Oh my. Oh my goodness. My, my, my, my, my.

Hunky Italian chef Gino D’Acampo is a big man, and a total hambone. When he loses a bet, he doesn’t shrivel up, he antes up. Here he goes Jamie Oliver one better by becoming a truly Naked Chef, and never mind the risks to life, limb, and little buddy.

From TheDailyWhat:

Long story short, Italian chef Gino D’Acampo made a promise to viewers of ITV’s This Morning that, should the show win a National Television Award, he would return to cook sans clothes. Well, they won, and he did.

That takes sfere, and, as you can see, Gino is a man who knows where to draw the line, who’s not as likely to run something up the flagpole and see who salutes as he is to carry his cowl where the sun don’t shine. Of the three of them on-camera (and the vast, multitudinous horde swarming around off-camera) only one person keeps his cool when the heat is on and the dial is turned up to 12. He barely cracks a smile even as his boneheaded cohosts pull boner after boner during this simple segment on preparing gammon and mushy peas.

Yes, Gino D’Acampo is the obvious weiner.

Or incomplete fruitcakes as the case may be. Me, personally? I love the stuff, but I realize I am alone.

So, so very alone.

Are you alone and different from me and stuck with a mouldering or pickled lump of brownish carbs, fats, and assorted undigestables, covered in some unnamed and unnameable sticky substance, the whole Shoggoth-like agglomeration wrapped in hideously toxic-looking red or green “festive” plastic?

What you have there, my friend, is a fruitcake. And if you still have one lying around, and it’s not one you’re going to be feeding and watering (with booze, please, and none of your foofy white zin either) and then devouring once it’s achieved that peak of perfect pickleosity, then I’m assuming it’s not #1 on your favorite foods list.

But there is hope.

You don’t have to consume it at all! The ingenious folks in Manitou Springs, Colorado have found a way to turn what’s basically a brick made of calories and cholesterol into an extreme sport. This, my friends, is true genius: co-opting a seasonal calorie source and transforming it, simply by sheer can-do-ism, into an athletic activity.

Behold the annual Manitou Springs Fruitcake Toss.

Marie Antoinette said, “Let them eat cake.” In Manitou Springs the local Chamber of Commerce encourages people to throw cake. Each January the community hosts its Great Fruitcake Toss, the strangely compelling spectacle in which participants fling fruitcakes through the air, competing in events that emphasize distance, accuracy, and showmanship. While the contest does nothing to improve the reputation of the much-maligned fruitcake, it has succeeded in attracting media attention to a town best known for its natural mineral springs and proximity to Pikes Peak.

Behold as well, the Manitou Springs Fruitcake Launch (trebuchets, what looks like a potato gun, and a crossbow are among the launchers). Behold, finally, the Manitou Springs Fruitcake CATCH. And behold, lastly, well, I won’t spoil the surprise. But it combines two of the most disliked physical objects of our time and only one of those is fruitcake.

In today’s lesson, Steve from Webrestaurantstore will demonstrate why we shouldn’t deep-fry gnocchi and, for bonus points, why our solution to somethingdeep-fried spitting at us should not be to turn up the heat. Oh, you may think you know this stuff already, but do put in the time to watch this video, at least up to the 1:45 mark. You won’t regret it.

via MisterHippity

In related news, this civilian was actually successful in his attempt, but then he had the good sense to a) use cooked gnocchi as his substrate and b) batter the gnocchi first, thus rendering its exterior significantly freer of H20. Still, speaking for myself I’d have to say that battered, deep-fried potato dumplings are not exactly something that makes my mouth water, and I’m not even on a low-carb diet. We have starch, wrapped in starch, deep-fried. Please stop the madness.

Oh, I’m in love. Sure, every girl thrills to the sight of a dapper gent in close proximity to a bottle of Champagne (with which he will presumably require assistance) but when you add a soupçon of danger in the form of bladed weapons, well, a girl could truly lose her head, particularly after the second bottle, and most particularly if she stands too close.

Allow me to present the very dapper Mister Matt Stache, your genteel host of the un-missable YouTube series “Will It Saber?” Despite slight imperfections in technique (I’m sorry, but the muselet must go avant de sabrage) his sheer audacity carries the day. Let’s take a look at Will It Saber #1: the Saber for an example, shall we?

Highly inspiring. Sabering, in fact, can be done with virtually any implement that has a narrow edge and can be moved with rapidity down the neck of a Champagne bottle. I once attended a sabering workshop in an old morgue which used quite a variety of sabering instruments: it’s the combination of momentum and narrow pressure point that does the trick. Presumably, you could saber Champagne with the front of a snow plough, if you could move it fast enough.

Yes, that really sets the mood. Trust me, you need a drink if you’re in there after dark.

From TinyBites.ca:

Hold the sword with your dominant hand with the edge at a ~20 degree angle to the curve of the bottle neck.
Hold the bottle with your other hand, arm straight out and as far away from your body as possible, with the cork end pointed towards the part of the room that can handle the landing of such a projectile.
Slide the blade along the bottle starting from the middle until you reach the cork, applying the same smooth pressure and velocity throughout the motion. Practice the movement a few times until you get the feel of it, if that helps.
Once the bottle is opened, do not touch the top of the bottle, where the glass is razor sharp from the act of sabering.
If you do not have a sword available, most heavy objects with a similar edge will do. He mentioned a machete…I don’t know about you, but I have neither machete nor sword lying around at home. Someone mentioned that you could do it with a butter knife but McWatters was vigorously shaking his head at us upon hearing that suggestion.

Here, in #3 in the series, Matt Stach sabers a bottle of Champagne with a brake rotor from a 2002 Mazda Protege 5.

Yes, really.

via Cityrag

Anyone got this man’s phone number? He’s JUST the fellow for me.