These are some new photos of Jessica Simpson out with Eric Johnson last night. They were in LA to celebrate Papa Joe’s birthday. I still think Jessica is a really cute pregnant girl, and I like her maternity styles thus far – she looks really comfortable for the most part, and even though these are still photos, I can feel her waddle. Can’t you?

As for how Jessica is carrying and how she’s due in the Spring (!!) and how big she already is… you know this isn’t a pillow pregnancy, right? This girl is EATING. Jessica recently discussed her pregnancy cravings:

Jessica Simpson’s tastes are quite different now that she’s eating for two.

“I had a buttered Pop Tart this morning,” the pregnant 31-year-old tells Extra. “I’m eating a lot of stuff that I ate in my childhood. Kraft Mac n’ Cheese, Pop Tarts, Cap’n Crunch. Everything’s filled with sugar.”

The Fashion Star mentor adds that she isn’t afraid to “give in to my cravings. “I’m like, ‘Yeah, I can do it. We’ll worry about the rest afterwards.’”

Luckily, Simpson hasn’t experienced any morning sickness. “Everybody comes up to me and asks me, ‘How’s the nausea?’ and I’m like, ‘I don’t have any!’” the singer says, though she’s “definitely eating a lot of Tums — I have the reflux and acid going on.”

Due later this year, Simpson says she and fiance Eric Johnson, 32, still don’t know the sex of their baby. “I feel like it’s already going to be a shock. Like, ‘Whoa! I just pushed that out!’ You know?”

The couple has some names that they’re “throwing around” but Simpson says they’re keeping them “on the down low” for now.

[From Us Weekly]

LOL at “Whoa! I just pushed that out!” Jessica is so funny. Even when she’s not trying to be. As for Jessica’s sugar-filled pregnancy – well, I’m not going to judge her. If her doctors say she’s fine, good for her. As for baby names, I’m guessing Jessica will go more traditional, don’t you? She’ll go biblical for a boy, like Noah or Peter or something. Something flowery for a girl, I think.

Also – Jessica tweeted the photo below with a message about a bachelorette party. THIS is what Jess wears to bachelorette parties.

Photos courtesy of Fame, WENN & Jessica’s Twitter.

Alanis Morissette has penned a very long essay for iVillage on food and body image. Alanis looks great and just had a baby less than a year ago, but she’s not super tiny like so many other celebrities and she seems to be feeling the pressure. Alanis’ essay was long and I can’t really do it justice even in this extended excerpt. If you have time you can read it here.

Alanis, 37, lost over 20 pounds in 2009 by following a vegan diet and running. She said at the time that she lost weight by “eating like an adult rather than like a 7-year-old at a candy store.” She had her first baby, son Ever, in December of last year. Here’s some of what she wrote about weight and our culture’s obsession with it. It comes across as preachy and in need of editing but I get what she’s saying.

Not much upsets me quite like someone making a declarative and derogatory comment about someone’s weight when they themselves have never struggled with an eating disorder.

To so offhandedly and dismissively reduce someone’s challenging journey to a quip about them needing to eat less hamburgers — or even the opposite, that they “should eat a sandwich” — completely overlooks the deeper and subtler complexities at hand (or at heart and mouth in this case). At the very least it ignores the epidemic that is a society obsessed with a rail-thin aesthetic, where once achieved, derides that very same goal as being sickly and dangerous. What’s a well-meaning perfectionistic girl to do?

If ever there were a double-edged butter knife, this would be it. We of the Hollywood standard-affected variety (read: sadly, the world) work tooth, nail and treadmill to adhere to this number (measuring tape, scale and otherwise) that hovers directly below any that would allow for a cupcake here and there, and when we do, we confusingly elicit either concerned looks of admonishment or compliments on “how fantastic we look.” I remember being at my most thin one day, feeling like I could barely drag my lethargic body around, only to be met with the most compliments I had ever received.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that America is derided for its obesity levels, while also being a country that is obsessed with skinniness. This all-or-nothing approach is endemic to our Western society. Equally, and perhaps more abrasively, when someone inside the struggle with food tips the scales high above the average Hollywood red-carpet star, comments are thrown out about how indulgent and undisciplined they are.

There’s one thing I know from the inside, and it’s that you will never meet a more willful, disciplined, motivated and nutrient-well-read person than someone who is in the throes of disordered eating! The idea that people with food addictions are undisciplined is yet another gross misperception among many. You will rarely meet someone who has a higher capacity for restraint than someone who is struggling with the pain or fear that symptomatically affects weight.

To derisively discuss fat without discussing our feelings and traumas and our sense of disconnection from our souls, ourselves, and each other, is focusing on the effect and not the cause. This oversight perpetuates the self-abuse that fuels this and many other disorders and addictions.

The relationship to food cannot singularly be addressed through a steely structure-by-diets-and-food-plans alone, or a slap on the wrist. Our addressing why we might turn to food beyond sustenance reasons is part of the multi-layered aspects of being human….

See, my fraught relationship with food and fat has always been a cloaked invitation into a more profound kindness to myself (one I have so often ignored). Being kind toward my fragility in the face of a monolithic message of perfectionism and intolerance has not been an easy path — nor, I’m ashamed to say, a consistent one. Writing about it helps.

Fat, unlike other more secretive disorders and addictions, is expressed and exposed on the outside for all to see. That being what it is, we’d do well to see “unwanted weight” as that-which-has-yet-to-be-investigated, rather than as a stamp of our confirmed inadequacies.

So for the love of being part of this larger conversation around addressing the pop-culture-sanctioned-fatism, next time we see someone who is yo-yo dieting and has a tortured relationship with food and their body, rather than make fun of them, I beseech us all to pause and offer a little curiosity for what lurks underneath, and, if appropriate, maybe even move toward it.

Maybe this kindness can slowly make those of us in the heavier-than-Twiggy group feel less alone, less relegated, less abandoned. And perhaps then we can, ever so gently, start to accept (and even love) these deeper and more fragile parts in ourselves that are being repressed and expressed through our bodies and food. And in so doing, deliver us back to the wholeness, essential unique expression, and weight we were born to be.

[From iVillage]

The nature of gossip is to make offhand remarks about people and not think too deeply about it, but I can relate to what she’s saying. I do pay close attention to my weight, and I beat myself up over minor weight gain and feel guilty for small pleasures that I should totally enjoy. This is something that I’ve seen even my skinniest friends do. People who I would assume wouldn’t worry about their weight at all say that they think about it and that they shouldn’t have had that ice cream the other night.

I guess what I’m saying is that what Alanis is talking about here is almost universal, and it sounds like she’s trying to convince herself as much as the rest of us. Loving yourself at any weight can be a bitch, and as elusive as a lower number on the scale can be, self acceptance is even harder to find. So a lot of us do point out other people’s flaws. At the heart of it we’re even more focused on our own.

Maybe she would feel better if she wore cuter clothes though? I’m just saying. She’s hot but this dress isn’t doing her any favors. I probably just proved her point.

Some days, Gwyneth Paltrow just makes me sad. She’s just so, so concerned with proving to absolutely everyone that she’s the best, most superior elitist out there, I feel like she misses out on, you know, just BEING. Just existing in the world, having fun, laughing a little. I feel like she’s always on guard, always assessing the room, always making sure that she’s not too close to the peasants, always trying, constantly TRYING to ensure that she is the absolute coolest, the best, the most special. So here’s what is making me sad today – Gwyneth was doing promotion for her book in London, and she explained her prioritization of the right kind of food:

HOLLYWOOD super chef Gwyneth Paltrow shocked viewers by telling Jonathan Ross: “I’d rather smoke crack than eat cheese from a can” on stage this week.

The foodie, 38, was chatting about her cookbook at the Roundhouse Studios for the iTunes festival on Tuesday when she revealed she’s banned her kids from McDonald’s.

“I take them to Pizza Express because I think that’s much healthier,” she said. “Don’t tell them there are toys!”

Sidestepping questions about her hubby, Coldplay’s Chris Martin, Gwynnie, who says she can “eat any man under a table”, revealed plans to start a channel of cookery programmes on an iPhone app – but you might wanna buy some plonk before giving her recipes a go.

“I drink constantly while I’m cooking,” she says. “Wine, either colour.”

[From The Mirror]

Now, I don’t eat cheese from a can either, but I don’t sniff the air haughtily and declare that smoking crack would be a better option. You give me a choice between chicken McNuggets and a crackpipe, I’ll choose the nuggets every time, so I also don’t see that big of a difference between greasy pizza and greasy McDonalds. But hey, I’m not a Goop-level snob (yet). Just for fun, let’s make a “I Would Rather Smoke Crack Than…” list:

I Would Rather Smoke Crack Than…

1. Be friends with Goop.
2. Be married to Goop.
3. Be forced into some kind of hostage situation where Goop and I were meant to bond.
4. Listen to Goop rap NWA songs.
5. Be told how fat and peasant-y I am by Goop.
6. Share a bottle of wine with Goop.
7. Go on a juice fast that Goop recommended.
8. Work in any capacity for or with Goop.
9. Get into some kind of eating competition with Goop.
10. Be forced to spend any amount of time with Goop while my smacking hand was somehow restrained.

By the way, last year, during an interview, Gwyneth revealed that her daughter Apple had no idea what soda was. I thought this was odd, and I said so, and everyone yelled at me (which is fine). But I still think it’s weird that a kid, aged 5 or 6, wouldn’t even KNOW what soda is. If you don’t want to give your kids soda, more power to you and God bless, but to those of you who refuse to let your kids drink soda: your kids KNOW what soda is, right?

More often than not, when Gwyneth is talking about food and how she’s raising her kids, while I understand that she’s trying to pass on a legacy of healthy eating, it just feels like Gwyneth is actually passing on her food/diet/workout issues (and trust me, the bitch has issues). What’s going to happen when Apple develops some puberty puppy fat? Will Gwyneth tell her “You’re fat. What’s happening to you? I love you, get it together.” What happens when Moses wants a Coke and some crackers with canned cheese for his after-school snack? Will there be a meltdown of Goop-proportions? Also: will Gwyneth encourage her kids to do juice fasts and fad diets, like she’s recommended to her Goop-readers? Will Apple’s memoir be titled “I Ate Canned Cheese, and I Liked It”? Or “My Mother Was Too Drunk To Make The Pizzas: How I Got These Burns From Our Outdoor Oven”?

Photos courtesy of Fame & WENN.

Yesterday, various sites had photos of Vanessa Hudgens at Coachella, licking a mysterious white substance off of her fingers. From the photos (you can see them here, we don’t have access to them), you can tell that Vanessa takes out a baggie of something white (and gooey?), dips her finger in the substance and licks/sucks it off. Everyone was like, “ZOMG cocaine paste!!” Does cocaine come in paste form? I don’t know. It did look kind of sketchy, and for a brief, shining moment, everybody cared about Vanessa Hudgens and what she was putting in her mouth.

That moment is over. Vanessa’s rep tells E! News that it was just white chocolate:

Vanessa Hudgens probably had a pretty great time partying this weekend—but not because she was partying too hard!

The Sucker Punch star, who hasn’t always had the best luck when it comes to photos being posted online, was snapped relaxing on the grass at the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival, where at one point she reached into a little bag and then leaned forward to lick a white substance off her fingers.

Busted? Hardly.

Hudgens’ rep assures E! News that the gooey (the weather was indeed hot in the desert over the weekend) substance was just white chocolate.

[From E! News]

For some reason, the idea of licking melted, gooey white chocolate off of one’s fingers in the middle of a music festival is totally grosser than licking cocaine paste. I like white chocolate too – but I’ve never been “Oh nom nom nom” on melted white chocolate out in public. But then again, I wasn’t there, and I wasn’t stoned out of my mind (like Vanessa).

By the way, if I had to guess, I would say that Vanessa just smokes the reefer. I’m not seeing crazy coke eyes, she just seems kind of baked.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

This story has the stench of bullcrap, but let’s play along. British sites began pushing these alleged quotes from Angelina Jolie a few days ago, and they’re making my eye twitch. Angelina “recently told reporters” that she used to be a vegan…? When, exactly? Way back in the 1990s when she was still doing drugs? That’s not really being a vegan, Angelina, that’s having an drug-related eating disorder. Of course she wasn’t eating meat or dairy – she wasn’t eating ANYTHING. Anyway, the quotes are all about how she used to be vegan and now she loves some meat:

Angelina Jolie, who recently came under fire for looking scary-skinny at the Berlin premiere of Salt, says her diet and beauty secret is red meat.

“I joke that a big, juicy steak is my beauty secret,” Jolie, 35, recently told reporters. “But seriously, I love red meat. I was a vegan for a long time, and it nearly killed me. I found I was not getting enough nutrition.”

Meanwhile, partner Brad Pitt is allegedly unhappy with Angelina’s meat addiction, and prefers their children eat a vegetarian diet.

“Brad hates seeing the children eating meat and he’s annoyed with how much red meat Angelina has,” a source told a British tabloid in 2009.

Ironically, Angelina followed a high-carb, low-protein diet and ate 5-6 small meals every day while training for Salt, for which she did many of her own stunts.

A sequel is reportedly in the works, for which Jolie is again expected to train three hours a day learning the martial arts Muay Thai and Krav Maga.

“I love doing action,” Jolie gushes. “I love to punch things, jump off things and shoot, so I’m lucky I got the job.”

To date, Salt has grossed $217.6 million since its July 23 U.S. release. Meanwhile, the Oscar winner is set to direct, producer and write a love story set during the Bosnian War.

“The film focuses on a Serbian man and a Bosnian woman who meet on the eve of the war and the effect the war has on their relationship,” says a rep.

Jolie wrote the screenplay for the movie, which will star local actors of various ethnicities from the region of the former Yugoslavia.

[From The Improper]

The whole “Brad is a vegetarian” angle was already dismissed last year when that particular story came out – Brad has at times cut meat out of his diet, but he and Angelina are both very happily meat-eaters at this time. I love a good steak too (in moderation!), so I have nothing to say about this story other than I seriously doubt Angelina was ever a vegan.

Angelina Jolie on August 17, 2010 and August 27, 2010. Credit: Fame.

This week’s Goop newsletter is another how-to recipe, Goop-style. Previously, Gwyneth Paltrow has showed us (in videos) how to debone a whole chicken, as well as some Asian Goop. Today’s cooking lesson is shrimp tacos. “Baja Style Shrimp Tacos” to be specific.

It is possible to make a quick and easy dinner for the family that everyone loves. Make it your own; set up all the parts separately and then explore variations on a theme. The kids can eat black bean and brown rice tacos with guacamole and pico de gallo without hot chili. The grownups can have grilled shrimp, hot sauce…
Love, gp

[From Goop]

If you’re a reader, the recipe and explanation is here. But there’s a video! And since I don’t really have a problem with Gwyneth making videos of herself cooking sh-t, I’m just going to do a beat-by-beat analysis, just for fun!

0:01 – I love how budget this whole thing, but I also love that Gwyneth has music playing over her cooking video. It’s very jazzy and kind of cute.

0:03 – Oh, she’s throwing an avocado up in the air and catching it! The laws of gravity apply even to the Goop.

0:30 – She knows her way around a kitchen, I’ll give her credit for that.

0:41 – “Donesville”! She’s such a cheeseball.

1:05 – She’s good with a knife too. I like how easily she scored the avocado, you can tell it’s been a long time since she accidentally cut herself.

1:20 – Ha! “If you have serious guacamole fiends… you might want to up the avocado.” And then she laughs at her own avocado joke.

1:40 – The dishtowel just appeared on her shoulder – that’s probably significant. The dishtowel was probably sent to her from her “very special friend” Paul “Dishtowel” McCartney.

1:48 – Her manicure is gorgeous. She has lovely hands. Oh, her wedding band! Sparkly.

2:06 – If she wants to cut an onion like a real pro, I’ve seen professional chefs use their knuckle to hold the onion, rather than the fingertips.

2:11 – Oh, I just noticed she’s wearing her Kabbalah string too. Shalom, Goopy.

2:23 – Wait, are the shrimp de-veined? Goopy eats shrimp poop.

2: 40 – “Yum-yum.” God, she really is a dork. It makes me like her a little.

3:21 – Goopy pontificating on grape tomatoes is kind of awesome.

3:41 – Gwyneth just gave the grape tomatoes a Goopy snarl. I think she’s pissed that cutting them is taking so long. Grape tomatoes = peasants.

3:54 – Damn, she’s using a lot of Cilantro. It really isn’t that awesome an herb, Goop.

4:15 – Did she take the seeds out of chili before she chopped it up? Damn, Goop likes it spicy.

4:43 – Oh, the shrimp look de-veined. She probably bought them that way. Dame Goopy will not touch shrimp poopy.

4:56 – She needs to stir the beans.

5:15 – Oh, now she’s “from California” huh? I thought she always got on her high horse about being “from New York”.

5:45 – “Delish.” Dork.

6:13 – “Schmear.” Once again, shalom, Goopy.

The end – so, every person gets five shrimp? That’s a pretty good deal. But although the shrimp did look de-veined, they still had their tails, right? Ugh.

I’ve been really bored with Gwyneth Paltrow’s last few Goop newsletters, but this week’s is pretty good. She goops all over Nashville and she actually writes about all of it! You know, instead of handing it off to one of her “friends”. She calls living and working in Nashville an “incredible experience” and claims that she’s “never met such warm people, heard such good music, eaten so much fried chicken.” She also thinks Nashville is “kind of smack dab in the middle (well, not really, but almost).” Not really, Goopy. Here’s the full Goop newsletter, and here’s People summary:

Has Gwyneth Paltrow gone country?

The big-city-loving actress, who usually resides in London and New York City, recently spent several months in Nashville, Tenn., filming Love Don’t Let Me Down – and apparently fell in love with the country music hub. In her latest Goop newsletter, she wrote: “Never have I met such warm people, heard such good music, eaten so much fried chicken. I could go on and on.”

And she does go on and on with recommendations about her favorite Nashville restaurants, nightclubs and hotels. Among them: the iconic Grand Ole Opry, honky-tonk Robert’s Western World and Swett’s. The down-home, meat-and-three restaurant was recommended by country crooner Tim McGraw, Paltrow’s costar and husband of Faith Hill, with whom Paltrow has palled around in Nashville.

The city’s Southern-style cuisine has made quite the impression on Paltrow, too. Known for promoting a strict diet and regular detoxes to quickly shed pounds, she might be ruffling the feathers of her nutritionist with a newfound passion for poultry – not the grilled kind – and other local culinary staples.

“The fried chicken here is superb … crunchy and not oily on the outside and juicy on the inside,” she writes about Swett’s. At the Loveless Café, “their food is delicious, a traditional southern heart attack.”

And about the Whiskey Kitchen, Paltrow raves: “the sweet potato fries are delicious, the fried chicken sliders do the trick, the biscuits are the best I sampled in the city of Nashville, and the oysters on the half shell come with a shot of Bloody Mary. What more could you ask for?” Perhaps one of those detoxes once she returns to big-city life?

[From People]

Oh, yes. After eating all of that fried chicken and good ol’ Southern food, you know Goopy is going to be constipated. And she’s going to have to go on a massive detox bender, probably involving a month’s worth of coconut-grape-prune-strawberry juice (blessed by rose petals) and some kind of rabbi. But I’ll say this – don’t all of those rumors about her “piling on the pounds” make sense now? She’s down South, eating her heart out. Bless her. Southern Goop is my kind of snotty.

God, I love Paula Deen. I love her and I love her butter. This is a CNN video of Paula Deen donating a truck full of Smithfield hams to a homeless food bank in Georgia, I think. While she and some people are unloading the hams, they start playing around and Paula throws the first ham. I’m not quite sure what happened next in the mind of this douchey guy, but he chucks the ham right back to Paula when she wasn’t paying attention. And she ended up catching the ham. If by “catching” you mean “a rogue ham smashed her pretty face”.

My favorite part of this video and post-ham analysis? Paula’s quote: “It just got hit with a hog, so what can I expect? Ran head-on to a hog.” I love her! Anyway, her face is fine… she’s icing it and her rep released a statement saying she’s fine:

Celeb chef Paula Deen got quite a scare Monday morning when she was smacked in the face with a piece of ham at a charity event in Atlanta.

Deen, 62, was helping unload a truck load of hams at Hosea Feed the Hungry & Homeless to make a Thanksgiving donation on behalf of Smithfield Foods when someone playfully threw a ham.

It missed the storage bucket and ended up hitting the Food Network star on the head and nose, her rep tells Usmagazine.com.

Deen was “startled at first, but quickly regained focus and kept her humor,” says her rep.

Adds the rep, “She’s okay now and is icing her face.”

Deen later laughed off the mishap, telling local station WXIA-TV that the ham “hit me full long in the face and ’bout knocked me cuckoo, but I’m fine.”

[From Us Weekly]

The only thing that would make this video and interview any better is if Paula mentioned anything about “oil”. I love the way she pronounces “oil”. She says it like it’s one syllable – ol’. As in “You’re going to need a pan of ol’ to fry that chicken.” I’m Southern and I don’t even do that! That’s a big-time Southern accent.

But I am glad she’s okay. Our thoughts and prayers are with you, Paula!

Paula Deen in New York on April 15, 2008. Credit: WENN.

Kim Kardashian is the new face of Carl Jr.’s salad line. Carl Jr.’s has famously hired the dumbest, most ridiculous celebu-holes to represent their brand, notably Paris Hilton and Audrina Patridge and Audrina’s fake rack. Now Carl Jr.’s is going with a rack I personally believe is natural, no maybe that’s a step up. They’ve hired Kim to promote their new line of “healthy” salads. Judging from the salad in the picture, I’m not sure how healthy it is. Is it still considered a salad if there’s a pound of bacon on it? Anyway, note Kim’s breasts. It’s like they’re saying “We’re hungry for Romaine! Must. Motorboat. Bacon.”

Following in the footsteps of such other eye-candy food pitchwomen as Paris Hilton, Padma Lakshmi and Audrina Patridge now Kim Kardashian is taking her salad to bed in a sexy new spot promoting Carl’s Jr. Premium Salads. Suddenly, salads are hot.

“I’m always down for a burger, I love them and I eat them,” says Kardashian, 28. “But this is the first commercial they’ve ever done for anything but a burger. The salads are healthy, and it totally fits what I’m about right now.”

“The commercials are iconic. You’ll never forget Paris washing that car! So I just wanted to make mine as hot and sultry as all of theirs.”

The reality star got into making the spot her own. “I told them about my life and how I’m such a neat freak, but I love to have bed picnics – I put out my towel and eat in bed, and then when it gets all messy I take a hot bubble bath after to wash it off. You’ll see that sexy wow factor in this one.”

The now notoriously healthy eater still indulges in a little red meat now and again, but it is childhood Carl’s Jr. memories that she still holds dear to her heart. “When Kourtney went to school in Arizona we drove out there for the first time and stopped and of course got burgers,” she recalls.

“And driving to Las Vegas, my dad would take the family and we’d stay at Circus Circus and we always stopped at Carl’s Jr,” she says. “I remember this food fight my sisters and I all had in the back of the van – it was so funny. We got in so much trouble!”

The spot was directed by Chirs Applebaum, who memorably brought a babe and a burger together in a 2005 ad starring Hilton and whose other work includes Rihanna’s Umbrella video.

[From People]

I f-cking love that Kim is so hellbent on promoting this gig she even has to give her own little personal story of Carl’s Jr. Like, the story is really going to sell more salads, right?

Anyhoodle, Kim, Kourtney (the pregnant one) and Khloe (the fake married one) are all on the cover of Life & Style this week. It’s all about Kourtney’s baby shower, yadda, yadda, yadda. I swear to God, these bitches can talk your ear off.

Kourtney, Kim and Khloé speak only to LIFE & STYLE about what caused the family’s big fight with Scott, the father of Kourtney’s baby–and how they all finally came together.

Standing in her mother’s backyard, surrounded by a sea of blue balloons, blue cake and blue cotton candy, Kourtney Kardashian, looking stunning in a Diane von Furstenberg dress and Movado jewels, greeted guests as they arrived at her glamorous baby shower in LA on Nov. 14. Kourtney spent the afternoon enjoying bite-size burgers and mini pizzas from LA restaurant Chinois and dessert, flown in for the event from New York City’s BCake NY with 84 of her closest female family and friends. And making a surprise appearance was Scott Disick, Kourtney’s boyfriend and the father of the baby, who was greeted like family by the entire Kardashian clan!

But as anyone who follows E!’s Keeping Up With the Kardashians knows, Scott’s relationship with Kourtney’s family hasn’t always been so chummy. “We’re obsessed with one another,” Kourtney tells Life & Style. “If someone does something wrong to one of us, we’re all down their throats.”

“When Scott came back into our lives, it was like Kourtney was asking us to forgive and forget everything she’d said about him,” Kim explains. “We were really confused. We had to readjust our feelings about him, and sometimes we had a tough time with it.” Scott’s hard-partying behavior did little to ease their concerns. “I think he was just trying to have as much fun as possible before the baby came,” Kim tells Life & Style. “All he wanted to do was hang out with his friends. He needed to realize that Kourtney and the baby had to come first.”

“It was hard,” Kourtney admits. “There was so much negative energy. But this is the father of my baby — I needed everyone to just get over it.” In the end, Kourtney’s pleas for peace didn’t win over her family — Scott did. “He just started trying so much harder,” Khloé tells Life & Style. Case in point: “He put the crib together — no one asked him to,” Khloé says. “He’s not a manual labor kind of guy, but for him to put the crib and changing table together meant so much to Kourtney.” The transformation isn’t lost on Kourtney. The tension “was really intense for a few months,” she says. “But I feel like if that stuff hadn’t happened, things wouldn’t feel as good as they do today.”

[From Life & Style]

Oh my God, will they ever shut up? We get it, Scott is a douche, and he’s probably going to dump Kourtney for whatever piece will have him. But still, they forgive him and all is well. For now. Whenever I read an interview with these girls, I feel like it’s an instant lobotomy.

Carl’s Jr. ad courtesy of People Magazine. Life & Style cover courtesy of CoverAwards.

How much would you pay to see a cage fight between Martha Stewart and Rachel Ray? Like, all of our combined checking accounts, right? Because Martha would take that bitch down. Martha was interviewed for Nightline this week (it hasn’t been aired yet), and Martha dishes on her daytime chef/lifestyle queen competition. Martha sniffs that Rachel’s “new” cookbook is full of all of Rachel’s old recipes, and “that’s not good enough” for Martha. But Martha admits that Rachel isn’t doing any false advertising, claiming that Rachel is “more of an entertainer … with her bubbly personality, than she is a teacher, like me. That’s not what she’s professing to be.” Us Weekly got in touch with Rachel, and she’s smart enough not contradict the queen of all:

Martha Stewart says Rachael Ray can’t hold a candle to her in the kitchen.

In her first television interview since serving five months in prison in 2004 for lying to investigators about a well-timed stock trade, Stewart, 68, talks to ABC News’ Nightline about rebuilding her brand — and slams Ray, 41, one of her TV competitors.

“Well, to me, she professed that she could — cannot bake,” Stewart says of Ray in the interview, airing Thursday. “She — just did a new cookbook which is just a re-edit of a lot of her old recipes. She — and that’s not good enough for me.”

When it comes to writing a book, Stewart says she want to publish something that “is a unique and lasting thing. Something that will really fulfill a need in someone’s library.” Ray, she says, “is different.”

Stewart says Ray is “more of an entertainer … with her bubbly personality, than she is a teacher, like me. That’s not what she’s professing to be.”

Do Stewart’s remarks make Ray mad?

“Why would it make me mad?” Ray asks. “Her skill set is far beyond mine. That’s simply the reality of it.”

Ray adds that “that doesn’t mean that what I do isn’t important too… I don’t consider it needling. I really just think she’s being honest. She does have a better skill set than I do when it comes to producing a beautiful, perfect, high-quality meal.” Says Ray, “I’d rather eat Martha’s than mine, too.”

[From Us Weekly]

This is why Rachel Ray pisses me off. Rachel is basically admitting that her deal is doing everything half-assed, from lifestyle stuff to food. Which is fine – there are a lot of busy people out there, and not everyone has time to make Martha Stewart-quality food or crafts. But what I hate is the smaller point Martha is making – that Rachel is profiting (big time) from this half-assed sh-t. That Rachel is considered some kind of foodie, or that she’s even fit to be mentioned in the same breath as Martha pisses me off, but that Rachel is so successful at being this cheap, budget, half-assed version is asinine. Rachel should be ashamed of herself if she put out a “new” cookbook that had all of the old half-assed recipes as her other cookbooks. Disgusting. Team Martha forever.

Martha Stewart on November 5, 2009 (with her french bulldogs Sharkey and Francesca, I threw in a picture of the puppies). Header photo of Martha is her at a Halloween benefit gala, not doing anything half-assed, on October 30, 2009. Rachel Ray pictured on April 2, 2009. Credit for all: WENN.