Top Chef: Chicago, Episode Six: Getting a little tailgate!

Last week, as you'll remember, we had a total Bravo Top Chef Smackdown:

Ferocia Couture: "Hey, why wasn't I invited?"

Let's check in with the chefs:

Jen: "I can't believe Zoi is gone and I really miss Zoi and Zoi is such a good chef and . . ."

Boy, I hope we get to hear all about Zoi for the rest of the season.

Jen: "Zoi, Zoi, Zoi, Zoi!!!"

Spike: "Yay, lesbians!"

Oh, shut up. Look, it isn't Spike's fault Zoi is gone. He probably shouldn't have said the mushrooms needed more seasoning but he wasn't telling the judges anything they didn't already know. And even though all he did was shave the meat, which seems really easy, apparently it isn't; apparently shaving raw meat really thin for carpaccio takes some skill and the judges had no problem with that part of the dish. So the judges did what they had to do. If Zoi is going to allow herself to keep getting stuck with the most thankless jobs in all the team challenges, then she isn't cut out for this competition.

Spike: "Everyone is just jealous because I'm so talented."

Seriously, shut up. So, what about Dale and Lisa?

Dale: "Lisa, I really want to apologize for pointing out what a bitch you are. Everyone already knows you're a total bitch so it was really unkind of me to tell you what everyone is thinking and I'm really sorry about that."

Lisa: "That was the worst apology ever."

God, she's so negative! OK, on to the quickfire:

Nikki: "So we go into the kitchen and there's all this beer and I'm thinking . . . what? What are you staring at? Do I have a gigantic ball of hair stuck onto the back of my head or something?"

For the quickfire, the chefs need to make a dish that pairs well with a specific beer they get to choose. A couple of the chefs admit they have no idea what they are doing. So, in other words, if they make something decent, it will be a complete accident. That's sure to impress the guest judge. The art of pairing food with beer is about 60% making good choices and about 40% total bullshit; so you can't admit that you don't know what you are doing.

Jen picks a beer:

There is a knock at the door:

Jen: "Who is it?"

Voice: "Mrs. Andersonnesberghhhh?"

Jen: "What?"

Voice: "Flowers."

Jen: "Flowers for whom?"

Voice: "Plumber, ma'am."

Jen: "I don't need a plumber. You're that landshark, aren't you?"

Voice: "Candygram."

Jen: "Oh, did Zoi send me a candygram? Have I mentioned how much I love Zoi?"

Voice: "Oh, forget it. I'd rather starve than have to hear about Zoi any more."

Sorry. Back to the quickfire. The judge has taken a vow of silence so she will be using sign language to pick the winner.

Spike keeps it really simple by not actually making anything:

Spike: "You just don't get it."

Jen: "Ha ha!"

Nikki and Dale are also at the bottom:

Lisa: "Dale's dry pork is a direct result of the way he yelled at me last night. I hope he learns his lesson."

Nikki: "When I think of beer I think of really crappy fried food so that's what I made."

Jen makes something fluffy, Stephanie makes delicious-looking clams, and Richard also makes something the judge likes. Jen wins!

Jen: "Thank you so much for this recognition. I have so many people to thank but, most of all, I would be remiss if I didn't thank the love of my life, Zoi."

Fine. For the elimination challenge, the chefs will be preparing food for a tailgate party at a Bears game:

Dale: "I live for sports!"

Mark: "Why do you call football 'soccer'? You Americans are so weird. Why are we being forced to play football? I didn't come here to play football."

Padma: "No one asked you to play football, you freak. You're just cooking before a game."

Mark: "Oh."

Spike buys every chicken wing in Chicago:

Spike: "You have a problem with that?"

No. Richard is making a pâté melt:

Richard: "Get it? A pâté melt? It's just me being a douchebag."

Thank you for not making me say it.

Nikki gets store-made sausages. And then she gets shrimp so people won't have to eat her main dish.

Mark: "Great. How am I supposed to throw a shrimp on the barbie when someone else is already doing it?

You mean like the Australians?

Ryan: "I thought he was from New England."

Ryan is not a sports fan:

Ryan: "Do I look like a sports fan?"

Do I look like I would know what a sports fan looks like?

Ryan: "I'm one of those - what's the word? - oh, yeah, metrosexuals."

No, I think the word you're looking for is "douchebag."

Antonia looks at Tom and says she's picturing big fat men who like to drink a lot of beer.

Tom: "That hurt my feelings."

Back at home, Spike and Mark are falling in love:

Spike: "OMG, I just LOVE his curly hair and his cool New England accent. Doesn't it just make you melt?"

Note to Andy Cohen: This is a bromance. A bromance is an unusually close friendship between two heterosexual men. Ben and Ronnie was not a bromance. Thank you.

So the crowd shows up for the "tailgate" party. There isn't a tailgate in sight, by the way.

OK, so I have to give credit to Mark for using charcoal but it was obviously a bad choice. I think one reason he was so disorganized was because he had to spend extra time messing with the charcoal.

Dale is so excited to see Gale Sayers. Well, who wouldn't be? He's also excited about serving William "The Refrigerator" Perry. I actually know who that is. Yeah, I remember the "Shuffle."

Spike is trying to make up for knowing nothing about sports by really unsuccessfully trying to act like he knows something about sports:

Spike: "So, when's the last time the Bears won the Superbowl?"

God, what a stupid question. The Superbowl is baseball, right?

Ryan is schmoozing the crowd to make up for the fact that his dish sucks Superhard:

Stephanie: "Me not here to talk pretty. Me here to cook."

Gail is completely delighted by how Supercrazy Andrew is:

Gail: "Isn't he a trip?"

Tom: "Yeah, Gail, he's a trip, alright."

The crowd seems to love most of the dishes. They think Ryan's stupid dish is hard to eat. They also think Mark is messy:

Crowd: "The dish that needed the most help was the one by the Australian."

Oh, My God! He's from New England! How many times do I need to tell you that?

Nikki runs out of food. I'm not entirely sure this is her fault. Maybe she didn't make enough or maybe people came back for more. Was she supposed to turn people away just because the judges came to her last? Other chefs ran out of food but the judges got to them earlier. Oh, well, the store-bought sausage was a bad idea anyway.

Bravo: "Who would you most like to touch in touch football: Padma, Tom, or yourself?

These questions are getting more stupid every week. It's not just me, right?

At Judges' Table Antonia, Dale, and Stephanie are the top three:

Padma: "How do you feel about having the crowd pick the top three?"

Well, obviously they're happy about it. The losers probably don't like it, though. Duh.

Anyway, the judges liked these dishes, too:

Gail: "I was worried about the rosemary. Have I mentioned that I hate rosemary?"

Dale wins with his ribs! Congratulations, Dale! He wins a shirt and a fifty thousand dollar Weber grill. Seriously, those grills are frickin' expensive.

Lisa: "That's what he deserves for yelling at me."

Dale: "Sammy Sosa in the sky with diamonds."

Andrew: "You can say that again."

Mark, Nikki, and Ryan are the bottom three. The crowd did a pretty good job with picking the winners and losers. I think the judges might have had Richard in the top three but, other than that, they seemed to agree. Anyway, Ryan won't shut up about how little old ladies wanted the recipes to his stupid dishes and Tom wanted Mark to strain his chowder. Chowder isn't supposed to be smooth, is it? I've never heard of pureed chowder.

The judges were totally disgusted by Mark's sloppy presentation:

Tom: "His work area was so unsanitary and messy. He was reusing spoons, there was sauce everywhere, there were dingos roaming around taking women's babies. It was terrible!"

Padma: "Ryan, your food was ridiculous. Please pack your knives and go."

Ryan makes a graceful exit:

Ryan: "This is bleeping bleepshit. Oops, I mean bullbleep."