Screenshot of Anthony Bourdain's Twitter page

Food Network/Alan Poulin

Guy Fieri, happy again

The Associated Press reports that celebrity chef Guy Fieri can finally start driving his stolen $200,000 bumblebee yellow 2008 Gallardo Spyder convertible to all those diners and dives again. Max Michael Wade, 17, of San Rafael, was charged yesterday with an assortment of crimes: two counts of attempted murder, shooting at an occupied vehicle, commercial burglary, receiving stolen property and vehicle theft -- of Fieri's Lamborghini, which was recovered more than a year after it was stolen.

Wade, who turns 18 this summer and was charged as an adult, was arrested after sheriff's investigators tracked down the teenager's rented storage container. Inside of which, according to the Marin Independent Journal, they found quite the anarchist's grocery list. What was inside?

More >>

Screenshot of Anthony Bourdain's Twitter page

Lookingglass Theater Company

Cascabel

If you're going to be in Chicago sometime before April 29th, and want to earn some very esoteric food snob points, you cannot miss Rick Bayless making his acting debut in Cascabel, a new play being staged by The Lookingglass Theater Company.

Yes, chef Rick Bayless, author, restaurateur and champion of Mexican regional cuisine, conceived of and has a starring role in a "theatrical feast" about love and food. During the 90-minute mixed-media extravaganza, Bayless cooks on stage, acts and even dances the tango. Since this is dinner theater, 120 audience members are also served a prix-fixe Bayless-designed menu while the theatrics and acrobatics go on around them. And here we thought L.A. had the lock on clever art/food tie-ins. We may just have been upstaged.

More >>

Screenshot from "Day in the Life"

A typical day: Mario Batali goes to Babbo

A Day in the Life, a Hulu original series created by Super Size Me filmmaker Morgan Spurlock, is, as the title suggests, a documentary-style show that follows various, usually famous, individuals as they go about their everyday routine. Monday's episode featured a day in the life of Mario Batali, shadowing the chef as he and his Target red socks and blazing orange Crocs zip around New York via car and scooter.

The episode is interesting less because of the cooking -- what little of it is here is shown through the lens of The Chew, which Batali co-hosts -- and more because of the glimpse into the business of managing the Batali empire. At one point, he reflects on the nature of building and sustaining his brand.

More >>

Screenshot of Fergus Henderson's Twitter page

Twitter turned six years old this past Wednesday, which means six years of communicating via intermittent bursts of 140-character sound bytes and six years of convincing ourselves that even the most mundane of thoughts are worthy of a megaphone. According to the official Twitter blog, there are now 140 million active users tweeting 340 million tweets a day; these users include, of course, chefs, bloggers and other folks in and out of the restaurant industry who, thankfully, often use their precious 140 to tweet hilarity. Over the last few years, we've made a regular habit of posting some of the food-related tweets that catch our eye. Here are ten of our favorites.

More >>

Screenshot of Weekend Update

Paula Deen made her debut on Saturday Night Live over the weekend -- or rather, Kristen Wiig debuted her best Paula Deen impression. During a segment on "Weekend Update With Seth Meyers," Wiig slowly swiveled in as Deen, with a drumstick in one hand and a big stick of butter in the other, to address the lawsuit that was filed against Deen and her brother last week in Georgia -- among other controversies surrounding Deen.

And it doesn't get much 'butter' than the performance Wiig gave...

More >>

We've all wished we could carry Anthony Bourdain around in our pockets when traveling to a new city, and now, the marketing geniuses over at the Travel Channel have figured out a way to make such a thing possible. In digital form, at least. Today they announced the new "Travel Channel Layover Guide With Anthony Bourdain" app for iPhone and iPad. (Sorry Droid and BlackBerry users, once again.)

Predictably, the app mimics the first season of his show The Layover, in which the Bourdain camp set out to help viewers avoid tourist traps in various world cities in favor of more fun and interesting local haunts. Bourdain didn't restrict his advice to just restaurant recommendations, though the show, and the app, include plenty of those.

For the moment, the Layover app features only the cities visited during season one, so if you happen to be visiting Singapore, Rome, Amsterdam, London, Montreal or Hong Kong in the near future, it's particularly worth your $1.99 to download. However, New York, Miami, San Francisco and, thankfully, Los Angeles, are also on the list.

As for Tony's L.A. recommendations:

More >>

Screenshot of Bobby Flay's Twitter page

Paula Deen

Whether she's hiding a 3-year-old type-2 diabetes diagnosis, inking deals with pharmaceutical companies for diabetes drugs or dropping two pants sizes, Paula Deen is riding an unpredictable public relations roller coaster with the media this year. And now, Deen is back in the headlines: A former restaurant employee is taking Deen and brother Earl "Bubba" Hiers to court over allegations of sexual harassment.

Lisa T. Jackson, a former manager of the Uncle Bubba's Oyster House in Savannah, Ga., filed the 33-page civil lawsuit, which also accuses Deen of condoning racism and accuses Hiers of using racist language around employees and posting pornographic images at work.

More >>