Won't mid-week lunches pack so much more panache if a star chef like Alice Waters, Grant Achatz, Tom Colicchio or Mario Batali has a hand in 'em? You'll still have to make your own PB&J, but now you can tote it along in celeb-stamped style with a one-of-a-kind lunchbox decorated by your favorite chef.

"The Lunchbox Auction presented by Gourmet which benefits hunger-relief organizations Food Bank For New York City and The Lunchbox Fund of South Africa, kicks off live on the World Wide Web at www.thelunchboxauction.org on Thursday, December 11th at midnight and continues through Thursday, December 18th at noon. Almost 100 celebrities from film, television, fashion, art, music and the culinary world have united to remind us that food matters and that hunger is an on-going problem.

Each lunchbox reflects the personal style and individual flair of the person designing the box and no two lunchboxes are alike. Collectors will find that each box is signed and numbered, and some will even contain hidden surprises inside. The collectible lunchboxes make a great gift for the holidays!"

I've already been outbid on Grant Achatz's stainless steel and tension wire armature, and Ruth Reichl's epicurean treasure trove, yet still hold out hope for Michel Richard's mustard-gilded, postprandial bonescape. Mostly because I'd have a chance to say "mustard-gilded" all the darned time -- for charity.

[via: thelunchboxauction.org]

Vodka seems to be is the beverage of choice when celebrities decide to dabble in distillation. Jay-Z's Armadale, Jimi Hendrix' Hendrix Electric, Roberto Cavalli's Roberto Cavalli, Donald Trump's (what else) Trump.

Now Dan Akroyd joins the party with his Crystal Head vodka, which comes in a skull-shaped glass bottle. He promotes the new libation with a video so bizarre many originally suspected that it was some sort of viral marketing for a Ghostbusters sequel. Akroyd babbles about Roswell and ectoplasm with the straightfacedness of Leonard Nimoy on In Search Of... before showing off his (admittedly very boss) bottle "in which," he explains, "we have chosen to enclose joy, in the form of of a very pure alcoholic beverage."

Akroyd also speaks of his enthusiasm for what he calls "the most challenging arena in the legal recreational consumables industry." The vodka itself is made in Newfoundland, Canada, and is "quadruple-distilled."

Hollywood has endorsed products for decades: cigarettes, perfume, hair color, facial products, and now wine. According to Wine Enthusiast west coast editor Steve Heimoff, everyone from Paris Hilton to Wayne Gretzky and Brett Favre are hawking their own wine brands. (Hilton's Prosecco comes in three fruit flavors, no less.)

I'll admit I am sometimes sucked in by celebrity brands. As Eli Portnoy, a branding strategist interviewed in a New York Times article about celebrity endorsements, said, we're just a gullible generation who likes to live vicariously through the beautiful people. (It's not just this generation, of course: my five-year-old daughter can spot a Hannah Montana product from 20 feet away, and she'll pick Barbie toothpaste over SpongeBob SquarePants toothpaste regardless of flavor.)

A beautiful celebrity can sell me anti-aging cream, but when it comes to wine, I'm strictly a what's-in-the-bottle girl. I don't care whose picture is on the label or who is being paid big bucks to move it off the shelves, if it's a good wine at a good price. Generally, the more money put into the making of the wine and the less put into marketing, the better for my palate and pocketbook.

Yet Nielson reports that the celebrity wine market is growing, with Phoenix and Los Angeles leading the celeb-obsessed masses. It's true that wine-buying can be a confusing and intimidating process, and if you don't know exactly what you're looking for and you see Brett Favre's sweet mug on the bottle it might make a better adventure than an unknown brand.

Are you more or less likely to buy a bottle of celebrity wine, and why?

Dan over at The Food in My Beard has created a hilariously goofy TV Chef Kitchen Quiz, which you cooking show fans should check out stat. He's basically taken stills from the shows and erased the person from the scene, leaving behind a blurry white blank that looks like a Yeti's taken over at the frying pan for Rachel Ray. The game is to guess what show it is by looking at the kitchen. How well do you know Paula Dean's cabinets, Giada de Laurentiis's tile backsplash? Basically, just how much time do you spend in front of the Food Network every night? If you guess them all right, we may have to stage some sort of cooking show intervention, or get you a puppy.

Lil' Jon, mastermind behind such eloquent, thoughtful diddies as "Crunk Juice" and whose major contributions to Usher's hit "Yeah" consisted of sporatically screaming, "Ye-eahhhh...." and then, "OH-KAY!" into the microphone, is going to be marketing his own wine.

The label? Little Jonathon Winery. "My full name is Jonathon," he told EW.com. (Gee, really? We thought it was Lloyd). "The wine is more nature: I wanted to not just have a direct connection, but make it just a little bit more upscale than regular 'Lil Jon.' ... This is not no ghetto Boone's Farm; this is some real wine." (Not sure if "nature" is a typo, and he meant mature, or if it's just part of his bizarre stream-of-consciousness speech).

Note the double-negative and the reference to Boone's Farm. Truly, this is not no ordinary wine. Fo sho.

As a company, once you find a marketing strategy that works, you usually stick with it. Nike had the swoosh, milk has the mustaches, and PETA? Well, they have naked women.

Over the years, PETA has used women celebs like Alicia Silverstone, Eva Mendes, and Cindy Crawford to encourage the masses not to wear fur or eat meat. And while they've gotten a lot of flak, they continue to pay women to drop trou for the good of the animals.

Today in Philadelphia, PETA's "lettuce ladies" (women wearing little more than lettuce-shaped undergarments) will be handing out soy turkey sandwiches to promote the company's "Turn over a new leaf: go vegetarian" campaign.

A few points that should be noted, here: PETA rarely uses men to advertise its messages. It did use MTV Jackass' Steve-O, who was nude, but the ad a) only showed his backside and b) was quite obviously in jest, poking fun at the typical oversexed PETA model and keeping in vein with the show's brand of humor. Casey Affleck and Joaquin Phoenix have also done commercial spots for the organization - fully clothed. Somehow, I wonder if the effectiveness of the message is lost when we're too busy ogling Pam Anderson's generous chest to worry about what she's promoting.

Now, I'm all for soy products, either as meat replacements or as an addition to a healthy diet. Isn't it fascinating how, in campaigning to stop exploiting one living thing, another is exploited in its place? Maybe PETA should stop pointing its fingers at others for a second and turn the magnifying glass on itself.

Food for thought.

Rachael Ray will never again have to explain to her viewers what "EVOO" stands for because it is the name of her very own brand of extra virgin olive oil. The olive oil is being "specially produced in Italy for Rachael" and is almost guaranteed to turn "dish from so-so to 'Yum-o' in no time," so not only can you use in all of Rachael's recipes, but you can look at her smiling face on the bottle's label. Rachael's site notes that the oil is a certified Product of Italy, made from only Italian olives (just in case you were wondering if they imported theirs before processing for some reason). It is sold in 17-oz. ($8.95) and 34-oz. ($17.95) bottles.

Of course, she may not have to spell out "extra virgin olive oil" every time she mentions EVOO anymore, but don't be surprised if she starts including the web address of her online store in its place.

Despite what the bottle may look like, this isn't Duke Ellington aftershave, it's cognac. More specifically, it's a 25-year-old XO blend from the French cognac house Meukow, according to Nightclub & Bar Magazine. Bottle Watch says it's a 20-year-old XO, however. Either way, The Duke's 'gnac retails for $150 for a 750 ml. bottle. I wasn't able to come up with any tasting notes, perhaps because it's still in limited distribution. I guess this would be an item that swanky bars or jazz clubs would want to have on their shelves. I guess it's not enough to have Ellington in just your record cabinet. Bottle Watch and N & B have distributor info and pics of the packaging, which looks like it could be a CD box set.

Celebrities are touting the maple syrup diet, which is a type of detox diet that is also known as the Master Cleanse diet, or the lemonade diet. Essentially, you drink a mixture of water, maple syrup, lemon juice and cayenne pepper (a very small amount) for about 10 days. Without getting into the sticky issue of whether or not you are really cleansing your body, if you even need to, the diet is a way to drop a few pounds quickly, for better or worse. It works because you take in relatively few calories and a lot of liquids.

All in all, it seems to result in a relatively quick weight loss of a few pounds, but certainly neither a long term solution nor a substitute for a more traditionally healthy diet. It is great for the sales of maple syrup, though, since some stores are reporting that their sales have more than doubled in the past few months.

One woman's account of her time on the diet can be read here if you're interested in getting the daily details of the "cleanse."

Wedding cakes are always some of the most elaborate creations in the cake world, the perfect compliments to some of the most celebrated days. Wedding cakes can run into the hundreds and thousands of dollars, but few are as impressive as the cakes of celebrities. Used to being in the spotlight, what better way to highlight their wedding day than with a stunning cake? The Wedding Sutra has a photo gallery of many celebrity wedding cakes, and while the designs cover both the unique and the traditional, all are stunning. Above, you can see Mariska Hargitay's seven-foot-tall six-tiered chocolate and vanilla cake (left) and Leann Rimes' Chocolate Strawberry Cake, decorated with 35 dozen red roses (right). Getting inspired? If so, hopefully it's with ideas for your own cake and not for ways to gate-crash one of these weddings.

[via grow a brain]

You've got every cookbook ever put out there by a famous chef - from Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook to Tyler Florence's Eat This Book (oops, maybe that's just me). The chef's face is on the cover, he's wearing a spotless chef's jacket, and inside, the recipes are amazing.

But did the chef really write that book? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. It depends on the chef. The Financial Times looks at the relationship between chefs and the "ghostwriters" behind them who polish the prose, whether or not the writer's name appears alongside the chef's name on the book's cover.

Do you think it's right for a chef to leave the ghostwriter's name off even if he or she did most of the writing?

Mariah Carey recently announced that, three days a week, she only eats purple foods. She claims that purple foods prevent her from getting wrinkles and switched to the regime after "hearing the food is high in vitamins and anti-oxidants." So, what does she eat on those days? Grapes, plums and beetroot are specifically mentioned, but other purple foods include purple potatoes, red onions, radishes (since they're counting beetroot), kale, cauliflower, eggplants and various berries, too.

Granted, we know that berries are superfoods, but this all sounds more than a little crazy. I wonder if she's including purple cocktails in her diet, too....

The UK's Evening Standard newspaper claimed that parts of one of celebrity chef Gordon Ramsey's shows were faked. Specifically, they made accusations that the restaurant kitchens pictured on Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares were actually normal kitchens, up to code, that were made to look like the "health hazards" that Ramsay said they were. The paper also speculated that Ramsey had resorted to other tricks to make the kitchens he was supposed to be renovating appear to be poorly run.

Ramsey sued, accusing the paper of libel and falsely defaming him. And he won.

With their claims proven to be untrue in a court of law, the Standard has agreed to pay $138,000 to Ramsey in damages and to publish a public apology in the paper.  Ramsey said, "I won't let people write anything they want to about me. Even I have limits and on this occasion the line was crossed."

It's not surprising that a lot of celebrities lend their names to various products through endorsement deals, but the growing number of celebrity wines is a rather unusual trend. From sports stars to singers, it seems like everyone wants their own chardonnay these days, and the celebs aren't just putting their name on the bottles anymore. Instead, some are buying the wineries and having a say in the wine-making process.

In some cases, it turns out that celebrities should stick with what they get paid to do, whether it is acting or singing, because the wines are not worthy of the A-list, B-list or C-list, but there are more than a handful that are really excellent and worth a taste or two. Besides, who wouldn't like to have a celebrity join them at the dinner table once in while?

Compiled by the Wall Street Journal, here is the The Dow Jones Paparazzi Wines Index, with their picks for the best celebrity wines:

Did anyone else catch Tony Bourdain's No Reservations last night? I did. He went to Korea and I was slightly disappointed.

First, let's do a little recap of the episode.

Tony has been to several places in Asia, both for the show he did for the other network, and for No Reservations. He's been to Vietnam, Japan, China, and India. Nari Kye, a producer on the show, has been hounding Tony about going to Korea, her Mother Land, so he decided to go, and takes her along as his tour guide.