How can someone who puts out such a fun food mag put on such an unbearable TV show?

I want to like Rachael Ray, the TV show. I really, really do. Honest. But it's just an annoying hour to me. Maybe it's because I'm a guy. One minute Rachael will be teaching us how to make some cool quick meal with pasta and vegetables, and then five minutes later she'll be talking about women in abusive relationships or how someone can organize the shoes in their closets. It just doesn't work for me. (And there's also the whole thing with her voice and bubbly personality, which I can take on 30 Minute Meals but when it's an hour every day...). But it's really popular, so maybe I'm not the right audience.

But Every Day With Rachael Ray? That's a great little magazine. It has a bunch of recipes that you feel you can actually cook (unlike some mags), quick guides to eating in various cities, tips on shopping, tips on buying wine, interviews. It's well-done. If there's one quibble I have is the whole "celebrity fridge" feature in the back of every issue. It's kinda funny to see what celebs have in there, but do we have to have some quiz about what they have? On the same page where we can see the answers?!? It seems to be a quiz made for people who find the TV Guide crossword difficult.

The classic wedge shape of a pie server and its rectangular counterpart, the cake server, rarely change much in appearance from model to model and brand to brand. Like many kitchen tools, they are designed for function and not to have a stylish edge. For anyone interested in fashion, this fact makes servers boring because the designs of almost every other piece of cookware and tableware, including plates, measuring cups and appliances, change from year to year, if not season to season like designer apparel does. Those fashion-conscious individuals, who want to serve their cake and eat it too, will love the Shoe/Handbag Server Set. The sliver plated pieces are shaped like a high-heeled shoe and a handbag, giving a version fashionable look to a functional tool.

Pop Ink is a design company that has created this adorable set of "Fashion Plate" dinnerware. Each set has four different saturated color designs and are molded into heavy-duty 10" Melamine plastic plates. The plates are dishwasher safe, though not microwavable. In addition to the fashion plates, Pop Ink has sets called Lovesick and Wallpaper.

The set of four is $40 and is available from Elsewares. 

We've seen fast food fashions before, but designer Chris March is doing some thing a little different than the familiar french fry dresses we've come to know. He is making haute couture out of vegetables. With what looks like inspiration from Carmen Miranda, as well as a nudge from Wish-Bone salad dressings, which sponsored the creations, March made hats and dresses out of fresh salad greens. He used lettuce, tomatoes, celery and cabbage, among other produce, to decorate his pieces. A few of the veggies in his creations are artificial, like the green onions, so they will withstand the hot runway lights when they debut in a NY fashion show on June 2.

For good-looking produce, March went to a specialty vegetable market to pick up materials. The only question left to ask is whether any of it is organic.

[Image NYT]

Last fall, the UK Observer christened her Queen of the Bloggers in their monthly food section, and today, food blogger Pim Techamuanvivit, who blogs at Chez Pim, was featured in the Style section of the New York Times. There is a short and sweet blurb about her blog and love of Thai cooking, followed by four of her recipes: Khao Soi, Shrimp Tiles With Cucumber Ajaad, Lychee and Orange Loy Gaew, Kanom Jeen Nam-Prik.

Recipes? Food blogging? You might ask yourself why this is in the Style section. The answer is that Pim loves fashion nearly as much as she loves food and is prominently featured in a slide show in which she (and people who are presumably her friends) are noshing Thai food in designer clothes.

[Photo NYT]

Accessories combine fast food and fashion much more effectively than trying to turn french fries into clothing. Spiral and Circle offers a variety of cute, plush, food-themed accessories, including the coin purses shown above, a hamburger handbag and a hot dog eyeglass case. For anyone who isn't entirely comfortable carrying around a purse - though surely a large plush hamburger conveys an air of masculinity - they stock many other food related items, including a ball point pen disguised as a pizza and hamburger and pizza-shaped pillows. Could wearing your food instead of eating it become the next big diet trend?

Just as in so many other places around the world, obesity is on the rise in Japan. While some nutritionists are advocating that people follow a Japanese diet to lose weight, many in Japan are eating more foods more of the time, including traditional foods in addition to junk foods. 24% of Japanese over the age of 15 are overweight or obese and the number is rising. The same pattern can be seen in children, where 10% are obese or at risk for becoming obese. Children are more likely than their parents and grandparents to indulge in a diet of hamburgers and french fries on a regular basis, though the highest obesity statistics are seen among middle-aged men.

As if the Whopperettes weren't bad enough, food-as-clothing hit the catwalks in New York's Fashion Week. Designer Jeremy Scott seemed to decide that the world's selection of fast food-themed clothing was sorely lacking, as he turned cloth versions of packages of French fries and hamburgers into dresses and sweaters. Of course, the French fry packet dress might be an actual "super size" wrapper from McDonald's, filched before the fast food giant eliminated the size, since the real box was probably large enough to fit one of the Mr. Scott's models. Several other pieces in the collection were also food inspired, such as an ice cream cone dress and a pizza robe/dress.

Image from Consumerist

You know this, right? The latest thing in wedding cakes - and by, "latest thing," I mean, "the fashion that began in Martha Stewart Weddings years ago and has now landed firmly in middle American weddings" - is to set cupcakes on wedding-style cake tiers. They can be artsy or prosaic, bold and beautiful or pasty pastel.

Best part about the cupcake tower is that it doesn't require any special skills beyond figuring out where to buy the plastic Romanesque tiers to set them on. You could even (yikes!) make your cupcakes with a mix. Got someone with passable baking skills in your wedding party? You no longer need to worry about whether your crucial middle layer will fall, or if you'll build a grand masterpiece only to have it crumble to pieces on the way to the reception. Get your friends a couple packages of cupcake liners and a bunch of baking pans, and you're golden. (Or, silver.)

Some might ask, does this make wedding cakery too accessible, with lovely creations available to the masses? Does this mean any amateur can get into the wedding-cake-making business? I say, as long as the cake is moist and the icing has lots of butter - go for it, middle America. Just make sure and get that invitation in the mail to me...

Dylan Lauren, daughter of Ralph and kitschy queen of New York's sweets scene, has been ringing up the candy purchases of hip Manhattanite sugar freaks at Dylan's Candy Bar for years. But what's a girl who just turned 30 to do to stay with it? How about branch out from candy to, umm, candy-inspired stuff.

What?

Sunday's New York Times has a piece on how Dylan Lauren is trying to enter the fashion world, but in her own candy-colored style. She's developing candy-themed apparel, household stuff, spa products and parties. Her concept is that girls, like her, have an inner child best expressed through their love of candy. The Times wonders "whether Ms. Lauren's business will do for candy couture what her father has done for cashmere..." And all I have to say is, candy couture? Who knew?