Posted by Robyn Lee, September 4, 2008 at 12:15 PM
To witness one of the most awkward celebrity-endorsed food product commercials ever, check out this commercial from Ortega featuring Olympic gymnasts Shawn Johnson, Paul Hamm, and Morgan Hamm. Get past the low production value and the most unconvincing praise ever given to the Ortega-branded foods, and you will be rewarded with Shawn Johnson declaring, "It makes my taco pop." Interpret that as you wish—if you need any help you can ask the Internet.
I really wanted this commercial to be fake, but after seeing this promo I'm horrified to think that this commercial was actually approved. Watch the video after the jump.
The next time you slather the creaminess on toast, please realize: butter has another noble purpose. Inspired by the life-sized butter reconfiguration of Olympic gymnast Shawn Johnson, we wanted to dig deeper and better understand the curious art form.
Butter Sculptures: A Brief History
Tibetan Buddhists were first to bestow upon us the butter sculpture. Covering monastery altars and family shrines for years, the intricate offerings are still sacred today. Monk artists work in extremely cold conditions to avoid the inevitable melting issue.
During the 19th century, the tradition spread to North America where butter sculpting has become a standard at state fairs. One of the most recognizable and beloved is Butter Cow, first created at the Iowa State Fair in 1910. The original artist went by "Mr. Daniels" but since then, many people in many states have attempted the annual crowd pleaser. This year, butter art even went green. When the New York state fair ends this summer, students from SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry will convert the 900 pounds of butter sculptures into biodiesel for campus vehicles.
At this point, you really haven't made it unless you've been memorialized in buttah.
Editor's note: This week, it's, like, omigawd, totally '80s for our daily In Videos segment. Big hair, breakdancing, and before-they-were-big celebrity commercial appearances to the max. So kick back your fat-laced high tops and take a chill pill. —The Serious Eats Team
Before they became famous enough to not appear in food commercials, Brad Pitt, Jason Alexander, and Matt LeBlanc appeared in...food commercials. It was the 80s—times were tough.
After the jump, watch Pitt scarf down Pringles, Alexander dance for a McDLT (yeah, it's old, but it's a classic), and LeBlanc illustrate the superior thickness of Heinz ketchup.
From the New York Daily News: "Sneaky Chef author Missy Chase Lapine slapped Jerry Seinfeld with a defamation lawsuit Monday, accusing the funnyman of maliciously casting her as a mentally unstable 'wacko' and an 'assassin' after she accused his wife of ripping off her book idea."
"He said that if his shows weren't going to be renewed, then he wasn't going to do 'Iron Chef,' " said a network insider. "And then they essentially said 'ciao.' "
Yesterday I linked to a tongue-in-cheek blog post noting a possible trend involving "weird old guys cooking." Serious Eats member Dee then chimed in with a link to the following video, which I'd somehow managed to miss. Paul McCartney making mashed potatoes:
Michael Procopio received Liberace's cookbook as a gag gift from friends but ended up actually liking it so much that he made sticky buns from his recipe: "It's still pretty amusing (you should see the photos of him with starlets mooning and drooling over his, um, cooking), but this feels like a real, personal cookbook. This man was in the kitchen a lot. These are dishes he actually made. These are recipes passed down from his mother, and we all know how much he loved his mother."
Liberace, not exactly known for his restraint, had seven dining areas in his house, each with a different theme—I wonder if he served his sticky buns in all of them?
The Liberace Museum sells copies of his 1970 cookbook Liberace Cooks from their website for $12.95, but for more fun you should probably buy Karan & Michael Feder's recently published cookbook Joy of Liberace, which goes for $16.50 on Amazon, and includes 80 recipes Liberace actually served on his tv show like Chicken à La King of Bling!, Flamboyant Flambé of Sirloin, Fruit, Fruitier, Fruitiest Salad plus lots of personal photos. The Feders were on NPR's All Things Considered just this Saturday to talk about the book, if you'd like to find out more.
Hilton Hotels are launching their Hilton Breakfast Program across their North American properties by this summer, featuring a system of color-coded labels "to assist guests visually in managing their dietary needs. The labels denote whether the menu item is low-cholesterol, low-fat, high-fiber, low-calorie, high-energy or an indulgence."
As Gridskipper's Omri Ceren said, "Who the hell is this for? Are there Jews who'll accidentally eat bacon if it's shaded in fuschia on the menu? Are there diabetics too stupid to avoid adding extra sugar to their pancakes? And if there are diabetics like that, why are we preventing evolution from disposing of them as is right and proper?"
Also I wonder what pink labels mean in the program—I mean, everyone knows pink means Paris! Maybe they'll be dishes fit for her chihuahua...
Donald Trump, billionaire, owner* of the world's most famous combover, and now purveyor of over-priced meats? He recently launched his latest venture, Trump Steaks, selling USDA Prime Certified Angus Beef filet mignon, New York strip, rib eye, porterhouse, and steak burgers, to be distributed exclusively through his website and, as Grub Street said, the "appropriately eighties" Sharper Image. The meats are packaged in four collections: Classic, the cheapest, includes four steaks and twelve burgers, and costs $199; the priciest is Connoisseur, which has sixteen steaks, twenty-four burgers and will set you back a whopping $999—and that's before shipping, which is presumably not free.
Trump touts the fact that his steaks are "selected so that their beef meets nine additional quality standards not even required of USDA Prime" (which, by the way, is not that great) but doesn't say what these nine standards actually are, and says they're "aged to perfection" without saying how long they're aged for and by what method, wet or dry—you know, the little details that people who are serious about their meat would care about. I enjoy your hair, Mr Trump, but I'm staying away from your steaks.
You've probably already read that Danny DeVito's recently launched his own brand of limoncello to make the most of his drunken appearance last year on The View, which he blamed on a long night out with George Clooney, saying on the show, "I knew it was the last seven limoncellos that was going to get me." But have you visited the official website for Danny DeVito's Limoncello?
Ladies and gentlemen, this is liquour with a THEME SONG—a happy kicky one at that. I'll be singing it all day and I suspect you will be too.
Turns out our Megnut's secret celebrity crush, Jake Gyllenhaal, isn't just your run-of-the-mill movie star-turned-foodie—he's also a friend of Mario Batali! YumSugar just put up clips of him, his actress sister Maggie Gyllenhaal, and their screenwriter mom Naomi guesting on two episodes of Molto Mario from 2003. YumSugar's two favorite bits:
Tasting Rachael Ray by Naomi Lebowitz is a video composed of Ray's money shots after tasting something on her Food Network show $40 A Day. Lebowitz used clips from more than 30 episodes of the show to make the video, which is a fun watch whether you love or hate Rachael Ray.
You'd think Stephen Colbert would be a happy man in 2007 because Ben & Jerry's gave him his own ice cream flavor, Stephen Colbert's Americone Dream, but instead he's hopping mad—accusing country music legend Willie Nelson of stealing his time in the spotlight by launching his own Ben & Jerry's flavor. Called "Willie Nelson's Country Peach Cobbler," it's peach ice cream with cinnamon-sugar shortbread pieces.
Rolling Stone's Irina Ageyeva talked to a Ben & Jerry's spokesman about Willie's new ice cream and asked how the company chooses whom to bestow custom flavors on. Apparently "artists are deemed flavor-worthy on the basis of their humanitarian efforts. The more do-good, environment-friendly, help-the-kids-in-Africa stuff you have on your resume, the better the chance that the folks at B&J will consider you for your very own ice cream."
Woody Allen is a frequent customer. Tony Roberts. Eliot Spitzer and Mark Green. Charlie Rangel comes in here very frequently. Ex-President Clinton came here shortly after he moved into Harlem. It was about 9:15, so there was no one else in the store, just one other customer. He stayed for three or four minutes. Martha Stewart comes in; she loves our franks.
With a net worth of $970 million, Ms. Stewart could afford 541,899,441 original dogs (priced at $1.79).
Posted by Adam Kuban, December 6, 2006 at 11:16 PM
From Hollywood Rag:
"Gisele Bundchen has revealed the secret to her amazing figure - cheeseburgers.
The Brazilian supermodel, famed for her long legs and stunning figure, admits she is a carnivore when it comes to her diet and was even munching on a McDonald's meal when she was "discovered" at the age of just 14.
She said: "I like meat, real meat. It's delicious."
Hilton Hotels are launching their Hilton Breakfast Program across their North American properties by this summer, featuring 
Donald Trump, billionaire, owner* of the world's most famous combover, and now purveyor of over-priced meats? He recently launched his latest venture, 
You've probably already read that Danny DeVito's recently 
You'd think Stephen Colbert would be a happy man in 2007 because Ben & Jerry's gave him his own ice cream flavor, 
