Hung joins us this week, as do live chickens. Toby Young continues his stint as guest judge, and it’s a toss-up whether his pithy remarks will continue to amuse me, or whether he will Bourdain-ify before my disappointed eyes.
10:00: Last week: Jamie won and we were all kinda disappointed that Ariane didn’t beat her again. Because this is Top Chef, not Top Scallop. Melissa finally went home despite finally showing her true colors. Those colors? Watery and with an unpleasant odor. And Leah and Hosea are JUST FRIENDS despite Bravo’s insistence otherwise.
10:01: Quickfire: Hung is here. With a big “fishtank” behind him. Which is actually a pile of processed and canned pantry foods. In honor of Hung’s quickness, they only have 15 minutes to make something edible. Hosea and Fabio nearly come to blows over a can of artichokes.
There are more potted meats than I normally like in my presence.
Radhika doesn’t like to use products like these, products that “housewives” use. Aaaand 50% of their demographic is gone. Way to go!
10:02: Spam hording! Jeff is making a whole bunch of shit, surprising no one.
I can’t remember Hung’s last name and I keep wanting to call him “William Hung,” which I know isn’t right.
10:07: There is a lot of soup. With spam. Soup with spam.
There’s also turkey spam. This does not raise my opinion of spam is not raised.
10:08: Hung doesn’t like Jamie. SUCK ON IT. Unfortunately, he does like Stefan and he wins. His soup is “something I would eat at 3 in the morning.” That’s praise? There are a lot of things I would eat at 3 in the morning that are shameful, shameful things. Don’t get too excited, Stefan.
10:10: Elimination Challenge: Team challenge. They’re broken up into teams by protein, and each team will cook family-style for 16.
Ariane is stuck in a Hosea and Leah sandwich. Stefan is teamed with Jamie. Apparently their love is as dead as my feelings about spam.
I know more than one of you is going to write in about how you like spam, spam isn’t that bad, spam is economical, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam. I don’t care. Spam is only 1 step above scrapple, and scrapple is below a bar of soap in terms of things I want to eat.
10:14: Ricky Gervais on Inside the Actor’s Studio? The commercial is better than most full episodes.
10:15: Carla cannot create amongst the friction of Stefan and Jamie. Her spirit guides need some spirit Xanax.
10:16: Jamie-Stefan throwdown! He is not changing the menu! Someone is a douchebag! Everyone is running away! It is anticlimactic so I have to use lots of exclamation points to make it more exciting!!
Everyone is worried about making things seasonal enough. My question: what season? We all know it’s summer, we all know they’re pretending it’s winter, I give up. I need my own spirit Xanax. Or, you know, a real one.
10:18: The country scenery clues Fabio in that they are not going to Whole Foods. My boy is sharp as a tack.
And they’re going to…Stone Barn at Blue Hills! Dan Barber! Who wants to take me to dinner there? I will totally say nice things about you on TNS. The cheftestants get to cook there, for the farmers. I’m looking forward to it, but am a little worried about the potential for offal.
10:21: Livestock. The lambs are adorable, as is the dog tending them. OH MY GOD THOSE PIGS ARE HUGE.
Jamie, bonding with the animals: “Hi, chicken!” They are total BFFs.
10:25: Hateful random interpersonal interlude: Stefan, with Jamie, Carla and all the female chickens: “I’m the only cock here.”
The jokes, they write themselves.
10:29: Everyone’s readjusting menus frantically. Radhika: “I was going to do a bread pudding, but there were no figs, so that was out.” Her bread pudding apparently has a different base than mine.
Ariane is working with some truly daunting hunks of lamb.
10:31: By “working with” I mean “beating the shit out of with a pot.”
He asks team drama who their leader is and Carla nominates Stefan. That seems to be all Colicchio needs to know, and he walks away.
Colicchio: “Once something’s on the bone, I don’t know why you’d want to remove it.” Again: I’m not even needed here!
10:32: Those are some S & M looking lamb roasts.
10:35: The colors of all the produce are beyond gorgeous. Just stunning. I want to decorate my living room with those tomatoes.
Team pork: used caul fat. Caul fat icks the shit out of me but damn, that’s some good looking pork.
Team chicken: is it just me, or did they spend most of the time forming the tomato salad into perfect little cubes?
10:38: Colicchio is going on again with honoring the protein, like with Eugene’s fish last week. You know what, Colicchio? If you want to honor the protein, DON’T KILL THE ANIMAL.
Toby Young is relatively restrained. Or maybe he’s just starting to get to me and I’m tuning him out.
10:40: Carla is like the dessert queen of Top Chef. I’m totally making a fruit tart with a thyme crust.
10:44: Judge’s Table: Jamie, Stefan and Princess Shangri-la are called in – they’re on top. Suddenly they’re all friends. Or they’re all drunk. Winner: EVERYONE! All the joy of winner, none of the personal glory yay!
10:46: Heading in for the shaft: Everyone else.
10:47: Team Pig: Toby asks, wisely, why take the fat off the pig? THAT’S WHY WE LOVE PIG. Radhika basically grilled corn for three hours. She is a waste of a human being.
Team Lamb: Dan points out, wisely, that baby lamb is already tender, why beat it to death? There’s also a way too extended discussion about rolling and tying.
I sense a bus coming, and Ariane is about to cross the street.
10:51: Toby wants to have sex with his meat.
AAARGH. I feel so useless.
10:53: So who goes home? The woman who dishonored the lamb but has done really well in the past, or the people who stood around being useless? Personally, my vote is always for the useless. Trim the fat, I say. Unless we’re talking about pork; in that case dear god, don’t trim that fat.
10:56: Final judging. Radhika, you were useless. Jeff, you de-fatted pork. Fabio, you killed the ravioli. But Team Pork is not the loser, because Jeff honored the tomatoes. Sigh.
Hosea and Leah, you let your teammate flounder. Ariane, you dishonored the lamb and brought shame upon your household and ancestors.
Ariane, pack your knives and go, but not before you commit ritual haru-kiri with them to atone for your actions against the lamb. Only then will Colicchio be satisfied.
10:58: We knew it from the start: Being the meat in a Leah-Hosea sandwich is not a good place to be.
NEXT WEEK: Restaurant Wars! More Hosea and Leah crap. It’s officially old, as if it weren’t already. And we can assume that Stefan will continue to be a dickweed.
Thursday Night Smackdown 
I’ll hop on that Hate Spam bandwagon.
Am I the only one who didn’t miss Hung’s cocky lisp?
Closest I get to Stone Barns is that my friend used to be a cook there. As well as at Per Se (which I DID get to capitalize on for one birthday a few years back and was sublime). The bastard is a year younger than me. What the hell?
cheesa, used to be? she must still have connections – work that shit out!
Padma got called out on judging people for that meal and not their past performance, but isn’t it difficult to ignore it past performance? I sort think it is a shame to throw out Ariane when she has won more times than Leah and they both sort of sucked balls on this challenge.
I only feel ok about using him for his CURRENT job connections. Not previous. I’d have to do far too much in return to try to play that game, and I’m married… happily.
Spam, unless in a Monty Python sketch and not actually being consumed, is never ok. Someone please explain this to Hawaii. I just… I don’t… gah? Why? Surrounded by water. Why jelly-meat in a tin?
Now I need a spirit Xanax.
long time reader, first time caller.
i’m so mad. it felt like my favorite aunt was just let go from the show. srsly. you know she likes to get a little wacky drunk and make awesome snacks.
leena, i’m so with you on that. they should have chucked radhika. she did so little, and she’s hardly been a shining star all season.
chessa, i would never want to put you in a compromising position. at least, for stone barns. for per se, i totally would.
john, welcome! speak up more often! you’re probably right, and i bet she throws a kick-ass super bowl party. but i have heard really good things about culinariane.
I tell ya, I am feeling a bit let down with this season’s Top Chefs. I commented to my girlfriend that last season, when we both really got into the show because of Richard Blais, most of the chefs seemed to feed off of and learn from each other. This season seems to be an every man for himself attitude. By the way, as a quick aside, is this the movie season for romantic comedies?!? I am about tired of seeing “Last Chance Harvey” and now I just saw “New in Town”. Please, someone feed me a spirit xanax with a side of spirit prozac… Back to the Top Chefs. I’m not surprised that Ariane was released, and I would have really liked to have seen a double release like last week. “Ariane and Radhika, please pack your knives and go!” Oh well, maybe next week we will get rid of Radhika, Leah or Jamie. Restaurant Wars will certainly thin the herd!
Once again…really effing tired midweek, but said to the hubby “If we don’t watch it tonight, TNS will not be as funny as it would be if we just hunker down and watch it”. Bravo should really pay you royalties for uping their veiwership, if that’s a word. By the way, your earlier post about the google searches was totally funny to me because while I was brushing my teeth this morning, I was actually wondering how many people searched for “fuck the chicken”. Disapointed in a disturbing sort of way that no one did. Some of the search requests were even more disturbing than my disapointment, though.
Radhika has had every opportunity to have a personality and the other thing she has done interesting during the entire show is say that she’d rather be on Satan’s team than Stefan’s team. So I’m kind of over her. Though I’m over Leah A LOT more. Again, no real personality and she seems very pouty. Plus, honestly, unless we get to see her boyfriend break up with her and call her a cheating insecure slut, I don’t need to watch Leah get all “comfy” with Hosea.
Unless they are going to start passing out spirit xanax to EVERYONE, people need to stop following their intuition and honoring proteins and, apparently, tomatoes. Cook the damn food. I don’t care how much you honor baby lamb meat – the baby lamb is still dead! And, as a side note, doesn’t everyone know that if you have meat on a bone, unless you have a very good reason, the best thing is to cook the meat til it falls off the bone? I mean, I’m not even sure I quality for a home chef and I know that.
I was slightly disappointed Ariane was sent home, mostly because I thought the judges had recognized that her two teammates had basically thrown her to the wolves. And I’m pretty sure doing that is un-cheflike behavior. It shows a lack of leadership and shady character. But only slightly because I didn’t really think Ariane was going to make it to the finals.
gaines, let’s just hope that they don’t all implode during restaurant wars like they do every other season. sam’s watermelon and gorgonzola still gives me the heebie jeebies.
chedds, if you could send a letter to bravo to that effect, preferably on some professional-looking letterhead, i would be very appreciative.
julianne, i knew ariane wouldn’t make it to the finals, too but her treatment by the lovebird tag team and both of their complete refusals to take any leadership role was just too much for me.
and yes, everyone know the cook-the-meat-on-the-bone thing. bone = meat tastes better. not difficult.
I hate Jamie the most, but next up is Leah. I’ve disliked her all along and really thought she should’ve been out on her ass last night. Oh, and Bravo, I don’t give a crap about her and Hosea messing around…although I’m sure their significant others at home probably will. Bravo, Bravo!
So, obviously, I’m sad that Ariane got the boot. I should’ve known, though, because she looked so angry throughout all her talking heads. Maybe she should’ve grilled the meat like she wanted to. That’s what you get when you listen to a wimp like Hosea.
I just had a hot flash of Colicchio standing before the cheftestants in only a lambskin, screaming “Blood for the Blood God!!”
One question: Was there time for them to roast big hunks of meat on the bone?
When are they going to rerun this. I totally want to see these guys come to blows over a stupid can of artichokes. I also want to see Radkiha insult the viewers. And Jamie and Stefan going at it! I must watch!
I’m glad I’m not the only one who ever made the William Hung association.
Figs are required for bread pudding? I’ve been doing it all wrong all these years, *sob*
Poor Ariane. She seemed so…earnest.
OMG Blue Hill at Stone Barns! I so want to eat there. I’ve wanted to eat there ever since it opened. Of course I probably would have had to make reservations as soon as it opened if I wanted to have dinner there this Saturdday night.
I enjoyed Spamalot. Best. Spam. Ever.
Does that count?
sara, i could not possibly be looking less forward to next week’s lovefest. blech.
heather, that’s not a hot flash, that’s a psychic link with him. i’m sorry.
lisa, i’m sure they could have cut the big primals down into smaller pieces and kept them on the bone. the judges seemed to think there was time (not that that necessarily means anything).
rachel, now i’m glad i’m not the only one who made the william hung association!
toy lady, it does not.
Great recap. I spotted those cubes of tomatoes too. Weird. I think Leah should have gone home.
I just found your blog and have been laughing out loud for the past half hour. My dog thinks I’m insane. Love your Top Chef post-mortem. I’m signing up!