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Look at Your Life, Look at Your (Healthy) Choices: The Top Chef Texas recap

2012-01-26T12:56:00.000-08:00

This is my sad face

It’s so nice that now that Bev has left the show all the rest of the cheftestants sit around singing her praises and talking about how much she’ll be missed and reflecting on her pluck and her indomitable spirit and reminiscing about all the good times they shared with her.

Or, uh, not.

Luckily, we are saved from the bitchfest by some bonus Charlize Theron who does that falsely humble thing that celebrities do when they encounter the little people: “You’re all my idols,” she says.

(Yeah, I’m so sure that Charlize Theron has a picture of Chris Jones hanging up on her wall at home.)

So Charlize is gone and our Top Chef world is just a little sadder and drabber and shorter because of it.

But no time to cry over lost glamazons, it’s time for the Quickfire Challenge.

Padma is standing in the kitchen with Emeril and Cat Cora, which would also be a great name for a villainess in a Bond film, by the way.

She—Padma, that is—puts the cheftestants into 3 teams: Grayson and Chris Jones, Paul and Edward, and Sarah and Lindsay. Those teams are not arbitrary, by the way. Padma—and by extension the show—has selected these teams. I mention this because it will come into play later.

Paul, for what it’s worth, feels “sick” that he’s partnered with his pal Edward. Every time they are paired together, Paul screws things up. (Self, meet fulfilling prophecy.)

This is a variation on the classic mise en place challenge (and by classic, I mean a Top Chef classic; as far as I know the mise en place challenge is not sweeping family game rooms across the country.)

The teams have to peel and de-vein butterfly shrimp, make a pound of pasta, and shuck a whole mess of corn.

Then they have to make a dish using those ingredients.

Hall monitors Lindsay and Sarah naturally finish first.

Then Paul and Edward.

Then sweaty, freaked out Chris and Grayson bring up the rear.

No sooner has Padma yelled “time!” that Paul realizes he forgot to add the shrimp.

It’s not like he and Edward were running around like maniacs. Quite the contrary, they were taking the time to decorate their plate with ornamental herbs.

“I forgot the shrimp,” Paul says, in such a resigned, fatalistic way that I begin to wonder if he’s actually part Jewish. (Yes, I’m allowed to make that joke.)

So the judges taste and they do that same thing they did to poor Beverly last week: Suggest that Paul and Edward would’ve won if only their shrimp dish had shrimp.

“But nice ornamental herbs!” says Padma. (Not really.)

Instead, the winners are … Grayson and Chris!

Lindsay and Sarah respond in classic Lindsay and Sarah fashion.

“Our dish was better,” sniffs Sarah. “It’s just that Cat Cora doesn’t like tarragon.”

Time for the Elimination Challenge, where they’ll be cooking head-to-head against their partner.

Now, I imagine the show did this to pit friend against friend, figuring it would ramp up the drama.

But here’s why it backfires: Everyone is so sickeningly supportive and nice to each other, the whole challenge becomes a ginormous snoozefest.

(It doesn’t help that it’s a lame challenge to begin with—create a healthy dish for a block party to benefit the San Antonio food bank—that seems more intended to placate a show sponsor—Healthy Choice—than generate some actual culinary fireworks.) (Just sayin’)

Now, if they really wanted excitement, they should’ve pitted crazed perfectionists Lindsay and Edward against each other and pitted Paul’s quiet intensity against Sarah’s loud intensity. (By default, Chris Jones and Grayson would’ve stayed partners, but let’s face it, they’re kinda filler at this point anyway.)

To Whole Foods they go, where Grayson has the entire staff doing her bidding: One employee is trailing behind her with a giant cart of watermelon and the guys at the butcher counter are running around like madmen to fill her order on time. Whole Food is basically Grayson’s bitch.

Also, there’s lots of backseat cart driving going on:

Chris thinks Grayson is screwing up by using mayonnaise (he’s using emulsified tofu. . .yum! yum!).

Paul wonders about Edward’s use of actual shortrib (he’s using turkey).

And Sarah thinks that Lindsay’s veal and lamb meatball isn’t exactly the “Healthy Choice.” (See what I did there?) (Ugh.)

They have two and a half hours to cook and then the floodgates open.

For some reason, Chris’s station is being attacked by marauding gangs of yellow jackets, which is bad times, especially since he’s allergic. (True story, I got stung by two yellow jackets on the bottom of my foot last summer and I literally crumpled to the ground in pain. Crumpled.)

“What’s the less healthy version of your dish?” someone asks Paul.

“It’s over there,” Paul says, jerking his finger toward Edward’s station. Heh.

Actually, the worst part of Edward’s dish is that he made homemade buns for his “open faced” sandwiches, but they are self-serve. He’s expecting each guest to dutifully take one bun.

But I think Edward has been in Texas long enough to know that “moderation” and “restraint” are not exactly in the state vocabulary.

Everyone is taking two buns and one little whippersnapper actually grabs three.

So poor Edward has to be, like, the bun-catcher, grabbing stray buns off people’s plates. It’s awkward.

Does everyone remember Ryan Scott from Season 4? No, me neither.

But he is now a “Flavor Ambassador” for Healthy Choice, so good for him. I actually minored in “flavor ambassadoring” in college, so it’s nice to see someone making a career out of it.

Dana Cowan of Food and Wine magazine is helping with the judging, along with Emeril, Tom, Padma, and Pussy Galore (I mean, uh, Cat Cora.)

This is another one of those challenges where the guests actually vote for their favorite dish, which seems a bit unfair, considering that the more fatty and flavorful dishes would naturally have an edge, even though the challenge specifically called for healthier preparations.

Despite Padma insisting that “two of the healthiest dishes were the two best we ate”—it doesn’t quite play out that way.

The fans vote Paul, Grayson, and Lindsay into the Top 3. Of the three of them, Paul was the only one who went with a lot less fat than his counterpart (Grayson used mayonnaise—olive-oil-based, but still—and Lindsay, as you recall, used veal and lamb, which, last I checked, is still yummier than turkey).

Tom starts out by asking Grayson if she really thought that chicken salad could ever be the winning dish.

“You have to win this against other dishes that are potentially much more exciting than a chicken salad sandwich,” he says.

“Like a meatball?” Grayson asks sarcastically.

“Right,” says Tom, staring at her.

“Right,” says Grayson, staring back.

Right about now, I half expect a Whole Foods employee to emerge from stage left and konk Tom in the head.

Anyway, it comes down to Lindsay’s Greek meatball vs. Paul’s turkey kalbi with eggplant and white peach kimchi.

And Paul wins!!!! Paul wins!!! (Extra exclamation points to denote an excitement that none of us are actually feeling at this point.) (Love me some Paul but his winning is getting a little old.)

Paul gets $15,000 for the victory. At this point, I’m pretty sure he could buy and sell Andy Cohen several times over.

Back to the holding room, where Grayson licks her wounds.

“They wanted me to do more. Duly noted. Maybe I should be in there—” and she points to the judging room where Sarah, Edward, and Chris are meeting their fate.

What was up with those dense rolls? Tom asks Edward.

I wanted to avoid using the “empty calories” of rice, Edward explains.

“Bread is empty calories, too,” Padma snips.

(When will these contestants learn that there is no pulling the wool over Padma’s eyes? First of all, she has X-ray vision. Also, she only wears cashmere.)

As for Chris, he totally should’ve made his sandwiches to order, because the bread was dry. Also, there were chunks of ice in Emeril’s watermelon and pineapple smoothie.

Chris reacts to this news as if one those yellow jackets actually made it into the mix.

“I’m sorry,” he says, practically banging his head against a wall in shame. “That sucks.”

Ice in a smoothie!! Why? Why?

As for Sarah, her meatball was probably not bottom 3 material, but they quibble over the inconsistent veggie distribution of her salad.

And. . . Chris Jones is packing his knives and his little Pebbles hairdo and going home.

He gets the “reverse Beverly”: His fellow contestants are genuinely sad to see him go. In fact, they’re all having a moment of self-immolation.

“Jonesy’s going home and it’s my fault,” says Grayson. “The chicken salad was all my idea.”

“It should’ve been me Chris,” says Ed.

“I’m sorry, who’s going home?” says Paul. “I was too busy counting my money.”

Next week, squee! Pee-Wee!!!!

Foiled Again! The Bachelor recap

2012-01-24T18:50:00.000-08:00

One of these two people is totally in love

Okay, so I had a DVR malfunction and only caught hour 2 of The Bachelor last night.

My apologies. (Blame Gossip Girl and House—two shows long past their expiration dates that I nonetheless can’t stop watching. Old habits die hard, people.)

The first thing I caught was Courtney doing some sort of double reverse sneak attack on the group date and winning the rose.

I don’t even know how she did it, but I do know that she non-ironically likes to utter the phrase “winning!” which is so fitting because—from a mental health standpoint, at least—compared to her, Charlie Sheen is Tom Brokaw.

(Don’t you just love the way Courtney touches herself all the time—sometimes with a rose in her hand and sometimes without? It’s so deliciously cray-cray: It’s like her narcissism manifests in actual self-touching.)

Anyway, so yeah, I missed how Rachel got her rose. Did she have a solo date with Ben? If so, I can only assume it went something like this:

Rachel and Ben do some vaguely daredevily thing that he weaves into an elaborate metaphor about their future together:
“If we go-cart down a mountainside we can go-cart down the mountainside of life together.” Or somethin’ like that.

Then, lots of kissing.

Then, a romantic dinner, with Ben confessing to the camera that the connection he feels with Rachel is so real and so right and a little scary because he can totally see himself with her and she fits into his little Ben world like the missing piece of the little Ben world puzzle.
Then, more kissing.

Then he ambles off to the get the rose, she pretends to be surprised to get it, more kissing, and she floats home with the smug confidence of a woman who believes that she and Ben are in ♥ 4Evah! and 2Good2Be4Forgotten and all the other girls give her death stares from the couch.

(Am I anywhere close?)

All I know about the group date is that it seemed to be going one way—Kacie perhaps?—and then Courtney broke out the big guns—crying? threatening to leave?—and Ben was helpless in the face of her master manipulations. Poor sap.

Now onto what I did see:

Ben’s next solo date is with the guileless Jennifer. I worry a lot about Jennifer, because she seems so sweet and innocent and fragile, like a little lamb, if a lamb sported Colorsilk Luminesta 150 Red Permanent Hair dye by Revlon and killer abs.

So he and Jennifer go repelling into a crater (yeesh, is this The Bachelor or Fear Factor?) and Ben has a metaphor at the ready:

“Relationships are all about trust and diving into the unknown.”

Then they go swimming in the swampy, sure to be super sanitary crater water—once again, congratulations on those bodies, kids—and kiss a lot.

“Nothing can ruin this date!” gushes Jennifer. Cue the monsoon.

But they run through the monsoon together because they can “weather the storm of this monsoon they can weather the storm of life.” (Okay, Ben didn’t actually say that, but probably just because it ended up on the cutting room floor.)

Meanwhile, back at the house, Blakely is dying Emily’s hair—with foils.

First of all, I thought Blakely was a VIP cocktail waitress. This behavior is not befitting a VIP cocktail waitress. Second of all, even if she moonlights as hairstylist on the side, who the hell brings foils on a vacation? (Did she also pack a waitress tray and cocktail glasses?) Third of all, if you were competing in a reality TV show for the love of a man, would you let your competition anywhere near your hair? One false move with those foils and Emily looks like, well, Jennifer.

Back on the solo date, Jennifer is having the “best night of her life” (uh oh). “I’m falling for Ben,” she says. “I would be the perfect partner for him for life.” (Double uh oh.)

Once again, there is some sort of awkward concert with a semi-famous musician—Clay Walker—and once again, the bachelorette thinks Ben actually set this whole thing up himself.

“It makes me feel really special that Ben would set this up for me!” she says.

And by Ben, she means Next Entertainment Telepictures, the production company that produces The Bachelor (sometimes nicknamed “Ben.”).

Cocktail party time.

All the girls are sitting on the couch bad mouthing Courtney and when she enters the room, they go silent.

It’s actually hilarious. No one is even smart enough to even pretend that they weren’t all just talking shit about her. No one even offers a half-hearted, “Oh, Jamie was just telling us the funniest story. About somebody else. Who is definitely not you.”

Instead, they’re all exchanging looks like, “Awkward!”

And damned if Courtney doesn’t just slither over and sit on the edge of the couch and stare them all down, calm as you please.
Love that crazy bitch.

Meanwhile, Ben has asked to spend some quality alone time with Monica.

The whole Monica thing has been a bit of a bust, to be honest. I thought she was going to be a salty, feisty wise-cracking lesbian—the kind of character who would be played by Stockard Channing in the summerstock production of The Bachelor—but she’s really just receded into the background. She’s filler.

Anyway, Emily breaks up their one-on-one time, because she needs to tell Ben something very, very important—namely how wrong, misguided, and flatout dumb he is being about Courtney. (She’s not doing it for herself, people, she’s doing it for Ben.)

Hey future bachelors and bachelorettes of this world, can I give you a little unsolicited advice? Don’t be that guy. Don’t be the “so and so is totally different around the other bachelor/ettes then he/she is around you” guy. It never works. Never. You just seem like a narc and it kinda puts you in the friend zone and you’re also, indirectly at least, calling the star of a show a fool who’s being duped.

Ben even tries to give Emily an out.

First, she starts talking in generalities—although she has every intention of narc-ing on Courtney. (Her secret desire is that Ben will demand the name of this scheming infidel and immediately banish her from the house!)

“There is one girl who is very different around you than she around the rest of the girls,” Emily starts.

“I don’t know who you’re talking about. And I don’t expect you to throw anyone under the bus,” Ben says.

It’s not too late, Emily! Run away! Run away!

“It’s COURTNEY!” Emily says.

And, in fact, Ben does take a little offense. He’s basically like, “You do Emily and I’ll do Ben, m’kay?”

And she skulks back to the couch in shame.

“I think I just screwed up,” she says. Ya think?

But her mensa moment continues. She starts bitching about Courtney to Casey, the Paris Hilton lookalike, who also happens to be Courtney’s best (and only) friend in the house.

When will these girls learn? The Queen Bee always has a sidekick, someone who is pretty, but not as pretty as she is, and who will blindly obey and worship her.

So Casey immediately goes and tells Courtney about Emily’s tattling to Ben and Courtney FREAKS. OUT.

“I’m a nice person,” she says. (Oh, that's rich.) “But don’t f**k with me. Emily should watch herself. I’ll shave her eyebrows off in the middle of the night. I just want to rip her head off and verbally assault her!”

(Just a suggestion, Court-Court: Reverse that order. Because once your head has been ripped off, the verbal assault stings a lot less.)

So Courtney marches up to the couch and confronts Emily and it’s really like Emily has brought a butter knife to a gun fight. She’s not even in Courtney’s league.

And Emily’s little face begins to screw up and her lip begins to quiver in a somewhat unattractive way and Courtney just laughs that crazy, maniacal, Glenn-Close-in-Fatal-Attraction laugh and says, “Good look, Emily! Winning! Winning!!!”

And I just want to get on my feet and applaud.

So rose ceremony dram-ah. Will he deep-six Monica or Emily?
It’s Monica—who actually cries in the limo.

“It sucks when somebody doesn’t feel the way you feel,” she says. (She’s talking about Blakely, right?)

Then Ben announces to the remaining girls: “We’re going to Vieques, Puerto Rico!”
And they’re all squeeing and jumping up and down except for Courtney, who says with a bored eyeroll, “I was just there two months ago.”

And if I were doing the Bachelor music, I would totally play the sad trombone sound, because it is such a perfect buzzkill. (Have I mentioned how much I love that crazy bitch?)

Next week, Ben goes skinny dipping with . . . well, do I even have to say who?

And I promise to work out my adventures with digital video recording technology.

Food Fright: The Top Chef Texas recap

2012-01-19T14:20:00.000-08:00

Who's the Plain Jane next to Charlize Theron?

If you were hoping that this episode was going to finally resolve the “how the hell do you pronounce Charlize Theron’s last name?” question once and for all, you’re out of luck.

We have 7 remaining contestants and roughly 7 different pronunciations—from Ther-in to Ther-on to the vaguely French sounding Thér-onnnn. (If Ty were still around, he’d pronounce it Ther-ön.) Such is life.

Anyway, before the show is graced by the one woman on the planet who can make Padma look frumpy, we have a fun Quickfire Challenge involving a conveyer belt.

And trust me when I say, you haven’t lived until you’ve seen a man with floppy rooster hair chasing after a lobster tail on a conveyer belt.

Here’s how the challenge works: 30 minutes are on the clock. The belt goes ’round and ’round, but much like the luggage carousel at the airport, you’ve got to wait longer if you want the “good stuff” (in the airport, the “good stuff” = your actual luggage; here, it’s the aforementioned lobster, plus the likes of halibut and foie gras.)
Some contestants just say, screw it, and grab rice crispies and macadamia nuts and bitter melon.

Chris decides to wait for that brass ring—the lobster tail. He misses a few times, lunging hilariously, but eventually snags it.

Time runs out and Beverly hasn’t been able to add her curried rice crispies to her sockeye salmon so she’s screwed.

Edward, revealing a bit more about his sportsmanship than perhaps he intended, claims that she should’ve just “cheated” and thrown some curried rice crispies in the air as time expired, hoping a few stray puffs landed on her plate.

The whole crispies fiasco is made an even bigger deal when Chef Ripert announces that Beverly would’ve won—by a mile, no less—if she had just had some damn crispies on her plate.

In an ironic twist, Lindsay, who some people (specifically Lindsay herself) thought should’ve won the Restaurant Wars challenge, is the beneficiary of Beverly’s misfortune.

She wins the challenge and. . .immunity. (Cue ominous music.)

Snap-Crackle-Pop-gate is in full effect.

No time to obsess over that though, because a goddess has entered the room.

And because I’ve been so numbed by the show’s relentless product placement, I actually find it refreshing that they’re only shamelessly promoting a movie this time—Snow White and the Huntsman—instead of a mini-van or a frozen food product or a tequila brand.

Charlize plays the Evil Queen in the film, and it’s apparently a very dark, macabre retelling of the story.

As such, the contestants are told to make a gothic feast fit for an evil queen.

Cool.

Unsurprisingly, Edward seems a little too amped up about making something evil.

And Chris knows that he’ll get to play with liquid nitrogen, so he’s like a kid in a molecular gastronomy store.

In the kitchen, glorious things are overheard like, “oooh, the maggots are everywhere!” and “my plate looks like a crime scene.” Good times.

Beverly is doing her Beverly thing: Namely, acting all cute and innocent as she bulldozes her way around the kitchen. (Also, she’s making halibut, people. Halibut. To prove to Lindsay that she DOES know how to cook the fish? Paul thinks so, and so do I.)

“She’s a bulldog, man,” says Graysen of Beverly. “That girl is tiny, but she’s crazy.”

Preach, Graysen, preach.

Anyway, the most charming thing about this episode is how nerdy and tongue-tied Tom Colicchio gets around Charlize Theron. He keeps trying to make these clever little jokes and they keep backfiring.

It’s funny to see a man who is sex symbol to many (including someone whose name rhymes with “faxthewhirl”) just totally lose his cool.

I will point out the various adorkable moments as they crop up. . .

“If I was going to make a dish that was evil, I would just make food and put poison in it,” gleefully announces Charlize Theron as the meal begins. She's joking. Right? Right?

Up first is Edward, who brings out his tuna tartare. He says that the good (Asian pear vinaigrette) is battling against the evil (black garlic ponzu) for the heart of the tuna tartare.

Also, fried fish scales are involved.

“You combine the good and the evil you get a politician!” says Tom. (Adorkable wooing attempt FAIL number one.)

Anyway, everyone loves the dish. (A theme will soon emerge.)

“I could eat this every day,” says Charlize Theron.

Next up Paul with his foie gras with bacon, pumpernickel, picked cherries, beets—and bloody hand print.

“It’s fantastic,” says Chef Ripert.

Now Padma, sticking to the script, asks Charlize to talk a little about her movie.

“We have 8 dwarves,” says Charlize.

“Is that a union issue?” cracks Tom. (Not the adorkable FAIL yet, but wait for it. . .)

“If we had an 8th dwarf,” says Padma.

“It would be Tom!” says Charlize.

“Well, at least I’m not Dopey!” says Tom. (And BOOM goes the dynamite!)

Next up, Beverly with her perfectly prepared (she asked me to emphasize that) seared halibut with red curry sauce and forbidden black rice.

Again, delicious. But maybe not macabre enough?

Lindsay has cleverly named her dish seared scallops over witches stew.

It’s really just seared scallops over a bean sauce, but by calling it “witches stew” she has everyone fooled.

Regardless, it’s apparently witchtastic.

“The queen would’ve made it with peasants, not pheasants!” Tom jokes. (Ding!) (That was the dork bell ringing, by the way.)

“Lindsay has immunity and she may not have needed it,” Padma reports.

Next Sarah with her amarone risotto and lamb’s heart.

“I’d like to give you the key to my lamb’s heart,” Tom says to Charlize. Okay, he doesn’t actually say that, but he was thinking it.

Charlize loves the heart: “I am the queen! I want to eat more of this heart!” She's joking again. . . right?

Next up, Grayson, with her slaughterhouse black chicken with dead chicken fetus (aka runny quail egg).

The judges agree that she “went for it.” (I'll say.)

Finally, Chris’s poison apple and cherry pie, with puffed rice crispie maggots. (Ironically, earlier today Beverly was referring to her rice crispies as maggots, but for different reasons.)

They love the drama of it.

It’s so him, they agree.

So the meal is over.

“I loved this meal,” says Charlize.

“This is clearly the most exciting meal we’ve had on the show this season, by far,” says Tom

“It’s the best meal I’ve ever had on Top Chef,” reports Eric Ripert.

Uh oh, dilemma time people. All the dishes were great. What’s a judging panel to do?

“We’d like to see all of you,” Padma reports.

“The meal was spectacular!” Charlize tells them.

“We are here to please you,” says Edward, smooth as silk, as Tom glowers at him from the table.

And the winner is. . Paul!

The bottom 3 comes down to Graysen, Sarah, and Beverly.

Again, all three had great dishes. The judges are just nitpicking here.

Sarah’s risotto was slightly undercooked. Beverly’s sauce was slightly sticky. And Graysen’s greens were slightly salty.

Aaaand. . . Beverly, please pack your knives and go.

Ouch. One rice crispie away from glory.

Instead, she must sadly take down the “Congratulations, Top Chef Beverly Kim!” sign from over her bed.

“I never threw anyone under the bus,” she says, keeping her chin up high.

Suffice it say, she never personally drove a bus over anyone, but she was definitely a backseat bus driver.

On a scale from 1 to 10, I feel like I’m going to throw up: The Bachelor recap

2012-01-17T10:51:00.000-08:00

So this happened. . .

Oh, I learned so much last night.

I learned Ben’s kiss has restorative, redemptive, and possibly supernatural powers.

I learned that a thing called a “Leap List” exists, but only in an alternative TV universe sponsored by Honda.

I learned that Ben, much like a Miss America contestant, only knows how to play one song on the piano. (David Gray’s “This Year’s Love” for what it’s worth).

I learned that Shawntel—the femme fatale of funeral homes, the queen of caskets, the Elektra of embalmment—also exists. And for that I am grateful.

Okay, let’s take it from the top.

They are now in San Francisco, which is the second most meaningful place in the world to Ben, after Sonoma Valley. (Or maybe it’s the first most meaningful and Sonoma Valley is second, I can’t keep up with Ben and his passionate connections to various zip codes.)

“The only way to experience San Francisco is with Ben,” says Nicki. Really Nicki? Because I can think of 10 better ways to experience San Francisco, just off the top of my head.

First solo date goes to Emily, who is the oddly unspecific “PhD student” and therefore deemed “smart” by everyone.

Emily seems like a lovely girl and all, but I haven’t seen any evidence of this rapier intellect she supposedly possesses, just yet.

“Booksmart is a little boring,” sniffs Courtney. (But crazy never gets old.)

Emily responds to the datecard message—“Love Lifts Us Up”—in pretty much the way I react to all first dates: “What should I wear? Will he like me? Does this involve heights? Am I going to pee my pants?” (The answers, in no particular order: Yes, hell yes, maybe, and crampons.)

Turns out they are going to be scaling the Bay Bridge, which has also been on the kind of “Leap List” that inspires calls to 911, if you know what I mean.

Poor Emily is deathly afraid of heights and is, therefore, having a panic attack. So about halfway through the climb, she just stops. She can’t move forward, she can’t move backward. She will just waste away and die, right there, midway to the top of the Bay Bridge.

But luckily, Ben and his lifesaving lips are right behind her. He kisses her, and together, they scale the bridge.

“If Emily and I can climb to the top of the Bay Bridge together, there’s no telling how far we can take this relationship,” he says. Barf.

Next, they have dinner and Emily is side-eyeing that rose, which mocks her from the table.

“The two things in life that I’m most scared of are heights and. . .rejection.” (Followed closely by floppy hair and Jack Russell terriers.)

Ben puts her out of her misery, and quickly gives her the rose. Thank. God.

One of the other big themes of this season is voyeurism. The bachelorettes are always creeping around and watching Ben make out with other girls. Whatever floats your boat, ladies.

They take it to a whole next level during Ben’s date with Emily, actually watching the date, Rear Window-style, through a telescope.

(If you like Hitchcock and schadenfreude, you’ll love this season of The Bachelor!)

When fireworks go off, one girl says forlornly: “She totally got a rose.”
Another one says, “I’m so sad right now.”

:-(

Next, the group date, with its ridiculous Leap List concept.

A Leap List is a like a Bucket List but without the inconvenient dying part. You do it before major life milestones, like giving birth or getting married.

Now I consider myself something of an expert on cultural trends and the Leap List didn’t even ring a distant bell. Have I been living under a rock? Is everyone making Leap Lists but me? Am I being intentionally excluded from Leap List mania? Um, no.

Because Leap Lists are not a real thing, people, despite the fact that Rachel matter-of-factly describes what they are to her fellow bachelorettes.

It’s all part of this stupid Honda CR-V advertising campaign. I feel so used.

So anyhoo, the Leap List activity in this case is for Ben to see all the girls in bikinis—I mean, uh, ski in bikinis down one of San Francisco’s notoriously steep hills.

Ben is rockin’ the sk8ter boi look—ski cap, no shirt, board shorts. Me likey.

You're welcome

As that date is going on, the rest of the girls sit around waiting for the next solo date card. Everyone is expecting it to go to Lindzzzzzi, so the room is pretty stunned when it goes to Brittney. Who? Yeah, she’s the one who brought her granny to the first date, remember? Actually, it appears that Brittney herself has forgotten who she is. She looks truly shaken, bordering on horrified, to have received the datecard.

She has decided that this whole reality-TV dating life isn’t for her (if only there had been 15 previous seasons of the show to prepare her for what to expect!!).

“This really isn’t for me, so I’m going to go home,” she says.

“Noooo!” the other girls say. (Translation: “Yessssss!”)

Meanwhile, back on the group date, Ben is kissing Rachel, the stylist, and all the other girls are watching, because that’s how they roll.

Why don't you take a picture—it'll last longer!

Kacie takes it particularly hard and needs to steal a private moment alone with Ben. He comforts her with one of his magical kisses and she feels better about things.

(Just as a social experiment, Ben should try kissing Benjamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas and see if it brings about peace in the Middle East.)

Anyway, since Brittney is gonzo, Lindzzzi takes over for her on the one-on-one date.

For her evening sight-seeing trip around San Francisco, she decides to wear the single most painful-looking pair of stilettos I have ever laid eyes on. It’s excrutiating to watch her stagger down the street. (She probably would’ve worn those on the scale-the-Bay-Bridge date, too. Hey, a girl’s gotta keep up appearances. )

They take a trolley, eat some Rice-a-Roni (that joke just totally dated me), and then Ben has the key to City Hall—because he is San Francisco’s most beloved son—and they have the place to themselves.

“I don’t know who this guy is, but he’s kind of amazing,” Lindzzzi says.

(She does realize that Ben doesn’t usually carry around the key to City Hall, right? Also, fireworks don’t usually go off when he kisses someone. And he can’t summon snow at will.)

They step inside and it’s that awkward moment when Matt Nathanson is getting his big break on national TV and after a few half-hearted dance moves you basically ignore him and make out.

Can we kiss yet?

“I don’t normally kiss. . .boys on the first date,” Lindzzzi says. (And somewhere, back at the house, Monica’s ears are perking up.)

Then they go to this kinda gimmicky, but kinda cool Speakeasy place and Lindzzzzi tells Ben about her horrible breakup.

Ben’s internal monologue: You think you had a horrible breakup? Ha! My humiliating proposal rejection has aired repeatedly on national TV! I had to exit, alone, on a rickety little boat—the S.S. Misery!

Lindzzzi: I got a text that said, ‘Welcome to Dumpsville, Population You.’”

Ben’s internal monologue: You win.

So Lindzzzzi gets a pity rose—just kidding, Ben seems to really like her—and they go back to the house for the cocktail party and rose ceremony.

“Nothing can ruin tonight,” says Lindzzzi. She doesn’t actually say, “Unless that mortician bitch from Brad’s season shows up unexpectedly,” but it’s implied.

First a few pre-Shawntel highlights of the cocktail party:

Ben tells Jennifer she’s the bestest kisser in the whole wide house and she’s positively floating on air and then lets it slip out in an interview that she “loves him.” Oh girl, check yourself before you wreck yourself.

Ben takes Courtney (“who is super mellow and drama free!” he had insightfully informed his sister) on the roof and grants her one of his elixir kisses. He’s super into her.

(Good news: Shawntel’s presence throws things so far out of whack, Courtney actually slips up and exposes her inner Mean Girl to Ben! More on that soon.)

So Elyse—who is a person, I believe, who is on the show. . .I think— is getting some alone time with Ben and that’s when Shawntel sashays into the scene.

So yeah, Shawntel in the house. Not an ex girlfriend but they’ve . . . talked? Had a connection? It’s a little confusing how they even know each other (possibly a key party at Mike Fleiss’ house?)—but Ben seems extremely flustered and flattered by her arrival.

And the other girls are positively freaking out. I mean, they all have the vapors or something. (In Erika’s case, quite literally.)

I’m not quite sure why Shawntel’s presence sent them all into such a tailspin but I guess they were pretty much on edge to begin with.

Some quotes about Shawntel:

“You guys, if he kisses her, I’m going home right now.”-Emily.

“This isn’t what I signed up for. If she stays I’m out.”- Courtney

“She says she’s here for Ben and I’m not okay with it.” -Nicki.

“I’ll be perfectly honest, I don’t like the bitch.” - Rachel.

“I hope these women are gracious and welcoming.” –Bachelor Ben.

So they all line up for the rose ceremony and some sort of teamster gets in the shot—a real friend of Tony Soprano type—and I’m thinking maybe he’s also there to protect Shawntel in case one of the other girls puts a hit out on her?

Erika gets the aforementioned vapors and Jaclyn cries and cries and cries (and utters the awesome phrase of my title) and Shawntel looks defiant—but Ben decides to gets rid of all three of them.

Good move, Bachelor Ben.

“See ya!” trills Courtney to Shawntel—in front of Ben!!! “Sayonara!”

(Earlier she had referred to Shawntel as “what’s her butt”—in front of Ben!!!!)

Exactly how mellow and drama free does she seem NOW?

Ball's in your court, Bachelor Ben. I’m sure you’ll do the wrong thing.

Sometimes You Feel Like a Nut: The Top Chef Texas recap

2012-01-12T10:41:00.000-08:00

Beverly oversells her "surprised" face

Since I no longer can indulge my favorite guessing game—Malibu Chris: Friend of Dorothy or just a really close acquaintance?—I can now turn to my second favorite guessing game: Beverly: Sweet as a basket of baby sloths or stealth assassin?

Once again, I’m struck by the fact that Beverly, while clearly being an adorable, moptopped underdog who you just want to hug and feed chicken soup to, is also quite possibly. . .a deadly ninja.

And last night may’ve been her best work yet.

All the girls on Team Half Bushel kind of mowed her over (well, with the exception of Graysen, who, as usual, managed to rise above the fray). They bossed her around, they patronized her, they treated her like she was some sort of assistant to the assistant to the assistant sous chef, and she quietly took their crap, diligently perfecting her one dish and following Lindsay’s prep instructions to the letter.

“I’m just doing what she told me to do” she shrugged of Lindsay’s increasingly moisture-free halibut.

And look what happened people. Look. What. Happened.

So yeah, in case you hadn’t figured it out, it’s Restaurant Wars, broken into a convenient battle of the sexes package.

Edward is not intimidated.

“The girls are good, but the boys are more talented,” he says, adding, “Sarah knows flavor, but we know her weakness is barbecuing out in the sun.”

Seriously, dude, let it go.

Instead of the usual practice—two concurrent services—there will be two separate services in the same space over the course of two nights.

I wonder if this is because all the Imodium in the world can’t make judging 4 appetizers, 4 entrees, and 4 desserts in one night go down easy.

The cheftestants begin strategizing. Both teams come up with the exact same concept. If you guessed: Indian street food, you’d be wrong! It’s the incredibly original farm to table.

At this point, I’m convinced that every kitchen in every restaurant across the country is doing some variation on the farm-to-table, elegantly rustic, upscale comfort food theme. (It’s just a matter of time before there will be an option of salt, pepper, or dirt in your condiment dispensers).

I mean, look, I like a pork belly or a free range chicken or an organic beet salad as much as the next hungry blogger, but there are other kinds of cuisine out there people. Food trends have become as insidious as fashion trends (jeggings for everyone!) and movie trends (that would look so much better in post-production 3D!).

In keeping with this rustic theme, the boys have decided to call their restaurant Compost (just kidding, Canteen) and the girls have decided to call their restaurant Gristle (okay, Half Bushel).

The boys go first.

They geniusly decide to put Edward out front, because nothing says “welcome!” quite like a shifty jaw, a bloody appendage, and a scowl.

He’s doing a pretty good job in his usual fueled-by-rage way, but he keeps inadvertently revealing his anxiety.

“Wow, you’re on time!” he says nervously to the first group to arrive.

“Wow, you’re all lining up!” he says a few minutes later, as customers just. keep. arriving. “We must be doing something right—heh, heh.” Ummm, no.

Meanwhile, the guys are so busy cooking they forgot a basic component of Restaurant 101: Expediting.

Last I checked, a huge part of that farm-to-table thing is actually getting the food on the table.

Quoth Rick Perry: Oops.

They try several things: First Edward is expediting. That doesn’t work. Then Umlaut is expediting. Uh, no. Then Paul, who has basically gone all Angelo on us and is cooking almost every dish, decides he’s also going to expedite.

Padma, who misses nothing (seriously, she probably knows that I forgot to floss this morning) notices all the shuffling in the kitchen.

“Ty is in his apron outside the kitchen,” she informs the table.

“They’re really in the trees right now,” Emeril says. (Is that like being in the weeds, but worse?)

“And now Paul is outside the kitchen,” she says.

“I think Edward may’ve just farted,” she notes a few minutes later. (Joke.)

As for the food: They’re not in love with anything.

But mostly, they freak out because Edward’s Almond Joy bar has no coconut.

Tom seems to take this personally.

“It can’t be an Almond Joy without coconut,” he sputters. “If you’re not going to have coconut, just don’t call it an Almond Joy!”

Later he adds, “The coconut is the best part!”

Good lord, somebody get this man some coconut.

“The best that we can hope for now is that the girls all blow up at each other and screw up worse than we did,” sighs Edward.

Well, let’s just see about that. . .

Day Two: girls up to bat.

They decide to put Lindsay up front. Again, slightly strange choice. Lindsay has a Tracy Flick-like quality about her—her perfectionism is sharp-edged. (It comes as ZERO surprise that she was the prom queen and graduated at the top of her class in college.)
Like Edward, she doesn’t exactly project warmth. (Where’s Graysen when you need her?)

But the funniest thing about Lindsay is that she Honey Badgers it: She really doesn’t give a damn.

The judges—the judges!—have to stand around waiting for their table (cleverly, the girls have provided a little lemonade in a cooler for them to sip on) and she is unfazed by this.

“I can’t be in three places at one time,” she says.

Yeah, but if one of those three places contains the judges who are deciding your fate, it might behoove you to triage in favor of that place.

“I’d be walking a little faster if I had 12 people at my door,” says Padma.

The kitchen is, inevitably, a Beverly-bashing zone, but her little lip quivers and she just keeps perfecting her one dish. (Sorry I keep harping on that one dish thing: But how did she manage to pull that off? It’s no wonder her dish ruled, it’s pretty much all she had to worry about). (See? Ninja.)

The boys come in, too (forgot to mention that the teams are dining at each other’s restaurants) and service begins.

The judges note that there isn’t quite as happy a buzz in Half-Bushel as there was in Canteen. (That's because when Edward smiles, the world smiles back.)

They also have to wait much longer for the food. But once it comes, they forget their troubles and get happy.

They adore Grayson’s peach salad with pickled shallots and bacon vinaigrette (yes please) and also Sarah’s Arancino with Buffalo mozzarella. And they want to marry Beverly’s braised shortribs with Thai basil and kimchee.

Over at the boys table, Chris J. is happily munching on his shortrib.

“This is the nicest dinner I’ve had since we got here,” he says innocently.

Edward shoots daggers at him.

(BTW, why do I find it strangely endearing that Chris J. is a Trekkie? I knew he was a food nerd, but now I know he comes by it honestly. Kobiyashi Maru for life!—whoever that is.)

The judges assess their two meals. Basically, the service was better at Canteen. The food was better at Half Bushel. Decisions. . . decisions.

Padma wants to see the ladies. . .

They skulk into the judging room.

She grills them about how long it took to get seated.

They squirm.

“Do you think you did better than the boys?”
“Yes,” says Beverly firmly, quickly, ninja-style.

“Yes,” says Sarah tentatively (she has approximately twice the bravado but half the confidence of Beverly).

“Well, congratulations ladies. You had our favorite restaurant!”

There is squeeing and hugging and more squeeing, until Padma names the overall winner: Beverly.

WTFs are exchanged among everyone not named Beverly, who has to pretend to look surprised.

“Burn, burn, burn!” I write in my notes.

Ha. The girls head back to the holding room, buoyed by triumph but puzzled by Beverly’s sneaky win.

“We couldn’t have done it without Lindsay,” says Sarah. Surely, what she meant to say was “Congratulations Beverly, on a well-earned victory!”

Time to send the boys in front of the firing squad.

“The bottom line, the food just didn’t wow us,” says Tom. “All of you get an F here. Any one of you could go home for the mess that was Canteen.” (Huh. So maybe “Mess Hall” would’ve been a more appropriate name?)

And all the umlauts in the world can’t save Ty-Lör from his fate. He’s göing höme.

Two Mean Girls, Smart and Dumb: The Bachelor recap

2012-01-10T12:39:00.000-08:00

This is your juicebox on drugs

Two episodes in and I finally figured out what's wrong with Bachelor Ben: He's a dude. I mean this with all due respect to the less fair sex—my motto in life has always been “hooray boys!”—but let’s face it, they don't always do their thinkin’ with the thinkin’ part of their anatomy . . .

Ben had three early roses to give away and he totally botched two of them. He managed to give one to the psycho “VIP cocktail waitress” (let’s just assume there are always skeptical air quotes around her job title, just to save me future key strokes) and another one to the psycho model, who is so calmly cruel around the other girls and so eye-battingly sweet around Ben, she’s almost a parody of a mean girl. As for Kacie? Okay, she can stay.

That being said, I still love the guy. Of course, he has a perfect little Jack Russell terrier named Scotch, who trots alongside him off leash and howls fetchingly on command (my dog, by way of comparison, bolts the minute I let him off leash and only howls when I’m trying to sleep.) And of course he drives a cool vintage Ford Bronco—although he loses a few points for tricking it out (our Ben is a bit of a fauxhemian, huh?)

The girls have settled into a house in Sonoma Valley and, in case you didn’t catch it the 185 times Ben said it, he wants to show the girls where he grew up to make them feel comfortable and show them how seriously he’s taking his journey and give them more pieces to the complex jigsaw puzzle that is Bachelor Ben and zzzzzzz. . . sorry, dozed off there.

He picks Kacie for the first date.

Okay, people. Help me out here: Who does Kacie remind me of? Physically, she somewhat resembles Minka Kelly (BTW, did you hear that she’s back with Derek Jeter? Is she insane or is she just in it for a fresh supply of gift baskets?), with a touch of Sandra Bullock thrown in for good measure. But that’s not quite it. . .If anyone can tell me what I'm thinking, I would greatly appreciate it.

So Kacie and Ben walk around Sonoma Valley and duck into a toy store where Kacie buys a baton—apparently she was some sort majorette in a previous life. And then they do the most wholesome and stomach-churningly cute thing ever—they march down the street (cobbled, natch) twirling that damn baton. It’s like a scene they cut out of The Music Man because it was too corny.

“It’s like we’re the only two people on the street right now,” gushes Kacie.

(That’s either because they’re sooo smitten they’ve blocked out the world or because the producers cleared the street, hard to say.)

Then they go into a movie theater, where Ben’s proposal to Ashley is playing on a constant loop. Just kidding: It’s something almost as humiliating! Baby home movies.

After I recover from the fact that Kacie was a toddler in 1989 (ugh, pass the Geritol) . . .I watch the movies. First, it’s Kacie, cute and curly as a toddler, then all drum majoretty as a teen. Next it’s Ben. We see his little baby Ben butt, which the producers have inexplicably blurred (anyone who saw the season promo has already seen Ben’s adult butt in glorious high-def—to which I say, thank you Bachelor promo department). Then we see Ben’s father, who died a few years back. So Ben cries and then Kacie cries and then I cry and it’s a big ol’ blubbery mess.

A few sweet kisses are exchanged. And Kacie gets the rose. (If the rest of the show were this wholesome, it would be presented by the Church of Latter Day Saints and I wouldn’t watch it . . . and neither would you.)

Luckily, Courtney and Blakely exist!

Group date time!

Ben tells the ladies that they’re going to be performing in a play.

The girls all have visions of amateur porno films dancing in their heads, so their faces fall when they meet the playwrights: A bunch of cheek-pinchingly adorable 11-year-old kids.

But these kids have obviously been spiking their juice boxes with LSD, because the play is some sort of trippy fever dream that involves dragons and hippies and weasels and Ben as some sort of male stripper prince in a lamb suit.

But first, the auditions, which prove that 11-year-old boys have a lot in common with 28-year-old men.

“Can you jog in slow motion?” one little boy asks Blakely who, coincidentally, is wearing the exact same thing I’m wearing at work today— a striped micro-romper with a skin-tight bodice!

Blakely does the slow run—as Ravel’s Bolero plays in the background.

“That girl with the. . the like. . the. . .I wasn’t a fan of her,” says the most awesome little girl ever

“She did good,” says one of the little boys. (Heh.)

She gets the role of “Gingerbread Man,” prompting Samantha to quip: “What do you get when you cross a gingerbread man with a hooker? Blakely.”

Oh the hits just keep on coming.

They do the play in front of an audience of Ben’s friends and family (in case you hadn’t heard, Ben grew up in Sonoma) and it’s cute and all you need to know is that Ben makes a very good prince lamb stripper.

They retire to a pool and Jennifer, the cute redhead, boldly grabs the first one-on-one time with Ben (go Jennifer!) and they have this season’s first hot tub makeout sesh.

But Blakely will have none of this.

“Being a Scorpio, we’re super passionate and great lovers,” she explains. So she grabs Ben and then they make-out in the hot tub, too (and possibly have Scorpio style sex. . .) and poor Jennifer has to witness the whole thing and she is shocked, shocked, shocked that Ben is macking on more than one girl.

All I can say is, I hope they are chasing their appletinis with penicillin this season, cause Ben is swapping spit with everyone.

“You seem super grounded,” Ben says to Blakely in the pool.

(Uh, what? She’s the opposite of grounded. She’s a freakin’ floatation device.)

Then he asks about her outfit, which is the most awesome outfit in the history of outfits, as far as Ben is concerned.

“I just thought it was cute,” she says of her micro-romper.

“I’m blessed in some ways. Cheers to being blessed.”

(Yes, boys and girls, she’s toasting to her boobs. )

It’s time for Ben to give his second rose.

“I’m giving the rose to the girl who owned the day and the night. Made the most of her time with me in terms of . . . conversation.” (So that’s what they’re calling it now.)

And damned if he doesn’t hand the rose to Blakely.

Me at home (Nancy Kerrigan style): Whyyyyyyyyyyyy?

“Blakely pulled the wool over the sheep’s eyes,” says Emily. (Recapping is so much easier when these girls are coming up with all the good one-liners for me.)

So anyhoo, back at the house, Courtney is just sitting around idly tormenting Lindzzzi and Erika and Kacie like they are her playthings.

“I have a connection with him,” she says.

Mail arrives from Ben: “Courtney, let’s spin the bottle-Ben,” reads Kacie, who is sweet enough to actually be happy for Courtney.

“How’d that taste coming out of your mouth?” replies Courtney. (See what I mean? Almost too magically deliciously villainous to be true.)

“She’s purposefully doing this to get under our skin and it’s working,” groans Erika. (Be the change you want to see in this world, ladies.)

So Ben takes Courtney on a date in the woods with Scotch and those glorious red maples and Courtney has to pretend that she likes:

a. communing with nature

b. dogs

c. Ben

So Ben is totally smitten with Courtney because he can see into her soul and can tell she’s a marvelous human being. *Barf*

“Courtney’s almost too good to be true,” says Ben. (Remove “almost” from that sentence and you’ve nailed it, buddy.)

He gives Courtney a rose. Later, she talks about it on camera. And you know that sort of eerie, faraway humming that crazy people always do in movies that are set in insane asylums? Courtney does that, all while sort of smearing the rose on her face. It’s the greatest thing ever.

Time for the final cocktail party and rose ceremony.

Basically, Blakely doesn’t follow Bachelor protocol which is: Once you have your rose, back the hell off.

Instead, she keeps dropping in, boobs first, on all of Ben’s one-on-one time.

“Jugs just came in,” Samantha groans. Love. Her.

So all the girls are getting a hate-on for Blakely, which is apparently even more fun than one-on-one time with Ben, because when Ben swoops in and asks Jenna the Blogger for some alone time, she seems vaguely annoyed.

“Can’t you see we’re being catty here?” she seems to say, slumping her shoulders and trudging after him.

Meanwhile, Blakely overhears the girls griping about her and can’t believe what meanypants they all are! It’s not like she has spent the whole day trying to sabotage their dates and steal their man or anything. . .oh, wait.

So she decides the best course of action is to go hide in a corner with the luggage, rocking back and forth.

Outside, Jenna the Blogger is trying to explain herself to Ben. (I love the Hitchcockian crazy music they play whenever Jenna is on screen.)

As always, it’s essentially like Jenna has put a series of words in a blender and now she is just arbitrarily spitting them out.

“I don’t want you to think that I’m not. . I might appear that I’m not. . . it’s hard that it’s only you. . .” she says. Ben nods understandingly.

Then someone else comes to break up their date.

So Jenna nearly ugly cries, but instead only ugly grimaces and saves her crying jag for the bedroom. (If you’re keeping score at home: This is two cocktail parties and two bedroom crying jags. I’m pretty sure she could’ve shattered the record, had she stuck around any longer.)

You have to wake up pretty early in the morning to fool Ben—at least before 11—so he’s beginning to suspect that not all is harmonious in the house.

“Some of these women are starting to unravel,” he says. “I had no idea it had gotten this bad this early.”

The mansion at this point is like a house of horrors: Wherever Ben turns there’s a crying girl.

First he stumbles across Crying Corner Girl, aka Blakely.

“Uh, what are you doing?” he asks. And you can tell he’s torn by two thoughts:
a. Ohmygod, I gave the rose to a crazy girl.

b. Her tits look really good in this corner.

Now he wanders into the bedroom and sees Jenna crying.

“Jenna? Hello?” he says. "Are you okay?"

Oh, poor bastard.

So, the rose ceremony. The only big loss is Jenna, who is finally put out of her misery.

“I’m in shock,” she says. (Really? Because that last conversation where you belched out some incomprehensible sentences went so well?)

Then she begins hugging herself. Hey, someone’s gotta hug her. (Too soon?)

Next week: Ben’s ex shows up. Could it be. . . Jennifer LoveHewitt?

A little Tundra-whelmed: The Top Chef Texas recap

2012-01-05T11:04:00.000-08:00

Boys? Girls? Don't make me choose!

I think the most charming thing about last night’s episode of Top Chef was how geeked everybody got over a bunch of books.

I felt like I was watching an episode of Little House on the Prairie where Pa had just trudged 80 miles through the snow, subsisting on nothing but water and tree bark, to bring books back to the cabin.

“Pa’s brought books! Pa’s brought books!”

I mean, not to be a killjoy, but you can find Modernist Cuisine on Amazon.com. (Although, in fairness, the whole set is over $600. I’m pretty sure the coffee table book isn’t supposed to be more expensive than the actual coffee table.)

The second most charming thing about last night’s episode? The fact that Nathan Myhrvold—fittingly—looks more like a science teacher than a chef. I kept waiting for him to give a pop quiz and send Grayson to the principal’s office.

The least charming thing about last night’s episode? Edward, who would probably tell Joe Theismann to rub some dirt on it and get his head back in the game (look it up). I know that we’ve established that Edward is the Chuck Norris of chefs and all, but harsh, dude, harsh.

Anyway, so the Quickfire challenge is to do some sort of molecular gastronomy wizardry. (For the record, I’m definitely a gastronomy muggle.)

This is basically the challenge of Chris J’s dreams. His entire existence has been leading up to this one life-defining moment. He simply can not blow it.

So he breaks out the big gun—the miracle berry.

Now this is some seriously evil Willy Wonka shit. It’s a tablet that screws with your palate. Essentially, sweet things get sour and sour things taste like blueberry pie and dog poo smells like molasses.

Science, I fear thee.

It’s actually hilarious to watch Chris work, with giant plumes of white smoke billowing around his face, his little Pebbles Flintstone hairdo flapping in manic anticipation.

What he sets up is not so much a Quickfire as a junior high school science project: “The Miracle Berry and Its Effects on the Adult Male and Female Palate.”

He’s got lemons, he’s got fizzy water, he’s got Everlasting Gobstoppers.

What he doesn’t seem to have is much cooking, so he doesn’t win—but he does face-savingly make the top three, along with Sarah, and Ty-lor, who gets to use his real name this week (sans umlaut . . . I just can’t), because he was so much sweeter to Sarah than Edward was.

The Bottom 3 were Paul, Beverly, and Grayson. But at least Beverly provided us with a dizzy-heroine-in-a-rom-com moment where she squirted Padma with foam and clangingly dropped pots and pans in front of the judges. Katherine Heigl would’ve killed that scene.

The winner is Ty-lor, who scampers up to collect his set of Modernist Cuisine books like he just won the lottery. I’m pretty sure Nathan Myhrvold didn’t even sign them.

So after this excursion into modernism, we now turn to the traditional—BBQ.

(Is it just me or does it seem like every challenge this season has been a BBQ challenge?)

The cheftestants will have to cook BBQ for 300.

The 3 teams are:

Team Blue: Paul, Grayson, and Lindsay

Team White: Beverly, Chris, and Chris

and

Team Red: Ty-lor, Edward, and Sarah

Chef Todd of the famous Salt Lick in Austin shows them his giant pit of meat, which is just bloody and meaty and intenstiney enough to make me briefly consider vegetarianism.

Then he drives them to the cooking grounds and it’s quite possibly the most extended, shameless, and obvious Toyota ad in the history of the show, which is saying quite a lot.

“Look at how much space there is!” gushes Sarah.

“This is a cool truck,” beams Umlaut, who has been briefly demoted from Ty-lor status for actually uttering this line.

“This truck is like sex in your mouth!” says Grayson. (Okay, not really.)

This is another all-night challenge, and they all have RVs and are wearing these spelunking-style headlamps, which gives the whole cookout a Breaking Bad kind of feel, especially when Beverly attempts to cook her beans in bourbon and almost blows up the camper. (Katherine Heigl would bring the perfect balance of terrifying smoke inhalation and madcap hilarity to that scene.)

Now seems as good a time as any to have our weekly (and, sniff, last) “What the hell is Malibu Chris’ sexuality, anyway?” conversation.

Earlier in the show, we found out that Chris dabbles in (really bad) painting and that all his paintings are of naked women, which is either the most heterosexual thing he could do or the least. . .you make the call.

Now, cooking into the night, he has stripped down into a wife-beater, which Grayson is basically drooling over.

“Malibu, are you wearing a wife beater?” asks Lindsay.

“I know,” says Malibu Chris. And what do you think he said next:

a. I got hot

b. I’m bringing sexy back

c. It doesn’t match my shoes. Stop pointing it out.

The answer is C, people. C. #whatislife?

Then later, while Malibu Chris is attempting to cook some beer-can chicken, he asks Chris J: “Did I put it in the right hole?” #submittedwithoutcomment

Anyhoo, it’s getting late—3:28 p.m. is dramatically flashed across the screen (pretty sure you mean, a.m. there, Bravo)—and everyone is loopy, especially Grayson (all nighters serve as a kind of truth serum for her.)

“You’re going to love it,” she says to Tom C. when he comes to check out everyone’s progress. “It’s going to be like sex in your mouth.” (Really.)

As the sun rises, the Texas heat gets stronger and Sarah feels light-headed. She calls for a medic. They give her oxygen. We join the scene, already in progress . . .

“Okay, what month is it?” the medic is asking. (Clearly this has followed the failed “What day is it?” question.) So they cart her off to the hospital.

Lindsay is worried.

Ty-lor is sweetly concerned.

Edward is...annoyed?

“Is she okay? What’s wrong? Is she dead?” Edward says testily. “If it were me, I really would’ve pushed through it.”

(Okay, yes, he both talks the talk and walks the walk, but I’m pretty sure that even when his finger was a bloody appendage dangling from his hand he knew what month it was.)

Meanwhile, he and Ty-lor go into ragey panic mode and start prematurely slicing their brisket, because they can’t possibly slice to order when they’re down one man! (I haven’t seen over-compensation like this since I laid eyes on Malibu Chris’s nude paintings.)

Service time.

So basically, Team Blue took a chance on Asian BBQ and nailed it.

(Speaking of nailing it, am I the only one who has a crush on Paul at this point? And not just because he has $35,000 in prize money.)

“This chicken is sticky, sweet, spicy and delicious!” says Padma, adding, “If only I could eat it in my Toyota Tundra!”

Team White kind of failed with their beer-can chicken, which just tasted a lot like. . . chicken. The Dr. Pepper pork-rib was way too salty and the brisket was too chewy.

Sarah has shown up from the hospital, still a little light-headed, but ready to roll up her sleeves and help. Of course, Edward wants no part of it.

“Notice that she showed up just in time for service,” he grouses.

A real mensch, that one.

So the judges are underwhelmed (or should I say “Tundra”-whelmed?) (no) by their trip around the BBQ globe: Texas chicken, Kansas City pork ribs, and Kentucky brisket.

And the winning team is: Team Blue! Yay for them. I’m glad they won, because they took a chance and it paid off.

The judges want to see both other teams:

They are upset that Team Red didn’t slice their brisket to order. (Smoke is now literally coming out of Edward’s ears.)

But they are especially upset about Malibu Chris’s salty pork ribs.

They deliberate. Who was to blame for the salty ribs: Chris J, who grilled? Or Malibu Chris, who did the rub?

“It was salty beyond belief, there was nothing anybody could do to save it,” Gail said, sounding a bit like a character in a medical soap. (“Just breathe, dammit! Breathe!”)

So in the end. . .Malibu Chris is sent packing, much to Grayson’s dismay: “We’re going to miss our. . . beautiful person,” she says, still inflicted with all-nighter-as- sodium-pentathol syndrome.

But don’t mourn for our lovely Chris: I’m sure he had a gay old time. Or, uh, not.

Like a Lesbian Hen in a Henhouse: The Bachelor recap

2012-01-03T10:58:00.000-08:00

Find a flaw, bitch.

There has to be something wrong with Bachelor Ben, right? He simply can’t be as hot, sweet, funny, and level-headed as he seems and also be The Bachelor. (It’s sort of like what they say about anyone who runs for president: You have to be a little crazy to want the job.)

So while I watch this season of The Bachelor, I’ll focus on the usual things—the cat fights, the ugly-cries, the creative spellingz, the need to send Jenna’s case file directly to the department Health and Human Services—but I will also be searching for flaws in the seriously too-good-to-be true Ben. Wish me luck. . .

Okay, let’s meet some of the girls, shall we?

We start with Lindzi—yes, Lindzi, with a Z. And no A. Or Y. . oh forget it.

She’s a horseback enthusiast, who claims that her last relationship ended in the “worst way.”
And I’m all like, Yeah, yeah, stop exaggerating, Lindz.

Then I find out how she was rejected. Via a text that read: “Babe, welcome to Dumpsville…population YOU.”

Okay, she wins. I mean, loses. That is literally the most horrible thing I’ve ever heard. Elin Nordegren is like, “Yeesh, girl got played.”

(And I’m sure after a breakup like that, Lindz has loads of self-esteem and a healthy regard for men!)

Then there’s Amber, who wears a lot of camouflage and likes to shoot bucks. “Oh Ben better eat some cow balls,” she says, licking her lips. “I will be disappointed if he doesn’t.” That’s not even a double entendre. It’s just an entendre.

Next, there’s Casey, the 24 year old administrative assistant.

When she saw Ben get dumped on TV (as we all did, multiple times, poor guy—I’m pretty sure ABC just randomly injects that footage into their shows from time to time), she felt sad, but then glad, because this meant she had a shot with him.

I wonder if she also thinks that the voices in the radio are speaking directly to her?

Now meet Courtney, one of our resident mean girls. She’s a “model.”

“I’m sure girls are intimidated by me and they should be,” she says.

Courtney also knows what she wants and what she’s worth: 2 carats.

(Only 2? The recession has really messed with bling-based dreams.)

Moving right along we have the baby-obsessed Jane, who works in a maternity ward and spends her day gazing lovingly upon new borns saying, “Call me mama. Who’s your mama?”

She thinks that she and Ben would have beautiful babies, natch.

Oh god, poor Lindsay—our little ambassador’s daughter. Always the wacky sidekick, never the female lead. For her sake, the less said about her goofy little sartorial trip around the globe, the better.

Then we have Jenna, the blogger (I’m so proud to be part of that sisterhood). It almost seems wrong to mock Jenna, right? I mean the girl is obviously unbalanced. (Ha, just kidding. Let’s mock away.)

“I know deep down that relationships work and they don’t work,” she says. If this is the kind of deep thinking she drops on her blog, The Overanalyst, I’d hate to see what constitutes under-analyzing.

When relationships don’t work, Jenna says that she gets “crazed.” (Other times Jenna gets “crazed”: When she drives, when she walks, when it rains, when it’s sunny outside, when she’s alone, when she’s in a crowd . . just to name a few).

“Ben, I’m coming for you,” she says, ominously. (Ben, run for your life!)

Skipping ahead to Nicki, 26, who has a shameful past: She’s a divorcee, people! (Her 1950s level of shame deserved a 1950s descriptive.)

“The next time I get married, it’s going to be forever,” she says.

And based on the sterling marriage reputation of this show, she’s come to the right place!

(I do believe studies will proves that you are more likely to marry the “guy you just bumped into on the bus” than “the guy who just proposed to you on The Bachelor” but I’ll get back to you on that.)

So. . back to Ben, who is now waiting for various limos filled with shrieking women to roll up and meet him.

There are two kinds of schadenfreude-tastic moments that ensue:

The pre-fab greeting, as exemplified by Erika, the law student:

Erika: The verdict is in and you are guilty!

Ben (playing along—which, by the way, could describe his behavior this entire episode): Guilty of what?

Erika: Being sexy

Max: *headdesk*

The other schadenfreude-tastic greeting is the awkward pause, I have nothing to say, let’s just stand here looking at each other in silence, oh God will this moment ever end, ohmygod I’m blowing this on national TV, wow Ben has nice hair-type greeting. Only slightly less mortifying.

But we do have a few originals:
There’s Samantha, Miss Pacific Palisades, who wears her sash. Groan.

There’s the aforementioned Lindzi, who rides in on her horse. (“Screw you and the horse you rode in on,” says someone named Courtney in response. Heh.)

There’s Holly in her big ol’ derby hat.

There’s Anna, who basically does the Bachelor equivalent of holding out your hand for a slap, pulling it away, and saying, “Psych!”—as she breezes by without a greeting Ben. (“Bold move,” says Bachelor Ben. And by “bold” he means “dumb.” Playing hard to get on a reality TV dating show really makes no sense at all.)

And then there’s Brittney, who brings her. . . grandmother?

The other girls are positively fuming that Brittney was so diabolically clever as to bring her (admittedly adorable) blue-haired granny. To which I’m thinking: Did grandmother’s become some sort of aphrodisiac when I wasn’t looking?

Because if you ask me, there are few things LESS sexy than bringing your grandmother on a first date. It’s not even page one of the Things Not To Bring on a First Date handbook—it’s so obvious, it’s not even in the handbook.

(There’s a reason why you’ve never heard of a GILF.)

One more thing about Bachelor Ben greeting the girls: I thought I couldn’t love him more, but when Shawn slapped him on the arm and he said, “I love a slug on the arm” I discovered I was wrong.

Inside the party, we meet the Amazonian Monica, who looks a bit like Kristen Johnson from Third Rock From the Sun and is, well, a lesbian.

Now talk about a diabolical plan!
Why has no other lesbian ever crashed The Bachelor party? She’s like a lesbian hen in a hen house!

All these women are so vulnerable and needy. She gloms right onto the beautiful, dim Blakely, the VIP cocktail waitress (which I’m pretty sure is a euphemism for . . .well, you know).

She’s hanging all over Blakely and telling her how sexy and beautiful she is and how they are soul sisters for life and Blakely is so confused because she wants to hear these words tonight, but she wants to hear them from Bachelor Ben, but Monica is so confident and . . .tall!

So Monica and Jenna have a fight, which is unfair, because Monica is a bully and Jenna is flying express over the cuckoo’s nest.

A few more thoughts before we wrap this puppy up:

When the rapping epidemiologist is not even CLOSE to being the most embarrassing person of the night, you know it’s been an excellent show.

The producers totally told Ben to keep Jenna around for the dramah. Well played, Bachelor producers, well played.

Oh, I guess I should mention that Lindzi got the Firzt Imprezzion roze.

But Lindsay, the crying clown ambassador’s daughter and Anna, the too-cool-to-say-hi-to-the-Bachelor are both gone.

Also, two hours into the season and Ben is still adorable and perfect. It’s just a matter of time people, just a matter of time. . .

p.s. Probably won’t get around to recapping this every week, but I will try to crank out as many of these suckers as I can.

Karma’s a bitch (and so am I): The Top Chef Texas recap

2011-12-22T09:51:00.000-08:00

I know that everyone thinks Beverly is sweetness and light and a basket of kittens and stuff like that, but I have a new theory on her: She’s scary.

Seriously, she’s some kind of wicca, or shaman, or voodoo sorceress.

Because yes, there might be karma in the world—and yes, it can be a powerful thing. But it’s not usually instantaneous. It’s not usually, like, a vending machine, where you put your quarter in for cosmic retribution and it comes popping right out at you.

But in Beverly’s world, that’s exactly how it works. It’s like instant messaging: She texts “T8k Hthr dwn” to the universe and the universe promptly responds.

Hey, speaking of instant messaging, holy shit! Twitter has only been around for four years? I guess all those fond memories I have of me live Tweeting my 4th grade holiday pageant are false.

I mention Twitter, because it was apparently popularized at the SXSW festival, which is relevant for two reasons:

a. The chefs have now made their way to Austin

b. I can at least briefly stop making fun of Texas because Austin is awesome.

The Quickfire challenge is make a dish based on live-Tweet requests from Top Chef followers.

Some cat named @DentonBiety (everyone follow him, it’ll be fun!) tweeted, “Everything is better with bacon. Let’s see if that’s true.”

So Tom and Padma tell the chefs they have 45 minutes to make a dish with bacon. Lame, right? I mean, I don’t presume to know @DentonBiety, but I don’t think that’s quite what he (she?) had in mind. I think @DentonBiety was thinking more along the lines of “If everything is better with bacon, can you make lemon meringue pie better with it?” Something a little more, you know, challenging.

But of course, this was only Part One of the challenge.

As they’re cooking away, Tom drops in another live Tweet, from @habitat67: “Do a hash for a hashtag challenge” (I see what you did there, @habitat67).

Finally, a third Tweet comes in: “Chefs, choose a pantry ingredient and hand it off for someone else to use in their dish.” (Oooooh, sneaky.)

So there’s all sorts of consternation about sriracha sauce, which is just silly if you ask me. Take @DentonBiety’s tweet, substitute “sriracha” for “bacon” and you pretty much have my culinary philosophy.

Tom does the judging.

The bottom 3 are Grayson (her puff wasn’t puffy), Chris J (his dish was too salty) and Ed (his hash was too ashy).

And the top 3 are Beverly (the karma begins!), Sarah (her bacon was nicely smoked), and Paul (his dish was wonderfully weird, just like Austin).

And . . . Paul wins!

Then they all go to the hotel lounge where Patti LaBelle comes on stage and works out “Lady Marmalade.”

As if on cue, Padma struts in and I have a feeling this is now in her rider: “Patti LaBelle must sing Lady Marmalade every time I enter a room.”

So Patti is a chef herself (who knew?) and was inspired by her mother. The elimination challenge is this: Make a dish to honor your cooking inspiration.

Amazingly, it’s not Beverly who cries, but Sarah, because her grandparents are her inspiration and they are both dead. Oh, wait. . .this just in: Both her grandparents are alive. But they will die some day. (Especially if they tick off Beverly somehow.)

Okay, the next sequence on the show I’d like to call “Both Max and Malibu Chris are still terribly confused about his sexuality.”

I should, of course, mention an earlier scene, the road trip to Austin, where Chris—now nicknamed “Malibu Chris” by Grayson—said the following, “If you were on match.com, do you think we’d be compatible?”

To whom do you think he said this:

a. Grayson

b. Paul

c. His hair gel

If you guessed “b” you’re right. (And if he’d only known that just one car away, Heather was professing her love for John Besh, Chris would be all like, “Back off, bitch. He’s mine.”)

At this point, I’m fully convinced that the producers of Top Chef know that Chris’s sexuality is a source of great debate in the blogosphere and are just messing with us. To wit: The following triptych back at the house:

First, Chris sees Chris Jones’ butt crack and can’t look away—but must.

“Crack kills,” he says half-heartedly.

Then, Umlaut and Ed are sitting around a table discussing the size of Ed’s balls (really).

“I have balls and I’m going to show them,” Ed says. (Off camera, Chris has his hands over his ears: ‘”La, la, la, la, la. I can’t HEAR you!”)

Finally, they head to the challenge site and Chris J, brandishing a piece of fruit, happily announces, “I have my banana!”

Oh. the. Humanity.

Cooking time and I learned a new word: You know that gunky white stuff you sometimes see on overcooked salmon? You no longer have to call it “that gunky white stuff you sometimes see on overcooked salmon.” It’s called albumen. Malibu Chris had some on his salmon and he tried to shave it off and was hoping that the judges “wouldn’t notice.” (Good luck with that!)

Heather’s beef stroganoff contained some kind of mystery meat that Patti LaBelle identified as “Big Foot.” (Heh.)

Sarah was concerned that her pork sausage stuffed cabbage looked a little too “Creature from the Green Lagoon”-ish, but the judges floved it.

Grayson made a plate of meat and potatoes so unappetizingly enormous that even Texans would be like, “Girl, show a little restraint!”

Edward’s vegetarian bibimbap was so delicious that one of the guests was allergic to it but STILL ate it.

Beverly’s Korean braised short ribs were a revelation and the judges were particularly impressed—karma alert! karma alert!—with her masterful use of the pressure cooker.

Judgment time.

Padma asks to see Grayson, Heather, and Malibu Chris.

They exchange looks. Could it be that they read the tea leaves wrong and they’re secretly awesome? No, they’re the bottom 3.

“Your tributes fell flat,” Padma says.

Padma found Grayson’s beef to be “Sinewy and spongy”. I truly can’t imagine two words, used in concert, that would be less appetizing.

“Sorry,” Grayson says. Because really, what else can she say at this point?

As for Malibu Chris? Suffice it to say, the judges were all-bummin’ because of the albumen.

Then onto Heather’s karmic retribution, aka her beef stroganoff.

The judges tell her the meat was so grisly they couldn’t cut it.

Heather explains that she considered using the pressure cooker, but feared it might make her beef stringy.

“Beverly used the pressure cooker,” Tom says pointedly. “And she’s. . . not here.”

Knife, meet heart.

Okay, off they go to stew in their sinewy and spongy juices.

Now the good news! The top 3 are Beverly, Sarah, and Ed.

“You put your heart and soul on that plate,” Patti said to Ed.

“Everything had a purpose,” Tom says to Beverly.

“You showed a lot of technique in that dish,” Emeril says to Sarah.

And the winner is. . .Sarah! (In a sad note, the news is so exciting, her grandparents both drop dead on the spot.) (Joke.)

And the other winner is. . .Karma!

Because, yes, Heather is gone.

“Don’t be upset,” she says to the gang in the holding room. And they’re all like, “Who ya callin’ upset?”

“There is a personal satisfaction,” Beverly meekly admits, adding under her breath, “Mwahhaha!”

I Am Not an Animal! The Top Chef Texas recap

2011-12-15T12:35:00.000-08:00

I would like to make an addendum to last week’s recap: Nevermind.

Because Heather kinda emerged as a supervillain this week, huh?

I mean, she made Beverly cry, which, granted isn’t exactly the hardest thing to do—Beverly cries at office park openings—but still. . . awww, widdle Beverly!

And Heather’s the worst kind of supervillain, too: the kind who’s constantly shooting herself in the foot. She’s the Plaxico Burress of supervillains. (At this moment, I’m actually envisioning the thought bubbles with question marks over all my readers’ heads.)

Seriously, how did she not see that sabotaging Beverly was also sabotaging herself because they were on the SAME FRICKIN’ TEAM?

When Grayson, who fried several brain cells due to teenage alcohol poisoning (I kid, I kid), sees the error of your logic, you know you’re in trouble. But Heather was on a roll. She was going to complain again (and again . . . and again) about Beverly peeling those shrimp if it was the last thing she did. And damned if it nearly was. (She would also like to complain about the premature cancellation of Freaks and Geeks, the Florida Supreme Court presidential ruling of 2000, the 1919 Black Sox scandal, and other things about as relevant to this challenge as Beverly’s shrimp.)

And I don’t want get all grassy knoll on y’all, but the minute I found out it was a double elimination and saw which teams were paired up, I knew who was going home. Dakota and Nyesha were going to have to smoke the competition (figuratively, that is) to avoid the whole, “You have no clearly delineated character or storyline so bye-bye” fate. Just sayin’…

So. . .yeah. The Quickfire Challenge. More shameless product plugs for some tequila brand. Remember when TV shows and commercials were two different things?

The guest judge is Tim Love, who is an actual chef and not a chef in a porn film, in case there was any confusion.

The assignment is to create a dish that pairs beautifully with the tequila of your choice. . . and man, Love is a meanypants!

“I felt like it was a new special at a chain restaurant,” he says of Heather’s rock shrimp.

“The chicken was dry on my palate…it stuck in my teeth,” he says to Chris Jones. (Luckily, Chris is able to pull the bone from his Pebbles hairdo to help him pick his teeth.)

Love also isn’t a fan of Sarah’s undercooked risotto but she trots out the old “your palate is meaningless to me; I’ve been to Italy” line, albeit somewhat unconvincingly.

On top? Not!Fat Chris, who is quietly emerging as a contender. Lindsay, for her perfectly seared salmon, and Umlaut, who was the only chef clever enough to know that clams and tequila are the Ashton and Demi of food/liquor pairings.

And the winner is: Umlaut! (Does this mean there’s hope for Ashton and Demi, too?)

Now, for the Elimination Challenge.

Team up with the person you are “coincidentally” standing next to and definitely not “standing next to because the producers told you exactly where to stand” (Beverly and Heather? Quel surprise!).

I’ll call this challenge: The NRA’s Revenge. (Or, conversely, PETA’s Raging Bile Duct). Turns out, Tim Love loves game and he’s having a dinner party for his fellow game-loving chefs, including Vinny Detolo from the restaurant Animal, who looks like Tobias Funke from Arrested Development and apparently used to hunt gators (!). When bearded hipster nerds do macho things, it puzzles.

I kill gators

Nyesha and Dakota get venison for Brian Caswell

Sarah and Paul gets squab for my Top Chef Masters homie Anita Lo

Grayson and Chris J get elk for Tim Love

Chris and Lindsay get boar for John Shook

Heather and Bev get duck for Jon Currence (would it be too obvious to make a “currant” sauce?)

Ed and Umlaut get quail for the aforementioned macho hipster Vinny Detolo.

And there is a catch: The bottom 3 teams will be determined by a jury of their peers, meaning each other. Oh that won’t be awkward at all.

The kitchen is positively oozing with body fluid. Everyone is sweating and when they are not sweating they are crying and when they are not crying they are probably farting. It is like a petri dish in there and it is gross (and pretty much the reason why I don’t like to look into the kitchens of my favorite restaurants—frankly, I’d rather not know.)

In a completely shocking move, Chris J has decided to make some sort of snazzy sweet potato “chain link fence.” Because potatoes taste so much better when they’re shaped like a chain link fence. Wait. . . no.

First up, Not!Fat Chris and Lindsay.

They have made roasted wild boar with peach BBQ sauce and Kohlrabi slaw.

The judges seem to like it and so do their fellow cheftestants (“It’s a nice, playful way to do BBQ,” says Sarah) except for Paul, who—perhaps because he possesses the clearest conscience of them all—is the only one willing to step up to the plate and do a little criticizing: “The slaw is a little watery,” he says. Upon hearing this, Lindsay’s face freezes into a rictus of despair. “It’s gut wrenching,” she says. (This may be when the farting took place.).

Next up: Heather and Bev, who—spoiler alert!—haven’t really been seeing eye to eye.

Bev wants to do her Asian thing and Heather wants to do her farm-to-table thing and Heather says, and I quote: “It’s like a knife to the heart.” Good lord, people. Take a “chill pill” as we used to say back on Long Island.

They end up creating five-spice duck breast with creamy polenta and pickled cherry.

The judges think the plating is a little confusing and all over the place.

Back in the kitchen, and true to form, Sarah declares the duck breast “perfectly cooked and super tender.”

Paul thinks the skin needed to be crisper.

Next up Chris and Grayson and their jumbo roasted elk with sweet potato ~~chainlink fence~~ bouquet.

“Is there a reason why the sweet potato looks like this?” Padma says. (You have to wake up pretty early in the morning, do a juicing cleanse, an hour of pilates, and read several chapters of The Satanic Verses to fool Padma.)

“I. . .I was trying to do an elaborate technique and I didn’t quite accompli—” sputters Chris.

“It IS how we wanted it to be,” interrupts Grayson. “We wanted to get height and we accomplished that.”

As they exit, stage right, you can hear Grayson saying, “Don’t TELL them that!” Now kids, play nice.

So the sweet potatoes are a sour note, but the elk is cooked perfectly.

Next up, Umlaut’s Redemption Tour 2011 is almost complete. The chefs love the Sorghum quail with pickled cherries he made with Edward as do his fellow cheftestants.

Then, Dakota and Nyesha, who are making sacrificial lamb. Just kidding, they’re making rack of venison. “I’m racking my brain trying to figure out how to cook this,” Dakota says, no pun intended. (Literally, the pun was unintentional.) (Punning is a dying art people. . . I’m only one woman.)

While their Kobocha squash and beet gratin is delish, the venison is way undercooked. It’s just the opening the judges need to eliminate them without controversy. Whew!

Finally, squab two ways with Sarah and Paul.

Sarah is totally freaking out about her squab sausage.

She is violating the three rules of the kitchen: Never let them see you sweat. Never let them see you cry. Never let them see you have a nervous sausage breakdown.

“The scariest thing is not that I would be eliminated. It’s that something I did would make Paul go home, I’d be devastated,” says Sarah. “That sausage killed me, you guys.”

(So, in case you were playing the home game: The competition is “gut wrenching,” a “knife to the heart,” “devastating,” and “killing” one of the cheftestants. I can sure see why everyone wants to be on the show!)

Padma pads in: “Can we see Ed and Ty?” she says. They win! Umlaut is on fïre.

Now it’s time for the cheftestants to pick the bottom 3 teams.

“Why don’t we just vote?” Grayson says, logically enough.

“But you’re not going to vote for yourself!” counters Heather. (At this point, I’m beginning to consider the very real possibility that Heather simply isn’t bright enough to be a supervillain.)

“Neither are you,” Grayson says, barely able to contain her contempt.

The vote takes place. Chris and Grayson, Beverly and Heather, and Nyesha and Dakota are in the bottom 3.

So an elk, a duck, and a venison walk into a bar. . .

“Obviously, your fellow chefs felt you served the three worst dishes at dinner,” Padma says. She just loves to dig that knife in a little deeper, doesn’t she?

(This, BTW, is the portion of the show where Heather starts attacking Beverly over her shrimp from last week’s challenge and, in case you can’t get enough of it, the Top Chef website has conveniently posted a video called, “The Most Cringeworthy Parts of Heather Vs. Beverly.” Heh.)

Anyway, once Dakota and Nyesha were in front of the firing squad it was a foregone conclusion, right? Kinda sucks for Nyesha, who did the “delicious” part of their meal and obviously didn’t deserve to go.

“I took Nyesha down with me and that sucks,” says Dakota. (Awww, love ya, sis. )

In closing, double eliminations are gut wrenching, a knife to the heart, devastating, and they may one day kill us all.

Cattle balls: The Top Chef Texas recap

2011-12-08T11:17:00.000-08:00

Will the real supervillain please step forward?

I think I’ve finally figured out the one flaw with this otherwise kickass season of Top Chef: There’s no villain. There’s no 5-star egomaniac, just a series of 2-star egomaniacs. We need that one jerk, that one contestant we love to hate, who throws others under the bus with impunity, who crows endlessly about his or her own culinary prowess, who is bullying, combative, who acts like every personal failure is somebody else’s fault. (In short, we need Stefan Richter from Season 5.)

They tried Heather on for size last night. Sure, she’s brassy and a little pushy, and she wasn’t particularly “nice” to Beverly. But she strikes me as a gal I’d love to belly up to a bar with. “Fun to go drinking with” is rarely a good quality in supervillains.

That being said, I figured I’d go through the remaining contestants, ranking them on the Stefan scale.

0 Stefans = absolutely no villain potential.

4 Stefans = Ralph Fiennes, dust off your resume. (It’s a Voldemort joke, people. Keep up.)

Edward Lee
Villainous attributes: Shifty jaw might reflect shifty moral character; outsized ego
Mitigating qualities: Chuck Norris-like ability to play through pain; invited Beverly and her hubby to his restaurant

Final VPS (villain potential score): 3 Stefans

Paul Qui
Villainous attributes: Too adorable?
Mitigating qualities: Hard-working, sweet, and loveable. Is that mitigating enough for ya?
Final VPS: 0 Stefans

Beverly Kim
Villainous attributes: Went all Kanye on that Whole Foods meat counter that one time. (Never forget.)
Mitigating qualities: Cries at the drop of an onion; has secret food crush on Edward Lee
Final VPS: 1 Stefan

Lindsay Autry
Villainous attributes: Unmistakable air of superiority; alarmingly good posture
Mitigating qualities: Really hasn’t done anything villainous since episode one; made Vienna sausage homage to her pappy
Final VPS: 2 Stefans

Dakota Weiss

Villainous attributes: Nobody with that many tattoos can be all good
Mitigating qualities: My sister from another mister.
Final VPS: 1 Stefan

Heather Terhune
Villainous attributes: Seriously would NOT shut up about Beverly’s shrimp
Mitigating qualities: Prefers Dynasty to Dallas.
Final VPS: 3 Stefans

Whitney Otawka
Villainous attributes: It’s always the quiet ones. . .
Mitigating qualities: Grew up as a poor sharecropper during the potato famine in Ireland, or something
Final VPS: Does it really even matter at this point?

Sarah Grueneberg
Villainous attributes: Control freak; plays the “I grew up in Texas” card shamelessly
Mitigating qualities: I like her smile. (So sue me.)
Final VPS: 2 Stefans

Chris Jones
Villainous attributes: Condescending attitude toward “little buddy”; Pebbles Flintstone/Samurai delicatessen (h/t Cliffie) judging hair.
Mitigating qualities: Much to my great annoyance, still hasn’t actually done anything “villainous”
Final VPS: 2 Stefans

Chris Crary
Villainous attributes: Resemblance to Billy Bush.
Mitigating qualities: Sexual confusion playing out adorably on national TV; used to be a fatty.
Final VPS: 1 Stefan

Ty-lör Boring
Villainous attributes: Umlaut abuse.
Mitigating qualities: If you slice him with an oyster knife, will he not bleed?
Final VPS: 2 Stefans

Nyesha Arrington
Villainous attributes: This is the SECOND reality TV cooking show she’s appeared on.
Mitigating qualities: Considering her affiliation with Chef Robuchon, could be so much more of a diva.
Final VPS: 1 Stefan

Grayson Schmitz
Villainous attributes: “Sauces ain’t no thang to me”
Mitigating qualities: America’s sweetheart
Final VPS: 1 Stefan

So there ya have it. Looks like Edward and Heather are truly our last hopes. Go forth and be shitty, guys!

Anyway, onto the show, which was actually kind of boring (or, as Umlaut might say, “böring”) hence my “vamping” above.

The Quickfire challenge is about the 5 mother sauces—Veloute, Béchamel, Hollandaise, Espangole, and Tomate.

Each cheftestant gets assigned a sauce and then they are asked to create a dish using their sauce in an innovative way.

“Ready for the mother of all Quickfires?” Padma asks.

And the chefs all laugh like she has just said something “funny.”

Guest judge is Dean Fearing and he's throwing out all sorts of misdirections involving the words "clarified butter," "roux" and “hmmm.”

“What was your roux?” he asks Paul, who nervously responds he didn’t have one.
“Hmmm,” says Dean Fearing.

“Did you clarify your butter?” he asks Grayson, who nervously responds that she used whole butter.
“Hmmm,” says Dean Fearing.

I only mention this because both Grayson and Paul end up in the Top 3, along with Chris C. (That Dean Fearing: So saucy!)

So the winner is Grayson, who also gets immunity.

(Oh, for what it’s worth, the bottom 3 are Dakota, Nyesha, and Beverly. Particularly awkward for Nyesha, because saucing is apparently her life.)

Now onto the Elimination Challenge. After weeks involving chili and rodeos and Texas state troopers, it was surely time for some elegant fine dining, right? Right?

Uh. . .no.

Instead we get steaks—prepared for the Cattle Barons ball at the Southfork Ranch from the TV show Dallas. (Yes, it’s a real thing.)

“For Texans, steak is one of life’s most important pleasures,” says Padma
I give up.

Also, the winner of this challenge gets a car, by some German car company, I believe. Nyesha grabs the keys to das auto like she already owns it. (Does she know something the rest of us don’t?) (Spoiler alert: Only that Heather might let her borrow the car one day.)

Very little of drama happens:

At Whole Foods, the cheftestants break shit like a bunch of bear cubs in a grocery store.

There’s some brief flare-up of Edward accusing Heather of stealing his cake recipe, but even the show can’t be bothered to follow through on that.

As mentioned above, Heather is annoyed with Beverly for taking too long to peel and poach her shrimp and, miraculously, Beverly does not cry. (New rule to the “Blubbering Beverly” drinking game: Any episode where Beverly does not cry, you must take the tasty beverage you are currently enjoying and spill it down the drain. It seems only fair.)

The steak thing ends up being all about Umlaut, because he used to work at big New York steakhouse and he has volunteered to grill the steaks.

Then he cuts himself with the aforementioned oyster knife and it’s bloody and gross—so he’s sent off to the hospital for stitches. (Edward Lee doesn’t need to go to no stinkin' hospital for stitches: He sterilizes a steak knife, grabs some dental floss and goes to work.)

Umlaut comes home at 6 am, poor dear, all groggy and hopped up on pain meds.

“I cut my hand, I got no sleep and I’m playing with fire,” he says. Yup, that just about covers it.

But he’s got to make all those steaks medium rare, as Texas cattle barons like em. (Hey, I found the one thing I have in common with Texas cattle barons!)

Also, Whitney, who is milking her new role as Poor!Whitney for all it’s worth, is making potatoes au gratin, because when she was a girl, sometimes her family subsisted on potato chips and Cheese Doodles and her mom called it “Potatoes Au Gratin” (or somethin’ like that).

There’s some technical glitch involving “flashing” the steaks prematurely and, apparently, medium rare is not in the offing and Umlaut is scrëwëd.

Here’s how the food goes down: First course is tomato watermelon gazpacho prepared by Beverly, Sarah, and Dakota.

The judges think it’s a pleasant, but unambitious way to start the meal.

Second course is a seared NY strip steak carpaccio salad prepared by Edward, Chris Jones, and Paul.

Judges think the steak (done by Chris) is perfection, but the salad is a flaming pile of meh.
Third course is the ribeye and potato gratin prepared by Umlaut, Whitney, Chris, and Nyesha.

So yeah, the steaks are no good, the potatoes gratin are raw, and the plate is a mess. However, the whole thing is almost saved by Nyesha’s compound butter (who knew?).

Dessert course is Texas peach cake made by Heather, Lindsay, and Grayson.

I think at this point, we can officially say that the Top Chef Dessert curse is over, because the judges flove it.

Top 3: Heather, Nyesha, and Chris Jones.

And the winner is. . .yeah, Heather. Told you that already.

On the bottom we have:

Whitney, Edward, and Umlaut.

Remember when Tom said, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all”? Happy to report that guiding life philosophy lasted all of one week.

Because he rips these 3 a new one.

“Usually it’s hard to send someone home,” he says. “Not tonight.”
Ouch.

He even questions whether or not he chose the right 16 chefs to begin with.
Double ouch.

And. . .even Whitney’s (heretofore unmentioned?) special relationship with judge Hugh Acheson doesn’t save her, as she has to pack up her knives and mosey on outta there.

It's time for Whitney to slip back into a life of complete and utter anonymity. . .which is to say, there will be no change for her whatsoever.

Like a Fat Kid Loves Cake: The Top Chef Texas recap

2011-12-01T11:34:00.000-08:00

Oooh, our first shocker of Season 9!!! Hair gel Chris was a fatty. It is revealed in this hilarious exchange in the car as the cheftestants travel to Dallas. (Hmmm. . .I wonder what the make and model of that car is? I wish they wouldn’t leave us in the dark like this!)

Chris: “I was 70 pounds heavier three years ago.”

Paul (uncomprehending): “Like big? Buff?”
Chris: “No, like fat.”

Cut to a picture of Chris with flat bangs and non-ironic facial hair. It’s not just that he looked heavier, he looked like a completely different human being. (I guess every pound lost translated to one pump of hair gel.)

Apparently, Chris’s wakeup call was when his friends saw his picture in some chef’s magazine and said, “Looking good in that magazine, fatty.” (Yeesh, nice friends ya got there, Chris.)
Color me surprised. But it stil doesn’t quite explain Chris’s confusing sexual orientation. (More on that in a jiffy.)

En route to Dallas, the gang gets pulled over by State Troopers and I think most of them know it’s a shtick, but Dakota is genuinely concerned because she has an outstanding ticket in San Antonio. (I'm pretty sure they execute you for that there. . . I kid, I kid.)

Not to fear, they’re just play actin’. . because Padma is standing in a field with. . .the most handsome man alive! (Well, according to Chris, at least.)

“You get this reflection off his beautiful white teeth and his hair blowing in the wind,” he says, lost in a reverie. “John Besh is a handsome man, I’m not going to lie.”

¿Quién es más bella?

That is a lot of specific detail for a man who claims to be straight. And coupled with last week’s “Padma is the next best thing to Fabio” moment, I’m not sayin’. . I’m just sayin.

So here’s the challenge: There are a bunch of survival kits in the trunk of the car (it’s a Honda of some sort, right?) and they have to make food out of the canned and tinned grub.

I’m always amazed that they’re able to concoct such pretentious sounding dishes out of tinned food.

Basmati rice with smoked trout?

Asian coconut soup with mackerel and dill pickle juice?

Beef Satay with Peanut Noodles, mango chili relish, and pepitas?

Duuuudes. . next time I eat Spaghetti-Os with franks, I’m calling it annelini with a roasted tomato reduction and pork ragu bolognese.

Anyway, the winner of this challenge is Lindsay, who made a tuna and sardine club in French onion soup with her father’s beloved Vienna sausage. So good on her.

The ELIMINATION CHALLENGE is to make a course for a progressive dinner in tony Hyland Park.

(Just a hunch, but one gets the sense that they rooted through old “Real Housewives of Dallas” audition tapes to come up with these doozies.)

Poor Dakota gets stuck with the third course (i.e. desserts) again.

“I’m pissed,” she says. “I didn’t come here to make dessert.”

So they all pile into the Hyundais and drive to what Chicago Chris called “Wisteria Lane.”

And then the second truly stupendous thing happens this episode. Whitney gets a backstory! Whitney gets a backstory!

“My background is very different,” she says. “I grew up with a fairly poor family. I lived in hotel rooms and not nice ones.”

She was poor everybody! I can now call her Poor Whitney instead of Whodat? Whitney. It’s almost like she’s an actual contestant on the actual show now. It’ll just a matter of weeks before I’m able to pick her out of a police lineup.

So House 1 (appetizers) are the Whitmans.

The cheftestants are Poor Whitney, Chicago Chris, Sarah, Paul, and Lindsay.

First thing you have to know about Mrs. Whitman: She is a lifestyle and entertaining expert. She has written books on the subject. Cut to a series of coffee table books spread out on the kitchen island—as one does—that give the vaguest whiff of “Self-published coffee table books of the rich and famous” (Amiright?).

“At first we were thinking of asking you make everything pink,” the wife says (that’s p. 125 of her book Color Me Entertained: Using Food Dye to Spice Up Your Next Party.)

The cheftestants stare at her in slack-jawed horror.

“But then we decided not too,” she adds in a voice that can only be described as breezily malicious.

The chefs laugh nervously.

Also, no bell peppers, cilantro, or any food that would have guests self-conscious about their breath (that’s p. 62 in That Stinks! How Smelly Food Can Ruin Even the Best Celebration.)

House 2 (entrees) are the Kloewers.

The cheftestants are Nyesha, Chuy, Heather, Umlaut, and Beverly

Mrs. Kloewer also doesn’t like cilantro—it almost feels like some sort of Junior League pact they all made—and while her laidback hubby likes spicy food and beef, she doesn’t eat meat and seems to favor food with none of this exotic thing they call “flavor.”

Also, randomly enough, she hates raspberries.

House 3 (desserts) are the Wescotts (are they making these names up, or what?)

The cheftestants are Edward, Chris, Dakota, and Grayson.

“We want something that’s worth every calorie,” says the wife.

“Channel your inner fat kid,” says the husband.

And with that, Chris runs out of the room crying. (JK).

So Tom, Gail, Padma, and Chef Dreamboat roll up in a Kia and the progressive party begins.

First: Appetizers

Chris has gone full-on gimmick, creating a roasted chicken “cigar” with sweet corn, collard greens, and cumin “ash.”

Is that a roasted chicken cigar or are you just happy to see me?

As for the rest:

Sarah-grilled Roman style artichokes with date puree

Lindsay-a salad of roasted and raw beets and charred chickpea

Whitney -seared scallop over sweet corn puree

and

Paul -fried brussels sprouts with grilled prosciutto

(Slightly off topic aside: One of the many triumphs of the American food revolution is that Brussels sprouts have been saved from the scrap heap of “icky vegetables kids don’t like” and placed on their rightful pedestal as “king of the sprouts.”)

The general consensus is that some dishes work (Paul’s sprouts; Sarah’s artichokes) and others not so much (Chris’s cigar).

“So would you say, it’s close but no cigar?” Tom says, barely able to conceal his pleasure over his own clever joke. (Who’s the Village Idiot now, Padma?)

Next up: Entrees

Beverly -seared scallop with creamy polenta

Chuy -sockeye salmon stuffed with goat cheese

Heather-garlic and rosemary grilled lampchops

Nyesha-roasted filet of beef

and

Umlaut-grilled pork tenderloin with summer slaw

Chuy’s sockeye salmon is declared dry and the goat cheese is mealy. (Anyone who screws up goat cheese is on my list. Just sayin’)

Umlaut’s grilled tenderloin on a big pile of ungainly slaw is way too unfocused.

Finally: Dessert

Chris- strawberry cupcake with banana custard (and sprinkles and marshmallows and gummy bears and ju ju beans and candy corn and glitter)

Dakota -banana bread pudding with banana mousse and banana date milkshake.

Edward -panna cotta with cantaloupe consomme

and

Grayson - chocolate sponge cake with carmelized bananas and chocolate covered pretzels

“I found Edward’s dish a bit jiggly looking” Mrs. Wescott says.(You should see his jaw!)

Most of the desserts are pretty great except for Chris’s cupcake.

“My mother always taught me, if you don’t have anything good to say, don’t say anything at all,” Tom says. (Thank goodness he doesn’t adhere to Mama Colicchio’s advice all the time, because otherwise this would be one helluva boring show.)

Judgment time:

Padma asks to see Sarah, Grayson, Paul, and Daktoa

“The four of you. . .served our favorite dishes!”

The look of utter relief and gratitude on their faces can only suggest that they’ve NEVER WATCHED THE SHOW before. (That’s actual shock registering on Dakota’s face in the photo above, even though it looks like fake, bad-acting shock.)

Anyway, so much for desserts being the kiss of death. Two of the four finalists made dessert. (Is it premature to lift the Dessert = Dunzo rule of Top Chef? Yes, I think it is. But it’s a step in the right direction.)

And. . . Paul wins! A victory for Texas, foodtrucks, and the formerly maligned Brussels sprouts the world over!

Now for the bad news:

Bottom 4: Chicago Chris, Hair Gel Chris, Chuy, and Umlaut

So Tom says that Hair Gel Chris’s cupcake was like something a kid would make at “make your own cupcake bar.” (Gee Tom, why don’t you just get in Chris’s face and yell, “Fat kid! Fat kid!” while you’re at it?)

Umlaut’s pork was out of proportion and demonstrated “poor knife skills” according to Chef Dreamboat.

Chuy elicited snears of contempt when he mentioned that he served this salmon dish at his restaurant.

And Chris Jones was accused of making a novelty dish. (Also, Chris, that Pebbles Flintstone hair is another novelty you might want to reconsider . . .)

“Eating a giant greasy cigar with your fingers in a cocktail dress is the last thing anyone wants to do,” says Gail. (LOL.)

“It’s a progressive party and for one of you the progression ends here,” says Tom. This time, instead of looking pleased with his pun, he almost looks disgusted with himself. (Hey, at least they didn’t add a “Progresso soup” product placement.)

And Chuy is going home. (I wonder if he’ll take a Chu-Chu train?) (Both Tom and I agree, that was beneath me.)

No Brisket For You! The Top Chef Texas recap

2011-11-24T11:14:00.000-08:00

You know what they like in Texas?
Texans!
You know what kind of chili they like to eat in Texas?
Texas chili!

You know why there’s no beans in Texas chili?

Because if you know beans about chili, you know that chili has no beans!!

Ugh. Can I borrow someone’s 10-gallon hat, holster, and gun so I can SHOOT MYSELF?

Look, I don’t want to turn this entire blog into a Texas-bashing zone. After all, Friday Night Lights was, like, an awesome show. And I’m sure there are tons of totally cool people who live in Texas—even outside of Austin.

But boy oh boy, was there even the slightest chance that Team Green—which made beanless chili and had Sarah, whose father was in the rodeo—was going to lose?

“One of them is from Texas…born and raised Texan”- Old Man Whitaker said approvingly of the Green Team, munching happily on their meaty chili. Because dagnabbit. Food just tastes better when it’s made by hands born and raised in Texas.

But I digress. (A Texas-sized digression, you might say.)

The show starts with the gang discussing Keith’s exit.

“Did you guys turn against each other?” someone asks.

“I don’t think we turned against each other,” says Lindsay, eyeing Sarah. “Do you, Sarah?”
(If you have to ask. . .)

“Either have something good on the plate or shut the [bleep] up,” Umlaut says, in solidarity with the Mean Girls. (In the pack, it’s always best to be on the side of the alpha dames.)

Nyesha, meanwhile, is beginning to notice that happy time is over. Shit is getting real.

“It’s turned cutthroat all of a sudden,” she says. “It’s not so fun anymore.”

And with that, it's time for the Quickfire Challenge.

The task is easy: Create a dish highlighting one chili pepper. The hotter the pepper you use, the more money you win—up to $20,000. The wimps can use a jalapeno. The “go big or go home” types can use the dread “ghost pepper.” (In case you were wondering, this ain’t no friendly ghost.)

I love this challenge, partly because I learned something new (I’d never heard of the Scoville scale of pepper hotness . . . I wonder where Dr. Pepper lands?) and partly because I love me some hot peppers.

One of my constant complaints about living in Baltimore is that it’s hard to get really good hot food. Everything is watered down for the gringos.

(Although I did once make the mistake of ordering something called “Suicide Curry” at a Thai restaurant in D.C. I couldn’t feel my tongue for a week. File that under: live and learn.)

The two guest judges are Mary Sue and Susan from the Border Grill. (They are adorable and I would very much like to go around the country sampling hot sauce with them and getting mani-pedis.)

Turns out, only Paul has the cojones to use the Casper the Mean-Spirited Ghost (pepper).

The other chefs mostly go with habaneros and Thai peppers.

However, Beverly is the only one who gnaws on the raw peppers to see which one she wants to use. (Mas macho!)

In the end, though, Beverly got a little cute and didn’t bother to cook her pepper (well, guess that’s one way to highlight its flavor.) So she lands in the Bottom 3, along with Chuy (ay carumba! Someone’s got some ‘splainin to do!) and Richie “Bottom 3” Farina.

The Top 3 are Heather, Grayson, and Paul.

Fittingly, Paul wins. No guts no glory. This is Top Chef, people. Not Top Hedge Your Bets. (Or Top Scallop . . . never forget.)

Now time for the Elimination Challenge: A Chili cook-off! Fun!

The gang are split into five groups.

Red team: Whitney, Chris from Chicago, Dakota

Green Team: Chuy, Sarah, and the Not!Sexiest Man alive Chris

Black Team: Richie, Nyesha, and Beverly

Blue Team: Edward, Heather and Paul

White Team: Umlaut, Grayson, and Lindsay

They have all night to cook (at home) for the Tejas Rodeo. The winner will be chosen by the cowboys and rodeo regulars.

Nyesha is bummed to be paired with Beverly because she thinks she’s “meek.” Clearly she has never seen Beverly at the meat department of Whole Foods.

Speaking of which, the meat department is a frickin’ free-for-all—lots of grabbing and shouting and jockeying for position—it’s like the Kardashian sisters in the Lakers locker room. (Too soon?)

Dakota Weiss, who apparently needs to spend some time around my family’s dinner table to gain some assertiveness training, misses out on the brisket. (As the saying goes: “A tisket, a tasket—you’ve got no mother fucking brisket in your basket.”)

She settles for shortribs.

The house is free for all, part deux.

The refrigerator is under siege.

And maybe I’m on crack, but did I hear someone say: “Nobody touch my breast milk, okay?” (WTF?)

One of the few things I don’t like about Top Chef is when there aren’t enough stations for everyone to cook.

I like even playing fields, but there’s limited space in the fire pit. It gets a little ugly.

Also, Nyesha grabs all the beer. (Whether this is for drinking or cooking is never fully established.)

It’s getting late and people are getting loopy. Chuy is a little tipsy—literally . . . he keeps falling off a wooden hobbyhorse. He also does a strange belly dance that I can now not unsee.

Some cheftestants go to bed, others pull an all-nighter.

Those who stay up all night judge those who go to sleep.

“I’ll just be here chopping cilantro,” Chris says disdainfully, as though his ability to chop cilantro deep into the night is a sign of superior moral character.

But I am firmly on Team Nighty-Night. I, for one, need my beauty sleep. And who knows. . .maybe they’ll be forced to cook again the next day to save their own asses. (Just wild speculation on my part.)

The next day, Whitney “even I’m not sure who I am” Otakwa gets one of her first featured lines of dialogue in the whole show and it's: “We hop in the Toyota Siennas and head to the rodeo."

(Fail.)

Some curious things happen at the rodeo:

First, Gail can’t open her beer bottle because of a “weird bagel accident” (?) (between that and the breast milk, I swear, I’m hearing things today) and she asks Tom to do it. He tries and fails and Padma impatiently yanks the beer out of his hands and opens it with her teeth. (Not really. She uses her strong, supple, supermodel hands.)

It’s an awkward moment, made doubly awkward by the fact that Gail says: “Never send a man to do a woman’s job.” Ouch. I’m sure that was bracing for Tom, although to his credit, his adorable smile never fades. (Let me comfort you, boo boo.)

Then Beverly cries again. (Obviously, Beverly crying at random intervals will be a recurring theme this entire season.) She cried at the Quinceañera because her father wasn’t there. Now she is crying at the rodeo, because. . . her husband isn’t there.

“There’s no crying in cooking,” Nyesha says. (Which also might explain how Tom C. kept such a poker face after being completely emasculated by Padma.)

Later, Padma comes out to announce the results of the vote, looking radiant atop a horse, and there’s lots of hootin’ and hollerin’ from the crowd.

Then Chris (hair gel, not Chicago) compares Padma to Fabio on the cover of a romance novel, possibly the gayest thing every said by an allegedly straight man on reality TV. (Until next week, that is, when he will exult: “John Besh is a handsome man!”)

And the winner is. . .well, I already ruined the surprise. Heh. Sorry bout that.

Team Texas! I mean Team Green.

And the bottom team is the Black Team. (And you thought Beverly was crying before. . .)

But there’s no time for tears. It’s time to suck it up. Because the Elimination Challenge has its own elimination challenge. It’s the Russian nesting dolls of Elimination Challenges. This could go on indefinitely.

Beverly, Richie, and Nyesha have to repurpose their mole chili into a new dish. And they have half an hour to do it.

I’ve never seen three contestants look so spent, so deflated, so completely over it. (See the sad little photo above).

But they have to snap out of it.

Meanwhile, every time Chicago Chris talks about Richie, it’s so patronizing, right?
“He’s my best little buddy,” Chris says. (I’m surprised he hasn’t dressed Richie up in a little organ grinder costume.)

Seriously, not to rag on Chris, because I haven’t fully figured his “deal” out yet but I can’t help but feel that one of the reasons he wants “his best little buddy” to stick around is because he knows he can beat him. (Anyone else picking up on that? Or am I just a deeply warped and cynical human being?)

But in the end, Chris’s little buddy, the pocket chef, the man who puts the “short” in short order cook is going home.

(If you’re keeping score at home, the flavors on his pork were not as developed as Nyesha’s tiger shrimp or Beverly’s winning seared tuna.)

(Oh, and what was up with Padma when Tom confessed that he didn’t realize Frito’s were from the Midwest? “The Village next door called, they want their idiot back,” she retorted. Harsh! As if her beer-opening vanquishing of Tom wasn’t enough!)

(Also didn’t you get the sense that she had heard that line someplace—some chic, New York literary party filled with her fellow Beautiful People perhaps?—and was just looking for an opening to randomly insert it? Because Tom’s innocent Frito mistake hardly seemed to warrant such vitriol.)

Anyway, damn, Richie is so dear. Everyone is bumming. Eliminating Richie is like repeatedly kicking a puppy—or calling Tom Colicchio an idiot.

Richie and Chris hug, and their foreheads touch, which is so damn cute, I get verklempt, and I’m beginning to reconsider that whole “Chris is a Jerk” theory I had 3 paragraphs ago. (I’m fickle like that.)

Tune in next week to see if there’s more clues to his true nature one way or another.

Until then, yeehaw! I’m done like Texas toast.

Snakes on a Plate: The Top Chef Texas recap

2011-11-17T12:31:00.000-08:00

It's incredibly obvious that Beverly is either a really big Journey fan (“Don’t Stop Believin’!”) or that she has read—and possibly memorized—that Oprah-powered paean to blind optimism, The Secret.

Because last week, she was all “I can, I must, I will!” and this week she has a sign over her bed that reads: “Congratulations, Top Chef Beverly Kim!”

Must be awkward for her roommates.

Anyway, up until this point, the show has been fun, but has seemed a bit like throat-clearing, right? An amuse bouche, if you will.

Now we’re really in the thick of it. We’ve got our 16 finalists, and I even know some of their names!

(Although, quite literally, as the show ended, I saw some chick allegedly on the Green Team and I had no idea what her name was, what she had cooked, and whether she was some sort of Borat-like imposter or if she was an actual contestant on the actual show).

(Edited to add: It was the riveting and unforgettable Whitney Otawka. . . .).

Also, speaking of names, I’m extremely annoyed that I have to create a special little macro on my damn computer just so I can do a one-click typing of Ty-lör Boring’s name. (Or should I just call him Ty? That’s so ugly American of me. But then again, I don’t think his name is European. I think it’s from the region of Pretentioustan.)

Quickfire time: Padma is standing there with Chef Johnny Hernandez of La Gloria and a bunch of rattlesnakes.

“I don’t like snakes,” says the ginormous Keith Rhodes. He really meets both the criteria for “Gentle Giant.”

As for Dakota Weiss, who is not my sister—my actual sister’s name is Carolina Weiss—she is really not a fan of snakes.

“I have this massive fear of snakes. Slithering and coiling and ewww.” Geez, when you put it like that, ’Kotes. . .

“When the time is up, I better see some motherf*cking snakes on some motherf*cking plates,” says Padma, inexplicably channeling Samuel L. Jackson from Snakes on a Plane (Snakes on a Plate?).

Everybody has a little wooden box in front of them and—good Lord, are there going to be live rattlesnakes in those boxes?

(If so, and if Edward gets stung, he will have someone suck out the deadly venom as he continues to cook). (After last week’s wound-be-damned heroics, Edward has at least temporarily graduated from "Unsteady Jaw Guy" to “Chuck Norris in an Apron” guy . . .).

Anyway, they open the boxes and. . .psych! The rattlesnakes are already dead. (Or maybe they were just frightened to death by all the tattoos?). But still tricky to cook.

Surprise! In an hisstorical upset (sorry), Dakota ~~Fanning~~ Weiss (yeah, I’ve done that about 3 times already) wins the Quickfire—and immunity—with her fried rattlesnake fritters.

If she keeps this up, I may have to search for some sort of genealogical connection.

It’s time for the Elimination Challenge. The contestants are divided into two teams: The Green Team and the Pink Team.

“You’ll be creating a meal for a very important event.”
And in walks in . . . a very cute, very unassuming, very unfamiliar 15-year-old girl.
“Hey,” she says.

The contestants exchange looks: Is she some bigwig on the Disney Channel they are just not aware of? Has she created a viral video—“Viernes” perhaps?—that has made her a beloved/reviled YouTube sensation?

Nope, she’s just Blanca Flores, a cute kid having a Quinceañera—or a big 15th birthday party.

The teams will compete to make the best upscale Mexican food for the party including a—gasp!—birthday cake.

Luckily, Dakota has immunity, so she can sacrifice herself to the cake gods for the Pink Team (and create a cake so tacky it looks like My Little Pony threw up on it). Meanwhile, Heather, from the Green Team, used to be a pastry chef (apparently in a region with no gravity, but more on that later), so she can leche it up with the best of them. Done and done.

Cutie-patootie Blanca huddles with the teams and tells them what she likes (napa cabbage leaves) and what she doesn’t like (too much spice).

The Green Team definitely has an advantage because Chuy is on their side. He is Mexican, and although boys don’t get Quinceañeras where he comes from—“they’re just taught to kill a goat,” he sighs—at least he knows the difference between corn and flour tortillas.

I think the teams go like this (don’t shoot me if I’m wrong):

Pink Team:

Bossypants Lindsay and her undersecretary of Bossiness Sarah.

Plus “Gentle Giant” Keith; Ty-lör “You can call me Ty” Boring; Nyesha “hoping to get a speaking part in future episodes” Arrington; Chris “Not People’s sexiest man alive” Crary; Dakota “not maxthegirl’s sister” Weiss; and Whitney “even I’m not sure who I am” Otakwa.

Green Team:

Chuy “the goat murderer” Valencia; Chris “just call me the Skipper” Jones; Richie “but don’t call me Gilligan” Farina; Beverly “I think I can, I think I can” Kim; Paul “Keep on (food) Truckin’” Qui; Edward “Chuck Norris Fears My Jaw” Lee; Heather “Leaning Tower of Leche” Terhune, and Grayson “Is it Tequila o’Clock yet?” Schmitz.

So Pink Team’s Keith makes the horrible mistake of purchasing cooked shrimp for the shrimp cocktail and Lindsay and Sarah really let him have it.

“Who would buy cooked shrimp in a cooking competition?” says Sarah. “The point is to cook the shrimp!"

(Okay, fair enough. But by that logic, why did they buy premade tortillas, too? Isn’t the point to cook the tortillas? But I digress.)

There’s too much food to go into specific detail—especially since, let’s face it, this blog is really more about the “making fun of people” than it is about the “food”—but some of that shit looked delicious:

Exhibit A: Delicious looking shit (Beverly’s Beef Short Rib Asada with Pina Kimchi):

Still, there are some duds, mostly on the Pink Team:

Ty’s boring fritters (heh). Keith’s enchilada that was actually a burrito. Lindsay and Sarah’s surprisingly bland conchita pibil (pork). And Dakota’s cake that was apparently as sickening to eat as it was to look at:

Ewwww.

Over on Team Green, most things are great, except for Heather’s tres leches cake, which a strong gust of wind away from being a total party foul.

Aaaand. . .The Green Team wins! No surprise there. (But there is no individual winner? Isn’t that unusual? Is it just sort of Chuy by default? I’m a bit confused.)

From the Pink Team, Keith, Lindsay, Sarah, and Ty are asked to go in front of the judges.

Keith smells something coming and it’s the exhaust fumes from bus that he’s about to be thrown under.

It’s actualy funny to watch Sarah and Lindsay fight for their lives because they are both obviously very talented and very confident and have massive chips on their shoulders and are pretty much FREAKING OUT at the prospect of possibly going home first.

I mean, I think I actually see smoke coming out of Lindsay’s nostrils at one point.

But yeah, it’s blame Keith for everything time.

Your fritter sucked? It’s because Keith bought cooked shrimp.

Your pork was underseasoned? It’s because Keith used flour tortillas.

You got a late fee on your credit card? Keith’s fault.

You get the point.

That being said, Keith’s default excuse was “nobody told me not to”—which would make sense of this show was Top Chef: Apprentice. But it’s Top Chef and dude should’ve known not to buy cooked shrimp and he should’ve known not to use flour tortillas.

So he goes home. But he still sees it as a triumphant story of man conquering adversity.

“Dream big, dream hard because dreams come true and I’m a testimony to that—peace,” he says.

Apparently, the size of a man’s dream can not be measured by the size of his. . .chef’s coat. Keith really should’ve hung out with Beverly so he could dream a little bigger.

No Exit: The Top Chef Texas recap

2011-11-10T13:22:00.000-08:00

All reality shows are a social experiment to a certain extent. But this whole, “we’ll put you together in an isolation chamber as you await an unknown fate” was particularly brutal, wasn’t it?

And at first, Edward, aka “FlopJaw” made light:

“We’re like prisoners in a room starting to bond,” he said.

But, almost inevitably, by the end of their detainment, he had changed his tune: “If they leave me here in the stew room long enough, I’m going to kill the 5 other people to get that jacket.”

They will be watching this video in sociology classes for decades to come.

Meanwhile, back at the other, less “Hell is other people”-ish end of the competition, we get to meet the final group of would-be cheftestants.

(Oh, and also new judge, Hugh “The Eyebrows” Acheson. Somewhere, Rod Serling is rolling in his grave, thinking, “Bitch stole my look.”)

There’s the totally adorable Chaz Brown, who notes that he used to have a picture of Padma in his middle school locker. (Thus proving, once and for all, that Padma does not wield Heidi Klum-levels of power on Top Chef. Can you imagine Klum ever letting such a reference to her age get past editing?)

“I still think she’s the most beautiful woman in the world,” he says.

Later, while everyone is boasting of various James Beards nominations and the like, Chaz says: “Nominated by mom as one of her two favorite sons.”

(Spoiler alert: Why couldn’t you plate your damn dish, darling Chaz? Why? Why?)

There’s also some girl named Kim Colicchio, but Tom insists that just because his daughter is in the competition he will not play favorites. (Just kidding, she spells her name: C-A-L-I-C-H-I-O).

And drawing yet again from the this close to greatness file, we have John Baltazar, who is in no way affiliated with famed Balthazar Restaurant in New York. Bummer.

So this group’s challenge is to pick one of several ingredients on the table and make a signature dish. There is one catch though—next to each ingredient is a cloche.

“Do not touch the cloche,” Tom says. (This is Top Chef’s version of “Do not release the Kraken.”)

Time for the big reveal: Under each cloche is a designated time: 20 minutes, 40 minutes, and one hour.

Oxtail and octopus take longer to cook, so they get an hour. Mushrooms and trout take less time, so they get 20 minutes. Etc.

(The common denominator here, of course, is: There is NOT ENOUGH TIME!!!! But hey, you want to cook in a slow, leisurely fashion, there are a few restaurants in Baltimore I could hook you up with.)

So the first three are up:

Paul, representin’ for Food Truckers across America, makes a grilled trout and is be-coated.

Then there’s Kim, who makes greasy pan seared lamb and is dunzo.

Then there’s Andrew, who serves his roasted mushrooms and poached egg on a messy plate and is on the dreaded BUBBLE.

He skulks back into the Lord of the Flies waiting chamber.

“What are you in for?” LooseJaw asks him.

“Manslaughtering mushrooms,” Andrew says. (Okay, he didn’t say that, but it would’ve been funny.)

(And yes, I know it’s mean that I keep making fun of Edward’s jaw when it’s probably some sort of medical condition and he obviously can’t help it anyway. Edward, if I ever go on a reality TV show that you happen to blog about, you have my permission to call me “The Shnoz.”)

Next group:

The old French guy (duck with arugula).

Some other chick (short ribs).

Not!Balthazar (brussels sprouts)

and

My one-day TV boyfriend Chaz (risotto)

Old French guy is on the bubble. (“Merci beacoup for that opportunity,” he says. Because he’s French.)

Short rib girl fell short and is out.

If he hurries, Not!Balthazar might be able to hop on a plane and get an 8 pm reservation at Balthazar, because he’s out.

As for Chaz, well, Houston we have a problem: You see, he never got his risotto on the plates. He’s serving the judges. . .nothing. (Talk about a diet plate! Ba-dum-dum!)

Tom and Hugh look at Padma beseechingly. You can see that Tom is trying to decide if they should all just hover around Chaz’s risotto, trough style.

Padma will have none of it: “Chaz, please Pack your knives and go,” she says firmly.

“It kinda feels like she’s breaking up with me,” Chaz says. “I want my CDs back, we have to split up our friends. . . You cut me deep Padma.”

Awwww. Goodbye TV boyfriend I will have long forgotten about by next week’s episode. It was real.

Final group:

We have Beverly, who has Stuart Smiley-style note in her pocket: “I can, I must, I will.” (She so has her life coach on speed dial.) She makes octopus.

Then we have Ashley, who has no idea how to use a pressure cooker so, naturally, decides to cook her oxtail in a pressure cooker. (It’s the Curse of Carla’s Sous Vide all over again, people!)

Then there’s Lindsay, who is one of these hyper efficient, doesn’t-suffer-fools types who scare the shit out of me. She actually helps Ashley open her pressure cooker (“run it under cold water”) which is nice, but does it in such an impatient, annoyed, “can the real competition please start soon so I can get away from these plebes?” sort of way, it seems slightly less than gracious.

So. . .

Ashley obviously couldn’t handle the pressure [cooker] and is out.

Lindsay’s braised veal is magical and marvelous and better than your faves and she’s IN.

Beverly’s motivational pep talk to herself apparently worked, because her Korean-style octopus was delish. Coat for her!

Now back to Satan’s anteroom, where LooseLips is asking Molly where she works:

“I cook on the Allure of the Seas for the Royal Caribbean,” she says.

“Oh, a cruise ship,” he says. Then he gives a villainous laugh. Nice.

There are 6 contestants on the bubble and only 2 chef coats.

You do the math. (Feel free to use a calculator.)

“You have 45 minutes to make one dish that shows us why you should be here,” says Tom.

Meanwhile, some of the contestants tell us more about themselves:

Apparently, when she was 15, Grayson was asked by her mother what she wanted to do with her life.

“What do you mean, Mom? I’m 15, all I want to do is drink,” Grayson replied.

At which point, her mother immediately checked her into rehab and she hasn’t been seen or heard from since. . .or, she let her get a job at restaurant, so she could booze it up to her 15-year-old liver’s content.

The very funny Janine tells us the very unfunny story of her partner breaking up with her a few weeks after their commitment ceremony because she didn’t like her VOWS. (Duuude.)

“A post it note would’ve been more touching than that,” she says.

Reverse Lockjaw has the confidence of a man with a much firmer jaw.

“As long as I keep my nerves steady, there’s no way I can screw this up,” he says.

Cue the scene, moments later, where he cuts himself with a knife and his hand is positively gushing with blood.

We’ve seen cuts on Top Chef before, but nothing like this. It’s almost a cartoon level of blood. Aron Ralston would be watching this and thinking: I could not survive that.

As the medic is trying to save his gruesome, dangling appendage, FlopJaw just keeps on cooking. He’s an animal. Eventually they just shove his hand in a hefty bag and call it a day.

The sad thing is, everyone on the bubble cooked well. . .But not well enough.

Frenchie’s scallop tartare was grey-grey, so he’s done.

Molly’s shrimp was overcooked, so she’s “cruisin’” on outta here.

FlopJaw’s dish was bloody delicious, so he’s IN!

Andrew, who’s from Austin and soooo wanted to represent for his home state, is out.

So it comes down to Grayson vs. Janine and I am bumming, because I like them both.

Grayson (bacon wrapped shrimp with polenta), despite her ABC Afterschool Special teen alcoholism problem, is pretty adorable. And if you recall, she’s on the bubble through no fault of her own. She was victimized by “Stone. Chef Tyler Stone” and his disappearing tenderloin last week.

Then there’s Janine (seared scallop), who is that rare contestant I laugh with, not at.

And Grayson is IN! (And as of now, my favorite. We’ve been through a lot together.)

We have our final 16. . .except my DVR cut off and there’s some sort of online competition to determine if Janine or Andrew make the show?

Okay, I just looked over at Bravo’s site: It’s called Last Chance Kitchen and it’s for ALL the eliminated chefs, not just Andrew and Janine. They’ll compete head to head every week and the last person standing will get to compete in the final of show. Kewl.

(Not to belabor the point, but it was kind of unfair to pit Janine against Andrew, right? Why couldn't they go up against one of the garden variety rejects, like greasy lamb girl or overcooked pork boy? Instead, they have to go up against each other, a one seed against a one seed, if you will. Or maybe I'm just bitter because I've already watched the video and I know the results. . .Sigh.)

Supersize Me! The Top Chef Texas recap

2011-11-03T09:03:00.000-07:00

Life doesn’t always give you gifts. You don’t always get to see the asshole who tailgated you all the way down the expressway getting pulled over for a speeding ticket. The guy who broke your heart in high school doesn’t always show up at the reunion bald, fat, and broke.

So we must savor these moments.

So, for example when young master Tyler Stone—that’s “Stone. Chef Tyler Stone” according to his cringe-worthy audition video—a little twerp who saw himself as a real contender, who boasted about being twice as good and half the age of most of his competition, gets kicked off the show because he can’t seem to locate the tenderloin of a pig—don’t let this moment pass you by without fully appreciating it. Bask in it. To borrow a food term: Let it marinate.

You might be asking yourself: How could Tom Colicchio be so cavalier as to boot one of his contestants from the show before it had really begun? Well, he’s got 29 chefs and only 16 snazzy Top Chef chef coats to give out. You do the math.

I’m afraid that’s going to be the theme this Texas-sized season: Everything’s bigger on Texas Top Chef! A mere 16 contestants is for those pussy cities like New York and Chicago. In Texas, this one goes to 29 contestants!

(References to Texas doing everything bigger will most certainly be a fun-for-the-whole-family, fast-track-to-inebriation drinking game. The other one? Every time someone says “BAM!” or makes a play on the word “BAM!”—now that Emeril Lagasse has been installed as a permanent judge. Shoot me now.)

So the 29 contestants line up—they’ll be breaking into 3 teams and competing for those 16 slots—and it’s hard to know who to really pay attention to at this point. Why get attached to one particular neck tattoo when it could be gone by the end of the show? (Yes, once again, this is a very tatted up bunch. It looks more like the opening scene to MSNBC’s Lockup than Top Chef.)

But of course, I couldn’t help but to notice Richie Farina, who wore a pink bandanna with a pencil stuck in it, thus making him look like a gay Geisha gangster. Once he took the bandanna off and revealed his neo-Sanjaya haircut, I sort of understood why he wanted to distract attention away from his hair. But he’s strangely adorable, right?

There’s also a mini drama with Richie and his boss Chris Jones, the sous chef at Moto in Chicago (by the way, there are more Top Chef contestants from Chicago than there are corrupt politicians in Chicago). (That last joke was brought to you by the year 1955). And Jones, who made some sort of precious, Richard-Blais-style faux-caramel apple out of his pork, seems like he might be a contender.

There’s also the guy who looks like the love child of Billy Bush and Bradley Cooper, who remarked out of the gate that Padma looked “hot” and that was why he needed to stay in the competition. Ugh. (I must say, you could’ve knocked me over with a feather when his duo of rabbit was proclaimed one of the best of the night. Didn’t see THAT coming from hair gel boy.)

Then there’s a man named Ty-lör Boring. Um, say what? Look, maybe the guy was born with the name Ty-lör Boring, in which case his parents are horrible people. But if his actual name is Tyler and he figured that he was far too interesting a cat to have a first name Tyler and a last name Boring, so he decided to add an umlaut, a dash, and in inexplicable “o” to the spelling—well, he’s already on my list.

There’s a girl named Janine, who compared seeing Padma and Tom in person for the first time to “going to a wax museum” and later, upon discovering that she would be cooking with rabbit, proclaimed “rabbit orgies are awesome!”
“Please let her get a chef coat” I wrote in my notes. (She got put on the bubble. She claimed it was an anti-tattoo bias—a reasonable theory, frankly—and will have to cook for her life next week.)

Who else? Who else?

There’s a kind of lovable giant, who I kept thinking was going to break into that ukulele version of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” who actually DID go to prison for dealing drugs, but now the only thing he “cracks” are eggs. (No, I have no idea if he actually went to prison for crack. It could’ve been the heartwarming but illegal distribution of medical marijuana to cancer patients, for all I know.)

Crack guy (sorry) seemed like a pussycat, but I was secretly relieved when Simon, with his particularly elaborate neck tattoo and scary scowl, was told to leave. (However, I did fear for Padma’s life when she told him to “pack up his knives.” I make a point of not mentioning knives around guys who look like that.)

There’s Edward Lee—also on the bubble—who has some sort of condition that I have diagnosed as “reverse lockjaw.” Did anyone else notice this? Every time he talked his jaw was flopping around like a beached fish. It was disconcerting.

Another possible contender is a girl named Nyesha, who worked alongside Chef Robuchon and has a serious intimidation factor.

Then there’s a guy named Chuy (pronounced “Chewie”). Anybody named after my favorite Star Wars character is alright in my book, but anyone who says “Booyah, Beeyotch!” upon winning a chef’s coat—especially when moments earlier he was shaking in his boots like a little girly man— is NOT alright in my book, so I remain on the fence.

Anyway, I appreciated the fact that they didn’t try to cram all 29 contestants into one episode. Next week, it seems, we’ll get the final group and the bubble folks to cook for their lives.

Say it with me people: A first episode so big and Texas-sized, they had to split it into two! BAM!

It Girl Happens: The Project Runway Finale recap

2011-10-28T09:38:00.000-07:00

Final score:

Inspiration: 1

Perspiration: 0

The fact that Anya won Project Runway is really revealing, right?

First, Tim Gunn went to visit her in Trinidad to check on her progress and her progress was exactly, well, zero. (Except, possibly, a typewriter filled with the words: “All work and no play makes Anya a dull girl” over and over again.)

Tim was so flummoxed by this that he went back to New York and blabbed to Heidi Klum about it:

“Girlfriend, I went into her studio and there was just an empty rack where her collection was supposed to be.”

“Shut the haustür!”

Then she showed her three piece collection—supposedly the apex of her work, mind you— and only one of the three pieces wowed the judges, so she simply junked the other two.

Then she went to Mood with the Tim Gunn bonus $500 and utilized the finely honed strategy of: “Whatever pops out at me, I buy.”

Then she essentially turned her Tim Gunn consultation into a concession speech (“Between you and I , I had a very rewarding experience but I know it’s not my best work. . .”)

Then she created several new looks in 2 days and was literally sewing her grand finale dress on her model moments before Lincoln Center, much to Joshua’s continued dismay.

And then she. . .well, God damn it if she didn’t win Project Runway.

Oh and p.s. . . she also won Fan Favorite, which I easily could’ve overlooked, since Lifetime chose to announce this major development in a tiny crawl that ran under the show. (I’ve trained myself to not read the Lifetime crawl, since they usually say things like “Coming Up Next: Army Wives!”)

How do you explain it? Especially when Joshua, Kimberly, and especially Viktor worked so hard, put in so much effort, planned so far ahead?

Bottom line: Life is unfair.

Anya may have had the least experience, she may have put in the least sweat equity, she may have the weakest construction skills, but she has that unmistakable thing called “It”—and so she wins (at life).

Because not only was her line gorgeous—it was. (That first dress was staggering, to borrow a Gunn-ism.) But the judges were right: She created a fantasy. I want to be that easy, breezy, Caribbean girl who wears flowy print dresses and walks barefoot in the sand whilst eating coconuts with my hottie fisherman boyfriend and listening to a steel drum band.

Or, as I put in my notes: “I so want to lose 20 pounds, 2 bra sizes, and live in Anya’s clothes!”

Okay, since I’ve devoted half this blog to wonders of Anya, let’s go over the other designers, huh?

We’ll start with Viktor. I’m glad he went out with at least one Sassy Catch Phrase That Will Never Catch On ™:

“Oh my Lord of the Rings!”

Followed shortly by another Sassy Catch Phrase That Got Screwed Up Midway So He Just Kinda Went With It ™:

“You gotta grab the handles right now. You gotta stir the . . . motorcycle!”

But I give the lad tons of credit for scrapping that créped, tiered grey dress that the judges (and I) loved—“It was too messy,” he said—in favor of some quilted black pants and a black top.

Viktor has an almost preternatural confidence in his own abilities. The man has balls. (Sorry, Anthony Ryan.) It will serve him well going forward.

As for his collection? I actually thought it was stunning, even the see-through looks that the judges were so meh on.

(Transparency, apparently, is a good thing in government, but not so much on the runway.)

If it were up to me, Viktor and Anya would've been last two standing, but it wasn’t up to me, now was it?

Next Kimberly.

I give the girl mad props for sticking to her Gunn(s) on the roped earrings and bracelets. That was a huge inspiration for her work and I personally liked them. However, her collection, which Michael Kors said was all about “exuberance, glamour and kickass attitude,” just didn’t move me. (He also said that her black shimmery gown was “killer diller.” I sooo want that phrase to make a comeback.)

That shiny, clingy sky blue dress? Just no. That generic tank top and cargo pants look with the “surprise! I’m a slut!” backless component? Wrong again.

I did, however, really love her bow-tied ivory top and high-waisted pant combo and, like Heidi, would liked to have seen more in that direction.

Finally, Joshua:

Good lord people, those lime green shorts with the draw strings and the camel toe had no alibi. Seriously. . . I can’t even. . . (Nina claimed that she didn’t like them on the runway, but upon further reflection decided they were very editorial. Go with your gut, Nina.)

But I do kinda sorta get Joshua’s collection. It’s tackiness elevated to art. . . or art filtered through tackiness or. . .something like that.

And I love how darling and conservative his father is. (He’s just got to be an orthodontist, right?) Puts Josh in perspective. Also, still hoping to see “Sibling Revelry” in production by this summer.

Here’s a few final thoughts on the show in general:

I almost felt sorry for Anthony Ryan, sittin’ there, minding his own business, thinking he had this “Fan Favorite” thing wrapped up. Sorry Anthony Ryan—left dangling again.

Corinne Bailey Rae in the house! Corinne Bailey Rae in the house! Squee! (“Put Your Records On” is one of my all-time favorite songs and I don’t care who knows it.)

But what the hell was Thomas Jane doing there? Seriously. Anyone. . .?

As long as cameras are involved, Jennifer Love Hewitt would go to the opening of a zipper.

“Although I don’t like his personality, I like Josh’s collection.” –Don’t change, Jay McCarroll, don’t change.

I’ve decided that Tim Gunn’s tendency to turn everything into a breathless collective question—How thrilled are you? How gorgeous was that? How excited are the 5 of us right now?—is his own version of Yoda’s inverted-subject speak. And I love it.

And, there you have it, folks. . .another season of Project Runway in the books.

Congrats to Anya for . . . getting to be Anya.

And thanks to all of you, for sticking with my blog all season. We made fun of the fug, we secretly loved Josh, we girl-crushed hard on Anya, we ugly cried, it became a part of us. . .

Tune in next week when I start blogging the new season of Top Chef!

Grim Retail: The Project Runway recap

2011-10-21T20:34:00.000-07:00

Okay, there’s no way to write this sentence without coming across as insensitive as hell, so I’m just going to spit it out: The key to success on this season’s Project Runway is clearly having a dead loved one.

Remember when Anthony Ryan’s testicular cancer was the show’s big tragedy? Now that seems like small balls compared to the rest of his castmates. (Yeah, I know that “small balls” isn’t actually an idiom, but it would be funny if it was!).

First, his missing testicle was trumped by Josh’s dead mother.

Then, toward the end of the season, we find out that Kimberly lost HER mother when she was just 17. Damn girl.

Now, in this, the penultimate episode of the show, we discover that both Viktor and Anya have lost their brothers. I mean, what the hell, people?

I guess it’s not that surprising. Inspiration is often born out of tragedy. But four-out-of-four finalists having a deceased loved one? (If there were Project Runway prop bets—Off-Rack-Betting, if you will—I’d say the “four dead loved ones in the finals” bet would yield a big payday.)

Anyway, enough with the doom and gloom. It’s The Mixed Up Files of Mr. Timothy Gunn week on Project Runway, always a treat.

First he heads out to White Plains, Maryland. (I would like to point out at this moment that I live in Maryland. In fact, I am the editor of the region’s largest monthly magazine. . .and yet I have no freakin’ clue where White Plains is. . . Hold please. . .The Google box says it is in Charles County, near Waldorf. Some serious Blair Witch Project shit out there.)

So I love how Project Runway always embraces the obvious in their pre-home-visit montages. For Kimberly’s rustic home, we see a goat. For Anya’s Caribbean home, we see coconuts and fish being cleaned. If any of the designers lived in Alaska, we’d definitely see some moose and Sarah Palin. Texas? An electric chair.

Turns out, Kimberly is a transplant from pre-hipster Brooklyn so she wants to pay homage to her old ’hood by doing clothing for the “transformed urban girl.” A huge part of this line is Salt-n-Pepa style giant earrings and bracelets. I only mention this because it comes into play later.

Then we meet Kimberly’s sister and her best friends and they are a lively cheerful bunch that I would very much like to hang out with (but not enough to go to White Plains, Maryland, mind you.)

Next, to Trinidad to meet up with Anya.

. . .Cue the coconuts, fish, and beaches. (The fact that they managed to not play Billy Ocean’s “Caribbean Queen” during this montage showed remarkable restraint.)

We meet Anya’s kid brother Yves, who is, like, 15 going on 45. “I’m glad that people now see the talent, more than just the beauty,” he says of his sister. Make that kid the Caribbean spokesperson for NOW—stat!

Then we hear the sad story of Pilar, her brother who died at 18. Anya actually has a tattoo of his name on her forearm. Sigh.

Off to her studio to see her “progress.” And I put progress in quotes, because she hasn’t “made any.”

She basically just went shopping. She’s got her fabrics and. . .that’s it.

(This would be like if I had a 10,000 word article due and all I did was buy a dictionary.)

“Where are the garments?” Tim asks, not getting how dire the situation is.

And what follows is one of the most awkward critiques in the history of the show, with Anya hemming and hawing out a response. (Actually, some real hemming might’ve done her some good. . .)

“Where I’m not so clear is shapes and, you know, the actual garments. I’m a little bit behind in terms of construction,” she finally spits out.

(Also, the Miami Dolphins are a “little bit behind” in the NFC East and Newt Gingrich is a “little bit behind” in the Republican primary polls.)

Tim raises his eyebrows in that classic Tim way and basically tells Anya to get her shit together.

“It’s time,” he says. “And you don’t have a lot of it.”

Preach.

Next up, New York to meet Viktor and his rosy-cheeked, slightly square, rugby-shirt sporting beau, David. (Not what I was expecting AT ALL.)

Viktor lives on the fifth floor of a walkup.

“Grandpa needs a rest,” Tim says, after he schleps up the stairs. Heh.

So, as mentioned, Viktor’s collection is dedicated to HIS dead brother. . . (I don’t know how much more of this I can take. )

Tim likes it a lot, especially Viktor’s tacky-as-hell, Grand Ole Opry meets Evel Knievel white leather jacket (just me?).

Then he gives Viktor what proves to be bad advice: He tells him that the jacket alone is not a wow moment, he needs to create another showstopping look to go under the jacket. (Later, Heidi, MK, and Nina are all: Yeah, a black t-shirt and a pair of leggings would’ve done the trick. )

Next stop: Lunch with Joshua and his gorgeous sis McKenzie. So yes, if you’re playing the home game, his sister’s name is McKenzie McKinley. WTF, mom and dad? (Thank you, JED for that observation.) (By the way, I smell a reality show—Sibling Revelry?— for those crazy raven-haired kids in the not-so-distant future. )

Also, when Josh was younger, he was a jock, and had long hair and looked like Apolo Ohno. So there's that.

Josh’s critique is hilariously awful.

Tim Gunn basically hates everything.
The print is “gimmicky”

The skirt is “sherbety”(“I do love a good sherbet,” Josh says. “But do you really want to wear it?” Tim counters.)

In case Tim wasn’t perfectly clear earlier, the print is “one of the homeliest textiles I’ve ever seen in my life. “
The dress “makes me want to weep.”

(But besides that, how’d you like the boat ride, Captain Ahab?)

Josh responds to this news in comically over-the-top fashion (I actually LOLed when he screamed during his confession.)

“I mean, I’m crazy right now,” he says. “This print is the major, major focus of this collection.”

Moving right along: Three weeks later, everyone reconvenes at the gorgeous penthouse suite of the Hudson Hotel in New York.

It is, to borrow a Joshism, “major.”

(By the way, how is it that Christian Soriano’s “fierce” became a catch phrase that swept the nation, but Josh can’t get “major” to stick? Discuss among yourselves.)

The contestants need to show their 3 most representative looks to see who makes it to Bryant Park.

To the studio, where Viktor is wielding his white leather jacket like a weapon of mass intimidation. It’s working.

“That jacket is major,” Josh sighs anxiously.

Tim comes in

He basically likes Josh’s collection but isn’t totally sure who his customer is.

He wants to marry Viktor’s looks and have their babies.

He’s passionate about Kimberly’s “edgy Brooklyn urbanite” but feels her looks are a bit scattered.

Then he makes his way over to Anya, and basically tells her to surrender all hope. You see, she has retreated to her comfort zone and there’s not a wow moment in the bunch.

Anya’s little lower lip begins to tremble and I just want to hug her. (And this is BEFORE I found out that she was the victim of a sex tape scandal! Why am I always the last one to know these things?)

Whoa! Could Anya actually be the one who doesn’t make it to Fashion Week? Oh, the dramah.

Runway day. No guest judges: Just the Original 3, as it should be. At this point, do I really care what some random B-Actress-With-a-Clothing-Line has to say about things?

Let’s go through the collections:

Viktor

What I thought: I must say, I loved it. Okay, I hated the “Johnny Bravo” jacket, but loved the grey tone sheer dress that went under it. And his mirrored top was both original and way cool. For once, a little sass from him might have actually been justified. (And, of course, there was not a double air snap or an “I do what I do” to be found.)

What the judges thought: Mostly they loved it, but felt that he needing some better editing. “We told you to turn up the volume, but you didn’t have to go all way,” MK says. (Schizophrenic much?)

Anya

What I thought: Yes, her one amber striped dress was pure perfection. But the bathing suit and the gown were both seriously meh. I’m gettin’ nervous here.

What the judges thought: Loved the one dress. But the rest was not easy breezy enough. The shoes look like something a bad news anchor would wear. (Side note: Does bad footwear actually affect one’s ability to read the news? Hmmm.) The gown looks tortured. Ruh roh.

Kimberly

What I thought: I hated her bright blue, hot pink and gold color scheme. And that bubble skirt had no alibi. But the shimmery gown was pretty hot.

What the judges thought: They liked the vibe and the point of view, but felt the looks were too heavily accessorized. They think she should lose the roped bracelets and earrings—only the lynchpin for the whole collection!—and MK thought that the cobalt blue pant blending into the cobalt blue shoe created a “club foot,” rarely a desirable look.

Joshua

What I thought: Left to his own devices he. . . put a seatbelt on one of his girls, did a semi-dull little black dress, and a slutty in the front, sluttier in the back gown. All in all, worth moving on, but hardly spectacular.

What the judges thought: Hated his dress in the back, but loved the tailoring on his jacket and his overall styling. Ironically, Mr. I Never Met a Feather Boa or Leather Corsage I Didn’t Like actually did the best job accessorizing out of the bunch.

The general consensus is the boys stepped it up and the girls
choked.

Moment of truth:

Joshua you are. . .showing at Lincoln Center!

(“It’s major!”)

Viktor you are. . .in!

So it’s down to Kimberly and Anya.

Kimberly you are . . .showing at NY Fashion Week!

Does this mean Anya is going home? I don’t know if the show is getting overly predictable or Heidi’s poker face is not what it used to be but somehow I was never truly worried. (Were you?)

Aaaaand Anya. . .is in as well!

So Anya goes back stage and Joshua is just so glad that the four of them get to advance together. It’s so beautiful that they went through this process together and they get to stay together for their final moment of glory as a foursome.

Ah, who am I trying to kid? He is totally PISSED.

“I’m confused all around,” he says. “I thought it was going to be 3 of us going.. . . I don’t think Kimberly or Anya’s critiques went that well. I don’t think either of them should be going. This isn’t fuddy duddy dress up.* This is NY Fashion Week. A critique like that I don’t think it worthy of taking it to the main stage.”

But how do you really feel, Josh?

As if to emphasize what a whiny little ingrate Joshua is being, Tim Gunn comes back stage and is positively kvelling.

“So how happy are the five of us?” he gushes.

(Not as happy as you think Tim Gunn).

Next week’s finale is going to be MAJOR.

*No, I have no idea what that means either.