiny kitchens truly inventive dishes with first-class ingredients may be informally served up for a pittance. When I exclaimed, in what had immediately become one of my favorite bistros, that it should be awarded a Michelin star, the ebullient waitress threw out her ample bosom and responded, "I am a star!" Which indeed she was. (It would have been gauche to point out that the so-called Michelin star is really a macaroon.)

No trouble with the South, where scientists think they've put a handle on something they call the Mediterranean Diet. For years they've been measuring and analyzing the food intake of the good burghers and peasants of southern France and adjoining coastal countries. One mouth-watering ingredient after another has been considered - red wine, pasta, garlic, olive oil, chili peppers. (Was it just an excuse for an extended residence in a gastronomic paradise?) Having run through them all, some investigators are now suggesting that the determining historical factor has actually been exercise. Exercise?! Don't be ridiculous. It's got to be something you can buy across the counter - that's the American Way!

Whatever the experts may finally conclude, I've arrived at my own solution. Two separate weeks, with a week off in between, I've eaten myself silly in Paris - a grand total of nineteen serious lunches and dinners. At the end of each week I came home, climbed on the scales, and discovered that I'd put on exactly one pound. That's right, one pound. After a couple of days, without any particularly effort, it went away. [My third trip a couple of months later, for ten days, added two pounds, but they came off with equal ease.]

I could write a book, itemizing the ingredients of the foods I'd eaten and sorting them into revolutionary new categories, such as monofolics, bifolics and trifolics. (The words don't mean anything; I just made them up.) But if I were to be honest, I'd have to admit that my method was, in every sense, pedestrian. I walked. Everywhere. Well, not everywhere, but a total of between four and six hours a day. Of course I wasn't striding out as though goaded by a physical therapist. Sometimes (not often) I walked briskly, sometimes I strolled, sometimes I sauntered, and sometimes I just stopped and looked at the man-made or heaven-sent scenery. But I didn't sit down, hardly ever. I stayed on my feet, mostly moving, for two or three hours at a time. Sometimes I worked up a sweat, but that was due not so much to physical exertion as to the hot summer sun.

It was tiring the first couple of days, but I got used to it. And Paris is such a wonderful city to walk in! Not always beautiful, but always fascinating. Inside the peripherique there are few areas that are actually dangerous - at least I didn't discover any the hard way. You can walk 'til you drop (much cheaper than shop 'til you drop), knowing that, however far out on the fringes you go, there's always a bus to get you to the Metro, which will then get you anywhere. And unlike some cities, the journey isn't likely to be shoulder-to-shoulder, endlessly delayed or even fatal.

Simple, isn't it? It'll work a treat in Paris, and once you get back home to Orange County, all you have to do is totally alter your entire way of life. Throw away the TV remote control. Pull the plug on your freezer and shop for food every day - real food that comes in bags, not boxes. Leave the gas-guzzler in the garage and walk that dusty mile to the mall along a highway screaming with traffic - no sidewalk, just the dirt along the edge, not even a track, because nobody ever walks there - until a police car picks you up, takes you to the station and grills you for hours about your suspicious behavior.

And if they don't lock you up in the loony bin you can try it again tomorrow.