All my friends and their children are wearing Crocs to the playground, Crocs to the birthday party, Crocs to the coffee shop. All my colleagues are raving about Crocs Inc. (NASDAQ: CROX) stock -- Georges Yared even says Crocs is the next Nike. But: Crocs are just ugly. I finally gave in to my husband's plea and bought colorful knockoffs for the garden (on the family plan no less), but still, I refuse to wear them around the neighborhood and the $30-$40 price tag for the real deal has me recoiling with sticker shock.

Deidre Woollard, my buddy at Styledash, agrees that she won't wear them outside the comfort of her own home, either, but admires Mario Batali for making orange Crocs look good. He's put his endorsement behind the launch of a new line of "Bistro" Crocs (selling at $39.95 apiece) and he certainly wears them, on the set, on the red carpet, on the town.

Will Mario's embracement of Crocs help me -- or you -- overcome their ugliness? I certainly am not rushing out to slap down my debit card for a pair (although I love the orange, actually), but every time I see someone like Mario actually using them I inch a little closer to a purchase. After all, my knockoffs are great for the pocketbook but they do give me blisters once I've been in the garden for a couple of hours... are they really that great?

I keep trying to decide if CROX is the "next Nike." But the thing is this: Nike Inc. (NYSE: NKE) has always been about design; form has always gone hand-in-hand with function and sometimes form trumps function (thus we have people running around in shoes designed for the basketball court, or hiking the stairs at high school in shoes designed for the trail). Nike is cool first and good second -- and Nike is good. I'll happily plunk down $80 for a pair I know will keep me from getting shin splints or instep cramps when I'm running a road race.

I'm not writing Crocs off yet, but it's going to take a bunch more notable indications of their comfort and utility to get me over the ugly hump. How about you?

They say there is no such thing as a free lunch, but now you can visit the opposite end of the spectrum, by treating yourself to a six-figure lunch courtesy of celebrity chef Mario Batali. The food wizard, together with mixologist (that's a fancy word for bartender) Tony Abou-Ganim and magician Billy Harris, have created the Magic, Martinis & Mario exclusive lunch offering, available to any group of corporate executives with a cool collective $100,000 to drop on a luncheon engagement.

With taste buds yearning for the rarest of caviar and the finest of wines, CNNMoney.com reporter Jessica Dickler was not able to learn what a $100,000 lunch tastes like, only what it might theoretically include. According to the three men, the hefty price tag could provide luncheon food, specially created drinks, and entertainment for as few as 10 or as many as 1,000, depending on the event (and the menu).

Batali, who runs 12 U.S. restaurants and appears regularly on the Food Network, says the noontime offering is "geared to a market where $100,000 isn't a lot of money." Apparently this market is a solid one, as an event coordinator projects that the three gentlemen could find a willing $100,000 audience at least once a month.

Beth Gaston Moon is an analyst at Schaeffer's Investment Research.