Top Chef Recap: Leftovers: The Other White Meat!

Carlos: "Food and Wine Magazine is my bible. No, really; it changed my life. And remember, with the holidays coming up: it's the reason for the season. I have some literature I can leave with you."

This inspirational, life-affirming message has been brought to you by Food and Wine Magazine.

For the quickfire the chefs have to make something edible out of the parts of animals not good enough to be used for dog food. There's a good reason it's called offal.

Michelle Bernstein is the guest judge. She pronounces almost everything "very nice." For a few of the dishes she really gets descriptive and calls them "lovely."

Elia's dish is one of the few that is neither very nice nor lovely. It is apparently too much of a tribute to its ingredients.

Elia: "Well what the hell did the bitch expect kidney to taste like? Olives? Jeez!"

Sam wins.

The elimination challenge is to make dinner for Jennifer Coolidge. WTF? Who the hell comes up with these challenges? Don't get me wrong; I absolutely adore Jennifer Coolidge. In fact, I know her from good movies where she isn't having sex with teenagers. I just don't understand why the chefs are making dinner for her and 60 of her closest friends.

The chefs have to pair up. They are only able to pair up because last episode no one was sent home. What a coincidence, right? So if they weren't planning to send anyone home last week, was the whole cookie scandal a ruse?

Betty pairs up with her best friend/arch enemy Mia but she doesn't know about the arch enemy part. Marisa would like to tell her. Wow, Marisa has that look on her face again. She always looks like she's smelling something really bad. Marcel is paired up with Frank:

Marcel: "This is worse than that time I had to go to the prom with a girl."

Josie takes Marisa as a partner. Talk about a bad prom date:

Josie: "Marisa is the only one I really trust to screw this up and get me kicked off the show.

OK, who spent 99 cents voting for Marcel as most annoying? Seriously? Shouldn't Bravo be paying us?

So, we are at the luncheon party at Social in Hollywood. Padma is wearing a long, red dress and does not look like a total whore for a change. Jennifer Coolidge arrives looking fantastic but she's not using a funny voice. Oh well.

Mike: "One of my dreams in life is to have sex with Stiffler's mom."

The chefs create a completely disorganized meal. Josie and Marisa create a palate cleanser of Pepto Bismol and pineapple for the fifth course. Apparently this is the most bizarre thing anyone else has ever seen:

Cliff: "Usually the fifth course is a protein to distinguish it from the previous four dishes, which were also proteins."

Gail: "This is like an intermezzo. I am so confused. I don't know where I am."

Mike and Ilan's dish wins. Now, I don't like team challenges to begin with, but almost worse than having to pick one person from a team to go home is picking one person from a team to win the prize. If one team member makes an important decision then the other team member should get equal credit for recognizing that it is a good decision and going with it. Anyway, Ilan wins.

The teams with the worst dishes are sent in. Michelle Bernstein first points out what amazingly fresh ingredients the chefs had to work with and then complains that the pomegranate juice tasted like it had been left out for 48 hours. So why does she have bad pomegranate juice in her refrigerator? Uh, ever have one of those days when you're feeling not so fresh? Yeah, that's what I thought.

Mia and Betty: "We both thought the puff pastry was a bad idea, which is why we used it."

Mia: "After we finished our dish I went into the walk-in and cried."

Gail: "I don't blame you. It made me cry to have to eat it."

I now have a few words to say about Tom. There has been discussion (specifically on Blogging Top Chef) about having a mentor in the kitchen who would serve a similar function to Tim Gunn. Apparently Tom has responded to such suggestions by saying that cooking is completely different from designing clothes and that once you start making a dish there is nothing you can do to change it in any way. So I bring your attention to his comments at the judges' table:

Tom: "When you realized you were serving Pepto Bismol you should have done something to fix it. When you realized the puff pastries weren't working with the dish you should have left them out. When you noticed the pomegranate juice tasted bad you should have fixed the problem. You all should have fixed the problems!"

So what you are saying is that it is possible to make adjustments in order to address an element that isn't working? Maybe the sort of thing Tim Gunn would point out in the design room? Hmmm? Interesting.

Josie and Marisa stick together and are both eliminated.

Josie: "So you're going to send someone home as talented as me? It's crazy to send someone this talented home just for making one mistake. I know how talented I am."

I'm not sure but I think Josie thinks she's talented. Did you get the same impression?