Simone Paz

Sara O'Donnell in her kitchen

"You don't take perfectly awesome Oreo cookies, scrape out the cream filling and refill them with toothpaste," pontificates a well-lit Sara O'Donnell. She's looking into the camera, warning against the stupidity of food-related April Fools' pranks. "Here's a better idea -- why not refill them with cement? 'Oh! I broke all the teeth in your mouth. April Fools'!' "

In another video clip, she rapidly peels, chops and parboils potatoes. "Today I'm channeling my inner Napoleon Dynamite," she says wryly. "It's a little more difficult to mash these potatoes, but no pain, no tots."

O'Donnell is a new kind of food star. A pretty, cheerful brunette with a refreshingly understated wit, she operates under the brand name "Average Betty." That's meant, obviously, to conjure a nonelitist vibe, as the 35-year-old instructs from her suburban-rustic Tarzana kitchen on such doable food projects as white bean crostini, red velvet cupcakes and potato gnocchi with brown-butter mushroom sauce.

But unlike Bourdain, Ramsey, Ray, Fieri and other nationally known food stars, O'Donnell is solely an Internet phenomenon, a self-created culinary personality finding an audience without the benefit of a book deal, magazines or a TV show.More >>

Flickr/nebulux76

a bowl of spaghetti

When one thinks of Switzerland, one conjures images of a happy, armed and yet war-adverse people who wear chic watches, carry fussy little knives and hike in majestic mountains while eating milk chocolate bars. (Hopefully we crammed every possible stereotype in to that one sentence.) Who knew they're also small scale producers of grove to table spaghetti? And who knew spaghetti was a crop at all?

But it is, and the Swiss do it right, according to a recently resurfaced, and totally excellent educational BBC video. Check it out after the jump.

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Epic Meal Time

The Epic Meal Time crew

Epic Meal Time has gotten big. The YouTube channel boasts almost 2.5 million subscribers. High school students wear shirts emblazoned with the fatty food gross-out mavens' "bacon strips" mantra. And now, Epic Meal Time is about to be big in Japan.

According to Reuters, the Montreal-spawned show's producer, Next Time Productions, is partnering with Japanese management firm Yoshimoto Kogyo to produce episodes of "Epic Meal Time Japan" in "the Japanese market for domestic and global distribution."

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Jonathan Gold's 99 Essential Restaurants, mapped (not rapped)

Wow ... just, wow. We're so glad someone out there was able to cheer us up about Jonathan Gold's impending departure with this hilarious (and, may we say, exquisitely crafted) rap tribute to the Pulitzer Prize winner's list of 99 Essential Restaurants. (You didn't think we'd go one post without mentioning that accolade, did you?)

LAist got the backstory from CBS Sunday Morning contributor/rapmaster Conor Knighton, who says it took him more than a year to visit every place but just minutes to concoct this rap. A rap is fitting, really, considering Gold was once a music critic for this very publication and wrote for Rolling Stone. Whether he's a greater expert on SGV or N.W.A is still debated.

Knighton's little ditty is to the tune of a familiar Jay-Z song, reminding us that even when we've got 99 problems, restaurants ain't one if Jonathan Gold has anything to do with it.

Video after the jump:

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Adam Kuban/Flickr

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What do you do when you're so musically talented that you can express everything in your head with melody and emotion? Like when asking for cheese on your No. 4 tater tots? Watch the charming video of vocalist and guitarist Giorgio Fareira doing what comes naturally for him at the Sonic drive-in by singing his order to the woman on the other end of the PA.

We have to wonder what the woman's co-workers were thinking as she was giggling her ass off while taking Fareira's order over her headset. It's the kind of fun, random thing we wish would happen to us at work when we answer the phone, and some musically gifted person starts serenading us about the TPS reports.

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Javier Cabral

Shit Bartenders Say

Just three years after Jonathan Gold wrote about Los Angeles's blossoming craft cocktail scene, comes this hilarious YouTube video poking fun at the often extreme measures bartenders take to fix you a tasty drink.

The viral video features several second long frames in the style of other popular "Shit ______ Say" YouTube video series. It stars a handlebar-mustached mixologist talking about things like making his "cherry bark cayenne bitters" and "developing a barrel aged cocktail program."

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A. Scattergood

bread and butter at The Tasting Kitchen

There's a lot going on in the world as the year steams towards a close. In North Korea, Kim-Jong-Il is dead. In Pakistan, military leaders and government officials are wrestling for power. U.S. troops have finally left Iraq. There's also a butter shortage in Norway, the world's third-richest country, a nation with a population nearly half the size of Los Angeles's. You may have heard about it on The Colbert Report.

In the mind of one Norwegian YouTube pundit, the smirking reactions swirling around the so-called "crisis" -- whether Colbert's warnings about butter "mules" smuggling sticks into the back alleys of Oslo or the finger-wagging in Matthew Yglesias's business column for Slate -- loom large enough to warrant a 4.5-minute tirade.

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Mac Lethal Raps About Pancakes

We're not sure what's more impressive: that rapper Mac Lethal can cook pancakes while rapping over the beat to Chris Brown's "Look At Me Now" or that his spoof song, "Cook With Me Now," actually sounds better than the original version. Either way, it's impressive to watch a man griddle a perfect, golden-brown hotcake while dropping insightful culinary and life lessons like:

Yo, yellow cheese, eggs
White pancake batter
Put a little bit up on the skillet
When it starts to bubble flip it over with your spatula.

[Video after the jump.]

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Need a change in your look and your diet before stuffing your face with turkey? This Swedish Diet commercial does its best to convince consumers to give in to the allure of ugly blonde wigs, blue dresses and bright yellow accessories. Plus, the green screen effects are magical. But the product sounds pretty fishy to us.

Anything involving the consumption of a tiny bottle of liquid pumped with that many chemicals, minerals and whatnot probably isn't the ideal way of getting into shape. According to the Swedish Diet site, users lose of average of 3-5 pounds during the first week. There's even a picture of an unidentified regal-looking doctor (or actor) to put his stamp of approval on the Swedish road to weight loss. Oh, and, the Swedish Diet company is based out of Largo, Florida. So much for authenticity.

Watch the ad after the jump.

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​"[William] Shatner is shameless when it comes to his acting and his public persona," wrote Pat Jordan in a September 2010 New York Times Magazine profile. "There is little he will not do, no humiliation he will not embrace, to make his fans laugh. He once boasted that he did 'not let things like dignity' hold him back." If anyone doubted that this was true, the actor's latest achievement in hammy self-portrayal comes in the shape of a State Farm-sponsored PSA entitled Eat, Fry, Love, The subject? The dangers of reckless turkey-frying. Turn the page for the video.

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