Celebrities

For those who like their kitsch with a bit of a crunch, we give you: Rachael Ray in Cheetos.

In case you missed it, Wednesday's episode of Ray's show marked the unveiling of a larger-than-life-size portrait of the Emmy-winning celebrity chef made entirely from the trademarked cheese puffs. The picture was the handiwork of Colorado Springs-based artist Jason Baalman, whose artistic oeuvre also includes velvet portraits of Elvis done in cheese-puff dust and the Mona Lisa entirely in ketchup.

This is not Baalman's first celebrity tribute in Cheetos. He made one of Conan O'Brien last year, but before he could hand it over to the late-night host on the air, O'Brien was booted off "The Tonight Show."

Chelsea Clinton isn't tying the knot with her fiance Marc Mezvinsky until this weekend, but the wedding has already become the event of the year, at least by gossip-rag standards. Questions abound: Who's invited? (Hint: Not many.) What will she wear? (The smart money, as always, is on Vera Wang.) What kind of ceremony will it be, anyway? Thanks to the publicity-shy bride, there are few confirmed details. One thing's fairly certain, though: The caterers will accommodate the former first daughter's vegan diet.

Despite her father's famous predilection for fast food, Chelsea has reportedly been going meatless for more than a decade, even asking White House chef Walter Scheib to teach her to prepare her own vegan meals, according to the Vegetarian Star. By all accounts, Chelsea is a highly intelligent, ambitious woman who doesn't do anything halfway, and her kitchen training was no exception; she worked with Scheib for six weeks prior to leaving for Stanford, earning a "Walter Scheib cooking school certificate" at the end.

Consequently, "insiders" have told Life & Style magazine, the food for the big day "will include vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free dishes." (That'll put the caterers through their paces.) Lest anyone accuse Chelsea of being doctrinaire, however, the wedding menu will also please carnivorous guests. According to those same insiders, there will be a beef entree as well -- grass-fed and organic, naturally.

While no one knows who will be duking it out in Super Bowl XLV next February in Dallas, the Taste of the NFL celebrity food fest held before the big game is on track to be the largest in history, the Dallas Morning News reported.

Event organizers say they expect to sell more than 3,000 tickets for meals made by at least 45 celebrity chefs, making it a record-breaker over 6 months before the first course is served on Feb. 5, 2011, the paper reported.

"This will likely be our biggest event from a ticket sales standpoint," spokeswoman Linda Bendt told the paper. "Anything over 3,000 would exceed previous events."

It is the twentieth Taste of the NFL event to be held on Super Bowl Eve to raise money to fight hunger.

Organizers say they're trying to limit ticket sales to make sure the chefs aren't biting off more than they can chew.

• A delicious, summery fruit pie is as easy as, well, you know.
• Hybrid politics: When two species of fruit intermarry, what do you call the kids?
• The setting for the Inn of the Seventh Ray has always been fantastic. The food is finally catching up.
• Feeling hot and tired? The wine of the week will cool you off.

Food Network viewers have come to know chef and restaurateur Scott Conant as the prickly judge on Chopped -- but tonight Conant returns to TV as the host of Food Network's latest competition series, 24 Hour Restaurant Battle. The show pits two teams of two against each other, with the winner churning out the best restaurant within 24 hours.

Conant himself has been rather successful over the last 10 years in this realm, but he's had more than just a day. In 2002, he found success with L'Impero, and shortly after that, with midtown Manhattan's Alto. Recently, his flagship joint has been Scarpetta, with locations in New York and Miami (he's expanding to Toronto this week and Las Vegas later this year). As if that's not enough, earlier this year Conant also opened Faustina at the Cooper Square Hotel in lower Manhattan. Thus the contestants on 24 Hour Restaurant Battle are getting more than just the opportunity to win $10,000; they're getting the chance to pick a rather successful brain on the ins and outs of restaurant survival.

Slashfood spoke with Conant about his restaurant concepts, how he comes off on Chopped and the difference between 24 Hour Restaurant Battle and Top Chef's "restaurant wars" challenge.

24 Hour Restaurant Battle premieres tonight on the Food Network at 10pm. Read the interview after the jump.

When NBA phenom LeBron "The King" James made his televised decision to depart the Cleveland Cavaliers for the Miami Heat, he left northern Ohio's fans with a bitter taste in their mouths.

To blunt the pain of James' departure, Cleveland's Great Lakes Brewing has fittingly released Quitness, a beer "as bitter as the mood of Cleveland."

Quitness (a take on James' "Witness" campaign for Nike) is a dry-hopped, cask-conditioned India pale ale that Great Lakes released on Wednesday, July 14, at the brewpub. Three hours later, all 30 gallons of the beer were gone, with nothing left but rave reviews: "It was very floral, didn't hit your tongue very hard and actually wasn't bitter at all until the aftertaste," Beer Advocate member abraxel wrote. "It was downright delicious!"

While Great Lakes re-released Quitness on Saturday, and may do so again in the future, don't expect this to hit bottles anytime soon. Heck, I doubt this is even a brand-new beer.

More after the jump...

For some of us, summertime can be summed up in two words: ice and cream. Purveyors vie for our ice cream cone dollars, promising premium texture, top-notch ingredients, and ever-more-creative flavors. Marble Slab Creamery's gambit? They've teamed up with Food Network star Sandra Lee, the woman of Semi-Homemade Cooking fame, to promote a Taste of Summer -- 16 "tasty creations" for the summer months only. And, in another nod to reality TV, they're not just inviting customers to taste -- they're asking them to vote for their favorites.

Sandra Lee and Marble Slab Creamery seem like natural bedfellows: Marble Slab is all about mixing fruits, nuts, and candy into their store-made ice cream, while Sandra Lee's schtick is to pair 70 percent store-bought ingredients with 30 percent fresh, homemade fare. Putting these two forces together has resulted in some outrageous-sounding flavors. Take Sunday Brunch, for example, a base of French Toast ice cream studded with strawberries, walnuts, and marshmallow topping. Or how about Dad's Triple Play, an exercise in chocolate overload: Chocolate Swiss ice cream mixed with chocolate cake, chocolate chips, and fudge. (What, no chocolate sauce?) Or consider Peanut Butter Picnic -- Peanut Butter ice cream with caramel topping, Nutter Butters, and peanut M&M's. No half-measures here.

Train's latest news has nothing to do with music. Instead, the band is promoting its very own wine club.

The Grammy-winning band Train, whose second album "Drops of Jupiter" (2001) catapulted the band into popularity, along with the album's lead single "Drops of Jupiter (Tell Me)," debuted a subscription-series wine club -- appropriately named Train Wine Club.

Guitarist and wine enthusiast Jimmy Stafford started the website. "Hey all. My name is Jimmy Stafford. I'm in that band Train, and I happen to like wine," he writes in the "About" section. Stafford also keeps the site's blog. In addition to signing up to receive two bottles of wine (a red and a white) each month, fellow oenophiles are invited to join forums. Have a wine bar you'd like to recommend? Maybe you're looking for a wine bar near your hotel on that next business trip?

If it were anyone else's the hair in your food, it would be a health code violation, but when it belongs to a dead princess, suddenly it's art.

For the summer exhibition of surrealist art at the Barbican Art Gallery, renowned London jellymongers Bompas & Parr have created a trio of "occult jams," one of which claims as its not-so-secret ingredient a minuscule snippet of the late Princess Diana's hair.

"Milk Jam infused with a speck of Princess Diana's hair" is (clearly) the most headline-worthy of the three. The other two are "Absinthe and pineapple with sand from the Great Pyramids" and "Plum and Oak with wood from Nelson's ship The Victory."

The jams retail for the equivalent of a mere $7.60 a jar, sold at the Barbican's gallery shop, so it seems just as likely that the Diana jam will end up in a summer flan as it will under glass at a museum somewhere. (The milk jam reportedly tastes like condensed milk.)

More after the jump...

While you're whiling away the afternoon at Uncle Joe's barbecue on July 4th, we won't blame you if your mind drifts to more exciting places. Life & Style Weekly and Slashfood.com want to know: