Steve-O flips pizza with Nanci Alexander at her restaurant, Sublime, in south Florida.

 
In honor of Culinarians Day, we've whipped up a list of some of our favorite vegan celebrity chefs, chefs who cook for celebrities, and cruelty-free restaurants where you might just catch celebrities chowing down. Tasty! Check it out:

• Tal Ronnen: A graduate of New York City's Natural Gourmet Institute, Ronnen was Oprah's chef when she embarked on Kathy Freston's 21-day vegan cleanse. His classic French technique is highlighted in his book, The Conscious Cook, which is a must for anyone who wants to impress dinner guests with gourmet fare such as succulent "chicken" scaloppini.
• VegiTerranean: There's no pretending that Chrissie Hynde's rockin' restaurant in Akron, Ohio, won't blow you away with robust vegan dishes such as Chick'n Fried Portobello Steak or Mango BBQ Pizza.
• Alicia Silverstone: We'd be clueless not to mention the sultry star who penned The Kind Diet. Alicia also stars in one of PETA's sexiest public service announcements ever.
• Sublime: Nanci Alexander has been serving up brick-oven pizzas and European fare such as Penne Puttanesca and Quiche Lorraine to the likes of Pamela Anderson, Ami James, and Steve-O. Can't get to the Fort Lauderdale, Florida, restaurant? Pick up a copy of The Sublime Restaurant Cookbook, and you'll be impressing your friends with sophisticated Mushroom Ceviche and luscious Coconut Cake in no time.
• Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin: Coming out of the modeling industry, the authors of the Skinny Bitch series, which has been endorsed by Victoria Beckham and other celebrities, have taken the country by storm. If you haven't yet jumped on the bandwagon, don't fret—you can find the latest installment of the series in the PETA Catalog.

One lucky reader can win the Skinny Bitch Ultimate Everyday Cookbook. For a chance to win, just leave a comment telling us who your favorite vegan celebrity is.*

 
Written by Colleen Twombly-Borst

The following is a guest post from peta2's Ryan.

Rory Freedman

Best-selling author Rory Freedman has already spared millions of animals from unnecessary deaths in slaughterhouses simply by promoting a healthy and cruelty-free vegan diet in her iconic book Skinny Bitch. But now she's taking her compassion to the next level!

You see, rather than buying her mom another meaningless foot massager or something this Mother's Day, Rory has offered to donate $5,000 to peta2 in her mom's honor—but only if you follow her example!

Here's how it works: Rory is going to match donors like you dollar-for-dollar, up to $5,000 total. So, for example, if you donate $20 to peta2, she will also donate $20 to double the impact! As Rory said in an e-mail to peta2, "Show your mom who you are and how well she raised you—that you know what is really important."

Thanks to Rory, your donations—no matter what the amount—will go twice as far to help us raise awareness and combat cruelty to animals raised for food, clothing, experimentation, and other industries.

Your support helps us win countless victories. From convincing top retailers such as J. Crew and Urban Outfitters to go fur-free to pushing for the first-ever felony charges of cruelty to factory-farmed birds, peta2 is changing how the world treats animals, but we can't do it alone!

Take Rory's challenge and have your donation doubled!

Written by Ryan Huling

Watching The View / CC

When a cow named Molly escaped from a New York City slaughterhouse on Wednesday, she managed to get a mile away before she was corralled and brought to Animal Care and Control to await her fate—but don't worry! Fate was smiling on Molly. The lucky lady, whom some feared might be sent back to the slaughterhouse, has instead been sent to a farm sanctuary on Long Island, where she will be able to live out the rest of her days in peace.

Inspiring, no? Of course, we already know just how amazing animals are, but thanks to Molly, even more people are making that discovery—including none other than Barbara Walters! On The View Thursday morning, Barbara said that Molly's adventure has inspired her to lean even more toward a vegetarian diet—and that she'd be bringing her own veggie burgers to the next White House dinner.

This is, of course, awesome—although I do hope that the White House will be able to offer up something a little fancier! Hmm…maybe it's time to hook them up with our Fine Faux Foie Gras challenge…

Written by Amanda Schinke

wannaveg / CC

With swine flu now in at least 22 countries and the World Health Organization announcing that you may be able to get sick from eating pork from infected animals, pigs appear to be on people's minds 24/7. Here are some facts about pigs that you might not catch on the nightly news:

1. Pigs snuggle close to one another and prefer to sleep nose to nose. They dream, much as humans do. In their natural surroundings, pigs spend hours playing, sunbathing, and exploring. People who run animal sanctuaries for farmed animals often report that pigs, like humans, enjoy listening to music, playing with soccer balls, and getting massages.
2. Pigs communicate constantly with one another; more than 20 vocalizations have been identified that pigs use in different situations, from wooing mates to saying, "I'm hungry!"
3. Newborn piglets learn to run to their mothers' voices and to recognize their own names. Mother pigs sing to their young while nursing.
4. According to Professor Donald Broom of the Cambridge University Veterinary School, "[Pigs] have the cognitive ability to be quite sophisticated. Even more so than dogs and certainly [more so than human] 3-year-olds."
5. Pigs appear to have a good sense of direction and have found their way home over great distances. Adult pigs can run at speeds of up to 11 miles an hour.
6. Professor Stanley Curtis of Penn State University has found that pigs can play joystick-controlled video games and are "capable of abstract representation." Dr. Curtis believes that "there is much more going on in terms of thinking and observing by these pigs than we would ever have guessed."
7. Pigs do not "eat like pigs" or "pig out." They prefer to eat slowly and savor their food.
8. Suzanne Held, who studies the cognitive abilities of farmed animals at the University of Bristol's Centre of Behavioural Biology, says that pigs are "really good at remembering where food is located, because in their natural environment food is patchily distributed and it pays to revisit profitable food patches."
9. Pigs are clean animals. If given sufficient space, they will be careful not to soil the area where they sleep or eat. Pigs don't "sweat like pigs"; they are actually unable to sweat. They like to bathe in water or mud to keep cool, and they actually prefer water to mud. One woman developed a shower for her pigs, and they learned to turn it on and off by themselves.
10. In his book The Whole Hog, biologist and Johannesburg Zoo director Lyall Watson writes, "I know of no other animals [who] are more consistently curious, more willing to explore new experiences, more ready to meet the world with open mouthed enthusiasm. Pigs, I have discovered, are incurable optimists and get a big kick out of just being."

These are just a few of the many reasons not to eat pigs. Click here to learn more about pigs.

Written by Heather Moore