There's a reason everyone is told not to play with their food.

Paula Deen had to teach someone the hard way.

The Food Network star was in Atlanta helping Hosea Feed the Hungry & Homeless load donations for Thanksgiving from Smithfield Foods into trucks.

Some guy tried to be clever and tossed a giant ham at the 62-year-old chef without saying "catch!" or "fore!" or "duck!" Not cool. Deen was smacked in the head by the hefty ham.

"[The ham] hit me full long in the face and 'bout knocked me cuckoo, but I'm fine," she told local television station WXIA.

"[Paula was] startled at first, but quickly regained focus and kept her humor," the foodie's rep told Us Weekly. "She's OK now and is icing her face."

Just don't ask her if her face hurts—that joke is for the birds.

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Paula Deen is in talks to do a chat show. Do you rememember who one of her cohosts might be?

If you can't take the heat, get out of Martha Stewart's kitchen. That means you, Rachael Ray.

While it was just a week ago that the dueling domestic divas made nice by making their first joint appearances on their respective daytime chatfests, apparently a few days are all Stewart needed to make up her mind about Ray's culinary prowess. Or lack thereof.

In an interview set to air tonight on Nightline, the high priestess of homemaking shuts down any would-be comparisons with her long-rumored younger rival.

"Well, to me, she professed that she could—cannot bake," the ice queen begins. "She just did a new cookbook, which is just a re-edit of a lot of her old recipes. And that's not good enough for me.

"Rachael is different," Stewart goes on. "She is more of an entertainer…with her bubbly personality, than she is teacher, like me. That's not what she's professing to be."

And lest there be any confusion, that's not a good thing. That sound you hear? That's the sound of it being on.

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First, she admits to cutting herself, now she's making criminals of meat-eaters. Make no mistake, Natalie Portman is all grown up and not some shrinking violet.

Penning what amounts to a Harvard-caliber book report for the Huffington Post, the actress and animal rights activist holds forth on her devotion to veganism and her opinion that those who choose to feast on flesh without regard for the moral implications might as well change their name to Roman Polanski.

The 28-year-old—with whose glowing self veganism clearly agrees—starts off harmlessly enough, crediting Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals with her transition from 20 years of vegetarianism to eschewing all animal byproducts.

"I've always been shy about being critical of others' choices because I hate when people do that to me," she writes. "I'm often interrogated about being vegetarian (e.g., 'What if you find out that carrots feel pain, too? Then what'll you eat?').

"I've also been afraid to feel as if I know better than someone else—a historically dangerous stance (I'm often reminded that 'Hitler was a vegetarian, too, you know.') But this book reminded me that some things are just wrong."

That's where the criminalization of carnivores comes in.

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Turns out there was still room in the mashed-veggies market for Jessica Seinfeld.

A judge on Thursday threw out a lawsuit brought by the author of a for-kids cookbook who accused Jerry's wife of ripping off her handy-dandy ideas for getting young ones to eat their vegetables and other oft-rejected healthy stuff.

Saying that the two books, Jessica's Deceptively Delicious: Secrets To Getting Your Kids Eating Good Food and plaintiff Missy Chase Lapine's The Sneaky Chef: Simple Strategies for Hiding Healthy Foods in Kids's Favorite Meals, are "very different," U.S. District Court Judge Laura Swain ruled that Lapine had neither a trademark nor copyright-infringement case against the Seinfelds.

Most notably, Jessica Seinfeld's book is "bright and cheerful, full of different colors and various patterns," while Lapine's is "a dry, rather text-heavy work."

Swain opted not to decide whether Jerry Seinfeld is reliably hilarious or actually malicious, saying Lapine's defamation complaint against the comedian over jokes he made about her on The Late Show With David Letterman is a matter for a state court to decide.

Despite that bit of uncertainty, all of the above sounds pretty appetizing to the Seinfelds so far.

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Move over, Atkins. Step aside, Master Cleanse. We are proud to present the Michael Jackson diet.

Just when you thought you knew everything there was to know about the months leading up to the King of Pop's death, out pops former Jackson nutritionist Cherilyn Lee—who, luckily for us, never met a camera she didn't like—to shed some light on the question that's really plaguing the minds of the music legend's fans: Forget the toxicology report. Forget the multiple home raids. What, oh what, did M.J. like to eat?

Take it away, Lee.

"He loved trail mix," she told E! News. "And once a month he had to have fried chicken."

The odd smattering of snack and junk food aside, Lee said Jackson generally subsisted on more or less a liquid, juice-based diet. Or at least he did up until she parted ways with the singer in April, at which point he apparently moved on to more substantial fare.

Like granola.

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It's GOOP day!

Typically Gwyneth Paltrow likes to use her weekly lifestyle newsletter for evil. Like bizarre name-dropping (remember William Joel?) or meaningful quote fails ("A long-term relationship between two people is an ever evolving organism. Some stay the course, some fall, all stumble.") Or to inform us about her bowel movements.

But this week, Gwynnie treats us to our first video GOOP and she actually does some good (and you heard right, GOOP TV is finally here. Rejoice?)...

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The winner of season six of the popular reality cooking series, Hell's Kitchen, will be awarded the Head Chef position at Araxi in Whistler, British Columbia.

Hosted by Chef Gordon Ramsay, who is known for his well-seasoned temper, this is the first time a Hell's Kitchen winner will be set-up in an existing restaurant, and one in Canada to boot!

"I think in the end the choice came up because of the Olympics," said Araxi's Executive Chef James Walt. "I think they wanted to put something through with an Olympic theme so when they came to the Sea to Sky Corridor they thought okay, Araxi is the place."

Located in scenic Whistler, BC the show should shine a welcoming spotlight on the region, which is not only co-host to the 2010 Winter Games, but is also becoming a thriving culinary hot spot.

"Obviously it's a ski town but we have a really good food scene here as well," noted Walt. "We have a hundred restaurants and—Araxi in particular—we draw 70% of our produce from the Pemberton Valley, which is just behind us."

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