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."

Your favorite Top Chef contestant is linked to your choice of presidential candidate!

Top Chef: Chicago: Meals on Heels, the Mary Kay story!

Padma: "Meals on Heels is the inspiring true story about a tough woman who started her own meal empire!"

[sound of crickets]

Padma: "It's staring Shirley MacLaine!"

OK, I'll watch it.

We start the episode with scenes of Mark sharpening his knife. No, that isn't a euphemism.

The guest judge for the quickfire is Ming Tsai:

Ming: "Taste is very important. We will be testing your taste level by having you choose the higher quality item."

Padma: "So, here are two eighteenth-century chairs. Which one is Louis XVI and which one is a lower-quality provincial imitation?"

Chefs: "Huh?"

Padma: "I'm sorry; that's incorrect. OK, one of these is a genuine Hermès bag and one is a Chinese knockoff. Which is which?"

Chefs: "We don't understand."

Padma: "How about this one: what do you think of my outfit?"

Chefs: "Uh, it's OK?"

Ming: "This is hopeless. These chefs have no taste. Just look at their shoes."

Antonia wins immunity because she had the best taste in movies last week.

The elimination challenge is to make the first course for the 2007 Meals on Wheels Chicago Celebrity Chef Ball:

Padma: "Your inspiration this week will be the 1970s Chicago musical group Earth Wind and Fire."

Tom: "OH, MY GOD! I LOVE THEM!!!"

Dale thinks Team Fire should try not to be too literal and, instead, base their dish on riddles:

Dale: "When I think of fire I think of devils. Do you think Whole Foods sells Tasmanian Devil meat?"

Lisa: "Yeah, I'm just not really a fan of anything Dale says."

She thinks they should do Asian for Ming Tsai:

Lisa: "I really think the best way to disappoint Ming Tsai is to do Asian."

Lisa is complaining about everything her teammates want to do. Dale is being the Lisa Whisperer and trying to calm her down.

Team Water is using the sous vide technique to poach salmon in water:

Richard: "I think water really brings in the water element."

Uh, yeah, except the diners aren't really going to get that. Why not just serve the fish floating in a bowl of water. I'm sorry, but this dish is conceptually really stupid.

Antonia is forcing Team Earth to make carpaccio even though Spike isn't happy about it. Spike wants to do a squash soup, which sounds like a pretty good idea and Zoi seems to like it, too. In fairness to Antonia, she does actually say she will make squash soup if she absolutely has to:

Antonia: "If you two morons force me to, I will make squash soup. But it's such a terrible idea, everyone will hate it and we will probably never be able to find work again."

Spike: "Well, now you're making me second-guess myself."

The chefs are cooking in the kitchen of the old Marshall Field's building. Mark is surprised by its size:

Mark: "This is how big Yankee Stadium is? That seems a little small for sporting events. You Americans are so weird."

Jen is not fucking around:

Jen: "It's true. I'm not fucking around. Nobody had better suggest that I'm fucking around because I'm not fucking around."

Lisa is bitching about everything and screws up the bacon, which is supposed to be her specialty.

Ryan uses all the pomegranate juice but some of it was supposed to be reserved for the stupid champagne cocktail:

Ryan: "Gosh darn it."

Nikki: "Ryan, swearing like that just brings attention to yourself. Is that what you want? Is this just a desperate cry for attention?"

Nikki talks about Ryan in a private interview segment:

Nikki: "He's a little disorganized. Do you like my hair?"

Tom wants to know who is doing what in the Team Earth dish:

Team Earth: "Oh, it's really a collaborative effort."

Tom: "Cut the bullshit and tell me who made what."

The Richard Blaise charm has worn off Tom Colicchio:

Tom: "I just have to clarify that I never found Richard charming."

So Tom asks Richard what his element is:

Richard: "Obviously it's water. Didn't you notice the blue aprons, dumbass?"

Tom: "Hey, the last time I checked, the sky was blue, too; OK, douchebag?"

Richard: "So we're doing a sous vide salmon. Who does a sous vide salmon anymore, right?"

Tom looks a little confused:

Tom: "That's right. Most people don't do it because it's not very good."

The chefs serve dinner to 80 guests:

Team Water is Mark, Richard, and Andrew and they make poached salmon with faux caviar, parsnip puree and watercress salad. There are scales on the fish and it's not very popular.

Team Fire is Dale, Lisa, and Stephanie and they make grilled shrimp with pickled chili salad, deviled aioli and miso smoked bacon. Everyone seems to love it even though the shrimp is really hot:

Tom: "OH, MY GOD! THAT'S HOT!"

Paris Hilton: "Yeah, that's hot."

Team Air is Nikki, Ryan, and Jen and they make duck breast with citrus salad and pomegranate prosecco aperitif. Some woman is totally irritated with the aperitif. Everyone agrees that little drinks are annoying:

Tom: "I am not a fan of the little drinks. They make my hands look so big."

Seriously, the guests were already drinking champagne, so that little drink was completely pointless.

Team Earth is Antonia, Spike, and Zoi and they make beef carpaccio with mushroom salad and sunchoke aioli. The diners hate this dish. Everyone says how much they would love squash soup instead:

Spike: "See?!!!"

Who deserves a spanking: Antonia, Dale, or Lisa?

America picks Dale? OK, apparently the viewers have a spanking fetish and are attracted to Dale because he really didn't do anything wrong this week.

Team Fire wins, obviously. Congratulations, Team Fire! Lisa wins for making bacon:

Ming: "I've never had bacon before!"

Lisa wins a holiday. Dale is bitter:

Dale: "She made bacon! Are you fucking kidding me?"

The losing teams are brought in:

Padma: "Who cleaned the fish?"

Richard: "In what regard?"

Padma: "In regard to cleaning the fish. I want to know who cleaned it? Do I stutter?"

Spike and Antonia argue about the soup that they should have made.

Zoi is out because she seasoned the mushrooms with rosemary:

Gail: "Rosemary?! Are you fucking kidding me?!"

Back in the waiting room, Spike yells at Antonia for not taking a back seat and letting him and Zoi make the decisions.

For some reason, Jen gets mad at Spike and starts yelling at him like it's his fault Zoi is out.

Then Dale gets in on the act and says that it isn't Spike's fault.

Next, Lisa tells Dale that he isn't helping the situation.

So then Dale yells at Lisa about bitching all night.

Jen kicks a chair into the wall. Problem solved! The end.

Don't bother me. I'm eating.


Sorry! my Top Chef post will be a little late this week because we're going down to Orange County to eat at Chic-fil-A, because we don't have them in Los Angeles. Then we are going shopping at the antique shops in Old Town Orange, looking for something to hang over the bar we just got last weekend at the Pasadena City College swap meet. Oh, that was quite a story! Well, maybe it isn't "quite a story," by I'll tell it anyway:

The bar, which is really just a cabinet with a wine rack and a sliding top that reveals an ice bucket, is a little bigger than we wanted but it seemed to match our furniture perfectly so we got it. Getting it home in my little Civic, however, was a major ordeal! It wouldn't fit in the front seat so we managed to just barely cram it into the trunk. Most of it was sticking out so we were worried it would fall out on the way home and we also thought it was going to be totally scratched up. Fortunately, we made it home safely and a little polish rubbed out any little scratches we made. I had been storing my wine glasses in a hall closet so it's so nice to finally have a cabinet in the dining room. Of course, the wine rack, which is fortunately hidden inside, only makes it more clear that we have a terrible selection of wine. Most of it is either Olivia Newton John's Koala Blue wine or this crappy wine called Papio, which Eric bought because of the cute monkey on the label.


And the previous weekend we finally made our patio livable. We had been waiting to do anything to the patio until our building was painted but that's taking months longer than it was supposed to. So we finally gave in and got a nice little patio set at Ikea for $100; I picked up a few potted palms, which really helps; and we got a cheap gas grill at Target (apparently anything under $500 is a worthless piece of crap but we couldn't afford a decent one).


So George Bush will be so proud of us for doing all this shopping lately! Anyway, the point of this post is just to say that I don't have time to write a post right now but I'll write it Sunday so check back later!

Top Chef: Chicago, Episode Four: Date Night!

Previously on Top Chef: the chefs were forced to beg for food and then Erik was sent home because Tom was jealous of his bald head:

Tom: "How does he get it so shiny?"

Let's check in with the chefs:

Manuel misses Erik. He says something about Erik being a big guy with an enlarged heart:

Manuel: "No, I said he has a big heart."

Oh, good. I was worried.

Manuel also really misses his sons:

Manuel: "I hope it isn't too long before I see them again."

Jen: "Everyone misses their girlfriend or boyfriend or wife. Zoi and I are lucky that we get to see each other and touch each other. But we try to be respectful of the others so we hardly ever have sex on the kitchen counter while other people are around."

Spike: "As much as I enjoy watching them touch each other, I'm ready for one of them to go."

Daniel Boulud is the judge for the quickfire:

Padma: "If any of you don't know who he is, you should just stop reading this blog right now."

Jeez, Padma, you're being a little strict with my readers!

Daniel Boulud: "The most important part of cooking is the technique you use in cooking."

Well, yeah. What else is there?

Padma: "Exactly. So you have to use three techniques to impress Daniel."

Lisa: "Oh, My God! I'm not classically trained so I don't have any technique! What am I going to do?"

What I learned from this challenge is that "technique" means slicing things really thin. Oh, yeah, and cutting an avocado into a little curlicue.

Richard and Ryan have worked with Daniel in the past but he won't hold that against them:

Ryan: "I worked with Daniel really briefly but it just wasn't my style . . . to work with a chef for very long without getting fired."

Richard: "One of my three techniques is restraint."

Daniel Boulud: "What a douchbag."

Dale wins the quickfire and has immunity in the elimination challenge.

Padma: "For the elimination challenge, you need to create a dish and then think of some movie that reminds you of the dish . . . well, that's not really how we wanted to challenge to work but that's what you'll all end up doing. No one ever listens to me, anyway, so just do whatever the hell you want . . . ungrateful little assholes."

Ryan: "What's a 'moovee'?"

It's like a book but with moving pictures and sound.

Ryan: "Interesting. I've never heard of that."

They'll be making dinner for Richard Roeper and his "friend" Aisha Tyler. Ooooh, I think they're dating!

The chefs divide into teams of two and then Dale gets to join whichever team he likes so that one team has three people. That's pretty weird. He joins Richard and Andrew.

Richard, Andrew, and Dale are making the first course and they choose Harry Potter so that Richard can perform some of his culinary magic. Andrew wants to serve the food while riding on a broom but his teammates talk him out of it.

Spike and Manuel team up for the second course. Manuel wants to do Mexican food but Spike has never heard of any Mexican films so they make Vietnamese food so that they can use the film Apocalypse Now.

Jen and Nikki are doing the third course. They wanted to cook Italian food so they choose a Fellini film and create a dish with lots of sex and prostitutes that makes no sense at all.

Mark and Ryan are making the fourth course. They choose Miracle on 34th Street because that's the only film Ryan has heard of:

Ryan: "Remember that scene where Natalie Wood's mother creates a turducken to prove that Santa Clause doesn't exist?"

Zoi and Antonia are doing the fifth course and they want to represent two strong women so first they choose Thelma and Louise. But then they realize they would have to drive off a cliff so they change it to Pedro Almodóvar's Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. Perfect choice!

Lisa and Stephanie make the sixth course. What are the odds they make dessert? That's right; they make beef, instead:

Lisa: "You know what movie I always think of when I think about beef, which is surprisingly often? Harold and Kumar go to White Castle! Oh, My God, just thinking about it is making me laugh!"

Andrew: "The judges are going to culinarily crap in their pants."

I have nothing to add to that.

The chefs go to the grocery store:

Mark: "This is just like the movie It's a Wonderful Life when George wishes he had never been born and then the stores are all out of frozen turkeys so the human race has to live on a diet of fresh cranberries. You Americans are so weird."

In the kitchen, Richard's smoker breaks so they just wave burning wood around the kitchen to flavor the salmon. The judges and other dinner guests love the strange combination of flavors. The fizzy pear drink sounds really good.

Spike and Manuel create a dud with their spring roll. The judges don't like the flavors. I don't like the fact that it looks too big to eat. Everyone figures out the big secret that they chose the food before picking the film.

They like Nikki and Jen's pasta.

They love Mark and Ryan's quail.

The flavors were fine in Zoi and Antonia's chops but the judges didn't get a connection to Spain.

They love Lisa and Stephanie's beef dish:

Ted Allen: "It was delicious. Now, does it say Neil Patrick Harris licking champagne off a woman's breasts in the sun roof of a limousine? Uh, no."

Padma: "Richard, thank you for pretending to host this meal. Now you have to leave so the real judges can talk."

Manuel is out. It probably should have been Spike:

Tom: "Well, they made the decision really difficult for us because they didn't tell us which one of them was to blame. So we just flipped a coin."

Richard wins! Congratulations, Richard!

Zoi: "Well, if they want wasabi celery root foam and chocolate lemongrass tapioca faux caviar, then I give up."

Eric Three Thousand now in 3D!

Through the miracle of science, my blog can now be viewed in 3D! I've incorporated that amazing technology from the posters they used to sell at the mall right into the basic template of my blog! All you have to do is go cross-eyed and stare at the screen for 45 minutes without blinking and you will start to see amazing 3D images! Have fun!

Top Chef: Chicago, Episode Three: More Soggy Food!

Previously on Top Chef: We were totally scandalized to find out that Jen and Zoi are a couple. We learned that Spike is a total bad-ass. And that guy with the stupid hair wants us to ask the question, "Hey, what the fuck did that guy just do?"

So, what the fuck did that guy just do?

That Guy: "I just blew smoke into that bowl. Oh, yeah, and I also blew smoke up the judges' asses."

You can say that again.

Padma: "Welcome to Top Chef, where we make chefs create dishes that sit around for a couple hours and get soggy so we can complain about it."

Sounds like fun!

Let's check in with the chefs:

Stephanie: "We need a woman to represent"

She said it, she meant it, she's here to represent it.

Jennifer: "It isn't common to have a lesbian in the kitchen. Usually there are at least three or four."

Seriously, if you went by television cooking competitions, you would think lesbian chefs were almost as rare as gay fashion designers.

Our guest judge is Rick Bayliss. Apparently, he invented Mexican food. I wonder what Mexicans used to eat before he came along.

For the quickfire, the chefs will be creating a fine-dining taco:

Erik: "Man, why would you want to ruin a taco by doing that to it?"

Manuel is using cactus. He suddenly seems to have an accent.

Spike is keeping it real.

Richard wins with his jicama taco shell. He made three, for the two judges and himself:

Richard: "Do you mind if I eat one with you?"

Padma: "Do you mind if I call you a douchebag?"

The chefs are divided into red and blue teams and and they jump in their Highlanders.

Padma: "Welcome to the mealstogether.com elimination challenge."

Mealstogether.com? How can I learn more about this?

Padma: "Why don't you go to mealstogether.com?"

Oh, right.

Padma: "As you know, Chicago is a city of neighborhoods."

Other Eric: "Unlike other cities, which are made up of random areas filled with buildings and streets."

The chefs have to cook for a block party. But first they have to break into people's houses and steal their food.

Spike isn't doing anything wrong:

Spike: "What? I'm not doing anything wrong! All I said was that I'd been to that house already. I'm not sabotaging anyone. Why are you looking at me like that? I don't feel bad about it. I didn't lie. I don't care what you all say, I didn't do anything wrong!"

uh, ok.

Spike: "Stop judging me!"

Zoi is upset about having to make pasta salad:

Zoi: "Why does the lesbian always get stuck making the pasta salad? It's so unfair!"

Seriously; what's up with that? Every time there's a party it's always "get the lesbian to make the pasta salad. Oh, and tell her to bring a box of wine, too." When is America going to learn that lesbians can make other things besides pasta salad?

The teams make corndogs, sliders, mac and cheese, paella, and a sexy lavender drink:

Tom: "What makes it sexy?"

The fact that you're drinking it, Tom. That's what makes it sexy.

Tom: "Oh, stop! You're embarrassing me!"

OK, in case anyone was wondering, Andrew is full of awsomness:

Andrew: "It's true!"

Bravo: "Which will come first: a female president or a female Top Chef?"

I have to point out that there have already been female presidents. At least a dozen countries have had female presidents.

Bravo: "Fine, smart-ass; President of the United States, then."

OK, time to serve the food:

Padma: "Not yet! We have to let the food sit around for a couple of hours first to make sure it's total crap. That's the gimmick this season, remember?"

Oh, right; I forgot.

Judges' Table:

Andy Cohen: "I'd like to thank the anonymous person who returned the apostrophe for the Judges' Table. "

The blue team is called in:

Tom: "I was very disappointed with this. It really wasn't very good. By the way, you won."

Stephanie wins again! Congratulations, Stephanie!

The red team is called in after a lot of rubbing of faces. Seriously, I hope the chefs wash their hands after all that face-rubbing.

Andrew has a complete meltdown and rants about how the Top Chef studio is his house. He's dragged out by security guards. I can't figure out what's wrong with him? Is it just too much caffeine?

So, after telling the blue team that they just barely won because they were also total crap, Tom and Padma then talk about how the red team was the obvious losing team:

Tom: "It wasn't even close. Even though it was really hard to decide which team was worse because they were both so bad."

Padma: "Yeah, I don't know why they were so surprised. I thought it was really clear that both teams were bad and that the team that was just slightly worse was obviously the losing team."

Erik is out for the soggy corndogs. He should have made something with the random food from people's pantries that would have been really good after sitting around for hours:

Erik: "Like what?"

Top Chef: Chicago: Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh, Why?

So, to recap, last week Stephanie won and Nimma packed her knives and went:

Padma: "Nimma, at what point in the cooking process did you decide to murder us by sodium poisoning?"

We get scenes of the chefs getting ready at the house:

Jennifer and Zoi: "We have a huge advantage over the other chefs because we can wear each other's shoes."

For the quickfire, they go to the farmers market and they have to make a dish using only five ingredients:

Padma: "The only things not counted in the five ingredients are salt, pepper, sugar, and oil. Andrew? Are you listening? Look at me when I'm speaking to you."

Andrew: "I'm listening! Vinegar, flour, mayonnaise, and watermelon. Got it!"

Spike is enjoying the market:

Spike: "Well, you saw last week how far not having fun will get you. So I attended a concert in the park and got a shiatsu massage."

Richard is buying eucalyptus:

Padma: "Is eucalyptus edible?"

Richard: "Well, koala bears eat it."

Tom: "Do I look like a bear?"

America: "YES!"

Mark: "You Americans need to learn that the koala is not a bear. It's a marsupial."

Padma: "Whatever. Is it poisonous to humans or what?"

Richard: "In large doses, it can be fatal; but in small doses, it just causes diarrhea."

Padma: "Alright, then."

Mark left a bag at the market but he still ends up winning the quickfire and he has immunity in the elimination challenge.

For the elimination challenge, the chefs have to pick knives to divide into teams of three and determine which wild animal they get:

Padma: "Team Humpback Whale, your boat is out on Lake Michigan. Good luck! . . . Psych! Hahaha! You don't really have to catch a whale! You are so gullible!"

Padma is a laugh riot. The real challenge is to cater a party at the Chicago zoo for a couple hundred ladies wearing stupid leopard-print dresses:

Diablo Cody: "Ooh, am I invited?"

No. The chefs have to prepare menus based on the diet of the animal they were assigned:

Padma: "So, Team Humpback Whale, that means you can use krill, salt, pepper, sugar, and oil . . . again, I'm just kidding! There IS no Team Humpback Whale! Oh, I'm having so much fun!"

The chefs go shopping. Dale wants to do his own thing:

Dale: "I want to do my own thing."

I just said that. Nikki wants to buy flowers:

Nikki: "Look, I know the food is important but we need to put it all back so we can buy table decor."

Dale is not a fucking interior designer:

Dale: "I am not a fucking interior designer!"

What are you so fucking angry about?

Dale: "I wasn't accepted to design school and I don't like being reminded that I am not a fucking interior designer."

That's so sad.

Gay Dale from last season: "From one Dale to another, let me give you a hint on interior decorating: Don't use fucking scented candles. Madonna's brother hates that."

Valerie is screwing up one of the staples of the gorilla diet: blinis.

Stephanie is using my mom's banana bread recipe:

Stepahnie: "No, I'm using MY mom's recipe!"

I think it's everyone's mom's recipe:

1/2 cup Crisco or butter
1 cup sugar
2 cups flour
2 eggs
3 mashed bananas
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup chopped pecans (optional)

Combine Crisco, sugar, and egg yolks.
Add sifted dry ingredients.
Add mashed bananas, beaten egg whites, vanilla, and nuts.
Bake at 375 for 40 minutes in greased pans.
Grandma uses 1 big loaf pan but I use two small ones.
Grandma is a little crazy so you shouldn't listen to her.
-- Love, Mom.

I found my mom's exact recipe in a cook book several years ago; right down to using one large or two small loaf pans. True story. It was traumatizing.

Back to the show:

We spend the next thirty minutes watching Jello solidify.

Time to go to the venue:

Tom: "I'll see you all in hell. Bwahahaha! Oh, sorry, I meant to say I'll see you at the zoo."

At the zoo, a few dishes aren't working: the blinis were bad because they were prepared hours ahead of time; the crab salad was watery and the chips that were supposed to go with it were soggy and couldn't be used; and the mushrooms stuffed with blueberries were not presentable:

Nikki: "They look like turds and they're ice cold."

She recommends putting some gerbil on them:

Nikki: "I said chervil, dumb-ass."

(I don't remember hearing about chervil until last week's New Adventures of Old Christine)

Dale: "Let's put cheese on them so they look like cheese covered turds."

Nikki: "They can't be served . . . but I'll just let people have a little taste of them."

That's the same as serving them!

There are also some hits:

Mark: "Cheer up, sleepy Jean. Oh, what can it mean. To an anchovy believer and a homecoming queen."

I don't even know how to punctuate those lyrics.

They like Andrew's "glacier":

Tom: "Cute. Now give me some damn food."

The Vultures and Penguins are on top.

Andrew wins with his glacier and whatever else he made. Something with squid? Congratulations, Andrew! As usual, I have no idea what he won.

Andrew has to announce the bottom two teams. He eases the pain by saying "da bears" in a funny accent. The only reason I knew it was a sports reference was because I remember John Goodman saying it on Saturday Night Live.

So, the Gorillas and Bears are on the bottom.

Valerie is out because of the blinis. She should have known they wouldn't work.

Important announcement: The Judges Table seems to have lost its apostrophe this week. If anyone finds it laying around, please contact Andy Cohen immediately at bravotv.com. Thank you.

[note: if you happen to be watching the Bachelor, Other Eric is blogging about it again this season at Everything Eric]

Top Chef: Chicago, Episode 1!

Welcome to the new season of Top Chef! To start off the season on Eric Three Thousand, Marcel Vigneron has graciously offered to perform a rap for us. Take it away, Marcel:

Marcel:

"F. R. E. E. that spells free
Credit Report dot com, baby!"

Thank you Marcel, that was really special!

Let's meet this season's lesbians . . . er, I mean, chefs:

Andrew swears a lot.
Antonia is a contestant on the show.
Dale is Asian.
Erik is bald.
Jennifer has a faux-hawk.
Lisa has short hair.
Manuel is another guy on the show.
Mark is from New Zealand.
Nikki has long brown hair.
Nimma is not here to have fun.
Richard also has a faux-hawk.
Ryan is kind of annoying.
Spike is also on the show.
Stephanie has brown hair.
Valerie has brown hair.
Zoi has brown hair.

OK, so far, I hate all of them. I think I can tell most of the guys apart but there are always too many women with long brown hair and I get them confused.

Padma: "Welcome to the show! These chefs are going to have to use all their skill, talent, and hairstyles to make it this season! The chefs will be competing for a feature in Food and Wine magazine, A vacation to the beautiful city of Evian, Colorado, probably some sort of car, a million dollars, and I just lied about that last one! I'd love to introduce you to our judges, but I guess those bitches Ted and Gail are just too busy with their exciting lives to join us for this challenge. Of course Tom is here. Where else would he be? Hi, Tom!"

Tom: "Hello, Padma. I'm very busy, too. Making sandwiches."

Padma: "Of course you are, dear."

The chefs meet at world-famous Numero Uno pizza in Chicago. Jennifer and Zoi have an announcement:

Jennifer and Zoi: "We wanted to tell everyone that we just met five minutes ago and we've fallen madly in love and we're getting married and we want you all to come to the wedding!"

Other Chefs: "Whatever."

For the quickfire challenge, the chefs have to do it Chicago style, which apparently means they have to make a deep dish pizza.

In the kitchen, the chefs get lockers to hold all their Marmite:

Mark: "Marmite is the best! It tastes like really salty feet!"

God, you kiwis think you're so cool with your Marmite and your "throw another shrimp on the barbie" crap.

Mark: "No, you're thinking of Australians."

Oh, right. Never mind.

Mark: "By the way, dummy, those Aussie freaks eat Vegemite, not Marmite."

So, the chefs are putting dough in the pizza pans. I've never made a deep dish pizza before, but even I know that is way too much dough!

Richard makes a very traditional peach and sweet tea pizza. Oh, by the way, he also steals Andrew's pizza pan:

Andrew: "Motherfu..."

OK, there's no need for that kind of language, Andrew. But seriously, who knew part of the challenge was going to be to fight for pizza pans? Why couldn't they just give him another stupid pan? How hard is that? Does Bravo need me to come down there and run their challenges for them?

The guest judge is everyone's favorite plastic-surgery patient, Rocco DiSpirito!

The chefs deliver their pizzas in their fleet of Toyota Highlanders.

Padma: "Oh, yeah, a Toyota Highlander. That's probably the kind of car they'll win."

They deliver the pizzas to Rocco's house:

Rocco: "Welcome to my house. You'll all be living here. Fortunately all my bedrooms are outfitted with bunk beds. Don't ask why."

Rocco smells something funky. I'm not going there.

Rocco makes half the chefs stand in the corner as punishment. The other half won the challenge and will supposedly get an advantage in the elimination challenge but really they won't.

Nimma and Dale are being unsociable:

Nimma: "I'm not here to have fun."

OK

Nimma: "No, really. I refuse to have fun. I won't have fun until I get eliminated, which I hope won't be for a long time."

OK, good luck!

For the elimination challenge, the chefs that won the quickfire choose one of the losing chefs to compete against, making the same dish. The losing chefs get to choose the dish. So basically this gives absolutely no advantage to the winning chefs. Supposedly, the advantage is picking a chef they think they can beat but in reality picking the dish is the more important part of the challenge.

Nobody wants to pick the soufflé:

Chefs: "Ooh, soufflés are sooooo hard. Making a soufflé is like performing brain surgery. If you just look cross-eyed at a soufflé it will collapse. If I have to make a soufflé my life will be over."

For crying out loud, it's just a fucking soufflé! Quit your whining. Sure it takes a little practice but it's not that difficult. The question is why the chefs don't practice making something as basic as a soufflé before going on the show. It's the same with deserts; learn to make a few deserts before going on Top Chef. And, yes, if you don't get the ingredients right and you don't prepare the pan properly, the soufflé won't rise as much as it should but it's a myth that they collapse so easily in the oven if you make too much noise or vibrations.

Anyway, they go shopping and then they have 90 minutes to prepare their dishes:

Ryan: "Since we had 90 minutes, I decided to go out and butcher my own animals so I could make a really fresh, flavorful stock. If we'd had a little more time I would have preferred raising the animals myself so I could control their feed."

Andrew and Richard are making crab cakes. Andrew didn't buy mayonnaise at the store because he assumed (correctly, in my opinion) that mayonnaise is a basic condiment that should be stocked in the kitchen:

Andrew: "Motherfu..."

Please watch your mouth, Andrew! There could be nuns watching the show! It's not a big deal; you can make it yourself; mayonnaise is just egg yolks and oil.

Andrew: "Really? I didn't know that."

Seriously?

During the commercial break, Bravo asks a very important question:

Bravo: "Do Jennifer and Zoi have an advantage because they are a couple?"

Well, That depends; will they have the opportunity to form an alliance and vote other chefs out of the kitchen? That's what I thought.

At the judges' table this evening are Anthony Bourdaine, Rocco DiSpirito, Tom, and Padma.

Stephanie beats Mark with duck a l'orange.

Richard beats Andrew with crab cakes.

Nicky beats Jennifer with lasagna.

Antonia beats Nimma with shrimp scampi.

Lisa beats Spike with eggs Benedict (though the judges loved both).

Dale beats Manuel with steak au poivre.

Valerie beats Ryan with chicken piccata. (though the judges hated both)

Zoi beats Erik with a souffle.

Stephanie wins! Congratulations, Stephanie!

There were several dishes the judges hated. Ryan seemed to have trouble with the concept of chicken piccata:

Tom: "Chicken piccata is dredged in egg and flour."

Ryan: "Right. Egg and flour and breadcrumbs."

Tom: "No, it's just egg and flour."

Ryan: "I know. I dredged it in egg and flour before I added the breadcrumbs."

Tom: "NO, NO, NO! Jesus Christ! There are no fucking breadcrumbs in piccata! If you use breadcrumbs it's parmigiana! Oh, my god! I think I'm going to blow my brains out!"

Rocco: "It wasn't only his gnocchi that was dense."

Oh, Rocco, that was cold. And you're not exactly the lightest gnocchi in the pot, if you know what I'm saying.

Anyway, Nimma is out with her inedibly salty shrimp. Damn, she was one of the few women I could distinguish from the others. Oh, well, hopefully now she'll have time to have fun.

Project Runway Season Four, Season Finale Extravaganza, Part Two!

Heidi: "Welcome to the lackluster finale of a lackluster season of Project Runway!"

Oh, it wasn't that bad.

Heidi: "You know the drill: the winner will receive a subscription to Elle Magazine, a used Ford Taurus, some TRESemme products, a personal Bluefly wall to enjoy in the comfort of home, some agency that tells you what to do, and $100,000 to start a fragrance line."

So, last week we were short-changed on the home visits so that Chris could be eliminated in round one of the finale and now we're down to Rami, Jillian, and Christian, who appear to be stuffed into a one-bedroom hotel suite so that Rami has to sleep in the living room. Seriously, why are the producers such cheapskates?

Anyway, the designers are fighting like cats and dogs:

Jillian: "Does my hair look OK?"

Christian and Rami: "Yeah, it looks great!"

OH, MY GOD! We aren't interested in all this drama and backstabbing! We just want to see the clothes!

Somehow they stop tearing each other's hair out long enough to go to the workroom. Christian is very demanding:

Christian: "I need this two-square-foot area so I can do my work and maybe sleep here; I have my bed rolled up in my purse."

Rami thinks Christian and Jillian are surprised by his designs. Yeah, probably because it looks like he stole all their ideas. Just kidding (no, I'm not).

Jillian shows Tim her latest look: a striped sweater with mop-heads on the shoulders:

Rami: "Ooh, I wonder if I have time to steal that look."

Tim: "Please don't. If I have to look at another garment like that I will gauge my eyes out."

Christian tells Tim about his collection:

Christian: "I decided my collection needed more black and cream."

Tim: "Um . . . yeah . . . I don't really have a response to that. So let me just say that I think it may be over-designed."

Christian: "Should I have under-designed it?"

Tim: "No, I think you should have designed it right up to a certain point and then stopped designing it."

Christian: "Right. I see what you mean."

The model casting is difficult because, by a strange coincidence, all three designers are all looking for gorgeous, tall, thin girls who can walk really well. What are the odds of that?

The next day they go to Collier Strong for makeup and then the models show up for fittings:

Christian: "Is that too tight?"

Model: "No, it's fine."

Christian: "OK, how about now?"

Model: "Now I can't breath!"

Christian: "Perfect!"

Rami: "Christian has a lot to learn about this industry. A fashion show isn't about clothes looking good on models."

Actually, I think it is.

Rami: "Really? Well, then maybe he knows what he's doing."

Christian made all these amazing My Fair Lady hats and not-so-amazing shoes:

Daniel Vosovic: "What about purses?"

Ugh! Will you shut up about the purses?

Anyway, the shoes look like they've been tarred and feathered. And not in a good way. I do love the hats, though.

Jillian realizes her models are all different heights and will look bad on the runway.

Jillian: "Why did I cast all my models from that show Little People, Big World?"

Christian: "It's your own fault for being such a dummy because you haven't done thousands of casting calls, like I have."

Rami: "Jillian, can't you focus on the positives? Like how I have a better chance of winning because you chose bad models?"

Jillian: "You're right. Thanks, guys."

So Jillian calls some guy on the phone and says she isn't happy with her models:

Some Guy On the Phone: "Sucks to be you."

The designers do the final fittings and then Tim does one last gather round:

Tim: "I just have to tell you . . . you light up my life. You give me hope to carry on."

The next morning the designers go to Bryant Park:

Rami: "This tent is like the heart of the fashion industry and this door is the aorta and it's pumping blood through the arteries of fashion . . ."

I swear, if he doesn't stop talking about blood, I'm going to throw up.

Christian's models are so late. It's only a few minutes before the show and one of his models still isn't there. He's almost in tears when she finally wanders in:

Model: "What's going on around here? It looks like some sort of fashion show is about it start?"

Christian: "Yeah, and you're in it!"

Model: "Oh, really? Sorry."

Christian: "No worries."

Quick shots of all the huge Bravo stars in the audience. Seriously, aren't there usually some real stars at the show?

Heidi introduces the judges. Nina looks so pretty! OK, fine, Michael looks pretty, too. Victorya (oops, I mean Victoria) Beckham looks nervous, for some reason. I don't love that orange dress that's wearing her. The designers introduce their collections:

Jillian: "I was so inspired and I hope you are inspired, too. Otherwise, you can all bite me."

Rami: "My collection celebrates women. Unlike Christian, who only celebrates models."

Christian: "How is everyone fiercing today? Fierce! Well, the weather fiercecast calls for strong fierceness and a slight chance of fiercity. So I hope you're all ready to get fierced!"

Here are my impressions of the individual looks:

Jillian: I love it! Eh, it's OK. Oh, that jacket is nice. OMG, what the hell was she thinking?! That skirt is pretty but the sleeves are stupid. No, I don't get it. That's nice. That one's OK. That one's interesting. Ooh, that's pretty! Ugh, I don't like that one. That one isn't bad . . . oh, wait, it's pants . . . that's kind of cool.

Rami: I kind of like the sleeves but, otherwise, no. Boring! Yeah, that dress is pretty. I don't think so. Oy, these color choices are dreadful. That one is OK. No, I just don't love that. I kind of hate that one. Pretty. Oh, yuck! That's gorgeous! That's also very pretty!

Christian: I love it! That's nice. OK, I can't tell, is that the same one? Not very exciting. I'm so sick of the black. Wow, I don't like that at all. Love it! Kind of boring. Eh, it's OK. Oh, please. Beautiful! No, I don't get the chicken costume.

What do people think?

Jay: "I think Rami's going to win."

WRONG!

Kit: "Jillian's knitwear impressed me so much."

Too bad!

Padma: "Jillian's was very wearable."

If Padma would wear it, you know it must be bad.

Nick: "I love that Rami gave them woven. He said, 'You want woven? Bitch, here it is!'"

Who the hell was asking for "woven"?

On to the judging. What did they think of Jillian's?

Victoria: "Everything was done so beautifully!"

Michael: "It was feminine and modern! The knitwear was such a surprise!"

Nina: "You were innovative and took a chance!"

Heidi: "I saw so many new shapes! That is so important to me! Jillian, you're out!"

Jillian: "What?"

Heidi: "No, seriously. It isn't enough that you didn't win, we have to make sure you understand that you are a complete loser and came in third."

Will it be Christian or Rami? Rami had some beautiful pieces but his color choices were bad. Christian's were very dramatic but the black got a little monotonous.

Heidi: "Christian and Rami, you were both so good that we couldn't decide. This is a Project Runway first! We have a tie!"*

Well, that's the end of the season! Thanks for reading, everyone!

*Just kidding! Christian won! Congratulations, Christian!