Top Chef: Miami, episode ... oh, who can keep track?: Cooking for the French CIA!

Tom: "What happened to Eric Three Thousand? He's supposed to be blogging this show but he just hasn't been Top Blogger material lately. This is supposed to be a blog! I just don't think he's ready. I'm very disappointed."

Padma: "Oh, calm down, Tom! Haven't you been paying attention? Eric has been very busy remodeling and moving into a house. Give him a break!"

Thank you Padma, you big tramp. That's very nice of you to defend me. It's true; I've spent most of this month remodeling and we just moved in yesterday, although the house isn't completely ready yet. There's still some touch-up painting throughout the house and my bathroom is not suitable for human use at this point but we slept at the new place for the first time last night! Although it is supposedly bigger than our old apartment, we still can't seem to find space for things. I'm sure it will get better once we have things put away. Anyway, I'll have some remodeling posts in the near future; I promise. Until then, you can check out some pictures over on Other Eric's blog Everything Eric. You may have to scroll down through lots of Big Brother recaps but there are a few pictures there.

So here's a quick Top Chef recap:

We start the episode with everyone saying that he or she is going to the finals:

Dale: "I'm a big gay chef and I'm going to the finals!"

Other Eric: "Uh oh; he's going home."

Sara: "I'm a big cheesy chef and I'm going to the finals!"

Other Eric: "Uh oh; I think that means she's going home."

Brian: "I love fish and I'm going to the finals!"

Other Eric: "You know what that means. He's going home."

Hung: "I'm the greatest and I'm going to win this."

Other Eric: "Ooh, I think ..."

Yeah, we get it! they are all going home!

Casey: "Hey, I didn't even get to say how I'm not classically trained but that I'm still going to the finals."

Well, she's definitely going home tonight.

Other Eric: "See, now you're doing it!"

CJ: "What about me? I only have one testicle but I'm going to win!"

OK, who let CJ out of New Jersey?

For the quickfire, the chefs have to duplicate Sirio Maccioni's fish-wrapped-in-potato dish that is so special you can't even get it on Le Cirque's regular menu:

Hung: "Every chef should be able to make this dish."

If every chef could make that dish, it wouldn't be special, would it? Dope.

Anyway, Hung wins, though Casey's was pretty good. I think hers wasn't visually as good a match as Hung's:

Sirio Maccioni: "I'm Italian so I like the pretty ladies and I would love to give the win to Casey but because I don't think the pretty ladies should be the chefs I have to give it to Hung."

Fair enough. Dale is complaining about Hung not being nice:

Dale: "We asked Hung to tell us exactly how to cook the fish so that we could try to do it better than he did but he's such a jerk he wouldn't tell us."

WHY THE HELL WOULD HE?!! He's trying to win this competition! Sheesh!

For the elimination challenge the chefs have to create an amazing dish based on the very basic ingredients of chicken, onion, and potato. They are cooking for the French Culinary Institute of America. That's not really what it's called but it's something like that.

Chefs: "They couldn't fly us to Paris for this challenge? Cheapskates."

Dale hangs out all day with Casey at the farmer's market:

Dale: "I don't care if becoming best friends with Casey means I'll be going home. She's so fabulous I can't help myself!"

So Sara made chicken-onion-potato couscous that didn't go over very well. Brian made chicken and lobster pot pie (just kidding; it was really chicken and sausage). The judges liked it but didn't think it emphasized the chicken enough. Hung made poached chicken with fried skin and a potato puff. Apparently it didn't puff enough but his dish was still popular. Casey made coc au vin:

Tom: "It's not coc au vin because she used chicken."

OMG! We know it's supposed to be a cock! But who the hell is going to go buy a rooster and cook it for 12 hours to make a real coc au vin. Who cares if it's chicken? If it's poultry cooked in wine and it tastes good, call it whatever you want! Get your head out of your ass, Tom.

Dale makes some mess with a dish in two parts but both parts are the same except the sauce is just slightly different and nobody can figure out why.

Dale: "No dish is going to be perfect the first time you make it."

So, here's an idea: MAKE SOMETHING YOU'VE MADE BEFORE!

Dale: "I've never made a chicken dish before so I had to invent something new."

Right. Seriously, I understand the importance of innovation and that some of the challenges call on the chefs to use techniques or ingredients to which they are unaccustomed. But they should have some signature dishes practiced enough that they can pull them off without constantly saying it's the first time they've made them.

Hung wins! Congratulations, Hung!

Sara goes home. Noooooooo! I can't believe they sent her home just because Gail's chicken was raw. I mean, a little Salmonella never hurt anyone, right? What? It has? Oh, well, never mind, then.