The week's top foodie fracas started when TMZ posted photos of Anthony Bourdain and his then-sous chef in a pool, nakie-nakie-eggs-and-bakey. Apparently the photos were twelve-year-old shots taken during a Caribbean vacation by Bourdain's now ex-wife, and Bourdain had no reservations about showing off his Taylor pork roll. But why should "balls-out Bourdain" get all the love? There are plenty of other celebrity chefs we'd like to see strip off their white coats and show off their raw ingredients.
Here's our list of the top five celebrity chefs we'd love to see naked.
5. Rachael Ray.Since the unfailingly perky Ray burst onto the television cooking scene in 2001, she's been teasing us with her "entréetizers" and fancy garbage bowls, and since we've all had to endure her eccentric food term-truncations and her "30 Minute Meals somebody-else-preps-for-me," it's high time she puts a little sugar in our bowls and drops her apron around her ankles.
4. Alton Brown.With Good Eats coming to an end, Brown should have a few extra minutes to give his adoring fans -- male and female -- a photo spread that shows off his tomatoes and cucumber. Hell, he can get all nerdy with it and explain the history of medieval cabbage farming or how the spice trade contributed to developing modern Western palates, but really we just want him to blind us with science while we check out his anise.
3. Giada De Laurentiis.Giada's adorable over-enunciation of Italian words, her line of Target counter-top appliances and her breezy on-camera persona are three things we all like about her, but we'd all like her just a teensy bit more if she'd finally, for the love of pasta, quit tantalizing us with her cleavage and just show us her petto. We don't really need to peep her cannoli, but I doubt we'd avert our eyes.
2. Paula Deen.Paula Deen's got that country-gravy- GILF magic, and a peek at her hoecakes would be some compensation for her suicidal cuisine. A glimpse of her Southern-fried goodness is long overdue, and we have a gut feeling that all those empty calories she pimps may have left her with a couple of plump buttermilk biscuits and a fat buttered pecan.
1. Mario Batali.Batali seriously needs to slam a sausage in his mouth after his assertion this week that bankers are akin to Stalin, Hitler and some other "evil guys." Apparently he'd forgotten that rich folks are the ones shoveling down his couture cuisine, and he's now getting the business end of a few fish forks while he tries to backpedal his way out of his latest food flub. A grand conciliatory gesture, such as doing commercials for Fazoli's or....posing au natural, would keep him in orange Crocs. Bourdain is still winning the popularity contest no matter what comes out of his mouth, so if Batali wants to make it to the top of the chef PR-pile, showing off his expensive truffles might endear him to more than the 1%.
