Alie Ward (left) and Georgia Hardstark (right) on the set of Classy Ladies.

"Swizzle your beef sticks a little slower," the director says to Alie Ward and Georgia Hardstark as they stir their jerky-infused tequila Bloody Marys -- a drink they've dubbed the Beefy Tomato. It's an odd direction, but every move the women make while demonstrating the drink recipe is supposed to be at half-speed. The crew is getting the final shots needed for this episode of Classy Ladies, Ward and Hardstark's latest web series for Cooking Channel. The cocktail was inspired by a trip to People's Sausage Co. earlier this week. There, they got a lesson in jerky making, then figured out a way to put that flavor into drink form.

This is the process on Classy Ladies for best friends and spirit mavens Ward and Hardstark. The pair visits a Los Angeles mom-and-pop food purveyor -- a French chocolatier, an artisan marshmallow maker, a creamery -- learns the craft, then translates those flavors into inspired cocktails. It's similar to the factory field trips Mister Rogers used to take us all on, but with alcohol.

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Garofalo pasta

There are movies where food has a starring role. And then there are times when eating is just another extra in the background. But when detail-minded Woody Allen shot his newest film, To Rome With Love, no morsel was left to chance.

As with any Italian-based film, eating looms large (that's what people do there, right?) So when the characters played by Jesse Eisenberg and Ellen Page decide to cook up something together, they head to the supermarket to shop for the main star of their meal: pasta.

What do they grab? Eschewing the industrially produced boxes of Barilla or Buitoni, they grab a big bag of Pasta Garofalo. Good choice.

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The Critic Hunter

The expression goes "everyone's a critic," but when it comes to restaurants, that's pretty much true. You've got your food Tweeters, your Yelpers, your Urbanspooners and, oh yeah, actual critics.

This latest spooftastic video rounds all of them up while aping those ever-popular wildlife nature shows (where it's imperative every host must rock an Aussie accent). It's a promotion for the Chef's Feed App, which attempts to usurp all other opinionated foodists by providing restaurant reviews from professional chefs. Sure, they're just other non-critics providing criticism, but wouldn't you kind of like to know what they think?

Video after the jump.

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We foodists have a sense of humor, right? We'd better, because we deserve to be made fun of for lighting up everyone's minifeed with excited tweets about the "fucking brown buttered hedgehog mushrooms" and "Yakima applewood smoked sea salt" we're about to eat.

Our latest find, "Eat It Don't Tweet It," is brought to us by a collaboration between the American Hipster YouTube channel and The Key of Awesome!, a spoof singer who typically parodies the likes of Maroon 5 and LMFAO, but took a detour in order to mock the food porn-obsessed "culinary paparazzi."

But in this case, the food does the taunting, as the objectified lobster and cupcake tell the iPhone camera-wielding rapper, "Don't take my picture/Don't put me on Twitter/Just get it over with and eat./You could not be dumber/Get off of Tumblr/I'm more than just a piece of meat."

See the video after the jump:

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Deon Cole & Conan O'Brien at M&M Soul Food

Conan O'Brien loves gravy. That's what the ultra-pale comedian and TV show host discovers when he visits M&M Soul Food with his pal, comedian and actor Deon Cole. [Video after the jump.]

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This video is a few years old, but since Eddie Izzard has been in town lately, playing a handful of late-night shows at Largo, his riff on the Death Star canteen (that's British for "cafeteria") is timely. And hilarious, especially when animated with Lego. Watch as Darth Vader complains about wet trays, threatens to kill a hapless cafeteria employee and goes unrecognized by Jar Jar Binks. We want to know: If Vader can Force Choke Admiral Motti, why can't he make cafeteria food taste better? [Video after the jump.]

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Champale commercial featuring Ashford & Simpson

Hey, baby. It's been a long week, but it's Friday afternoon. Time to kick off those shoulder pads, slip into the bathtub and pour a glass of cool Champale. What? Don't remember Champale? Why, it's the Champagne of malt liquors, a fizzy concoction that was pitched as the poor man's Champagne. (It's pronounced "sham-pale," not "champ-ale," BTW.) [Video after the jump.]

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Mashup genius Swede Mason has transformed clips from the British version of MasterChef into a two-minute techno groove that any post-rave-era food fan can appreciate. The sight of Gregg Wallace's giant, softball-like head forced to endlessly repeat "buttery biscuit base" is enough to make us smile on this rainy Tuesday morning. [Video after the jump.]

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Writer Harlan Ellison and comedian Patton Oswalt at Cinefamily.

Here's comedian Patton Oswalt crashing a chat with Harlan Ellison at Cinefamily. The brilliant, irascible sci-fi writer known for his rants (our favorite: "Pay the Writer") is there to discuss the limited-edition re-release of The Glass Teat, his collected writings on television.

When Oswalt hijacks the interview, it veers to topics like his attempt to take his pal Ellison, a curmudgeon par excellence, to the fancy steakhouse Jar. Unsurprisingly, Ellison finds something to complain about. [Video after the jump.]

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LidoLido in the "Chop It Up" video

If you're looking for a Justin Bieber clone who can rap with all the finesse and complexity of a fourth-grader, LidoLido is your boy and "Chop It Up" is your song. The Norwegian teen "hip-hop" "star" (we use both of those words loosely) has channeled his love of "the entire American lifestyle" including "the food, basketball, the language" into this oddball, one-take music video set entirely in a kitchen. [Video after the jump.]

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