Gender: Male
Status: In a Relationship
Age: 39
Sign: Pisces
City: PHOENIX
State: Arizona
Country: US
Signup Date: 4/18/2006
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Wednesday, November 04, 2009
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Current mood:  ecstatic
The next morning at the McMansion, Bitter Jen's doing her best to look sexy for the cameras... 
...don't ever change, babe...
She admits she's just tired and not at the top of her game and needs to refocus. It probably doesn't help that 80's Hooker is bouncing around like a hyperactive terrier and saying how nice it would be if a boy was sent home instead of a girl this time. How about do the challenge first, honey?
Of course, we're treated to our daily Sexist Pigshit bluster in which he insists he's not at all intimidated by the others and their skills (even though he's never once won an Elimination Challenge) and that he's just gonna do what he does (ignore whatever the challenge is and make mediocre Greek food) and hope the judges like it. Why does it feel like I've typed that same paragraph 9 times before this?
Anyhow, they wind up at Craftsteak and everyone immediately heads into the kitchen to check out all the meat, and they are orgasming right and left over the lovely array of juicy hunks of former animals that are laid out for them. I think DirtyBear might actually be drooling a little. Before they can really get started, though, Daddy Tom himself shows up...
...and is doing a really horrible job of hiding that he knows they're about to get vegefucked...
He says that he and Scar have a "special guest in town" and that they're going to be cooking for her and calls Natalie Portman out. Fat Kid immediately pops a huge two-inch erection and tells us the only important acting work Nat's ever done was Star Wars, and I'm guessing he's got a life-size blowup Queen Amidala bop bag at home with crusty stains on it. Oh please... you think that's gross? Check out Sexist Pigshit's expression...
...speaking of Phantom Menaces...
Now I'm a little afraid for her, because that's some serious eye-raping going on, but that won't last long, because she's about to deliver her poorly-concealed blow to the cheftestants as Daddy Tom invites her to tell them about her likes and dislikes. After a far-too-long lead-in yippy-yap-yapping about all the different flavors and cuisines she loves to try, she drops her bomb about being a vegetarian, and... zzzzzzz.
Honestly, this was bad timing, because vegetarian is not nearly as restrictive as vegan, therefore this to me is a far easier challenge than the one levelled at our Top Chef Masters a few months ago. If they had really wanted to fuck everybody up, they should have told them she was a Level 6 Vegan (they will eat nothing that has been touched by human hands, so you often find them clustered about at the foot of fruit trees with their faces turned upwards and their mouths wide open... they also drink directly from the Slurpee machine this way, because that counts too).
As I suspected, 80's Hooker claims she loves cooking vegetarian food because "they're people, too!" and believes she's going to really shine on this challenge...
..."The same way I brilliantly shone at Pigs'n'Pinot and the Kowboy Kampout!"...
Hmmm, did "shine" suddenly become a synonym for "suck"? Anyhow, it's back to the pile-up at the pantry as everyone frantically tries to rethink their dishes. Sexist Pigshit yells for dibs on leeks, while 80's Hooker nabs the wild garbanzo beans, and DirtyBear calls kale. When in the supermarket does anybody ever fight over these ingredients? Bitter Jen is going for the morel mushrooms... at least until 80's Hooker tells her that she and DirtyBear are using them, too, and then suddenly Jen doesn't want them anymore. Someone should tell her that you can't catch the "80's Hooker Shine" that way.
Instead she heads for some big beautiful eggplants, but Fat Kid's also wanting to use them, so to make it fair they flip a dried out orange chip, and it apparently must have landed on the "spiky-haired doucheputz" side, because Fat Kid's taking them, and Bitter Jen is now stuck with having to use these teensy baby eggplants...
...or she's describing Fat Kid's Queen Amidala boner...
Of course, she makes me want to grab her by her side-ponytail and shove her face in Fat Kid's sweaty ass-crack when she goes on to say "I should change my idea right now, but I'm pretty much set on using eggplant." Oh yes, this kind of realization often ends well. Like never.
Hey, guess what awesomely original idea Sexist Pigshit is having? Well, because Dicky Blazehawk once made bananas look like scallops, and because everybody knows that scallops are akin to Holy Manna from God's Seven-Eleven-In-Heaven™, he's decided that he's going to make his leeks look like scallops, too! He's so proud of this idea that he's telling the others allll about it in that enduringly stupid way he has of stating the obvious, "I'm gonna call 'em 'leek-scallops'... cuz they'll look like scallops."
Which is why it's all the more sweeter when DirtyBear glances at him and quick as a whip snorts, "Look like scallops, taste like shit." and goes right back to looking for more produce as Sexist Pigshit giggles along and pretends they're laughing with him and not at him. Privately he brags to us that his restaurant has 60 dishes on the menu and over 20 of them are vegetarian, "I'm not worried about anything."...
..."Because I can't possibly fuck up worse than Robin."...
You know that's what he's thinking, too. Except what's so fucking great about leeks in the shape of scallops??!? You can have dogshit in the shape of candybars and it's still gonna taste like dogshit. Ah well, I can only hope and pray that the Ever-Turning Giant Scallop Of Karma™ is rumbling it's way down on him as we speak.
Meanwhile, DirtyBear's really taking his time to think things through, noting that it's hard to get the same satiated feeling you have after a meaty meal when you've only got veggies to work with, and tells us he knows what it feels like because he and his wife apparently give up meat for Lent every year. OMG, I totally remember that! I always used to try and give up shit I really hated (such as peas and lima beans and going to church) but my mom insisted that that was not a sacrifice, you had to give up something that you really liked (such as ice cream or the movies or masturbation) or else Jesus would know you weren't serious and you might burn in hell for it. I would usually tell her that Heath-Crunch Klondike bars (and masturbation) were worth going to hell for and then I would find myself on a sudden fast for the rest of the evening. Or the week.
Anyhow, he really wants to have a vegetable dish that's going to be satisfying, so he's using kale, turnips and morel mushrooms to create a meal that he hopes will have people forgetting that there was no meat in it...
...kinda like when you have a mouthful of Housewives...
Now that the others have cleared out of the pantry, 80's Hooker is free to go crazy amongst the veggies, and go crazy she does as she tells us there were so many different ideas going through her head that she just "couldn't focus". *sigh* She's so blown away by the presence of fresh garbanzo beans and Hen-Of-The-Woods mushrooms and all the other awesome produce in Daddy Tom's kitchen that she's going to make something with 84,627 components that she's never made before.
Because 80's Hooker just lives to do shit like that, Sexist Pigshit's acting all cocky and calm, "Eh, I don't care what I cook... it don't make a difference to me.... I'll cook anything... I'll cook dogs!" Um, except that's not vegetarian, numbnuts. Plus, I gotta love his sincere passion for food there. Now we find out the other reason why he's so overconfident, it's because Mama Pigshit was a Vegan when he was growing up! I'm thinking it's too bad she wasn't more into contraception as well.
Hey, here's Fat Kid again, and he says he actually feels kind of bad for the veg-heads because normally they just get a bunch of random tossed vegetables served to them, which is why he's using the eggplant for it's meat-like texture. He also acknowledges what we've all been saying for weeks when he admits he's really only been mediocre-middlin' in the competition so far, and says that it's annoying him. Well, that explains why he's paying it forward to the viewers! I guess not being a clear front-runner for Top Chef can make someone bitter enough to become a cancer-victim-hater. "I might be immature in terms of my career or the house, but I'm just as passionate as anybody else!"...
..."Just ask my Queen Amidala bop bag!"...
Li'l Volt condescendingly tells Fat Kid that he "did a great job today." Oh please, on what exactly? I guess he must be referring to the Quickfire in which both of them were in the forgettable middle? Yeah, way to strive to be average. Fat Kid breaks his neck to kiss Li'l Volt's sour ass right back as he says "Chef, I'm just here to help you."
Now Li'l Volt's boring me to tears talking about what an awesome artist he is with his food and shows us that he's taking all varieties of asparagus and doing all these amazing things with them (like dipping them in what looks like guacamole) and then continues travelling down Astonishing Avenue by mixing bananas and polenta together (which is an idea he picked up from one of the myriad chefs he's been fired by worked for).
Of course, when 80's Hooker happens by and asks if she can borrow some of his boiling water he refuses her out-of-hand because she isn't one of the Cool Kids With Overgelled Hair™. He saves his niceties for guys like Fat Kid and Sexist Pigshit who bow down before his artistry...
...and, I might add, comes dangerously close to slicing off 80's Hooker's left nipple!!...
Seriously uncool (not to mention unprofessional) to be gesturing with a sharp knife like that so closely in her direction! I could bet zillions that he would have chastised her for exactly the same thing if she had done something so careless!
Ruh-roh! It looks like Project Leeky-Scallop has run into trouble. Sexist Pigshit insists he put his leeks in to boil within the first five minutes of their competition, but after 20 minutes the water isn't boiling, so he leaves them on for another 20 minutes and it still won't boil. Then he notices that his pot is wobbling and claims that a warped bottom is the reason why the water isn't boiling and the leeks aren't cooking. That could be true I suppose, but I would have thought at that point he'd have picked a different pot. Also, he's calling Daddy Tom's cookware warped?...
...I smell someone running for Mayor Of ExcusesVille!...
Bitter Jen's beating her vegetables against the table as part of her preparation, but it just looks plain abusive to me. She says she would never ever be a vegetarian, but she can cook vegetarian food when she absolutely has to. Well, gosh, it sounds like someone's Passion Tank is edging on over into the "E" (for "Eh") territory. The only way she could show any less enthusiasm would be if she were no longer breathing. She's still pissed that Fat Kid won the big eggplants out from under her, and says using the baby ones is going to make things that much harder. Which is why I'm beginning to believe that she's just plain tired of it all and wants to go home, and that's a damned shame. Then again, if I had to live with El Greeko Captain BlowHawk and The Skidmark Kid, I'd probably be ready to stick my head in the oven as well.
We haven't heard much from Big Volt, prolly because he's been cooking as opposed to bullshitting everyone or congratulating himself. He says he felt pretty good going into this, but now realizes that he's going to be cutting it REALLY close as far as the timing of completing his dish, which is making him nervous. Strangely, he doesn't seem to be looking for a way to blame the cookware, or the produce (or 80's Hooker) for the situation.
Speaking of Sexist Pigshit, as time is running out he's gotten his leeks out and has attempted to cut them into their desired scallop shape and he's noticing they aren't really cooked all the way through and they're kinda tasteless, so he's decided to hide those facts by plating them in such a way that the diners will have to eat everything together and thus a magical and heavenly dish will be brought to life...
...except the sad, sad leeks seem to disagree...
You know a dish is fucked up when the chef trots out "It is what it is" because that clearly means what it isn't is "any good". Still, points to Pigshit for sheer ballsiness in believing he can still pull this off without making Natalie Portman gag.
Of course, 80's Hooker wouldn't be 80's Hooker if she didn't almost completely forget a main ingredient, which happens to be the very garbanzo beans she was orgasming over earlier in the challenge, and she runs out of time before she can get them on the last three plates. If that had been me I would have just been grabbing them by the double handful and pitching them down my line of plates in the hopes that everyone would get a few. Or I would have dumped everything in a big bowl and claimed I was serving it "family style". Or I would have made a salad and called it a "Lettucymphony".
80's is up first to present her dish to NatPort, her vegetarian friends and the judges... 
...oooh, trés vegedelic!...
That plate looks like a set of Prang watercolors. After Scar takes a few bites she says the chermoula has a lot of salt in it, "I feel my ankles swelling!" and NatPort comments that she's never had fresh garbanzo beans before. Daddy Tom speaks out right away to say he doesn't have any on his plate (ugh, of all the people to not get food!) but LottaButt is here to save the day and gives him a couple of his. Natalie likes the fact that the plate was so beautiful and says she loved, well... looking at it. Then Gail Simmo- OMG Gail's back this week! And she's wearing another one of her hideous blouses that looks like Audrey II tried to eat her but then gagged and spit her up half way!...
...and tell the little TV amateur next to you to stop breaking the fourth wall!...
Sorry, I'm just so happy to see Gail that I don't even really mind her Little Loofah Dress of Horrors! Anyhow, she chimes in that there is definitely a salt/seasoning issue, and Daddy Tom echoes that the entire dish is just out of balance. Natalie's starting to look pissy and put out...
..."Don't these people remember that I was in Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium??!?"...
Fat Kid's up next, and luckily his li'l boner for Queen Amidala doesn't hamper his ability to waddle. His dish also curiously looks like faux-scallops...
...and it also appears to be giving us a Picasso-like frown...
Gail's loving the texture of the eggplant while Natalie says she likes the salad. LottaButt says the presentation was thoughtful but that he just got a bit of lavender blossom in his mouth and that the effect was "rather polarizing" in that it made him think he was sucking on a bar of soap. Wellnow, if that isn't a pleasant after-dinner-taste!
Fat Kid's back in the kitchen and warns Sexist Pigshit and Big Volt that Natalie's got "ten really hot friends with her!" which tells me he's got pretty low standards because we all know that NO Hollywood starlet is going to have pretty girlfriends, they will only surround themselves with a bevy of fuggos to enhance their own beauty in contrast...
...See? Angelina's an old pro at it!...
Where was I? OH yeah, Li'l Volt is suddenly running around the kitchen (so unprofessional!) looking for his precious chopped hazelnuts. He's panicked because he's got so many components to plate, and he's using a blowtorch on some stuff as well. Naturally he talks some more about how he takes more risks than anyone else in the competition with his food (and if he calls himself a "maverick" then I'm going to make a sunburnt scoopy-nosed voodoo doll and shove every T-pin I can find at STAPLES into it). Of his puny competition he says, "I hope they understand my seriousness about winning this competition." I think the word he's really looking for is "humorlessness".
Oh well, here's what he hopes will have Natalie Portman "go walking away from this dish scratching her head saying 'I don't know why I like that, but I just did.'"...
...or maybe she'll have an allergic reaction to the bananas and stagger away scratching her throat and gasping for air...
Natalie's all gushy over having banana in her polenta, she just can't say enough about it. Ugh, can it, bitch! For Jeebus' sake, It's not like getting peanut butter in your chocolate! Fortunately we can always count on Gail to give us a reality check, and she says while it's fun that Li'l Volt is kinda trying to turn everything upside down, she's discovered several large lumps of banana in her portion that she finds "a little bit off-putting." Excuse me a moment, but BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Even more fun, one of Nat's fuglier friends says Li'l Volt is "like, Picasso!" which gets a big laugh from everyone and forces Natalie to scramble to regain their attention as she claims the dish makes her so happy, "It makes me, like, smile and laugh, and I'm confused!" Blurgh, this is the same kind of ditzy crap that was coming out of Zooey Deschanel's mouth. Let's move on.
Bitter Jen's not liking how her plates look, and she's noticed that the amount of food on them is supposedly much much less than everyone else's...
...well, if it's any consolation, that plate'd be a gigantic pigout feast to a walking skeleton like Rachel Zoe...
She proceeds to go around the entire table and drizzle some of her verjus nage (pronounced "vair-ZHJOO nayyyzhjjuh") sauce on everyone's plates, but she's such a bundle of nerves that she might as well have just put it in a watering can and walked down each side of the table raining on everyone's plate as she goes.
After she leaves, someone whispers "She was so nervous!" and Scar agrees that Jen was really shaking badly. Gail says everything tastes beautifully, there's lotsa flavor and for her the best part is the verjus! Nat agrees, saying it added "some danger to the presentation" since she almost spilled it on everyone! HA, it's great to make fun of other people's nerves, isn't it Nat? I hope you remember that the next time you have a tough audition for a part you really want. And I hope that part goes to Shannen Doherty instead of you.
In any case, Gail also notes that it didn't quite feel substantial enough to be a main course, which sets Queen Amidala complaining that so many times vegetarians get served what "feels like a collection of sides". Oh wah, cry me a river Miss Golden Globe Winner and then tell me you don't have your own personal fucking chef to cook you turnips in ten thousand ways. I'll smack you with a soggy leek.
Oooh, speaking of which, it's time for those as well!...
...I can't express how utterly appetizing it would be to have an exploded and deflated used-condom served to me...
Scar zeroes in on him right away when he gets done with his description, bluntly asking "So where is the protein?" and Pigshit stutters that the "vision" he had for the protein was the leek. Daddy Tom and Nat both look incredulous at this...
...perhaps he was referring to the stuff inside those ribbed and damaged Trojans?...
Scar says it smells like boiled turnips or cabbage, and Daddy Tom says "If this were a steak, it's too rare." One of Nat's other fug friends says the orange and purple colors of the dish were beautiful, but Natalie herself says she wants to like it more since she loves leeks and purple is her favorite color, but, eh, not so much here. Gail thinks there might have been a good idea in there somewhere, but he just didn't execute it properly. Pardon me a moment while I do the Happy Condomania Dance™!
As he predicted, Big Volt nearly ran out of time, and wound up having to scatter his garlic on his plates in a fashion that is not his usual method, it turns out he also left some items off the dish as well and fears he might be bottoming tonight as well...
...this is an entreé??!?...
Funny, his dish looks about as anemic as Bitter Jen's did, portionwise, but nobody's saying anything about that. Natalie says it tastes lemony, and Scar asks her if she likes the garlic blossoms he threw on the plates. She replies that they're spicy and then Scar says "It's like a little prick on the tip of my tongue!" which makes everyone giggle (cuz we all know whose little prick she's had on her tongue) as she tries to clarify that although the blossoms are tiny in size they were "big in your mouth" and they all cackle some more. Since Daddy Tom can't turn down a lame sex joke he jumps right in, saying "They went from a little prick to big in your mouth." which prompts a raspy-voiced member of Nat's FugCrew to fire back at him, "That's what usually happens!"...
...uhhh, not for you it doesn't...
Jeez, my 64-year-old heavily Catholic mother can come up with a better double-entendré than that! Anyhow, they don't really say anything else about Big Volt's dish, so I guess silly sex references are the best compliment he's going to get out of it. You're welcome, Biggie.
Lastly, DirtyBear's plating his dish and notes that it's a lot sloppier looking than he'd like it to be, but veggies just don't behave the same way animal flesh does when you're serving them to people, and he's intimidated by some of the prettier plates people have put out...
...eeee, he's right, that does look a little splatty...
LottaButt immediately notices that DirtyBear's dish is "richer" and "feels more like an entreé". Gail calls it "meaty" as well, but says the smoke on the kale was really strong and a little out of balance for her. Daddy Tom says DirtyBear's dish proved that veggies "don't have to be light all the time" while Nat calls it "a manly vegetarian meal!" Mm-hmm, you ain't kiddin' sister. DirtyBear's my kinda man.
As for the shitfucker who clearly isn't my kind of man, Sexist Pigshit's nervous because he knows he didn't execute well, but is holding on to the fact that 80's Hooker didn't finish plating, either, which obviously makes him feel better, "I'm not concerned at this point, I know I'm gonna pull through. I always do." Dear Karma Scallop: please don't let me down again. Especially when Bitter Jen is pretty sure she screwed the roots out of her dish.
BTW, they all got a chance to have a fabulous dinner at LottaButt's restaurant, and DirtyBear is making me fall hard for him when he tells everyone that he once ate 130 chicken wings in an hour!...
...dammit, DirtyBear, stop teasing me with your fabulousness!...
He says the spread of Italian food that LottaButt made for them was one of the best meals he's ever had, and it appears there was no shortage of meats in it, either. I bet Daddy Tom wishes he had been there, too, instead of getting hit on by NataPort's Fug Posse as they get drunk on the vino.
Scar enters the Stew Room and asks to see DirtyBear (yay!), Li'l Volt (boo!) and Fat Kid (double boo!). Ah well, at least we can enjoy the rictus of horror on Sexist Pigshit's face as he realizes he's not winning this round...
...awwww, sad leek dance!...
Daddy Tom tells Li'l Volt he was convinced the whole banana-polenta thing wasn't going to work, but the dish reminded him why he should keep an open mind to things, because it actually did work. Natalie says the dish had so much humor in it, she just loved how everyone ate it and gave each other WTF looks. Weird how it came from the most humor-free cheftestant in the universe.
As for Fat Kid, I think he's about to pop right there in his BVD XXLs just being so close to the Mother of Princess Leia, he barely hears Gail telling him how great his dish was, or Daddy Tom telling him how much fun it was...
...Ew. Ew. Ew. Ew. Ew. Ew. Ew. Ew. ...
As for DirtyBear, Natalie's gushing, she loves kale, people rarely do it well for her, it had great texture, the flavor was special, it was just a wonderful dish, and Daddy Tom agrees and says he "didn't miss the meat at all!" So Natalie gets to tell them who won... and it's DIRTYBEAR AGAIN!!!!
OMG, he's the first one to pull of a Quickfire/Elimination combo like this! He's happy to have won this one, because he feels like he's proven he can cook veggies as well as meat. Plus, he's won a "suite" of G.E. Monotone appliances just like the ones they've been using in the Top Chef Kitchen!
Of course, it wouldn't be right to have someone win without Li'l Volt being bitter about losing and talking shit. "He put turnip pureé, roasted turnips and a big pile of sauteéd mushrooms on top of that. *I* could have made that dish in 20 minutes."...
...and now I bet Bitter Boyfriend wishes he had, huh?...
Oh, but he's not done... "For a dish that I could have made the second year of my apprenticeship to win? I was obviously pissed off." Yes, because everyone knows blowtorches automatically make food taste better. At least, that was Jeffrey Dahmer's opinion on the subject. Asshat. Oh well, too bad for you Li'l Voltie, you're the bridesmaid once again.
Meanwhile, Fat Kid's invited 80's Hooker, Bitter Jen... and Sexist Pigshit to go see the judges! Starting with Pigshit, Natalie wants to know why his dish didn't really have a protein on it, and he trots out his same tired-ass story about wanting to make his leek-scallops because they'd look like a protein. Gail's kinda incredulous here, "But, you know that leeks aren't protein, right?" and Sexist is forced to answer "Yes!" (with a tinge of his nasty attitude thrown back at her for good measure). Scar says they were super-pungent because they weren't cooked evenly, and he starts blaming his buckled pot for not heating the water, and tries to claim everything else in the dish was great, but Daddy Tom says nothing else mattered, they couldn't get past the shitty leeks, and insists that he could have cut them in half and roasted them in 20 minutes, they just wouldn't have looked like scallops. Pigshit just shrugs and says he didn't think of it. "Whatever, whatever... what am I gonna do?"
...uhhh, piss off the head judge for starters?...
Yeah, his blasé attitude is going over real well with Daddy Tom. 80's Hooker is next and goes on another one of her big babbling explanations of why her dish should have worked, but she also mentions having never worked with fresh garbanzo beans before and never having stuffed a squash blossom before and blah blah blah everyone's eyes are glazing over, and finally Daddy Tom stops her and says she's all over the map, the dish can't come together because there's nothing to tie it together, plus he didn't get any garbanzo beans on his plate. 80's Hooker admits that she cooked with her "head spinning" today.
For Bitter Jen, Scar's complaint is that she didn't see two hours worth of work on the plate, and Daddy Tom tells her it felt like she just put forth a garnish. Jen admits it was barely bigger than an amuse-bouche. Scar also brings up the fact that some of them wound up wearing her verjus nage sauce, and Jen just pleads that the judges always make her nervous. Daddy Tom points out that her performance has been tanking, and she says she hopes she has another day to prove to them that she's good, and if not, thanks for the opportunity. That kind of defeatist stuff never sits well with Daddy Tom, either. They are sent out.
Once alone, Daddy Tom says he likes the fact that this challenge throws the cheftestants out of their comfort zones, some of them were able to roll with it really well, while others sucked shit through a tube. Then Natalie gets all bitchy diva on us and says "It's a very real-life challenge! I am constantly walking into restaurants that don't have vegetarian entreés.... and the chefs improvise!"...
...Okay, um... a.) Then quit walking into Black Angus and Ruth's Chris... and
b.) Most chefs won't "improvise" for regular peons like me, only celebitches like you... and
c.) Carry a Ziploc of carrot sticks with you and stop trying to ruin Burger King for everyone else!...
Gail notes that Sexist Pigshit is exuding a lot of arrogance as if he knows he didn't do well but doesn't really believe he's going to go home for it. Natalie points out that he kept focusing on the leeks as the issue, but she didn't really like the other elements of his dish, either. Meanwhile Pigshit's back in the Stew Room making more excuses, saying that he didn't have access to the stuff he normally uses, like his "yogurts and whatever else." 80's Hooker looks him dead in the face and quietly says "Shoulda, woulda, coulda." BWAHAHAHAHAHA, good one 80's!...
...even though everybody still hates you...
So they are called back and after the rehashing of everyone's faults, the chef going home tonight... OMG, OMG, OMG, OMFG, IT'S FUCKING SEXIST PIGSHIT!!!!! LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLLLOL!! 80's Hooker outlasted him! Thank you for answering my prayers, Karmic Scallop! Of course he's not going to gracefully fade away without insisting that she should have gone home before him, but fuck that, this is like Christmas come early. Now if she could just pick off Fat Kid next, I'd feel like this season had fulfilled my every desire.
As for 80's Hooker, she's happy to still be around, and feels that the mood in the house should become less "backstabby" and "ugly" now that Pigshit's leaving. Of course, right as she says this they show Fat Kid throwing a temper tantrum and kicking stuff off of a shelf like the little fatbrat he is. Um, I think the "ugly" and "backstabby" ain't really gone yet, honey.
And there we have it! What did you think of this episode? Are you as pleased as I am to see Sexist Pigshit leaving BEFORE 80's Hooker? Do you no longer wish for Li'l Volt to win this season? And wasn't Natalie Portman kind of a cooze? Thanks as always for your patience and commentary, and I hope everybody had a Happy Halloween. I'm off to have some more "fun-size" candybars now.
love, J-Mo :)
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Wednesday, November 04, 2009
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Current mood:  fermented
Hello and greetings and Happy Post-Halloween! I hope all of you had a great time, wore some fun costumes, and had some tasty candy. As many of you may be aware, Halloween = Gay Christmas so naturally I was in the middle of a great big gay bar party out in Scottsdale that puts on a huge show every year, and after we finished our PussyCat Dolls performance (where the pants on my costume kept threatening to fall down onstage) we were turned loose to get drunk make merry for the rest of the evening. I saw so many interesting things that I doubt you'd see anywhere else, such as a giant inflatable penis costume, or Balloon Boy and a Sarah Palin drag-queen getting into a fistfight, or the real kicker of the night, which was a guy in a black cowboy sex angel costume (I don't know how else to describe it) who started peeing on the ground directly behind me when I was sitting on the curb. Luckily I was able to grab one of the testicles of the inflatable penis costume and protect myself... 
...looks like Scar went as "Kelly Garrett" from Charlie's Angels...
She looks rather uneasy in that picture, doesn't she? I wonder if one of those dishes she's glaring at so mistrustfully reminds her of wrinkly old writerdick (or maybe someone peed on the ground near her, too)? Either way, on tonight's episode of Top Chef we discover that Bravo is taking "going green" to the extreme and recycling the old "Celebrity Vegetarian Challenge" from this past season of Top Chef Masters, only instead of wacky Meg-Ryan-wannabe and horrible folk singer Zooey Deschanel we're stuck with serious Julia-Roberts-wannabe and the woman some feel is responsible for the destruction of the Star Wars saga, Natalie Portman. Initially I was kinda pissed, because I used all my best Vegetarian jokes in the TCM recap several weeks ago, but in all actuality this turned out to be one of my favorite episodes evah. Find out why after the jump!... out why after the jump!...
Starting off at the McMansion, we find Li'l Volt is still quite bitterly upset after having been told that he won Restaurant Wars and, in fact, had "the best restaurant in six seasons of Restaurant Wars". Life really sucks smelly donkey balls for him, so he's taking out his frustrations by being passive-aggressive and immature sharpening his knives...
...while imagining his whetstone is 80's Hooker's neck...
Yeah, never mind the fact that poor DirtyBear there likely had one of the worst restaurants in six seasons of Restaurant Wars (and they don't get a Do-Over like TC Season 3 did, either) not to mention also losing $2,500.00 (that could have been a nice $10,000.00). Buuuut, I understand how Li'l Volt could feel so downtrodden since his older brother Big Volt refused to capitulate and declare Li'l Volt the Undisputed Chef Master Of The Universe™. Fucktard.
Or let's talk about Bitter Jen, and how terrible she feels this morning. She's getting ready and is super-embarrassed that their restaurant "Mission: Inedible" was so terrible. She doesn't say it directly, but I'm guessing she's likely to find several new anusii being torn at random places in her body when she gets back home and has to face Le Wrathé d'Eric Ripert...
...the last thing Bitter Jen will see before she is killed...
Still, Jen's trying to do like Mariah Carey said and "shake it off". Or was that "make it happen"? Or maybe "touch my body"? I dunno, in any case, she's trying to move on and pretend it's a brand new day and she's not feeling like a total hack.
Speaking of hacks, 80's Hooker is watching coffee brew (fascinating!) and is naturally ecstatic about how Restaurant Wars went. She must be taking extra doses of her prescription Delusionol XR 20mg cuz she really thinks she's holding her own against the other chefs and says that every Elimination Challenge she survives makes her feel like she just knows she can do this... "I'm here for a reason!" Yes, to create ratings and drama and be someone that Andy Cohen can then ask smirkily coy questions of at the reunion show. Now go think up some new ways to annoy Fat Kid and Sexist Pigshit, please...
...and maybe wash your hair?...
They dress and pack up and head off to the "M" Resort @ Casino (where the jokes about how far away it is have run dry. You're welcome.) to meet Scar and today's guest restauranteur in desperate need of publicity to boost their eatery's sagging profit margin judge, Paul Bartolotta...
...who has exactly zero enthusiasm for being here...
Sexist Pigshit tells us how awesome ol' LottaButt there is, what with being a multiple James Beard Award winner and one of the top Italian chefs in the country and having been a Vegas fixture on the restaurant scene for many years and blah blah blah, anybody Pigshit is impressed with already has one strike against them in my book.
In any event, today's Quickfire Challenge is sponsored by TV Guide (which is why Scar says "TV Guide" a skillion times in the next 47 seconds... and hey, does anybody even bother with TV Guide anymore when most cable services provide interactive online guides?) Anyhow, the challenge is going to require them to reinterpret the classic "TV dinner", and TV Guide has selected seven "iconic" shows for the cheftestants to be "inspired" by, and the good old knife block is trotted out...
...while Bitter Jen gets a head start on her Daily Migraine™...
DirtyBear pulls The Sopranos (gobbagool!) while Bitter Jen gets The Flintstones (dino-burgers!) and 80's Hooker lands Sesame Street (cookies for counting!). Big Volt has chosen M.A.S.H. (ummmm, Korean food?) and Sexist Pigshit's saddled with Seinfeld (no soup for you!) as Li'l Volt receives the ill-matching Cheers (yay for crappy bar food). The best is when Fat Kid gets Gilligan's Island because he's too young to remember the show (or see his resemblance to Bob Denver)!
Wait, Gilligan's Island is considered "iconic"? Doesn't a show have to be considered, you know, good to be called that? Sorry, but I have to say I always fucking hated that show, primarily because it was just plain annoying to watch Gilligan screw up yet another way for them to leave the island. And how come The Love Boat didn't make the list? Or Charlie's Angels? Or Cop Rock? Anyhow, Scar gives them 60 minutes and they all run off and start shoving at each other in front of the fridge. Sexist Pigshit grabs the entire package of pork sausage and refuses to trade when 80's Hooker offers to swap him ground beef...
...so neener-nanner-boo-boo!...
80's Hooker says she grew up on health food and was not allowed to watch TV so she's never actually "sat through" an entire episode of Sesame Street, but she knows who Cookie Monster is, so she's going to make a cookie of some kind. Plus, since she recognizes Big Bird, she's decided to feature an egg that she's molded into the tops of these weird hamburger nests. Someone should tell her it's shit like that that killed Mr. Hooper.
Meanwhile, Li'l Volt's telling us that his mom was "a mom mom" and had a home-cooked dinner on the table every night by 6pm, but when they moved in with their father that changed and they started having TV dinners "here and there" (i.e. "every night"). Since he's gotten a joyless show like Cheers he's going to do a spinoff on bar food (called it!). Seems to me he should have had a show with more angst and anal-retentiveness, such as Frasier...
...as he makes an unhappé frappé...
Bitter Jen was hoping for some kind of bone-in steak that she could tie into the Flintstones, but there isn't any such protein to be had in the kitchen right now (and no dinosaur meat, either) so instead she's grabbed a chicken and is going to make a roulade. She says she relates most to Pebbles because she had a "cute little boyfriend" in Bam-Bam, "I dunno that I like that he carries a club around and, like, pulls her by her hair, but... could be fun sometimes!"...
...so Bitter Jen does have a freak flag to fly... but I feel I must add... 
...no one ever dragged this Pebbles around by the hair...
Fat Kid claims that he didn't eat TV dinners growing up (I guess it was overeating home-cooked fatty food that made him pudge up) but finds it even more foreign that his inspiration is Gilligan's Island which he snottily brags to us is "about twenty years before my TV-time"...
...yeah, because Geraldo and America's Funniest Home Videos were such better programming...
Big Volt's not taking my Korean food suggestion and is instead choosing to focus on food from the 50's, so he's making meatloaf & M.A.S.H.-ed taters, plus the very American apple pie. I'm wondering if this is going to be too literal of an interpretation of the classic TV dinner.
Meanwhile, DirtyBear admits he has "a soft spot" in his heart for a well-prepared frozen meal (not shocking) and tells us he can kinda relate to The Sopranos because his entire family lives on the same street and that to this day Grandma Bear still makes everybody breakfast every morning. How fun for her! I bet Clan of the Cave Bear calls her "dedicated" and "loving"...
...while the Department of Adult Protective Services would call it "elder abuse"...
Kidding! I'm sure she loves to do it... 'specially when her rheumatiz' is kickin' up dickens. Speaking of abuse, it appears that Bitter Jen's in for some more herself. She's managed to burn her garlic-cream sauce through inattention, and now she's not at all happy with how her food is turning out. Again. This is getting annoying. What happened to the tough East Coast girl who liked to make boys cry in the kitchen? Her right to safely roll her eyes over 80's Hooker's food is rapidly dwindling every time she winds up on the bottom with her.
Scar and LottaButt come back in to yell time and seat themselves in front of a 50's TV on a 60's couch...
...while Scar models another 70's pantsuit and LottaButt looks like an 80's commercial for Imodium...
All this mixing of decades is really getting to be a bit much. Anyhow, Bitter Jen is the first to present her Flintstonesian meal...
...maybe she shoulda thrown a couple of the vitamins in as garnish?...
LottaButt asks her how she felt in the end, and she just kinda nods and says "Ummmmmmmmmyeah, I feel okay right now." Great, I'm sure a lackluster answer like that is going to make them love her dish even more.
Sexist Pigshit's up next, and he claims he's never seen Seinfeld before, which LottaButt doesn't believe... and I have to say I don't either, I think Sexist's just saying that so he won't be held accountable for having to actually make a dish that's inspired by the show, it's his way of weaselling out of the challenge...
...then again, that show was supposed to be "about nothing" and I think that's pretty much what he's given them here...
Plus, that green vomit-y Exorcist looking stuff? Is pureéd spinach and pistachios, which is a WTF if I've ever seen one. However, Sexist did include toasted pine nuts on his warm fruit salad, which causes LottaButt to exclaim he's never met a toasted pine nut he didn't like...
...until now, anyhow...
Here comes DirtyBear to make sure they don't stop believing in him...
...by presenting them with "Tony's Testicles"...
Scar immediately says how much she loves his roasted cauliflower side dish, and LottaButt seems overjoyed that he's discovered peperoncino in the dish as well.
It's Fat Kid's turn to present his sneering take on a terrible show that was so far before his TV-time... 
...and it's pissing me off that it looks so damned tasty, too...
Although I dunno about the combination of cherries and bananas together, but the rest of it really looks good. LottaButt mumbles something with his mouth full that sounds like a compliment, and I'm going to be really upset if Fat Kid wins this one.
Time to see if Li'l Volt's Cheers dish has become as depressing as Shelley Long's and Kirstie Alley's careers... 
...eh, not bad, but it's certainly not a dish worthy of "Troop Beverly Hills"...
LottaButt gets all excited again that he has been able to identify the use of fennel in the food, and compliments Li'l Volt accordingly.
Oh boy, now we get 80's Hooker, whose description of her dish is one looooong babble about colors and big eyes and several other nonsensical phrases and weird imagery...
...such as her deconstructed e.coli burger...
It seems as though LottaButt is kinda recoiling from his tray as he attempts to think of something to say, and mentions he "likes the direction" of the dish, but I suspect it's another FAIL.
Bringing up the rear tonight is Big Volt's M.A.S.H. dish...
...which does look a little like Army-Issue cuisine...
Scar lets loose with one of her orgasmic "Mmmmmmmmmmmm!"s and LottaButt says it's really good, which makes Big Volt smile...
...in a rather nervous and sharklike fashion, but at least it beats the Li'l Volt Scowlies™...
Now that they've finished, Scar asks LottaButt "Whose dishes are up for cancellation?" Turns out that número uno en la lista is Bitter Jen's dish (which causes her to make this weird victory fist-pump when she hears her name called) because her pea salad was meh and her roulade required Rolaids. Then LottaButt says he hates to pick on the girls, but 80's Hooker's dish was also pegged for low ratings because the meat in her eggburger was dry and the rest of the dish was "not special".
On the side of Not-Sucking was DirtyBear, who LottaButt says kept his concept consistent, and did great meatballs, plus his pears were perfectly cooked. He also loved Big Volt's dish for his meatloaf roulade and the dessert made them go "Mmmmm." And because it's like sweet water to my parched and cracked soul, here are the faces of the Three Doucheketeers who clearly feel they should have been in the top, and just can't believe they're not...
...all are asshats, and asshats are all!...
And the winner tonight... is DirtyBear AGAIN! To be fair, Big Volt does look a little disappointed that he didn't win, but at least he's not pouting or planning revenge like his little brother would be doing right about now. As for DirtyBear's win, there's no more immunity left, but he smiles real big when Scar says that a "version of his winning dish" will be featured in the new line of Top Chef frozen foods available from Schwan's home delivery service. As if anybody can afford that shit these days. DirtyBear's so cute, he jokingly asks if they can put his picture on the packaging and then poses for it...
...DirtyBear's impression of Sexist Pigshit?...
No, that can't be right, because Sexist would have affected some kind of suburban gangsta posin' bullshit more akin to this...
...because I can never have enough stuntaz of any temperature in my life...
In any case, DirtyBear is excited and says the Schwan's man used to come around to Grandma Bear's house when he was a little kid, and obviously he didn't give a second thought to how that sentence sounded, especially when he says "Theoretically?... The Schwan's man could be my Grandpa... She might be able to buy, like, the meal with my face on it."
So for today's Elimination Challenge, they'll be taking over Daddy Tom's Vegas restaurant Craftsteak at the MGM Grand, and LottaButt gives us a great big shiteating grin while exclaiming what a great restaurant it is, and how Daddy Tom makes a killer steak, and I totally believe him, because it's so plausible that he would ever come on this show and say the place sucks. Anyhow, Scar says for one night the menu will be completely theirs, they'll be serving four judges and seven guests, and then turns them loose to go home and plan some shit that we know will be completely thrown out of the window the following day.
Part Two is on the way!
love, J-Mo :)
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TV Dinners
By Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall |
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Wednesday, November 04, 2009
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Current mood:  pissed off
Meanwhile, the Blue Team has decided on "Mission" as their restaurant name, both in reference to the clean style of architecture as well as the kind of impossible crap Tom Cruise asks us to believe he can do, such as act sanely. And be heterosexual. Anyhow, Camp Omission is a little worried that they're serving three savory courses and no dessert, but Bitter Jen repeats that it always screws with everybody and loses the competition. Except last season, where I think Stefan's dessert actually won the whole thing for his team.
Back over at Camp Regurge, Li'l Volt is busy telling 80's Hooker exactly how she's going to make her dish. She seems excited that he's bringing his classical French training in to "elevate" her food, but he seems bent on just making everybody do what he says with no questions asked, like he's some kind of dictator or Kate Gosselin.
The next day they head over to Mandalay Bay and the Omission group has chosen to work out of the upstairs (and closed) fine dining part of RM Seafood, while ReGurge is taking the casual downstairs café. Big Volt doesn't think either kitchen gives any real advantage, and he's happy they're where they are, he thinks it works better with their concept. And it's closer to the bathrooms if anyone gets sick.
They've got three hours to work and already Li'l Volt is micromanaging everyone, especially 80's Hooker as he harangues her about getting her stuff set up to start cooking her pear crisp. She tells us she's okay with him asserting his dominance, but warns that if he just starts telling her what to do all the time she's going to dig in her heels and insist that her own voice be heard...
..."And I can make that voice extremely annoying. I've been practicing."...
Li'l Volt insists he's not discounting 80's' skills as a chef, but tells us she's "out of her league" and that "some feelings are going to get hurt... a little bit... maybe... but that's not going to be my focus.". I.e., he doesn't give a fuck. Oh well, at least she won't have Fat Kid back there glaring at her and trying to trip her whenever she makes a trip to the fridge.
Over at Omission, Sticky Wickett's doing her best to help out her teammates before she changes into a fug dress, slaps some makeup on and grins clownlike at their "customers". Here's the rather ambitious menu they've planned...
...with this many dishes perhaps a "three minute egg" would have been a smarter choice...
Bitter Jen says their menu offers "simplicity, refinement and seasonality". It also offers some major pains-in-the-ass, and she's noticing that all of them are a lot further behind than they should be at this point.
This is what Regurge has to offer their diners...
...WTF?...
I dunno what's up with the backwards "E", but I guess that kind of fits Fat Kid. It's interesting that they're doing not just one, but two desserts, even more ambitious than the Omission group! Li'l Volt believes their food is more "playful" while upstairs it's going to be a lot "safer". And now it's time for Fat Kid and Sticky Wickett to depart and get all geeked up so they can run the front-of-the-house!...
...This is easier for Fat Kid as all he has to do is yank his wadded up ball of clothes out of a sweaty gym bag...
Because it would have stupid to take an iron to that shirt beforehand. Then again, mommy's not here to do it for him, so this is what he has to work with. Over at Omission, Sticky's going over table number assignments with their staff and Daddy Tom comes in to chat about her lamb dish, he wants to know if she's going to go back into the kitchen at any time and check how it's being executed? She says actually if any of the dishes appear to be incorrect she's gonna send 'em back to the pass right away! Daddy Tom smiles like he totally doesn't believe her, and I'm inclined to agree with him, Sticky's not shown a lot of backbone throughout the course of the competition, I doubt she's gonna second guess Bitter Jen and DirtyBears' cooking now.
Back in the kitchen, Daddy observes that if DirtyBear is doing all of the entreés on his own he's likely to get really bogged down at some point later on in the evening. DirtyBear agrees, but insists he can handle it because he works the main course station at his restaurant every single night. Fair enough. As for Bitter Jen, when she quickly admits to him that she's way behind because she's trying to be superwoman and do everything he just lets her get back to what she's doing. You will note he does not bother chatting with Sexist Pigshit.
Over at ReGurge, he finds Fat Kid sitting and looking both wrinkled and greasy. I think they'd best keep the dining room lighting real low tonight. Daddy Tom reminds Fat Kid that people often go home for doing the front-of-the-house poorly, is he worried at all? Fat Kid says nopers, cuz he signed up for it, he's gonna pull it off. Then Daddy craftily asks if maybe he finds it safer out in the front, because if the service goes welll then he's off the hook? LOL, Daddy. Fat Kid says the right thing ("Well, no, because I have a dish back there, too.") and Daddy Tom moves on to the kitchen.
Finding Li'l Volt, Daddy asks if there's a clear team dictator leader, and Li'l Volt immediately lies and says they're all working together. He also doesn't pass up the chance to highlight 80's Hooker's lesser contributions by making sure to mention to Daddy Tom that she's only doing one dish while he and Big Volt are doing two each.
As time is about to run out, Omission is in serious trouble as DirtyBear says they are not ready for Restaurant Wars, Sexist Pigshit's also in trouble and Bitter Jen is swearing and dumping out fucked up food into the wastebasket! Apparently she's going to butcher her fish to order, which I gather is an extremely time-consuming process. Meanwhile, Sticky's been back in the kitchen going over instructions with the staff at kind of a leisurely pace and walks out to find their lounge is entirely full of customers, none of which she has greeted or even spoken to. So she does what a good hostess does and runs back into the kitchen to hide.
Down at ReGurge, Fat Kid actually seems to be doing a good job of running the front-of-the-house, perhaps his B.S.ing skills serve him well there. Suddenly the judges have shown up and he's right there to greet and seat them. He starts in on his spiel explaining the restaurant concept and kissing up to Reverend Moon about how they used sustainable seafod, and blah blah blahbeddy blah and eventually a hungry-ass Scar cuts him off by saying "We just need two of everything." LOL, Scar!...
...How strange that they do not seem to be overly wowed by the appearance of sparkling water on their table!...
They all take a minute to trash the stupid name "ReVolt" (Daddy Tom thinks it's absolutely terrible and Scar wonders if they really thought nobody would automatically associate the word "revolting" as it relates to food) and then Fat Kid is back with their first course...
...I'm not sure what those chuacamole ring thingies are...
...and their labeling is wrong, Big Volt didn't make the dish, the arctic char was Fat Kid's idea...
...after the crappy rubbery squid I had last week, I don't care if you call them "noodles", J-Mo no likey...
Scar says Li'l Volt's chicken dish is amazing, Moonie says he'd definitely order it on his own, and Daddy Tom asks Scar if she has any of it left, which makes her giggle since she has an empty bowl in front of her and says she's surprised he left her as much as he did. I'd say it's a win for Li'l Volt's first dish. As for Fat Kid's char, Rev. Moon says it was "a little one-dimensional" and Tiny Tewwible Toby says he agrees, "It didn't really pop."
Fat Kid had gone back into the kitchen and called for them to fire the judges' entreés, but it seems to be taking a while for them to come out, which has not escaped the notice of Tweezery Toby, and Daddy Tom says he hasn't seen anything coming out of their kitchen in a very long time. Li'l Volt tells us if they stop to take care of the judges dishes they're going to get behind on everyone else's food and that will screw things up even worse. However, it might have been a good idea to do that because by this time the judges are trying to peer into the kitchen and see what the hell they're doing that's taking so long...
...which is really pissing Scar off, because now nobody's staring at her...
Finally Fat Kid comes out with the next course, apologizing for the wait time and joking that "It's almost like it's Opening Night, heh heh..." which goes over as leadenly as you'd think it would. Anyhow, here's Big Volt's beef duo...
...drizzled with A1 and topped off with a few Werther's candies?...
...followed by Li'l Volt's fish dish...
...which looks almost exactly like a couch-and-ottoman set I once bought at IKEA that my fat ass broke within the first week...
The couch had that same green loopy pattern, too. Everyone seems to love the cod, Moonie says it was "melt in your mouth" and Tweebler Elf Toby says it picked up a nice bit of the mussel flavor, however, he says he wasn't overwhelmed by Big Volt's meat'n'potatoes dish and thought the sauces were a little bland. Daddy Tom says he liked the dish, he just wished it was a little hotter when it came out. They immediately cut to a pair of female customers complaining that theirs is stone-cold. Tssssss, ice-burn!
Back in the kitchen, 80's Hooker is attempting to plate her pear pithivivicourvoisiewhatever-they-ares and Li'l Volt is getting all up in her face about them being too big and when she tries to explain he just barges in and starts taking over from her! 80's Hooker is pissed, "Can I do it? This is my dessert... fuck you, this is my goddamned dessert!"...
...finally someone gets ghetto on Li'l Volt's cocky ass!...
Li'l Volt does back off, but spits back "Yeah, then can you cut 'em smaller?... and don't cuss at me again like that, do you understand me?" Wait, WHAT? Did he just order her not to cuss at him? Oh, it's on now! 80's Hooker starts yelling right back that she just wanted to be allowed to do her own dish, and Li'l Volt's screaming that he's helping her, which she says she doesn't need, and now he's getting super-condescending by reminding her "This is a restaurant, OK? Be professional!".
Big Volt winds up having to step in and tells Li'l Volt to go plate his other dishes, and then growls at 80's Hooker to stop yapping and finish hers as well so it can go out. He interviews that Li'l Volt didn't take kindly to being told off by her (and admits he wouldn't have liked it either) but thinks Michael should just put his damned feelings aside and get the food done so they can win the damned Restaurant Wars. Amen, big brother! Funny how Li'l Volt likes to dish it out, but he certainly has trouble taking it (especially after his big speech about how he hurt feelings weren't going to be his focus... he just didn't realize the hurt feelings would belong to him, hahahaha!)
As for 80's Hooker, she admits it was inappropriate of her to curse in the kitchen (I don't see why that is since Li'l Volt is bleeped so often I barely know what his real voice sounds like) but she wasn't going to back down on establishing ownership and control of her own dish. However, she foolishly tries to communicate this to Li'l Volt, who just isn't going to listen to her no matter what...
...it's like the culinary version of "Bring It On"!...
They go back and forth some more, and I notice that Li'l Volt's one of those people who thinks that they win a fight if they cut the other person off by repeating their domineering commands rapidly. I didn't think it was possible for me to dislike him any more than I already did, but this little hypocritical exchange has shown me that he was up to that challenge for sure!
Out in the dining room, where the Judges' table is down to "4 bottles of beer on the wall ♪ 4 bottles of beeeer ♪..." Fat Kid finally arrives with the dessert course...
...definitely a much cleaner-looking chocoturd!...
And here's 80's Hooker's hotly contested dish...
...which actually looks tasty for a change!...
Scar asks Twiggedy-Twiggedy-Twiggedy-Twack Toby what he thinks of 80's Hooker's pithffbbbllft and he says "I thought it was easily the best thing Robin's done so far, it was really good!" and Rev. Moon says it was put together with "so much consideration" and had so many layers that it was "like a perfect massage". Huhwha? Well, I guess that's a compliment coming from him. As for Big Volt's new ganache, Moonie says it was beautiful and silky and the Little Tweeble wishes it had had more mint ice cream, while Daddy Tom just declares it delicious.
Fat Kid comes back to check on them and find out if they have any questions or comments and they just send him on his way. Scar asks how they liked him in his role at the front-of-the-house, and Moonie says he liked Fat Kid's intensity and it seemed like he was trying really hard, which Daddy agrees with, and with that they're off to head on up to Omission for their second meal.
Once Sticky Wickett seats them and hands out the menu, Daddy Tom immediately points out the absence of any desserts. Ruh-roh, after they just had two really good ones I'm skerd for the Blue Team now. Especially when Sticky brings them their first course and then immediately walks away without telling them anything about the dish! Scar notices right away, "She's gone!" Since she never stops to explain the dishes, they've left it up to me...
...and just so you know, I refuse to elaborate on Sexist Pigshit's dishes... 
...I mean it...
They dig into the arctic char, which Daddy Tom says has no salt in it, and so the next time Sticky whizzes by, Scar stops her and asks for some. Sticky knows this is not a good sign, and when Sexist Pigshit hears about it he is pissed because he insists that he seasoned everything correctly! Also, they thought his asparagus dish was kind of boring and needed something. Like flavor.
Now that they've reached the fish course, things have slowed to a halt, and Sticky realizes that sticking Bitter Jen with two labor-intensive fish dishes was not a smart idea. They show Jen asking another server (not Sticky) where the Judges are at with their food and then they cut to their table...
...where they're about to start fighting over a couple of lint-encrusted breath-mints from the bottom of Scar's purse...
Meanwhile Sticky's running around apologizing to everyone, but nobody in the kitchen knows what's going on out on the floor, and DirtyBear says she seems to be really struggling, food is being brought up to the pass but it's not going out, "I don't think it's going very well for her." he says gravely.
She tries to scootch by the Judges' table again and when Scar irritably asks how much longer it's going to be for the next course Sticky lies and sweats and says "Uh, prolly about another minute. I'm gonna go back right now and check on it." When she gets to the kitchen she discovers the Judges' order hasn't even been fired yet! Sticky informs Bitter Jen that Scar is not happy about the wait, and Jen coldly spits right back with "I asked like ten times about the Judges' table to be fired." Looks like they get to wait some more.
Finally their dishes come up to the pass, and Sticky Wickett delivers them to the table... and runs off without explaining them again! Scar has to call her back to the table to ask what in the hell is on the plates...
...a depressed piece of fish... 
...and it's gay brother all dressed up in drag!...
Daddy Tom says the halibut is cooked okay, but says technically it's not a consommé because it's not a clear stock like it should be. Rev. Moon agrees that it's not clear, but says "It's probably the best part of the dish." Ouch. Toby The Tewwible says it was disappointing. As for Bitter Jen's trout, Daddy calls it "an absolute disaster" and he notes that her brown butter sauce is "broken", which means it de-emulsified and now only tastes like grease. "Her mentor would not be happy with her right now." finishes Daddy. DOUBLE ouch!
As if this couldn't get any worse, now DirtyBear is having issues with the temperature in cooking Sticky's lamb dish, chops are coming back into the kitchen as being everything from 'baa'ing-too-loudly to hockey-pucks-on-a-bone and he's getting frazzled. It doesn't help that Sticky seems to have difficulty communicating what she thinks is medium-rare and medium-incinerated.
Sticky brings out the final two dishes, and before she even sets them down Scar's asking "Laurine, tell us about these two dishes, please." Ha! She wasn't going to let her get away this time!...
...and as usual, they've included a landing strip for Diarrhea Air Lines... 
...this is not DirtyBear's prettiest pig production...
Moonie immediately says he doesn't like "Jell-O lamb", and Daddy observes it is quite rare. Tweeble-Twobble Toby says he'd expect a waiter to ask him how he wanted it cooked instead of assuming Ringworm-style. As for DirtyBear's pork dish, Scar definitely thinks it was better than the lamb disaster, and Daddy thinks the sausage was flavorful and the pork belly tasty. Tiny Toby says he still misses having a dessert, though. Well, I guess there's always Scar's linty-breath-mints.
We have a lovely side-moment tonight to hear Li'l Volt talk about how running a good team takes a good leader, and how he wants to demonstrate the fact that he can be that leader. "Yelling and screaming and arrogance and things like that... there's really no place for that in the kitchen." This hubris-packed speech is helpfully intercut by the lovely Magical Elves editors with the following...
...namely, Li'l Volt being a complete foul-mouthed asshat to everyone in the kitchen...
"I think people mistake confidence for arrogance." he says, completely missing the irony that in his case it's the exact opposite. He ends the segment by insisting he's "just a nice guy" who has "the biggest ego heart here." *snort*
It's no surprise that Scar asks to see the members of ReGurge first and immediately tells them they've won Restaurant Wars! Daddy Tom goes even further to say that theirs was the best restaurant they've had in six seasons! Tiny Toby says if he was reviewing ReVolt (after making fun of the stupid name and Fat Kid for being "woefully underdressed") he'd have given them three stars.
After giving the expected ego-stroking to Big and Li'l Volt and Fat Kid, Scar mentions that 80's Hooker's pear pithffbbbllft was "beautiful" and Daddy Tom says it seemed "a little more homey" than the rest of the menu and wants to know if she fought to keep it that way. 80's says she was "offered assistance" to update the presentation and then Li'l Volt jumps in to say he worked on it with her, and that he gave her the recipe for it. and yes, she made the dish, but...
...Gurrrl, no he DI-ent!...
Daddy Tom catches 80's Hooker's giant eye-roll and wants to know what that's all about. Without going into detail or directly calling Li'l Volt out on his shameless grandstanding she simply says "There's a fine line between being helped and being dominated." Li'l Volt just giggles nervously and looks down. Asshole. I hate it even more when he's announced as the actual winner of the challenge! Eh at least all he's getting in the way of a prize is a copy of Reverend Moon's book about fish.
My smug satisfaction is quickly drained away when Scar says BTW he also wins the $10,000.00 that the Blue Team gambled and lost! Fuuuuuuck! The only cool thing he does this entire episode is to ask if he can split it with the other chefs on the Red Team.
Back in the Stew Room, Sexist Pigshit's now using his 20/20 hindsight to declare he wishes he had worked front-of-the-house because he "runs big restaurants". Yeah, and that might have been a good thing to assert yesterday, fuckstain! The Red Team comes back and sends the Blue Team in to face Daddy Tom & Co, and interestingly enough, after they leave Big Volt tells Li'l Volt he can keep the $2,500.00 he offered! He tells us that while Li'l Volt deserved the win because of the execution of his dishes, Big Bry's "tired of his unprofessional behavior being rewarded." This, of course, makes Li'l Volt forget all about the fact that he just won Restaurant Wars and was told theirs was the best ever and now he's all pouty again because everybody isn't acknowledging his awesomeness and lying in worshipful prostration before him...
...yeah, it really sucks when everyone else is a tool...
As for Omission, I've already laid out in excruciating detail why they sucked so much, but the one thing that didn't come up is the fact that on Sticky Wickett's own lamb dish, she clearly served it to people bloody rare, and Daddy Tom reminds her of their earlier conversation where she claimed she was going to send stuff back if it wasn't perfect, and what happened to that plan? She admits she didn't follow through on it and allowed the anxiety get to her, and I think it's no surprise when they call the team back five minutes later and tell Sticky Wickett she's the one going home.
...color me not-shocked about these results, either...
And there we have another round of Restaurant Wars in the can! What did you think of this episode? Did DirtyBear and Bitter Jen go into this event being far too overconfident? Was Li'l Volt wrong for trying to run roughshod over 80's Hooker? Was her foul-mouthed response to him as inappropriate as he made it out to be? And can you believe that 80's Hooker has now outlasted more than half the original contestants?!? Let's share our lovesies and hatesies together!
love, J-Mo :)
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Wednesday, November 04, 2009
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Current mood:  fascinated
Welcome back to Las Vegas ye faithful culinarians! I think Scar once said there were something like 70 million billion trillion hillion skillion restaurants in Sin City, and I bet all of them are hurting right now. Let's face it, there are only so many ways to make "Cheap Beef & Tiny Skrimps" sound classy before you're stuck putting Value Meal numbers next to items on your menu and installing a Drive-Thru for your Lazy Fat Asses On Rascals™ traffic. Tough times are here, and everybody's hunkering down, tightening their belts, and holding their hand out to the government for some free cash because who knew building a restaurant with heated tablecloths and solid-platinum electronic forks might not be the best idea?... 
...well, because this is how people did financial planning...
Heh, it looks like Sexist Pigshit's so enamored with boobs that he's playing with his own. I bet his left nipple feels dirty and violated right now. Anyhow, tonight's episode of Top Chef is the much-hyped and long-awaited "Restaurant Wars", and not only do we have some fun teams, but we also get another Top Chef Masters alumnus in the mix along with several other surprises after the jump!...
Surprise #1...
...who knew Bitter Jen did cheesecake so well?...
Surprise #2 is that Sticky Wickett's telling us as the numbers dwindle that "the best chefs are remaining" and seems to be curiously including herself in that statement, even though last week she was nearly buttfucked in half by Cliffie Clavin for not really knowing how to make rillettes and she managed to make the editor of Food & Wine Magazine feel like she'd been handed a bowl of Little Friskies. I would say a healthy dose of "WTF am I gonna do to not suck?" would be in order instead of congratulating herself for having escaped yet another bullet.
Speaking of the dearly departed final member of Team Rainbow Season Six, DirtyBear says with Gay Ashlee gone that it has taken "a dynamic away from the house that we just really can't replace." Awww, look how cute he is! Everybody misses the funny gay guy, especially when they're left with the goddamned Volt Brothers bickering all the time. DirtyBear attempts to have a Moment Of Silence for Gay Ashlee...
...but finds it difficult to concentrate...
Li'l Volt takes a moment to tell us that the competition between him and Big Volt goes back a long way and admits that as a kid he was often the instigator of trouble, while "Bryan was trying to look out for everybody." Then he takes away my next barb by admitting that it's still that way. Yup, we haven't forgotten about the Saran Wrap Station Battle of Episode 8, and I'm actually a little impressed that Li'l Volt is able to recognize and own his status as a cocky little shitball. It doesn't make him any more likeable, but I'm impressed nonetheless.
Over at the ever-dozing "M" Resort and Casino (where only Fairbanks is a further drive away) it's time to meet with Scar and find out today's Quickfire Challenge. They arrive to find her there with a knife block and Master Chef Rick Moonen...
...who, if he had just been 3 stars better could have saved us from having to watch that Smirkass Michael Chiarello in the Champions Round a few weeks back...
Yes, I'm still bitter about that, but it's not totally the Reverend Moon's fault, he was actually concentrating on the food while Smirky was trying to get into some chunky divorceé's Spanx. Anyhow, Moonie's known for being a huge advocate of sustainable seafood that has low or negligible impact to the environment, which I have difficulty making jokes about.
Scar reminds everybody that only three of them will make it to the Final Round, and says that a Top Chef can only go so far on their own and this Quickfire Challenge is going to test their teamwork skills. We flash on Fat Kid and Sexist Pigshit smirking at each other like the pair of shitdicks they are...
...because they're clearly hoping there is no "Robin" in the word "TEAM"...
Scar then unveils this as the "first ever" Top Chef Tag Team Cook Off. Huhwha? How is that gonna work? Well, they start by drawing knives, and everyone's knife is completely blank... except for Bitter Jen's and Li'l Volt's, which say "First Choice" and "Second Choice" respectively. Oh fuckballs, you know what this means: we're right back in grade school choosing sides for Red Rover.
Since Bitter Jen is going first she's in a bit of a dilemma, because she's not sure whether she should split up the Volt brothers, or let them both wind up on the same team. In the end she decides to pick DirtyBear, and Li'l Volt picks Big Volt. Jen takes Sexist Pigshit next while Li'l Volt grabs Fat Kid, who is grateful for not being chosen last (which I'm betting happened to him a lot in school, being the kind of athlete he is) and then he turns right around and displays yet another layer of his hatefulness as he immediately prays to God that 80's Hooker doesn't wind up on their team.
Because God has better things to do (such as help Kanye West get another Auto-Tuned radio hit) Jen immediately fucks Fat Kid's day over by choosing Sticky Wickett, which means they are stuck with 80's Hooker, making their quartet Team Li'lBigFatHooker against Team BitterDirtyStickySexist (a.k.a. Red Team vs. Blue Team). Heh, Li'l Volt's making that "who farted?" face again, but 80's Hooker isn't bitter in the slightest, she says she knows the kids all think of her as the "mom" in the competition, "It's alright, they're stuck with me!"...
..."...and I love it!"...
Ha, I don't blame her one bit! She's actually excited to work with the Volts, and seems hopeful that by being forced to work together with Fat Kid the two of them may be able to "face the demons". I'd say they'll be lucky not to stab each other. In any case, Scar then drops the biggest bomb yet: Each team will be cooking one dish in 40 minutes, each chef on the team will have 10 minutes to cook before the next one comes in. Oh, and they can't speak to each other...
...now look who's caught a whiff of Fat Kid's poo-poo undies!...
Oh, yeah, and until their time starts, they'll be blindfolded! Holy Ravifuckinoli! DirtyBear just busts out laughing, and tells us that this QuickFire might be the most ridiculous thing he's ever heard, because they're basically going to take their blindfolds off and come upon a work station with a lot of random food and no idea what the previous chef was doing with it. He giggles some more and says it's both ludicrous and crazy.
I, for one, think it's fucking brilliant.
Scar's not done, either. The winning Team on the Quickfire will get "a significant advantage" in the Elimination Challenge and this turns out to be a High-Stakes Quickfire as well, so the winners will get $10,000.00 to split four ways! Fat Kid thinks this is really cool, because, as he so generously puts it, "This is an opportunity for me to take home some cash here." You know, I suspect living rent-free in Mom & Dad's rumpus room has made him a tad selfish, but to be fair, there is a "me" in "team", it's just backwards and schizophrenic...
...much like Fat Kid...
And it just gets harder, because they only have 30 seconds to choose what order they're going to cook in, and they're not allowed to talk about the dish at all. On the Red Team, without waiting for anyone else to form a thought or sentence, Li'l Volt decrees it should go Fat Kid, 80's Hooker, Big Volt then His Awesomeness. Fat Kid thinks that's fine (I'd say because he knows going first means the least amount of fallout for him if things go badly). Big Volt doesn't seem totally pleased about the order though and looks directly at Li'l Volt saying "Third?" in a questioning and slightly annoyed tone. Li'l Volt just stares back at him until he begrudgingly agrees. Li'l Volt believes that putting Big Volt third means that he'll be able to start to fix any crises that may happen early on (meaning 80's Hooker's inevitable screwups) and then Li'l Volt can finish those fixes. I'm beginning to wonder when he won't just pull out all the stops and turn the judges bottled water into Pinot Noir.
Meanwhile, on the Blue Team, DirtyBear is making suggestions in a less demanding tone, venturing that Bitter Jen should go first and Sticky Wickett second. Sexist Pigshit says it doesn't matter to him whether he goes third or fourth, and DirtyBear settles that issue by asking who plates better, which Sexist immediately answers "You do." and starts pretending to us that plating's the only thing DirtyBear does better than him...
..."See, I'm better at fauxhawks."...
Scar says go and they're off and running! Fat Kid's not sure what he can accomplish in 10 minutes (he can cross "Annoy J-Mo" off the list) but he's kinda hunting through the fridge in search of proteins and things, much like Bitter Jen is doing. She's deteremined to start some kind of sauce and she's nabbed some black cod and some scallops, too, just in case anyone wants to fuck those up for the eighty-seventh time. She's put on some olive oil to heat because she plans to poach her fish in it, and she's using shrimp and mushrooms in her sauce.
Wow, I haven't seen Fat Kid move this fast since someone shouted the word "Cake!" in a crowded cafeteria...
...Lookit'im go! And how sad, I think he was heading for Kim's big perky silicone fakies and before he could get there they morphed into NeNe's big droopy naturals...
His strategy is to start simple cooking of some of his raw ingredients, such as strip steak and mushrooms, and preparing and washing greens and veggies so the next person after him isn't restricted to a specific course of action. He worries that their team has so many different "styles" of cooking, meaning the Volts and himself are awesome and have similar styles, while 80's Hooker is "somewhere east of Mars in terms of the kind of food we do." Man, he just never quits, does he? I'm normally not one for advocating that someone actually throw a team Quickfire Challenge, because generally that's strictly the domain of the sluts'n'assholes over at MTV's Real World / Road Rules franchise, but in this case I think it would be well-warranted.
Well, we're about to see what happens, because Scar blows her whistle (who gave her a whistle?) and Sticky Wickett and 80's Hooker are off! Bitter Jen is nervous that Sticky's not gonna follow her flavor profile and just go off on her own, which she fears will lose the challenge for them. Sticky says she's got a sense of what Jen was doing with the fish filets, and she pulls out the scallops and starts working on them, too. She also sees Jen's pot of sauce and leaves it alone because she knows it needs to simmer, so all is good there... but then she sees the pot of olive oil with a piece of thyme in it, and wonders if Jen was making some kind of fried thyme garnish, which clearly makes sense since you'd need an entire pot of olive oil to fry one piece of thyme. "I don't get it!" she moans...
...as Jen chews off the insides of her cheeks...
But then Sticky has a WWJD (What Would Jen Do?) moment and realizes she was going to poach the fish in the olive oil! Yay for her! Meanwhile 80's Hooker has barrelled her way back from Mars to mess with Fat Kid's food... except she's deigned to be a professional and remarks at how impressed she is with how much he got done in ten minutes, what with starting the steaks and shaving the fennel and whatnot, and so she's just gonna roll with it and not throw marshmallows on top of everything. Upon seeing anchovies and yuzu she immediately thinks of making a Caesar-like yuzu vinaigrette dressing to go with the fennel. She's really trying hard and just wants to get enough done for the next chef, which is far kinder than I would have been in the midst of all the haters she's been forced to deal with.
Another whistle blare from Scar signals that it's Sexist Pigshit's and Big Volt's turns. Bitter Jen immediately notices Sexist looks way confused by the mass of food at their station, but after a couple of minutes he seems to understand what's going on with the reducing sauce, and he takes the pot of now-burning olive oil off the stove and starts a fresh one so that DirtyBear can poach the cod while he starts to sauté the mushrooms. Who'd have thought that a concept started by two women would have revealed itself to a man like Pigshit? I'm kinda shocked he didn't just start over.
Big Volt seems to be also having some head-scratching over the direction of the Red Team's dish, he interprets the ingredients before him as possibly heading in an Asian direction, so he pureés some avocado and lime juice and mixes some soy and yuzu together and leaves a Burr mixer by it so Li'l Volt can create an "air" or a "froth" (or a dreaded fucking foam) and basically sets him up for a big finish...
...while Fat Kid and 80's Hooker revel in their newfound closeness...
Next-to-last whistle-blast! DirtyBear's feeling the pressure, saying it's all up to him to figure out what in the blue fuck everybody was trying to do and get a finished plate out there, so he feels like he's the one who could potentially fuck it up for their team. He sees what he calls sablefish (at first I thought he was misidentifying the black cod, but then I learned that, as usual, I was wrong, it's another name for it) and he notices the scallops, but in the end decides to not bother with them, a decision I feel deserves some applause.
He also notices the second pot of olive oil heating, and correctly deduces that they want him to poach the fish in it... "but I'm not gonna do that." Instead, he's gonna butter-roast it in a pan to give it more texture. Bitter Jen is hopping up and down like she has to pee real bad, and I feel like she'd like to make DirtyBear cry right about now...
...Awww, c'mon Jen, have a little faith in the DeeBee!...
Li'l Volt whines that this challenge is so haaaaard because he has to finish other peoples' foooood and "It's not what I do." He checks the beef and notices that it's not cooked enough and throws it in the oven. As for Big Volt's soy-yuzu "concoction", Li'l Volt thinks it's way too salty, so he dilutes it with water and dumps some xanthan gum in it, because a dish just isn't really complete until you've used an ingredient beginning with the letter "X". Then he turns to the avocado mousse and starts formulating his plans to finish off what everyone else has started.
Final whistle! There are high-fives all around on the Blue Team, while the Red Team just kinda continues glaring at 80's Hooker. Scar and Reverend Moon start off with the Red Team's dish...
...I dunno, steak'n'guacamole seems kinda Chili's-esque and alsozzzzzzzz...
Moonie's first comment is "A lotta layers..." as he's trying to hack a piece of steak off the hunk and Li'l Volt mentions the miso is a little salty and the meat is a little under-seasoned so if he eats them together it'll even out. Things get uncomfortable as Moonie struggles to put together "the perfect bite". Meanwhile Scar asks Fat Kid if this dish is what he imagined when he started out, and he says he thought the beef would be seared and raw (???) but "this is not terribly far off." Mmmmyeah, I'm sure Li'l Volt is real relieved to hear that, Fatty Barfbuckle. In any case, Rev. Moon takes a moment to express how much fun it was to watch them go through this hellish process and Scar thanks them for their teamwork as they move on to the Blue Team's dish...
...hmmm, I wonder if the big shot seafood chef is gonna prefer the fish to the beef?...
Bitter Jen hilariously makes a giant identification blunder when she describes the dish as a "pan-seared trout", and after tasting it Moonie says he's pretty sure it's a sablefish or black cod. Whoopsie, Jen! Eh, but Rev. Moon isn't too concerned about that, he loves black cod because it's a very sustainable fish from Alaska.
Now that they're done tasting, Moonie says they did great overall as teams, he found the Red Team's dish both intriguing and delicious, and although the beef was "slightly rare" he thought the other components kicked in and brought it together. For the Blue Team's food, he says it had a nice finish that came from a very well-made stock (started by Bitter Jen in the beginning!) and especially liked that they used shrimp with ginger in it. So who wins?...
...Yay for Team DirtySexistStickyBitter!...
Naturally, some members of Team Li'lBigFatHooker are acting as you would expect...
...and quietly judging other team members...
Which is bullshit, because 80's Hooker isn't necessarily responsible for this loss, and in fact if anything the blame should fall on Li'l Volt since he's the one who made all final decisions. He claims that he's learned the lesson that they have to "rely on the team" and "create synergy" or they won't win. We'll see if he keeps that attitude alive going into the Elimination Challenge.
And right about now Scar reveals that it is, in fact, time for Restaurant Wars! DirtyBear's excited, because he feels like this puts them right back into their main element, and believes their team is pretty even and doesn't really have a "strong or a weak link". Over on the other side, Big Volt gets a rare interview moment to say he's excited for this, too, but he has some concerns about whether their team is strong enough "talent-wise"...
...which is bringing on an Excedrin Headache™...
I am actually liking Big Bry even more, because that was the classiest possible way to say he's unsure of 80's Hooker's skills without being rude or nasty or petty. Also, he could be talking about Fat Kid and his glaring inconsistencies as well. Buuuut, it's prolly 80's Hooker.
Then Moonie makes my jaw drop when he says he's going to be giving up his two-level restaurant (RM Seafood) at Mandalay Bay for them to operate out of! This sounds more generous than it really is, because I found out that Rev. Moon had to close the upstairs fine-dining portion several months ago (the downstairs casual café-style less-expensive portion is still open). The Blue Team gets to pick whether they want to be upstairs or downstairs... oh, and Scar says this time they're not responsible for the decor of the restaurant!
WTF?!??! Half the fun of Restaurant Wars is watching chefs do awesome things like putting cloyingly-scented banana-vanilla-lemon candles in the middle of the tables and buy pornographic art for the bare-plywood walls and forget to wash and/or take the labels off the stoneware and having Madonna's fat-assed brother bitching about it all and them having to do it all over again! Ugh, we've all been robbed! Robbed, I say!...
...see how much fun I used to have circling everything that was tasteless and horrible about their restaurants?...
Oh well, these guys got off way easy. Scar reminds them that it will be all about the menu and execution of the food as well as the "total experience" including front-of-the-house and especially service. Also, whoever does front-of-house will still be responsible for coming up with a menu item. 2 members of each team will have an hour and $1500.00 to shop at Whole Paycheck Market, while the other 2 team members will have the same amount of time and cash at Restaurant Depot. Plus, Moonie says he wants them to be conscious of using sustainable seafood and he's going to judge them on that as well, and passes out little cheat-sheet cards for them to refer to when choosing their proteins.
Remember how this was a High-Stakes Quickfire? Well Scar now gives the Blue Team a choice to either take the $10,000.00 they've already won OR they can "let it ride" and if they win the Wars, they'll each get $10,000.00! Whoa, that's a pretty thorny dilemma, but after consulting for about 3 seconds the BitterDirtyStickySexist Machine decides to take their chances and let the 10 Gs roll on. Now they've got 30 minutes to plan, and the teams split off to do so. Blue Team starts by agreeing on one thing very quickly...
...and can you blame them?...
Bitter Jen says that doing dessert has come back to bite the ass of so many teams in the past that they're just not risking it. They're also trying to decide who's going to do front-of-the-house and weirdly, Sticky Wickett raises her hand claims to know "a lot about it". Sexist Pigshit kind of questions her on that, and it sounds like he'd like the be one doing it. And then I get a very bad feeling when Sticky privately tells us that she has "no problem" working the front of the house, but she'd rather be in the kitchen. Aaaaaaaahhhhhhh awz2sx kpo9il hgj4hf 8riey7ur bvn6nmc1 I'm gonna break my fuckin' keyboard pounding on it like that, but if she'd prefer to be in the kitchen then why'd she volunteer for and/or agree to do the front-of-the-house??!??!??! This can only have bad repercussions.
Meanwhile, the Red Team is also starting by agreeing on one thing very quickly...
...that they want to change their name to Team Euthanasia...
Although, to be fair, Big Volt doesn't really seem to be on that bandwagon so much. I think he's more annoyed with his little shit of a brother than worried about what 80's Hooker is up to. In any case, they do actually agree that they all do some kind of American food, so Modern American Restaurant is the direction their menu is going to take. As for the dessert question, Big Volt feels he's strong enough in pastry to pull it off, and Li'l Volt actually remembers that 80's Hooker won a Quickfire with her apple crisp. 80's thinks they should switch it up a little and do an Asian pear crisp instead.
Then Li'l Volt zeroes back in on Big Volt and wants to know what kind of dessert he's planning. When Big Bry says he wants to do something similar to the choco-turd and jizz-foam he put forth in that same Quickfire as 80's Hooker, Li'l Volt tries to veto it, saying the dish didn't work at all, which may be true of the situation he was working under, but Big Volt says he's not going to use the same preparation and that he can easily do the chocolate ganache the way he intended to without it sucking (and without the horrible restrictions of a Quickfire).
To us, Big Volt says for Li'l Volt to shoot down ideas that are not his own is right in line with his cocky personality, and we cut back to Li'l Volt snottily asking if Big Bry can execute the dish without the ganache turning out grainy, and I admire Bry's restraint as he quietly says he can absolutely execute it, it's on his menu at his own restaurant, and he's totally calm...
...while imagining Li'l Volt appearing in Saw VI...
Of course, Li'l Volt has to get all passive-aggressive and yell "Don't get angry, I'm just saying that you suck compared to me that, like, we can't lose this." Big Volt assures him, "We won't." In the end, the teams decide to send the Volts, Bitter Jen and DirtyBear to Whole Paycheck, while Sexist Pigshit, Sticky Wickett, Fat Kid and 80's Hooker will go to Restaurant Depot. For once Fat Kid does the semi-cool thing and says he's putting aside his white-hot-hatred of issues with 80's Hooker so they can work together as teammates on this challenge.
Naturally, Sexist Pigshit is holding to no such behavior, and when they arrive at Restaurant Depot he attempts to slam the door on 80's Hooker before she can get out of the car. Is it wrong to wish for a painful but not life-threatening disease on someone, such as shingles or severe eczema or chronic hemorrhoids? I'm just asking, it's not like I live next door to a suspected bruja de Santería with a yard full of chickens and a bloodstained stone altar in back of her garage, jeez!
Of course, this is also a chance for some annoying product placement of Sprint mobile devices, because none of these 8 people owned cell phones, so they had to use these fabulous gadgets to communicate with each other while they shopped...
...and prove that white people still hold the top spot for embarrassingly uncool usage of hip-hop slang...
Word to your mother, homies. Anyhow, over at Restaurant Depot there's a bit of a dust up when Sexist and Sticky happen to see that Fat Kid and 80's Hooker have pulled some cases of Pellegrino to take back and use in their restaurant. 80's Hooker goes off and playfully shoves Sticky because she doesn't want them stealing their idea of having sparkling water (she mentions having the car door slammed on her by Sexist Pigshit).
Sticky Wickett, of course, gets all snide about it in her interview, "If she thinks she's gonna win this challenge because they have sparkling water? That's ridiculous!"...
...almost as ridiculous as volunteering to work front-of-the-house when your mousy ass would rather be in the kitchen...
Speaking of front-of-the-house duties, the Red Team has decided to put Fat Kid out there, so he's back at the house and busily trying on ill-fitting suitcoats and wrinkled shirts and asking fashion maven Li'l Volt if it looks good or not...
...HAWT...
I know I'd jump at the chance to eat at a restaurant hosted by Jim Belushi crossed with Artie Lange. Perhaps this explains why Li'l Volt came up with the brilliant idea of calling their restaurant "ReVolt" (ostensibly standing for Robin, Eli and the Volts, but I think moreso to cover the schlub that's going to greet their diners). 80's Hooker tentatively suggests that people might automatically associate "revolt" with the word "revolting" (she's right) but Big Volt thinks it could just as easily be associated with "revolution" and "uprising" so they go with it. Besides, no restaurant name will ever be as bad as Season Two's "Lalalina".
Be back shortly with Part Two!...
love, J-Mo :)
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Tuesday, October 27, 2009
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Current mood:  strong
At any rate, for the Elimination Challenge they have to draw knives, and everyone winds up picking different parts of the pig, such as "tenderloin" (Gay Ashlee), "ribs" (Big Volt), "cheeks" (Li'l Volt), "butt" (Sticky Wickett), "belly" (Fat Kid, natch!), "center-cut chops" (80's Hooker), "shoulder" (Sexist Pigshit) and "leg" (DirtyBear).
Bitter Jen actually gets a small piece of luck when her knife says "wild", which at first I thought meant she was going to have to go capture and kill a wild pig, but really it means she gets to pick any part of the pig she wants to cook. She decides to go with pork belly as well, ostensibly because it has a high fat content and will stay nice and juicy. Of course Fat Kid immediately accuses her of "creeping in" on his space! Like he (and no one else) was born to cook pork belly. Putz.
He better put his bullshit on layaway, cuz DirtyBear says that his favorite thing in the world is pork, he serves it at his restaurant more than any other protein, and in fact he has a picture of a pig tattooed on his arm...
...and then he has a mini-porkgasm...This is good news for him, because for their Elimination challenge they are going to be pairing up two of Cliffie's favorite things: pigs and pinot noir wine. It turns out Cliffie runs an annual charity event actually called "Pigs & Pinot" that he says is "very intensely looked upon by a lot of culinarians." This year they are also working in conjunction with Food & Wine Magazine (oooh, do we get Gail back again?) and it's going to be all about creating a dish that pairs well with pinot noir. Man is he lucky he's come along this season, 'cuz last season Hoser would have found a way to turn it into Potatoes & Pulltabs.
Still high off his first win, Fat Kid thinks this is great news and believes he's just gonna nail the pairing and plans to be the first cheftestant to win back-to-back Quickfire and Elimination Challenges. Sure, and then maybe this will happen...
...sadly, I couldn't find a picture with them coming out of a giant ass...
So, to get ready for their challenge the cheftestants head on over to Cliffie's restaurant that's called Areola at the Mandalay Bay.... sorry, that's Aureole (eh, means the same thing, really) which is world famous for it's "Wine Tower" that comes equipped with "Wine Angels" who are forced to wear harnesses and get hoisted via cables all over the inside of this three-story "Wine Cave"...
...because everybody likes a little crotch-sweat to go with their pinot noir...
Of all the ridiculous things to build, this has got to be near the top of the list. Like the wine tastes any better because it was stacked three stories high instead of horizontally. However, I must admit that a.) it looks cool, and b.) "Wine Angel" is the best euphemism since "Mixologist" for making a plain old "bartender" sound fancy-schmancy! In any case, once the chefs all gather inside ol' NippleCircle, they are introduced to Cliffie's Master Sommelier William Sherer, who has thoughtfully laid out nine different pinot noirs for them to all taste.
They spend the next ten minutes with everybody doing that thing where they are looking very serious and swirling wine in their glasses and holding it up to the light to squint and peer at it and very gravely sniffing it and carefully swishing it around their mouths and then stupidly pouring it out into an urn instead of getting their draink on. Ok, yes, I will admit it: I am totally not the guy you want to bring along with you on one of those "wine-tasting" tours because I don't really see the point of it unless you can get hammered for free. In fact, I'd probably be grabbing that urn they're all dumping their wine into and making my own suicide-mix wine shooters. And I'd probably bust out a bag of Funyuns, too...
...looking for that perfect balance of coquettishly fruity, yet impudently porcine...
Whatever, now that they're done with all that pretentious bullshit it's time for them to choose what variety of pinot noir they're going to use with their dishes in the Elimination Challenge. Big Volt chooses first and goes with a 2007 Ravioli-O, which causes Li'l Volt to shake his head like that was a dumbass move. Gay Ashlee chooses a 2007 Sanford & Sons, while Fat Kid loftily selects a 2007 Tall Latté and takes a few more moments to annoy us by crowing about how awesome he is at wine-pairing. We get it already Fat Kid, you think you're going to win this one, now STFU!
DirtyBear's picked out something called 2006 Soaked Blotter and Sexist Pigshit's decided on a nice 2005 Walrus River. Bitter Jen heads right for a 2005 CharmaTron Clobbered Bess followed by Sticky Wickett deciding on a 2005 Blowsy Fez and Li'l Volt making a beeline for a 2006 Groovy Song. So what's a wacky gal like 80's Hooker gonna pick? Why, the 2005 Mischief & Mayhem, natch! What's even weirder is the fact that that's really what it's called, it's the only variety name I didn't fuck with. Of course, Fat Kid takes another moment to snidely assert "I could tell there was definitely a couple of amateur palates running around the room... they were going for the candy palate wine choices, they weren't picking the real dogs in the fight!"...
...gee, whoever could he mean?...
Oh, put one of your rapidly stiffening socks in it, Fat Kid! It's not like anyone started clamoring for Arbor Mist or asking Cliffie where he was hiding the Riunité On Ice (so nice)! I also highly doubt that he would have put out a shitty wine for them to use. Of course, I'm fairly certain that Robin's palate is just as wonky as she is (remember, she just served a Glass'O'Guacamole) so I'm sure whatever she makes is going to be a total disaster, but I say leave her be and let her get there in her own time.
Over at Whole Paycheck Market, they've got 45 minutes and $300.00 to pick up enough food to make 150 portions. Sticky Wickett's being all inspired by how Frenchified her Blowsy Fez wine is, so she's decided to make pork rillette, which she calls "kind of a potted paté". Then she makes me want to throw a rock through my TV when she says "I have not made a pork rillette before... I've made rabbit a number of times, but I've kind of now committed myself to this path and... I feel like it's going to work!"...
..."I mean, why wouldn't it?"...
Yeah, it's always a great idea to try out stuff you've never made before at Cliff Clavin's Culinarian Club. We'll check back in on Sticky when she's in the Bottom Three later on. Meanwhile, Gay Ashlee's just dying to get a win at this point so he says he's got to do "the perfect dish" which he says will be a roasted pork tenderloin served with a soft corn polenta and topped with a cherry demi-glace. He's also confident that not only will it taste good, but it'll pair well with his Sanford & Son pinot.
Okay, now it's time for some fun! Let's see what it's like to hang out at the McMansion and make dinner. Sexist Pigshit whets everyone's appetite by belching hard enough to blacken the formica on the counter in front of him. I bet that smells pleasing. DirtyBear's telling us that he really tries hard to get along with everyone in the house and not be the "center of attention". They immediately cut to 80's Hooker talking to everyone about what she's going to do for her dish, and it's pretty clear from the annoyed faces surrounding her that nobody's really listening to her. DirtyBear believes 80's has the best intentions at heart, "but she is driving some people in this house up the fucking wall!"
Ruh-roh. Ominous bass notes are playing as the sun goes down and night falls on the McMansion! Fat Kid's in the kitchen cooking some scallops and 80's Hooker is standing behind him yapping away and suggesting what serving platter he should use to plate them with. He's trying to ignore her and tells her everything's cool. She ignores that and brings out another plate to suggest to him, which only makes him madder and he snarls "There's no need for it." and Li'l Volt quietly says (without making eye contact) that they have everything under control. She finally backs off.
80's Hooker interviews that there's been a lot of tension in ths house lately and repeats her impression that several of the other cheftestants don't think she deserves to still be in the competition, and surmises (correctly, in my opinion) that the real reason why they're so pissed off she's still there is because they just plain don't like her as much as they liked Papi Cholo and Sattine...
...and Biker Chick and Island Mon Ron and Not-So-Pretty and WackEve and MaryMann and even Scarred Jen...
You know, as much as I hate to admit it when 80's Hooker has a Perceptive & Lucid Moment™, I do believe she's having one now. I get that she talks way too much and is annoying as hell and might be kind of a hack in the kitchen, but honestly, things are getting just a bit too Lord Of The Flies in that house... and this time it's Piggy who's out for blood.
Speaking of which, Fat Kid's still cooking his scallops and trying to ignore 80's Hooker by loudly and pointedly asking Li'l Volt if he'll check the fridge for some scallions or cilantro. Funny thing is, Li'l Volt's on the other side of the counter all the way in the dining room, and 80's Hooker's standing next to the fridge. Even funnier still, 80's has some prepared scallions already in hand and offers them to Fat Kid, who refuses them and snarls that he needs more than that, and then declares that they are going to go eat (I guess directly out of the pan... that'll show her for suggesting which plates they should use!). But before he leaves 80's points out that she had cleaned the cutting board so she could use it herself, and he's getting ready to waltz out and leave it dirty and used, and apparently she has finally had enough of the leper treatment and lashes out, "That's all right, I'll fucking clean up after you."
Fat Kid grabs his Pan'O'Scallops and fires back "Fine, be a fucking martyr, I don't give a fuck." and starts walking downstairs. She replies "You know, I offered to help--" and he rudely cuts her off with "Robin! Listen! If you wanted me to clean it up you could say 'clean it up' without copping a fucking attitude!" Oh, OK, does he mean an attitude like the one he's been copping with her since about six episodes ago? Nice try, Fat Kid, but no sale. Then he makes me howl with laughter as he tosses off his parting shot, "You're not my mom! Cut it out!"...
...doesn't "You're not the boss of me!" come next??!?...
"I don't wanna be your mom, believe me." is what he gets in return and under her breath she says "If I was your mother I woulda raised you better." Meanwhile Sexist Pigshit's downstairs with Fat Kid, Li'l Volt, Gay Ashlee and Bitter Jen, and he's doing his best to instigate things further. Eventually 80's Hooker makes her way down there as well and heads over to the leftover Pan'O'Scallops to taste one. Just before she can, Li'l Volt decides to join Fat Kid's Immature Tribe and calls out "They're rotten, they're rotten, they're rotten!" 80's Hooker replies "Are they? Cool." and eats one. Then Sexist Pigshit comes back with "No, they're not rotten... they're Robin." Niiiice. 80's just smiles and says "I am rotten... to the core." and Sexist finishes off with what I'm sure he thinks is both the height of wit and the obvious coup de grâce...
...tweedlee-deedlee-dee...
Seriously, what a bunch of assholes. I'm especially disappointed in Li'l Volt for jumping on the "I Hate 80's Hooker" bandwagon. Why be rude to her? It's not as if he has anything to fear from her in this competition, he should just mind his own food and let the judges get rid of her when she makes her next wacky concoction! Like tomorrow! Ugh, let's move on.
The next day at the Top Chef Kitchen they've got 4 hours to cook. Gay Ashlee's about to make us all want to wring his fucking neck when he says he was worried about his tenderloin overcooking, and so the previous night Sexist Pigshit suggested the idea of doing a chilled tenderloin, so he's going to get rid of his polenta idea because he wants the dish to now be cold all the way through.
Meanwhile Big Volt is literally sweating like crazy over trying to braise his 150 servings of ribs in four hours when they normally take twelve. Li'l Volt's blabbing on and on about how he's the more adventurous of the two and that Big Volt just "stayed in one place" and got "really good... with one style of food."...
...yeah, and Big Volt worked for Cliffie for ten years while Li'l Volt barely squeezed out a year...
Having had the night to sleep in an environment populated by entitled boogersnots who hate her, 80's Hooker says she's more determined than ever to win this challenge. She believes there's a clique made up of the "younger kids" that may be against her, and then erases some of my goodwill towards her by repeating one of the worst reality-tv clichés: "I'm not here to make friends, I'm here to frickin' compete."
Enough of that, Bitter Jen's decided to use her pork belly to make a play on pork-and-beans, but a lighter, summerier version. Fat Kid, on the other hand, thinks his pork belly dish is going to be better than Bitter Jen's because his is "a little more robust, and a little heavier, and a little more creative and exciting... hers is a little more basic." Yeah, well, I bet she knows how to do her own laundry. And pay rent.
Daddy Tom stops by for a few minutes to have Gay Ashlee tell him that he's really really really really cooking his own food this time... except, you know, he's really really really really not. He also asks Li'l Volt how he's doing since he fucked up his dish last week, and gets the requisite bragging in return. He also chats with Sexist Pigshit and watches him trying to make 150 pork balls for some Lesbianese dish he's doing. And then he's outie...
...thanks for coming, I guess you really earned your $12,000.00 per minute salary this week, huh Daddy?...
Hey, now Sexist Pigshit's telling us that through the course of this competition he's brought forth seven or eight different styles of cuisine (all of them variations on "Greek") and he hilariously now includes "Asian" in the list! He also says that he brings to the table what none of the others have... which is the desire to be Top Chef! Because the others all just wanted a free trip to hang out at the remotest casino and resort in Nevada and put up with Fat Kid and 80's Hooker fighting all the time. What a tool.
With less than 2 minutes to go there's a bottleneck at the Saran-Wrap station! Big Volt tries to get in there but Li'l Volt stops him, saying he's not done, and Big Volt snaps "Hurry up!" Oh ho, nobody tells Li'l Volt what to do, so his mature reply is "Shut the fuck up, Brian! Go fuck yourself!"...
...somebody missed their afternoon nap...
So now he's slowing down what he's doing and just wasting Saran-Wrap, "I'll take my time now, you fuck." Big Volt, who is clearly stressing, tries to regain his composure but can't help observing "I didn't realize that you have to act like a dick." Bry, honey, you grew up with this guy, don't act like you don't know!
Time has run out, everyone has packed up their food, and they've schlepped it out to the Springs Preserve where they start in on their final hour of prep before they will begin serving to the horde of Culinarians hungry for pigmeat and purple wine. After getting a good glimpse of some of these people I'm starting to wonder if some of them aren't escapees from that show DieTribe...
...or maybe Sisters Of Omega-Mu?...
Wow, it looks like they went ahead and just opened up the cattle chute and let everyone in all at once (and I truly mean that in the completely non-insulting way) and all of the cheftestants are instantly inundated with lines of people. Then the Judges appear, including Daddy Tom, Tiny Tewwible Toby, Cliffie... and representing Food & Wine we don't get Gail herself, but Gail's boss, Dana Cowin...
...and Scar looks like she just waltzed out of a Tyler Perry movie about big fat drag queens (and church!)...
They've hit Li'l Volt's booth first...
...mmmmm, that looks cheeky!...
He mentions that the Groovy Song Pinot smells a little bit like root beer and vanilla, and that's why he braised the pork in it and used vanilla bean with the wine in his sauce. Back at the table, Not-Gail says the pork is good, but Tiny Tewwible Toby and Daddy Tom are both in love with his truffle bun (I guess that's the yellowish thing underneath the pig-cheek) while Cliffie says all the flavors work really well with the wine. Well duh I guess they might since the sauce is, you know, made of the wine. They cut to a random shot of some of the Mu-Girls saying "Oh mai GAHHHD!" and I can't tell if it's the food they're liking or if they're making googly eyes at Li'l Volt. Chicks seem to really dig him.
Of course, fag hags also dig their gays, so here's Ashlee's tenderloin dish...
...sooo, there it is... that's Ashlee's food...
Plus, cherry and corn salad??!? Blurk. He says he kept everything pretty simple so the tenderloin could speak for itself. So what does it have to say? Well, Not-Gail translates that it's "a little clammy" and Scar's making a face...
...it's the same one I'm sure she made back in the day whenever she had to swallow a sour load from Salman...
Tweensy Toby says the meat's overcooked (which was what Ashlee said he was trying to avoid, 'member?) and it's also oversalted. Cliffie says Sanford & Son (ironically) is a "big, rich wine" that needed something equally big & rich to go with it...
...and no, I'm sure he doesn't mean these two dildoes...
Finally after 35 minutes of badass trashtalk, let's see how great Fat Kid's pairing skills really are...
...I dunno, it looks like the kind of dish that would move into your basement and never leave...
He makes sure to tell the judges that he chose the root veggies in his dish (carrots, celery, fennel) because they just go really well with the "cola and vanilla properties" of the Tall Latté wine. Wait, cola and vanilla? Wasn't he making fun of others for having a "candy palate"?
Back at the table, Not-Gail's impressed by how the carrot puree has so much "oomph and delicious flavor"...
...but I think she's just blitzed...
Toby thinks the porkbelly tastes good... but Cliffie's not so impressed: "Eli did great with the dish... I don't think it's a great pairing with the wine." Excuse me just a sec, here... Bwahahahahahahahahahaha! Karma-karma-karma-karma-karma-chameeeleeeonnnnn! In your chubby little fucking face Fat Kid! I guess the Elimination Challenge remains out of your grasp for yet another week! I couldn't be more pleased, how 'bout you guys?
Here comes my fave, DirtyBear to rock the planet with his pâté...
...which looks kinda like a chocolate-chip cookie bar, only made out of pigmeat...
He also made a mayonaisse dressing out of rendered down porkfat and mushrooms, and because he's been to the Soaked Blotter Vineyards many times and knows they have lots of hazelnut trees up there, he's incorporated some hazelnut into the mayo as well. And he manages to tell the judges all of this without sounding pretentious or snotty or elitist. He just sounds like he knows his shit and he loves what he's doing.
Hey DirtyBear... come see me, K? I swear it'll be the best five minutes you've ever had.
Where were we? OH yeah, the judges are eating DirtyBear's food. Daddy Tom says it was a great decision to make a terrine (the pressed loaf of stuff that pâté is sliced from) and Not-Gail's gushing that it's "punched-up" and "really smart" and "very well thought-out" and best of all Cliffie thinks it works great with the wine!
Far less exciting is Sexist Pigshit and his Lesbianese dish called kibbeh...
...which looks too much like a jalapeño popper that fell on the floor of a booth at the dirty bookstore...
No actually, that's an "orange-blossom yogurt", which Sexist thinks goes great with the Walrus River wine since it has a lot of "florals" in it. It quickly becomes clear that he's terribly wrong about that, because Not-Gail immediately says the orange is "overwhelming" everything else. Daddy says he doesn't mind that so much and thinks the kibbeh is well-seasoned. Nobody mentions the pairing, but I think that's because we all know he's not gonna win this one, either.
Big Volt's turn is next, and he appears to have calmed down...
...what is it with plopping everything down on top of a gooey off-white mess?...
This time it's a parsnip pureé and some mostarda to finish it off. Toby likes how the mostarda is picking out some orange notes in the Ravioli-O pinot and Cliffie's impressed with that as well, he says it's just enough tinge without being bitter.
Which seamlessly brings us to the ladies, starting with Bitter Jen...
...it's amazing how strongly hers and Fat Kid's dishes resemble one another...
Hers looks more moist while Fat Kid's looked dry. Scar gives a sexy "Mmmmm." and Cliffie thinks it's micely seasoned and works well with the wine. Not-Gail also thinks her pork belly is very delicious, too.
Trainwrecks have been saved for last! Starting with Sticky Wickett...
...why does the use of the term "pork butt" in Sticky's dish make me think she's sneaking in deep-fried pig anus?...
They immediately cut to some queen lisping "It's not a party in my mouth." Wellll, maybe the judges will like it better. Maybe not, because Not-Gail says she'll defer to the chefs, maybe it's a perfect rillette but it tastes like cat-food to her...
...mee-OWW...
Not much would be able to top a statement like that, but I'm sure 80's Hooker will do her best...
...just looking at it, it already doesn't go with name of the wine...
I don't have the room to even attempt to transcribe her description of her dish to the judges, I can only say it had sweet potatoes, apples, fennel, sour cherries and coffee in it. Tewwible Toby says the overall sensation was one of "sliminess" (ew) and Cliffie says he can't taste the pork at all, "It could have been anything wrapped around that bundle!". Daddy Tom thinks it's because 80's cut the meat too thinly and everyone agrees with him. *sigh* Another epic FAIL for 80's Hooker.
Back in the Stew Room, Sexist Pigshit's insisting that "If we went on what the people thought I'd be in the winner's circle!" and 80's Hooker insists that people told her she was the favorite...
...Um, you're both wrong, so how about you both just shut it for once?...
Scar comes in and invites Li'l Volt, Big Volt, DirtyBear and Bitter Jen (*cough*topfour*cough*) to the Judges' Table. Guess whose disappointed little pug-mug of a face is priceless right now?...
...Memoirs Of An Imperfect Asshat...Cliffie tells them the four of them their dishes and pairings made for a really great representation of Pigs 'N' Pinot, and I'm not gonna bother with the praise and mutual butt-kissing tonight, I'll just show you a cute picture of the winner... 
...I ♥ DirtyBear...
This time it's both the Volts who look like they swallowed some of 80's Hooker's cookin'. As an added bonus surprise, Cliffie invites DirtyBear to be a special guest chef at the 2010 Pigs'N'Pinot event! Yeah, even if he doesn't win this whole thing, that's a pretty sweet invite. AND this makes his third Elimination Win, so he's now tied with Big Volt (and coupled with his two Quickfire wins, that makes him top dawg over everyone right now).
Tonight's Loser Crew is no surprise: Gay Ashlee, Sticky Wickett and 80's Hooker. After the three of them leave Li'l Volt lets his bitterness over losing spew everywhere as he seethes "I hope they make the right decision tonight." and Sexist Pigshit concurs. Big Volt jumps in and challenges them, saying "What is 'the right decision'?" Li'l Volt flat out says 80's should go because you couldn't taste pork in her dish. Sexist Pigshit admits he doesn't care about the food, he just wants her gone, and now I'm rooting for her all over again just to fuck with these assholes.
Naturally, 80's Hooker's dish had a weird gummy consistency and the pork was too thin, but she crazily stands by it anyhow. As for Gay Ashlee, he's super shocked that he's there. Scar can't believe he tasted his dish and didn't detect the lack of flavor or seasoning. Then Ashlee makes me want to strangle him when, for the forty-fucking-seventh time he stupidly tells them that the dish he served wasn't the original dish he thought of, and mentions his idea for making warm polenta with dry-aged jack cheese and smoking the tenderloin. Cliffie's shaking his head (like I am) and saying "It sounds fantastic!... Why didn't you go there?"...
..."Because I am kind of cute when I'm being a huge moron?"...
As for Sticky, Toby says her dish seemed more like a dry hash than a rillette, and Cliffie immediately asks Wickett to describe how she makes rillette. When she answers that she braised it in chicken stock he stops her with "You realize that's not how you make rillete, right?" She looks blank as he goes on to explain that you have to actually poach the pork in fat (mmmmm) and that's how the flavors are introduced. He also says he won't tell her what words Not-Gail used to describe the dish (Meow Mix Meets Fancy Feast) but that it was "pretty rough" and basically she did not make a rillette.
It coulda been any of them, but which has the worst fault? Sticky Wickett not knowing how to make the dish she claimed she was making, 80's Hooker knowing too well how to completely erase the pork flavor from an event that puts pork in the spotlight, or Gay Ashlee for repeatedly changing his dishes from good to bad by listening to everyone else? Well, we'll find out in a minute after the results of the viewer poll...
...3. If they were secret lovers...
And it's awesome that fat li'l Harold there is gonna get to see even more of Maude in the coming days, because Gay Ashlee's the one going home. He's bummed that he never had the balls to cook what he should have and says he's going to put his original dish idea on the menu at his restaurant back in New York and he's going to invite everyone but Scar to come enjoy it. I dunno what that's all about, but I'm sure the reunion will reveal.
So there we are, and what did you think of this episode? Are you more on 80's Hooker's side, or Fat Kids? Or should they both just STFU? Does it also seem like DirtyBear is distancing himself somewhat from Fat Kid, and that Big Volt is consistently proving himself to be a better man than his nasty little brother?
Okay, I'm super sorry about being late with this, so as my way of making it up to everybody I'm going to include a little bonus with this recap. Here is the video of one of our latest performances with Devina & The Fly Boyz (featuring a dance crew called Evolution) at Rainbows Festival in Phoenix about three weeks ago. Keep in mind, this is about a week after I injured my back, so I was completely loopy on drugs and was wearing a back brace, which would explain why I didn't notice my vest pulling up over my belly until way late in the game. The song is a remix of the PussyCat Dolls "Hush Hush" and you'll see the reason for the disco-era clothes by the end. Enjoy!
...in case you're unsure, I'm the one in the white...love, J-Mo :)
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Disco Pigs
Release date: 2005-11-01 |
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Tuesday, October 27, 2009
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Current mood:  hungry
Hello again foodie fans! I just got back from the wonderfully cold, windy and rainy city of Indianapolis where I was attending yet another drag queen pageant. This one is specially geared towards fat guys who like to wear pretty dresses and who strike terror in the hearts of late-night drive-thru employees everywhere. Over the course of the week I: a.) ate some deep fried pickles and squid (the squid was a little overcooked and therefore chewy and somewhat retch-inducing), b.) got lost about sixty times just trying to make it from the host bar to the hotel (downtown Indy is confusing) and c.) I saw a one-legged drag queen nearly win the entire thing when she plopped down into the splits and intentionally popped off her prosthetic limb! I am still kinda creeped out about that last thing, and I can't even believe I'm writing the words "one-legged drag queen" in a sentence... 
...and even worse, I'm afraid when it happened I probably had the same expression on my face as Sexist Pigshit here...
...and because the IUPUI University Place Hotel doesn't get Bravo, I wasn't able to even watch this week's episode of Top Chef until I got home yesterday. And I must say, I was pissed when I finally did. For starters, we've got Gay Ashlee being a total tard, the Volts are at each other's throats, and Fat Kid proves once and for all that he's a complete asshat. Plus, the outcome of one of the challenges is gonna be super-annoying after the jump...
We start off being reminded of this little tidbit of Big Voltlore...
...oh, can't I??...
...followed by Li'l Volt being just as much of a diva as some of the fat bitches I saw backstage this week...
...although I give him props for being classy enough not to park his fucking feet on the coffee table...
This is what happens when you hand out a trophy to everybody for just showing up at the Little League game these days. Nobody seems to know how to be a graceful loser anymore (okay, in this case, a graceful almost-loser) which seems to be why Li'l Volt is all freaked out that he wound up on the bottom and could have gone home. Or maybe he's just trying to shake off the experience of being eye-fucked by Gay Ashlee for four hours straight. Either way, he's determined that that's never going to happen to him ever again, "You know, Babe Ruth has struck out once or twice in his career and he left a legacy behind, and I plan on doing the same thing..."
...either Padma's name smells bad, or he's just remembered that Babe Ruth also left behind some size 50 undies...
Because we just haven't had enough chances to learn about what makes Fat Kid a tick, we see him talking on the Sidekick Of Death (© 2008 Flipit) with his mom, whom he says he's real close to. Serial Killer Warning Sign #1? Check. Then he drops this little bomb, "I know it's kinda hokey, but I live with my parents." Wow, most adults would be way too embarrassed to admit such a thing on TV (and Serial Killer Warning Sign #2? Check.) but Fat Kid isn't ashamed at all, "It's actually really great, like, I don't mind 'cuz I don't pay rent and shit, so...."
..."And I have this really awesome fort that I made out of the couch cushions in the basement!"...
Mmmmyeah, I don't think "hokey" is quite the correct term, I believe the word he's looking for is "pathetic". Because really, it's super-cool to be a 25-year-old executive chef pulling down a full salary who still lives with Mommy and Daddy and yet contributes nothing to their household, isn't it? I guess that's the kind of badass life-experience that allows him to pass judgment on people twice his age who have survived life-threatening illnesses. I mean, who does he think he is, a recapper?
Oop, I'll pull back for a moment, 'cuz he's still bitching to his mom about how much "emotional stress" he's going through (which translates to "There's no one to wash my poo-poo undies for me.") and that he's suffering from "a lot of frustration"...
...which clearly means "No one here seems to be impressed with my skill in over-gelling my hair."...
...or else, like Gay Ashlee, he's also been unable to find enough privacy for peen-play, and now his own moobs are starting to turn him on. In any case, Fat Kid manages to also become a master of irony by correctly assessing that appearing on Top Chef can change one's entire culinary career: "If you do really poorly, you've gotta live with being the dude who did really poorly on Top Chef for the rest of your life." That's very astute. However, it's equally strange that he doesn't seem to understand how acting like a total tool might also have some negative impact on your future career as well. Not to mention people wanting to kick your ass on the street. Dumbass.
Oh well, speaking of Chefs Who Are Known For Doing Poorly On Top Chef™, let's check in with 80's Hooker this morning. She's out in the shady part of the backyard and doing her Pilates exercises, which she says are extremely important to her because of her health issues. She's also mentioning how terrified she was when she was diagnosed with cancer that it was going to be an immediate death sentence, but she fought through it and survived, and says that experience has made her appreciate herself and her skills all the more. Aww, that is so sweet, I just really really wish she had more going on in the "skills" department to back that up...
...other than her obviously well-developed self-delusional skills...
...and before anybody gets mad that I'm saying that, I must tell you that 80's Hooker still believes that she's got a chance to win this whole show. Over DirtyBear. And the Volts. And Bitter Jen. See what I mean? Ah, well, time is running out and this is Vegas, her luck ain't gonna last forever.
So they head on over to the "M" Resort (where their unofficial motto is "Getting Here Is Half The Day!") they meet up with Scar and today's guest judge, and holy fuck, it's mailman/sex god Cliff Clavin from Cheers!...
...and, he's apparently still pissed that Normie and Woody got all the best lines...
Kidding! That's Charlie Palmer, who's a big shot restauranteur (welllll at least the screenshot says so... me, I've never heard of the guy) and Li'l Volt tells us that Cliffie's the "pioneer of American cooking" and that he's the one responsible for awesome young American chefs (such as himself, natch!) being able to achieve worldwide recognition as actual chefs and not just cooks. And get this: both of the Volts have actually worked for him at one time or another, and yet he's insisting to the rest of the cheftestants that he's gonna be impartial and not let that little tidbit color his judgment. Bitch, puh-leeze! I would SO have been calling bullshit all over that one immediately! Unless the guy hated both of the Volts and then I'd think it was totally cool.
However, I don't think that's the case, because Big Volt mentions that he worked for Cliffie there for about ten years, so my whole hatred fantasy just blew out of the window like a hooker in a drive-thru. Big Bry says Cliffie's a total perfectionist, so he's going to be intrigued to see what they're going to have thrown at them today.
Well, Scar tells us that today's round is going to be all about "the art of paring". Cool! Maybe they'll have to try to peel an apple with a single long stroke? Oh crap, wrong word. It's "the art of pairing" which Cliffie explains is a super-important part of menu-planning. How else would someone have come up with things as amazing as "chicken & dumplings" or "steak & potatoes" or "macaroni & cheese". Sorry, I'm so hungry right now that I could eat all three of those off the same trough plate.
In any case, Scar says natural pairings are not easy, and therefore they're not going to make things easy for the cheftestants, either. Their Quickfire Challenge today involves them having to make a dish incorporating "a snack food". I was all set to love the Magical Elves producers if those snack foods had been CheeTos, Funyuns and Beer Nuts, but no, it turns out they have to use these "Alexia" brand snacks that I've never heard of...
...most likely because they have that weird word "natural" on the packaging and are apparently made with actual vegetables...
Besides being a thinly-veiled and therefore huge product placement/commercial for these damned Alexia Snacks (that clearly taste nothing like Doritos or Fiddle Faddle or Ho Hos) Gay Ashlee claims they've been eating them around the McMansion for the last several days and that they have "lots of flavor" and will be "incredibly complex" to pair with a dish. I never thought I would ever hear anybody say that about, you know, waffle fries...
...but based on the chef's faces, I guess this must really be a challenge...
Although, to be fair, I'd be willing to bet Sexist Pigshit is just staring at Scar's tits. I'd be staring at her fabulous white go-go boots. Anyhow, they have 45 minutes for this challenge and are turned loose! Big Volt goes on a really loooong ass-kiss of how amazing Cliffie is and how he really wants to impress him, so he's thinking of making "steak onions" to pair with the Alexia's Onion Strips.
Fat Kid's telling us he's going to make a clam-celery salad with a potato-leek soup, and feels the need to explain to us morons (who foolishly and independently support ourselves) that a good pairing means the foods either complement each other or match exactly, whereas a bad pairing means the foods clash with each other, "Think about eating marshmallows with a steak."...
...thanks for the condescendingly simplistic example there, Elieinstein...
Naturally, Fat Kid trots out his awesome culinary school training, and how he's worked for "a buncha different chefs" who helped him develop this specific skill, and takes a moment to look around and sneer at the others, "I think a lot of people don't understand, you know, what works with what, and why it works with what..." Yeah, and you've won how many challenges? Oh yeah, that's right! Exactly zero.
Gay Ashlee's recalling his recent experiences of being a botto- er, I mean being in the bottom, and thinks that a big part of his problem has been that he looks around at what everyone else is doing and winds up getting influenced by them and their ideas. Plus, you know, it's hard to keep your mind on cooking when you've got major tent-pole for your teammate. Now, he's made up his gay mind, "Moving forward, I'm gonna do my food!" I just wish he'd show a little gay pride and maybe wear some assless chaps while doing it.
Back over at Bitter Jen's station, she's getting that sinking feeling again, which means she either having a relapse of her swine flu, or this Quickfire is not going well for her at all. She's worried that she cooked her pork chops way too early and if they sit for too long they're going to wind up sailing on into OverCookedVille. She's hoping as time is called that Scar and Cliffie will come to bizzit her first and prevent this tragedy from happening, but her prayers go unanswered and they head on over to Fat Kid's station instead...
...oh please, everything goes great with white truffle!...
Scar slurps it down (she's eating for two now, right?) and Cliffie says he likes the nice smokiness of the dish. He doesn't say whether or not it goes well with these pale imitation Not-So-Funyuns.
DirtyBear used the same snack and is giving them his version of a green-bean casserole...
...only he uses a StuffyCheffy™ word for it...
I'm unsure if it's a hit or not, because all they do is thank him and move on to Big Volt's dish...
...how ingenius of them to use a plastic pencil-shavings holder for their onion snacks!...
Not only did he serve the dish with the onion strips on the side, he also crumbled some on top of the steak. Cliffie comments on how popular the Not-So-Funyuns are with everyone and Big Volt agrees. Then Cliffie zings him with "You think that's because it's a safe choice?" and Big Volt suddenly gets that It-Smells-Like-My-Colostomy-Bag-Just-Popped-Look™ on his face...
...or maybe in this case that should be the It-Smells-Like-Your-Colostomy-Bag-Just-Popped-Look™...
Jeez, what is it with these people's unholy fear of Cliff Clavin? Christmas-on-a-cracker!... He's got a Village People 'stache and a bad 70's Consort-For-Men haircut. You'd think he was gonna haul off, amputate someone's ear and start gnawing on it the way everyone's tiptoeing around him. Anyhow, Big Volt insists he chose the Not-So-Funyuns because they really were his favorite snack, not because they were easy to use.
You will note that 80's Hooker, having faced down the other Big C, clearly has no fear of Cliffie or his opinions as she proudly tells him she chose the jalapeño onion snacks because she wanted to "play with the sweet and the spice"...
...and another reason 80's Hooker isn't afraid is because she's a giant nutball who serves glorified guacamole in a wine glass...
Scar points out that this is kind of like a parfait, and Cliffie casually mentions that it "has quite a tang." Ruh-roh. Meanwhile, Bitter Jen is sadly watching her porkchops metamorphose into doorstops and is sharpening a knife to slit her wrists with.
Shockingly, Sexist Pigshit isn't doing Greek food this week! I know, I totally checked outside to see whether or not the sun had exploded, too! Yes, instead of relying on his normal Greeky crutch, this week he's made a play on a Mexican dish called "chilaquiles" that he's paired with the hot pepper waffle fries...
...which my first boyfriend (who was Mexican) said he used to call "Chilly Willies" when he was just a li'l niño...
Cliffie's eating it and proclaims it to be really spicy... "There's some heat there." Pigshit looks like he's just spewed a truckload of wet 18-wheeler skidmarks in his FTLs and says idiotically "Yeah, that's the guajillo sauce." Then he makes a great big tardface...
...like it's definitely 4 minutes to Wapner and he nowhere near a TV...
And now I love Cliffie just a little more for making him do that. So what kind of awesome creation did Li'l Volt make?...
...well, it looks suspiciously like the egg of one of Siguorney Weaver's little outer-space friends...
I'm waiting for a mutant crab to come bursting out of the top and latch on to the front of Cliffie's face. All Li'l Volt gets is a "Thank you." and no further comment.
So what is Gay Ashlee food like when he's sticking by his own instincts and not second-guessing himself?...
...ummm, it's a lot like chips'n'dip?...
THIS is his bold statement on food? Yeah, Cliffie immediately cornholes him, saying the barbecue waffle fries are overpowering the mellowness of his dip soup. Perhaps Sticky Wickett will have better luck...
...except hers looks like my bulimic kitty already had a go at it and didn't like it...
Plus, didn't she get the memo that since 1990 you can't make anything containing fava beans without someone glaring at you and saying "It puts the lotion on It's skin, or else It gets the hose again."??!? Ah well, maybe it'll toughen her nipples.
As if we didn't know she was going to be last, let's see how they like Bitter Jen's hunks of dried-out fried-up footballs...
...too bad she couldn't have paired it with pork rinds...
She's super embarrassed to be serving overcooked meat to Cliffie and Scar and warns them beforehand, "You might need a little more sauce for the porkchop." After attempting to choke some of it down Cliffie says "It could have been a little less in the pan." and Scar gets all bitchy, "Yeah, it's a bit overdone." Oh come on Scar, don't even act like you're not used to putting leathery old oblong things in your mouth!
Not surprisingly, Cliffie's least favorite dishes are 80's Hooker's ("The textures were very creamy and the relationship with the chip I didn't get."), Gay Ashlee's ("There was something very peculiar about the combination of ingredients... they didn't work well together.") and Bitter Jen's ("Conceptually I think the dish was a good idea... that wasn't executed well."...
...I can't blame her for looking suicidal, I'd feel the same if I were lumped in with 80's Hooker and Gay Ashlee, too!...
As for the ones who did impress Cliffie, well, there's Fat Kid. Wait, Fat Kid??!? I'm not even going to transcribe what he said about that snotty looking dish because he just took the love I had for him and threw it all away. Also, after all of his showy pretend-ass-fucking of Big Volt for going "the safe route", it turns out he loves his dish after all. Impartial and unbiased my ass. The only one who wound up in the Top Three that I don't think is bullshit is DirtyBear with his fancy-schmancy version of green-bean-casserole. And the winner of today's Quickfire Challenge (pleaseohpleaseohpleaseletitbeDirtyBear) is...
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!!!!!
...HATE...
Yeah, fucking Fat Kid is the winner, and says after he was in the bottom last week he feels like this win is a bit of vindication for him. That's totally premature, but then again, I suspect that's not the only thing Fat Kid does prematurely. Well, at least it wasn't a High Stakes Quickfire, so he didn't win a bunch of money, and in fact there doesn't appear to be any prize this week at all (not even immunity!). So HA!
I'll be back shortly with Part Two!
love, J-Mo :)
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Party
By Alexia
Release date: 1998-06-01 |
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Thursday, October 22, 2009
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Current mood:  electric
Okay, I'm back, and all the chefs are freaking out because they have to cook a dish for Sideshow Bobbi and Michael Moore there. Bitter Jen will just die if she winds up being that person who gets ripped apart in front of everyone for screwing up and making a bad dish. Eh, like anything else, you get used to it. Just ask 80's Hooker. In any case, it gets even better when Scar says they'll be working in pairs, and each pair will have to make a family-style dish out of the ingredients that are contained in one of the five chef's Macy's bags! To determine the pairs they'll have to draw knives... 
...guess who's praying for a Volt of lightning that he can hitch his wagon to?...
The teams wind up like this:
Bitter Jen and DirtyBear using Michael Moore's ingredients.
Sticky Wickett and Big Volt using T-Flo's ingredients.
Fat Kid and MaryMann using Terence Trent D'Arby's ingredients.
Gay Ashlee and Li'l Volt using Sideshow Bobbi's ingredients.
Sexist Pigshit... and 80's Hooker using Mr. Miyagihashi's ingredients.
OMG, the only person that Pigshit absolutely positively did not want to be paired up with was 80's Hooker! I'm sure she's just as thrilled being saddled with Self-AbZorba the Greek and a bag full of Asian ingredients.
On the other end of the Darko Fear/Love spectrum, Gay Ashlee's just about jizzing in his Jockeys when he realizes he and Li'l Volt are to be coupled together, although he wonders whether Li'l Volt will be able to listen to anyone's ideas other than his own awesomely amazing ones. We all know Ashlee's a big bottom, he's just gonna self-lube, roll over and bite the pillow, so the answer is a big fat NO. Scar gives them 2½ hours to cook their dishes and they're off and literally running to grab what limited counter space the McMansion's kitchen offers. And I think Jesus sent a little gif(t) my way when we are blessed enough to see Sexist Pigshit's graceless re-entry into their house...
...plus the added bonus of watching Fat Kid try to vault over him, take a face-plant into the floor and wind up ass-in-the-air in front of Gay Ashlee!...
Somehow, Fat Kid is still able to get up and score the counter-space for he and MaryMann directly next to the stove. Everyone else just kinda has to make workspace wherever they can, and 80's Hooker (who didn't bother running upstairs at all) suggests ot Sexist Pigshit that they set up their prep area near the wet bar where he just took his tumble.
Naturally, because Sexist Pigshit is, well, a sexist pigshit, he's still fuming about being paired up with 80's Hooker. "When I found out I was working with Robin, I was livid. i was angry. I was upset. And I thought I was going home." Oh, we should be so lucky. Ah, he continues, "But then when I thought about it, I said let's make the best out of it, you know, let me take control, lemme do what I do. Whether or not she's my partner or not, I could do this challenge by myself."...
...aaaand the owners of Zaytinya can only watch as their reservation books slowly fill with cancellations...
Does Tool Academy still have any openings? Except he'd take that as a compliment. We'll come back to them later, right now we check on Team Unrequited Lust where Gay Ashlee and Li'l Volt are pretty much being forced to set up and cook on a couple of electric woks (provided by Macy's!) in the dining room. Since they have Sideshow Bobbi's bag and he's pretty familiar with her food, Li'l Volt suggests they make a ravioli, and he's pleased that Ashlee's on board with it (like his half-erection was gonna let him disagree) and they get to cookin'.
Upstairs on the balcony, our Team DirtyBitter finds DirtyBear and Bitter Jen going through Michael Moore's bag and noticing that there's not a whole lot of substance inside of it, mostly Asian condiments, some miso and bok choy, so it's clear they're gonna have to make an Asian dish... again. Poor DirtyBear, twice in one day! Hopefully he and Jen can pull off another good dish.
Fat Kid and MaryMann (Team FattMann) discover they have tons of beets and duckmeat and spot prawns, and they decide to tempt fate once again by having MaryMann make her special gnocchi, which have never once turned out properly in the last 2049 episodes of this show. She's done a great sell job, though, because Fat Kid is believing they'll turn out great and that they're gonna win this thing.
Checking back with Team Dysfunction, Mr. Miyagihashi's bag is, oddly, also full of Asian ingredients. Sexist Pigshit can't hide the tremor in his voice as he asks 80's Hooker if she's ever worked with Asian ingredients before, and according to her, she has. Then again, she confused Iran and India earlier, so I dunno if her memory is totally trustworthy. In any case, he's pulling out all these products that he never uses and is stressed, but he's not gonna let that stop him from being a total asshole to his teammate: "Robin's trying to give a little influence here and there, but I'm just, you know, kind of ignoring her at this point. I know she knows I'm a better cook than her, you know, without a doubt she'll listen to me and what I have to say... 'cuz it's my way or the highway."...
...I think he'd do well to remember she has a fucking knife in her hand...
Back over at Team Lust, Li'l Volt's still pretty much running the show, treating Gay Ashlee like his sous chef, but to be fair, Ashlee's pretty much just sitting there doing this the whole time...
...well, I guess in his own way he's still trying to showcase his strengths...
It's too bad supple, pouty lips aren't exactly, you know, a culinary skill. Ashlee says at one point he suggested they serve some grilled radicchio, but Li'l Volt suggested an asparagus coulis instead, and immediately Ashlee tossed out his own idea as stupid. "What was I thinking?" Duh, with your half-erect penis you ass-kisser. Meanwhile, Li'l Volt's telling us that if Ash "keeps his head down and keeps pushing" he's gonna be a great chef. Which is a nice way of saying that right now, eh, not so much.
Team Dysfunction's still limping along, and 80's Hooker's telling us she knows she can put out some great flavors, and if Pigshit can be "open to that" then she knows they'll do a great job together. She tries to make a suggestion and he immediately shuts her down and just sticks her with the shit-work. 80's isn't stupid, she recognizes that Pigshit has "taken the dominant lead" and she's OK with that, but she still wants to be heard and be a part of the dish creation. Sexist ain't having that, though, "Like I gave her little things to do, things that wouldn't affect the final product... and then I'm throwing out all of the stuff that she's doing."...
...and here's to hoping someone gets "accidentally" nut-punched in the near future...
Hey, here comes Daddy Tom (in his totally not-gay lavender shirt) to see what everybody's up to! Starting with Team FattMann, when Fat Kid tells him their plan is to put the spot prawns on top of the gnocchi, Daddy Tom raises his eyebrows. I dunno if they're violating the Eleventh Commandment ("Thou Shalt Not Place Creepy Seafood With Eyes Still Attached On Top Of Soft Innocent Gnocchi") or what, but it's clear he doesn't think it's a good idea. MaryMann and Fat Kid sorta sense this, but forge ahead with their idea anyways.
Downstairs he wades into the thick atmosphere of womanhate that Sexist Pigshit has created and asks what they're doing. Pigshit does a lot of bullshitting about how he's not familiar with most of the ingredients and how he's going to do what he can to put his touches on it. Daddy makes sure to clarify that Hooker's the one with the Asian flavor experience and Pigshit has none at all. Pigshit comes back with a backhanded dig at 80's Hooker when he retorts, "But I know how to cook so hopefully I can put something together." 80's kinda ha-ha-has real dryly and Daddy just shrugs and tells them whatever they're doing smells good...
...for something being marinated in loathing...
Back upstairs and talking to Team Lust, Li'l Volt's proud of the mini-kitchen that he and Gay Ashlee have made in the dining room, and he's busy telling Daddy Tom allll about the egg yolks they're going to put inside of their ravioli and place on top of their fish, so when people cut into the ravioli, the egg yolk will dribble down on it, thus reminding the diners of carbonara sauce. Ew. Tom wonders aloud if they're going to be able to handle the timing off putting together eggs and fish and pasta without getting tripped up, and Li'l Volt insists the Electro-Wok and the Griddle-Master will do just fine.
Daddy Tom interviews that he's impressed with DirtyBear and Bitter Jen's dish that's going to consist of Korean BBQ (which we didn't see yet) but he's openly questioning Fat Kid and MaryMann putting their prawns on top of gnocchi, he believes if the gnocchi are made correctly they'll be too soft to support the prawns and will turn into mush, but somehow I think we're going to end up with hard little potato-doughballs that're denser than dwarf-star fragments, so those prawns will likely be high and dry.
..."And frankly, I'm much more worried about how I'm gonna refrain from punching Tyler Florence in the puss."...
Since they have such an unequal partnership going on their dish, Gay Ashlee decides to do the butch thing and head downstairs to set the table and arrange the flowers on it. Way to bust up stereotypes there, Ashlee. Maybe next you can tinkle out pretty little melodies on the piano while the judges eat their dinner.
Meanwhile, MaryMann's getting stuck with cooking their spot prawns because Fat Kid clearly doesn't want to. She says it's a really tricky business, if you overcook them the slightest bit then it completely ruins their flavor. Instead, Fat Kid's going to be in charge of ruining cooking her specialty, the gnocchi. Dramatic music consisting of mostly minor bass notes is playing, so we know it's all going wrong.
With only 13 minutes left to go, Li'l Volt is cooking their bacon-wrapped halibut on the griddle when suddenly the heat goes away. Those electric appliances suck down a lotta juice and it seems they've blown a circuit! Li'l Volt's running around looking for a working outlet, and tells us that once you start to cook fish, you can't stop and start up again, and he's afraid that their dish is now doomed to failure because of it. It quickly becomes clear that the fish have gotten overcooked, but there's nothing they can do but serve them anyway. Ashlee tries to interview that they may both be screwed here, but we all know it's Li'l Volt's dish, and he's the one who will have to answer for it...
..."He is so screwed. And hopefully I'll be there to comfort him when the time cums."...
As the diners are seating themselves (no one comments on how pretty the table looks, mostly because it really doesn't, two pots of flowers does not a tablescape make, just ask Sandra Lee on those rare occasions when she's sober) it seems Sexist Pigshit isn't done denigrating 80's Hooker. She's searing their tuna, but he believes she's burning it instead, and thinks he's going home because of it. I dunno why he's saying that, because when they slice it, it looks just fine. Jeez, for a straight guy he's one of the worst drama queens of this whole bunch! "I'm just hoping that the judges like the food I'm gonna give 'em!" he whines. Well, again, we all know it'll be his food until they say it sucks... and then it's gonna be aaaaall 80's Hooker's baby!
MaryMann's not only struggling with trying to gently cook her eerie little spot prawns, but now that Fat Kid has brought the gnocchi out after cooking them, it seems they've somehow gotten way saltier than they were when she handed them off to him an hour ago. And yet, she doesn't say anything to him about the fact that clearly he did something to them to make them saltier. In fact, he tastes them and insists they're okay.
Back down at the diner's table in the backyard, Scar's asking T-Flo what Macy's Culinary Council actually does, and TyTy starts talking about how Macy's plans to get together with the charity group Feeding America in order to serve 10 million meals to help feed America's hungry. That's a really great thing that they're doing, and I'm all for it, but I can't help but think Macy's might be able to help a little more if they didn't charge $89.99 for a pair of Jessica Simpson Sansabelt E-Z Expanding Momjeans and $167.50 for a Mariah Carey thong...
...although I'd settle for seeing Jessica Simpson huck baguettes at Mariah's head any day...
Oh well, I'll put that wish in a letter to SantaBear and see what he can do. Back to the Elimination Challenge, time is up and the cheftestants have come out to serve all of their family-style dishes at once. Of course, to someone like me who grew up with three other siblings, food served "family style" means one kid is busy clumsily spilling a full glass of milk all over the place and crying over it while another kid has already flicked a big juicy booger somewhere in the casserole (and I've lost track of it's trajectory amongst all the peas) and a third kid is dropping his entire plateful of food on the floor under the table in the hopes that the cat will eat it. Okay, that kid was me, and no, it didn't work, the cat just got my hopes up by coming up and sniffing the lima beans, licking them once and then haughtily strolling away while raising his tail and giving me an appetizing view of his anus. Wait, where was I? Oh yeah, Team FattMann is describing their dish...
...another bowl with CSI-like ingredients...
Fat Kid gives most of the description, and when Scar asks if MaryMann has anything to add, she just smiles and says Fat Kid's doing the talking tonight. She pretty much kept herself free so's she could put her energies towards screwing up the food.
Next up is Team Dysfunction's dish... 
...oh please, that tuna is not burnt...
Sexist doesn't even bother letting 80's Hooker speak, although strangely enough, in front of the judges he uses inappropriate words like "we" and "our" and "us" when describing how "they" came up with "their" dish. Fuckstain.
We've not heard or seen anything about Team Invisible's dish (Big Volt and Sticky Wickett) so this is all a surprise...
...ohhhh, corn-caaaakes!..*drool*...
Big Volt's the presenter on this one, and I'm thinking he and Sticky must not have had much trouble or we would have surely been shown some of the genesis of their dish.
Now it's Team DirtyBitter's turn... 
...it looks a little flat to me, but then again I'm kinda used to ginormous American BBQ portions...
I kinda like how DirtyBear describes his dishes, they actually sound tasty without being overly fussy or froo-froo.
Last up is Team Unrequited Lust's unrequited dish...
...which could have easily been called "Fish, Interrupted"...
With that, the diners dig on in! Starting with Li'l Volt's dish (I'm not even gonna pretend any more, let's just leave Gay Ashlee's name off of it) Sideshow Bobbi says there's too much pancetta wrapping the halibut for her taste, and doesn't like the fact that it wasn't crisped up at all. Ty-D-Flo agrees and thinks it wasn't cooked at a high-enough temperature. Tiny Tewwible Toby notes the fish was overcooked, the pancetta undercooked, and Daddy Tom just doesn't like the idea of egg yolks mixed with halibut... see? It's not just me!
Michael Moore says when you compare Big Volt & Sticky Wickett's halibut to Li'l Volts, he likes theirs better because it has more flavor, and Terence Trent D'Arby speaks up that they were able to get a good color and texture into their fish that was lacking in Li'l Volts. Tyler and Tiny Twee Toby both like the spice combinations that the chorizo brings forth.
Scar then asks Terence Trent D'Arby what he thinks of the job Fat Kid and MaryMann did with his bag of ingredients, and he says once you sauté gnocchi it's hard for them to retain any lightness or fluffyness. Daddy Tom points out they've retained none of those characteristics because they're extremely dense and wants to know if he's the only one finding them overly salty. The entire table agrees with him there. Toby trots out that old joke about it being "a Monét... good from a distance, not too great close up."...
...how 1995!...
Damn! Now I need to go find my cassingle of "Rollin' With The Homies" as well! Be right back...
As if those critiques weren't damning enough, Michael Moore's talking about how spot prawns are "one of the most precious seafoods that we have" and that they should be "cherished" and I agree that it sucks that MaryMann apparently undercooked them, but I think he needs to lighten up and realize that this is not a global crisis on the same level as Mariah vs. Eminem, or Ashlee Simpson's singing career or even those fucking Bickering Gosselins.
Scar asks if anyone has tried their DirtyBitter beef, and TyTy says he was about to bring that up, saying that it's the one bite there that's both tasty and balanced. Michael Moore's in love with Bitter Jen's tomato-cardamom broth, he loves the flavor and the texture it adds to the dish. Everybody else seems to be too busy stuffing their faces with it to make any further comments...
...Scar especially seems to have the useful ability to cram an awful lot of meat in her mouth at once...
I'm right up there with her on that one. Anyhow, Scar then asks Mr. Miyagihashi how he thinks Sexist Pigshit and 80's Hooker did with his ingredients. He says Mikey-san and Robin-san deed-uh very werr, but-uh eef-uh he was-uh zem, he would not-uh have use-uh same-size-uh potions of scarrop and tuna-uh. Daddy Tom tattles that when he checked in on them they didn't seem to have a clear idea of what their dish was going to be and notes that there was a lot of tension in the air. Then he shocks the hell out of me when he says the dish was still successful in spite of all that crap. Sideshow Bobbi says she really liked it, too.
Back over at the "M", everyone's waiting in the Stew Room until Scar comes in and asks to see Sticky Wickett, Big Volt, Bitter Jen and DirtyBear, who are clearly the winners this time. Everyone else knows they're prolly fucked...
...which doesn't stop Fat Kid from picking at his sock lint...
Over at the Winners Judges' Table, Tiny Tofu wants to know if one of them took the leadership role on Team DirtyBitter. After they exchange glances at one another, they insist it was a collaborative effort and they worked really well together. Scar does get DirtyBear to admit he cooked the beef and Bitter Jen to own up to making the tomato-cardamom broth. Teensy Troll Toby says that he was still eating it and looking for more when everyone else was finished, and Daddy Tom claims he took the leftovers home with him.
As for Team Invisible, they had Ty-D-Flo's big bag of booty, and Sticky Wickett says Big Volt took care of the fish while she crafted the polenta corn-cakes. She continues that they both worked on the chorizo-sherry vinaigrette together (even though it was more Big Volt's idea) and now they are in love. I mean, they are happy to be on top this time. TyTy gets to reveal the winner, and after singling out Team DirtyBitter's Korean BBQ dish as the favorite, the winning chef tonight.... is Bitter Jen!
She doesn't seem to react or smile that much, but then when Scar says she also won a $10,000.00 gift card from Macy's she actually gets excited...
..."Now I can afford a Mariah Carey thong!"...
She's so happy that she even gives Tyler a kiss (oh, uck!) when she goes up to get her gift card. Even sweeter still is when she says she'll prolly buy DirtyBear a new suit or something, "He deserves a little of this $10,000.00!" Wow, how cool of her. She must still be sick.
Back in the Stew Room, after everyone is done congratulating Bitter Jen on her first Elmination Win, Big Volt drops the bad news that they want to see Li'l Volt, Gay Ashlee, Fat Kid and MaryMann. Wow, who'd have thought Team Dysfunction would have skated their way to the safety of mediocrity? After they leave the other chefs are all up in Big Volt's face asking what Li'l Volt did to his dish and wanting to get the inside dirt on how he fucked up. Big Volt gets super-pissed and says he's not going to talk about it and tells them to ask Li'l Volt himself when he comes back, "I'm tired of dissecting other people's plates."...
...I think you'd best put a cock sock in it, DirtyBear...
Then he asks DirtyBear if he tried the dish, and DB admits he didn't, to which Big Volt replies "Then you can't pass judgement. That's how I feel about this." DirtyBear looks suitably chastened.
Back over in LoserTown, Scar starts in on Team Unrequited Lust and wants to know who did what. Li'l Volt steps right up and admits he overcooked the fish and mentions that the electric kept shorting out. T-Flo jumps all over this and gets all dickish, saying that awesome TV chefs like him travel all over the country and do dinners in the strangest places every week, and that they can't use "The power went out." as an excuse for someone who pays for a very expensive meal...
...Um, okay, but the only thing those Macy's Council chefs paid for was part of their sanity in having to spend another evening in the company of Tyler Florence...
That explains why there were so many empty bottles of wine at dinner. Anyhow, it's all well and good to tell someone that they can't use cheap faulty wiring as a reason why they couldn't properly cook food, but this is total bullshit, because in a real dinner-party situation there wouldn't be a time-limit, or pre-set ingredients, or any of the other ridiculous conditions that the chefs always have to work under. TyTy should shut his pie-pie.
Daddy Tom says it was the wrong kind of fish to use in conjunction with the pancetta, and Tewwible Toby believes the texture of the halibut and the egg-yolk-filled ravioli were too similar. Then Gay Ashlee speaks up that he thought the dish was conceptually amazing and that it was hard for him to suggest his own inferior ideas. Scar wants to know if he was cool with playing bottom-bitch second fiddle to Li'l Volt, and we are treated to a completely ridonkulous answer: "It's sort of like saying 'Do you mind washing paintbrushes for Picasso?' in my opinion, 'cuz I think, frankly, Michael is amazing and I didn't mind washing painbrushes!" The reactions to this little speech are priceless...
...Yay! Amused and uncomfortable expressions for everyone!...
Daddy Tom's not really happy with that answer and says he thinks Ashlee's telling them he can only go so far in the competition because he's basically telling them there are other chefs much better than he is. Duh, that's exactly what he's doing, but when confronted with the bald truth of it like that, he turns around and backpedals furiously, saying he's as good as anybody there and then turns on Li'l Volt, pointing out that "Even Michael, who I think is a great chef, can overcook a fish!" You can tell Li'l Volt is feeling mega-awkward and is just shy of rolling his eyes back in his head.
Moving on to Team FattMann, Daddy Tom wants to know if they were happy with their dish. Fat Kid immediately starts listing all the parts that he had something do with as those he felt worked best in it. When Tiny Tewwible Toby asks if he was aware that the prawns were undercooked he claims ignorance. MaryMann steps up and takes responsibility for that. Scar wants to know if Fat Kid noticed they were underdone when he was plating the dish, and he claims he didn't check every single prawn for it's level of cookedness...
..."I mean, I know the dish sucked, but I'm not going to actually tell you what my role was in creating this level of suckitude...
Toby also wants to know if they didn't think gnocchi was a heavy item to have on a hot summer evening, and MaryMann also has to take responsibility here. T-Flo wants to know if she recognized they were too salty, and she gives a long drawn out explanation of how she noticed it (but doesn't directly call out Fat Kid for having obviously overseasoned them somehow to make them taste that way) and that they were going to have to "take it easy" with the rest of their ingredients in regards to salt. Daddy Tom skewers her argument by pointing out the obvious, "You know that doesn't work." He's right, if you've oversalted your mashed potatoes, you can't just balance that problem out by undersalting other components of the dish. Fat Kid tries to bullshit them some more by yammering about the flavor profiles making sense, and Daddy stops him cold to by saying the flavors may have made sense but the problem was their shrimp was undercooked and the gnocchi were supersalty and dense. End of story. And end of tonight's public flogging as well.
Back in the Stew Room, Fat Kid laughingly tells Gay Ashlee "That was a classic line!" and Li'l Volt awkwardly thanks him for all the overly sweet things he said about him. Ashlee is suitably embarrassed.
And the chef going home tonight is... MaryMann. This leaves our Season Six Team Rainbow with only one member, and that's Ashlee, and I don't see him sticking around much longer, either. As for MaryMann, well, you can kinda tell she was expecting to be sent home...
...and it's back to sad Seattle she goes...
At least she's cool and says goodbye to everyone, and even more shocking is seeing her and Li'l Volt's long deep hugging, and especially a hardened chick like Bitter Jen reacting so strongly to her leaving...
...I bet this is not gonna be the reaction when 80's Hooker goes home...
Now I think I'm gonna kinda miss seeing that messy-ass mop of hair every week. So what did you think of this episode? Should Fat Kid have been sent home instead for not owning up to all the stuff he did to make their dish suck? Do you think Gay Ashlee's prolly out next week? Will 80's Hooker ever stop annoying everyone?
love, J-Mo :)
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Thursday, October 22, 2009
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Current mood:  vital
Buenos Tardyforthepartys, 'Gasmii! Praise Jesus there was no new episode last week, I was in waaaay too much horrible debilitating pain (and clouded by waaaay too many drugs) to make sense of a fucking Bullwinkle cartoon, much less a complex reality TV show (and let's not even talk about how much fun it was trying to sit upright). HOWEVER, I'm all healed up now (thanks for all the well-wishes, that was so super-sweet of everybody) and ready to take on this week's episode. Let's start by playing a game, shall we?... 
...called "Guess Who Said That?"...
...If you caught this week's jam-packed episode of Top Chef then I'm sure you have a pretty good idea of the answer. If you didn't... well, Bravo will run it 94,263 more times to make sure you do. Also new this week: we get to hear someone vomit, the level of Hooker-Hatred gets cranked waaaay up, and the cheftestants host a delightful dinner party from hell! Why is it from hell? Take the jump and find out!...
First up, how awesome was it that DirtyBear pulled out another win last week? And yet even more awesome was the way he queened out over winning some new cookware...
..."Calphalon is faaaaaaabuloussssssssssss!"...
The last time I saw a bear making that big of a blowjobface was when it was announced that John Goodman was going to play an oxymoron (the "asexual gay guy") in Normal, Ohio. It's really too bad that show lasted about as long as the excitement of a fresh piece of Juicy Fruit gum.
Meanwhile, back at the McMansion, Gay Ashlee comes downstairs in the morning in his bathrobe to have some breakfast and make the other boy chefs uneasy...
...although, strangely, he's not the one that's pushing up on Fat Kid's ass...
I could hopefully credit him with more brains, and certainly more taste. Anyhow, Ashlee's telling us he knows he could have easily gone home instead of Island Mon, and he's feeling intimidated by the other chefs because he didn't go to culinary school. Then he immediately starts talking out of his ass, saying something about how Li'l Volt is an example of someone who doesn't seem like a culinary school chef because he's "down in the trenches" and that he's so "savage" and "really gets into it" and I'm thinking that Ashlee's got the beginnings of a serious boycrush...
...my gaylepathy tells me this is what they're thinking at this moment...
Li'l Volt himself tells us that he's always put cooking before everything else (except forehead tanning) and then says he has 2 kids, both girls, and being away from them makes him all the more determined to do well in this competition. Which is really sweet of him to say, but his interview segment makes a couple of things painfully clear...
...sorry, Ashlee, but between the O.G.R.S.H. (Over-Gelled Random Side-Hawk™) and that shirt, there's no way Li'l Volt's ever gonna D.L. for you...
Meanwhile Bitter Jen has come down with a nice gooey case of Swine Flu, but insists she doesn't need any *heave* sympathy, she just *hitch* gonna stay focused *urp* and "work through it". Then she makes me nauseous when she reveals that she's gone to work many times while still being sick and "that's what you have to do" sometimes. Gee, Typhoid Mary, I know you're a real trooper and all, but I'd prefer you stay home and keep your potentially deadly little microbes away from my seafood, K?
Anyhurl, they're just about to leave when Bitter Jen announces she's gonna go puke and runs off to go slam the bathroom door...
...here's hoping today's challenge involves greasy roast beef, 80's Hooker's shrimp and lard balls...
Over at the "M" Resort and Klassy Kasino (where being so far out of town just means you're closer to brothels like the Shady Lady Ranch) it's time to visit Scar and meet today's guest judge, the insufferable Tyler Florence...
...this dickbag is responsible for making hip-hop culture apologize for his abuse of the phrase "off the chain"...
He's also apparently a super-annoying Twitterer. I don't need any more reasons to hate him, even if I knew what a Twitterer was... the first four letters of that word are all I need to know about him. In any case, Scar sounds less than enthusiastic when she describes him as a "chef, author and *snort* television star". I'm guessing he was prolly hitting on her, and since he's not really an "author" in the megasuccessful sense of the word, I doubt she's interested. Plus, he's not in his sixties and coping with a heart condition.
DirtyBear says all the chefs know who T-Flo is from his TV shows and books, but curiously he doesn't mention how much everybody likes or is impressed by him. All he says is "I recognized him right when I got there."...
...hmmmm, which one is thinking "I'm so awesome." and which one is thinking "What a superdouche."?... Scar says this week they'll be focusing on cooking on the home front and then gives a plug for website cookster.com, which supposedly helps home cooks find "the perfect recipe for every occasion". Funny, i thought that's what Google was for... how else would I have ever found a recipe called "Pole Dancing Stripper Chicken Breasts A La Stealth"? Anyhow, today's cookster.com Quickfire Challenge will involve them having to create a dish using three "keywords" that will dictate the mood, taste'n'texture and what style of cuisine they have to make. To determine that combination they'll be using this... 
...a slut slot machine!... Gay Ashlee takes a moment to tell us that if he were putting in keywords on cookster.com he'd prolly choose "lazy" "broke" and "spicy". Mm-hmm, try "drunk" "horny" and "straightguy" and I'd say we're closer to the truth. OH, and BTW, Scar says this will be a "high-stakes Quickfire", the prize of which will be revealed later on (I'm hoping it's a deluxe George Foreman GrillMeister™)!
Sticky Wickett's the first one up to pull the handle on the one-armed bandit, and she lands "romantic" "tart" and "Latin-American". Cool, she gets to make a dish inspired by Charo! DirtyBear gets "stressed" "hot'n'spicy" and "Asian". He's a little worried since he cooks zero Asian food, but not as worried as Sexist Pigshit's gonna be, since he's been saddled with "stressed" "umami" and "Asian"...
...sorry Pigshit, they don't have a "jerkwad" "womanhating" and "Greek" combo!...
He actually asks Scar if he can spin again! Scar just laughs and says hell-no. Part of what's got Pigshit so spooked is the fact that "umami" is what's often referred to as "the fifth taste" (separate from sweet, salty, bitter and sour) and is difficult for some chefs to isolate and recreate. My exhaustive 20-second interwebs research indicates that MSG and parmesan cheese and pizza toppings like pepperoni, mushrooms, tomatoes and mozzarella are high in umami-flavor. So suck it, Sexist, this shouldn't be that hard.
Bitter Jen's got "adventurous" "nutty" and "American", while Fat Kid gets similar to Sexist Pigshit's combo, only his is "stressed" "umami" and "Latin American". Oh please, that's easy! Just make a Steak Supreme Chalupa™ with cheese and some extra grill marks on it. Li'l Volt does much better when he spins "adventurous" "tangy" and "Asian", while 80's Hooker jumps on the "stressed" "umami" bandwagon, only with "Middle-Eastern" food. Big Volt scores "adventurous" "crunchy" and "Asian" (try making eel and octopus egg rolls!) and Gay Ashlee rolls his eyes at "tired" "tart" and "Italian". MaryMann's the last up to play...
...too bad they don't have a "tattooed" "unwashed" "Chefbian" combo, either...
She is rewarded with "blue" "cheesy" and "Pantene Pro-V" "Middle Eastern" as her combo. Scar gives them their 30 minutes and the use of anything in the Top Chef Pantry and they're off! Fat Kid immediately tries to be a dick and hog all the umami-flavored shiitake mushrooms for himself. He becomes even more of a dick (in my book, at least) when he lets Sexist Pigshit have some, but denies Big Volt when he asks for a couple (80's Hooker smartly didn't bother even asking). He acts like everyone who spun "umami" is copycatting his awesome idea and insists he doesn't care what anyone else thinks about him because he's "lookin' out for number one". I suspect that attitude will be far more necessary after he gets sent home a loser from the show.
Meanwhile, Sexist Pigshit's saying how he's done French food, Moroccan food, Greek food (no shit) and Latin food, but he's never even touched on Asian cuisine before. In a similar boat (but on a different planet) is MaryMann, who's having trouble coming up with a Middle-Eastern dish. However, since she's been on a winning streak lately, she says she's feeling much more confident. They usually only air these kind of comments if someone's about to bone the shit out of a challenge, so I hope she didn't brag for nothing...
...she certainly didn't condition her hair for nothing, so I guess she's ahead of the game in that respect...
80's Hooker is also still flying high on her Quickfire win from last episode, but she's well aware that all some of the others still don't feel she deserves to even be in the competition at all. Over in Dryheaveland, Bitter Jen's doing her best to soldier along even though she feels like she's about to umami all over the place. The girl has zero confidence in what she's making, and that's rare for our Bitter Jen. If she absolutely has to blurk, I hope she at least hits Tyler Florence smack in the crotch with a hot steaming jet of it.
Time is called, hands up, and let's see how Sexist Pigshit was able to rape Asian food with his incessant Greekiness...
...ahhh, by not actually cooking much of anything!...
T-Flo actually likes the flavors of his dish. Fucking figures, what with douchebags of a feather and all that. Then they move on to Sticky Wickett's tarted up latin offering...
...beacuse it's not just horses and dogs that like to eat flowers anymore...
Her bloodsplattered plate there also doesn't involve much cooking. Since Sticky doesn't have a huge rack for him to gawk at, TyTy actually has to concentrate on the food, and mumbles "Nice job." with his mouth full.
Gay Ashlee's tired-ass Italian dish is next...
...I have since discovered that "puttana" actually does mean "whore" in Italian...
So Ashlee basically made "pantry-whore pasta". T-Pain & Flo Rentsa there says it tastes like it's "straight from the streets of Naples" and that it's very delicious. Gay Ashlee's all "Really?" and bats his eyelashes at Ty like he had no clue what he made or how it tasted, and his constant flirting tells me there's not enough privacy at the McMansion for him to successfully whack off.
Because Li'l Volt had "adventurous" he decided to do a dessert because he's not a pastry chef and really wants to impress another non-pastry-chef like T-Flo...
...mmmmm, seaweed Triscuits!...
I guess he gets points for originality, cuz Tyler says it's a great flavor combination. I'm so amazed at him, he was a complete asshole to everybody when he appeared on The Next Food Network Star a few weeks back, but maybe he's cool with these people because they're actual chefs. Oh, and they're not gunning to replace that horrible show of his.
Since Fat Kid was playing at being the Originality Police, what amazingly unique and unheard-of idea did he use for his Quickfire dish?...
...my GOD, no one's ever done a ceviche in a Quickfire!...
Yeah, way to hoard the mushrooms there, shitdick. He used, what?...two of them to make that dish? However, I finally get some satisfaction out of T-Flo's smarmy facial expressions when he doesn't say a word after tasting the dish, he only does this...
...dt-tss dt-tss dt-tss dt-tss, it's happy J-Mo dance party time! dt-tss dt-tss dt-tss dt-tss...
The only thing better would have been if he had flat-out ptooied the stuff back onto the plate. But this is good, too.
Let's see what DirtyBear was able to pull out of his ass...
...heyyyy, no fair! He cooked something!...
As they're scarfing it down, Scar asks him if Asian food is something he makes a lot, and he admits he never has. Tyler looks pissed that it seems to be so tasty for a first-timer's stab at it and mumbles "Well done." Again, with his mouth full.
Moving on to Big Volt, did he take my advice about the eelopus egg-rolls?...
...not even close...
More's the pity, too, because Ty-Ty gets all high and mighty, "I don't think it's Asian-specific, I think it's Asian in general." Which is still Asian, which is all he was asked to do, so, nice useless bitchy comment there, T-bag!...
...I think Big Volt agrees with me...
Ahhh, it's time to do a fly-by of Planet 80's Hooker...
...looks like a big granola-bar from hell...
Or a pile of deer droppings. She made a fatal mistake in using curry, cuz Scar immediately clocks her ass with "Curry isn't really Middle-Eastern, though." Oh snap! It's even more fun to watch how this observation completely strips 80's Hooker's gears as she begins to try and argue and then realizes that Scar prolly knows what she's talking about when it comes to curries...
...hey, at least she didn't trot out her cancer-card again...
Instead, 80's smartly agrees that she may have "blurred the lines" of the differing regions of India and the Middle East a little too much. Eh, only by a couple thousand miles, no big deal.
Also stuck with Middle-Eastern food was our MaryMann...
...And so she resorts to spit-foam. Again. ...
I'm sorry, I just can't stand that foam shit, even if this one is supposedly made of "preserved lemons". However, I suspect T-Flo is used to people spitting in the food they serve him, because he thinks it tastes good and that she did a nice job.
Back from her latest pilgrimage to worship her new god ELJER, Bitter Jen's wiping her mouth as they come up to taste her dish...
...argh, Top Scaylope strikes again...
Based on the fact that Jen says they had "basically no reaction at all" she's pretty confident they're not digging the dish much. I don't think that's totally true, though...
...this looked like a fairly definitive reaction to me...
Or maybe he was just checking out her boobs. Anyhow, now that they're all done, Tyler tells them that to make a dish based on three keywords takes a lot of creativity. Kind of like the creativity it takes to make up dishes for Applebee's, right T-Douche? In any event, his least favorites tonight are 80's Hooker (he says her dish was "a bit elementary" and that "a curry oil with a lot of salt in it doesn't mean Middle-Eastern"). Also sucking umami tonight was Fat Kid (bwahahahaha! T-Flo says the li'l bastard killed any umami flavor his mushrooms might have had by "drowning them in citrus"). That's what you get for abusing ceviche, asshat.
And our last loozah tonight is poor sick Bitter Jen, to whom TyTy prickishly sneers "Jennifer, the idea of, uh, putting caviar on top of scallops I don't think is that adventurous. We've been doing that in restaurants for years."...
...barf on him, Jen!...
Jen hates hearing her name called as one of the Bottom Three tonight, and it looks like she's about to bolt for the bathroom again. On the plus side tonight, Tyler actually liked Sexist Pigshit's dish (natch!) and was also impressed by DirtyBear's ability to put together such a flavorful dish without having made anything similar before. Li'l Volt also gets some love, and I just noticed that all of his favorites were Asian dishes. Maybe they were specifically Asian enough for him, I dunno. And tonight's QuickFire winner... is DirtyBear!
Yay, it wasn't Sexist Pigshit! Er, I mean, yay for DirtyBear! Scar tells him he has a choice to make. He can either take $15,000.00... or have immunity in the Elimination Challenge. Ooooh, good one, producers! After thinking about it for a moment, DirtyBear juts his fuzzy little chin out in a little half-nod and says "I'll take the money." which excites Scar to no end! To us, DirtyBear smirks a little and says at this point he's not worried about having immunity, so he's definitely taking the cash reward. Normally it'd irritate me that a chef would say such a semi-cocky thing, but DirtyBear has really proven himself since the start, so I don't mind it so much...
...silly hairstyle or not...
Scar tells them that in celebration of "the at-home chef" they've set up a dinner party at the McMansion, and they'll find out the details later on. With that everyone is turned loose to go back home, some of them foolishly thinking that they've got the night off to relax and make a home-cooked meal.
Not so. They arrive home to find that their fridge and pantry have suddenly been well-stocked with a buttload of ingredients. Plus there are stacks of new dishware and random flower arrangements laying around on the dining room table. Then Scar (and her fabulous kelly green 70's strapless-tube-top-and-genie-pants-combo) pops up to invite the cheftestants to meet with her outside in the heat, where they are greeted by this...
...a wide selection of upscale bag ladies!...
Scar starts talking about how in "these tough economic times" more and more people are staying in for home-cooked meals instead of eating out. I'm sure she's feeling that pinch just like the rest of us, and clearly she knows what it's like to be reduced to making (and eating) things like "Burger Bun Mexi-Melts" (stale hamburger buns topped with Velveeta and salsa and thrown in the oven) and "Leftoverture Casserole" (anything found locked up in Gladware in the fridge, dumped in a pan, covered with those french-fried onions and thrown in the oven). Or worse still, the dreaded "Generic Boxed Macaroni & Cheese (with Pink Cheese Powder)". You may think I'm kidding here. I assure you, I have eaten all of these.
Anyhow, in less than three hours, the cheftestants will be throwing their own at-home dinner party for the "Macy's Culinary Council" which is made up of T-Flo and four other chefs named Nancy Silverton, Govind Armstrong, Takashi Yagihashi and Tom Douglas...
...formerly known as 90's New Jack Swing Kings Color Me Badd...
Oh, how I miss me some Color Me Badd! ♪ IIIII aaaa-dorrrre, ♪ miiii aaaa-morrrrre ♪ Excuse me, I have to go find a cassette tape I know is buried in a shoe-box somewheres...
love, J-Mo :)
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Tuesday, October 06, 2009
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Current mood: satisfied
Checking in with Island Mon Ron, he seems to be moving forward, although that's hard to really tell when he's saying what sounds like "Glarble flooble mergunloquizitz derr wurrble plotzebbliex kligbuvorts dalg glidje blimlimlim"¹ He further confounds me when he continues, "Dylfen qwexenjogg kurggaviffent blechenzoop snorpft botchycullit!"² I'm not sure, maybe he had oral surgery, but he's getting more and more mushmouthed with every episode. Meanwhile, while he's telling us all of this I happen to notice something a tad disturbing that he did with his sauce in the Kowboy Kampout last week as well...
¹ - "To deconstruct the paella, I'm going to smoke the chicken and make a saffron broth, and also put some nice garnish on the plate to make it look chic."
² - "I have made so many versions of paella in my restaurant that I believe out of all of the challenges this is going to be the one that I win."
...drouvapf juxkywribletz ichkyblehbble!³...
³ - He tasted his sauce with his bare fingers!
I may be ignorant of chef's etiquette, but isn't this kind of thing frowned upon? Or are bare fingers considered okay and it's only icky if they reuse a tasting spoon? Either way, I'm kind of skeeved out by it. Meanwhile Fat Kid points out that perhaps Ron doesn't understand what deconstructing the dish really means, because it seems like he's just remaking paella but using a slightly different set of ingredients. I hate to agree with Fat Kid, but I think he might be right.
As for his own dish, well, he's trying to deconstruct Sweet & Sour Pork, which is one of my all-time favorite dishes, especially if it's done right. For some weird reason it appears that he brought his own digital pressure cooker to the Top Chef Kitchens, and it's a beaut. It's all cheap plastic and blue duct tape (he claims the baggage handlers on his flight from Atlanta fucked it up) and he thinks it's funny that he's working with his own "frankencooker". What's not so funny is when it explodes and sends hot steaming pork all over the place...
...there comes a time in everyone's life when you really ought to let go of your Hamilton Beach Pressure Cooker...
What's great is that not only does it douse Fat Kid in half-cooked porklets, but it showers the same on Big Volt, which I'm sure he's pleased about. Gay Ashlee takes a moment out to read my thoughts when he observes "This thing is ghetto! The Top Chef Kitchen is packed with pressure cookers in the back, but he's got his own magical one. I dunno what he was thinking." My guess is he was thinking he was awesome and therefore nothing else (like pesky rational thoughts) could get through to him. Plus he's spending a lot of time hating on 80's Hooker, so maybe this is a little karmic justice.
Speaking of 80's Hooker, she says she really doesn't like clam chowder, so she's going to make some kind of fennel flan. She leaches away a little of my respect for her when she acknowledges that she has immunity so she's just going to "have fun" with the challenge. That attitude is not going to endear her to any of the others. What's also not endearing her is the fact that she keeps up a steady stream of talking out loud to herself while she's cooking, which is clearly getting on the nerves of those around her, namely Sticky Wickett, who still has to worry about being eliminated if she doesn't do well in the challenge. "I'm really stressed out, I'm in a bad mood, and I've really had enough!" And she's about to get even more!
Because Sticky's deconstructing fish'n'chips, she's trying to make these elaborate potato chips that have herbs embedded in them, and she's having a lot of trouble making them get crispy. I'm not sure why she's doing that today, when they won't be served until tomorrow, but that's really beside the point. At any rate, she's standing next to the oven and babying her chips along when 80's Hooker calls out and actually asks Wickett to pull her pan of pancetta out of a nearby oven! 80's casually faux-apologizes, "Sorry, I know you're busy, too." Um, yeah... she's busy not having immunity, bitch! Sticky is furious and is ready to kill her, but she quietly brings Hooker her pan...
...and suppresses the urge to send 80's Hooker to the ER to have to undergo a pancettectomy...
Seriously, does this woman truly wonder why everyone in that house hates her? Cancer-survivor or not, it's kinda rude to sit there and flaunt your immunity by making wacky food and expect others to help you out with that. Not to mention being intentionally annoying in the kitchen by yammering nonstop (in a response blog she claims she tells people to just "ignore her" but that's a really shitty response when you're breaking people's concentration). I don't hate the woman the way these people do, but I think she missed a golden opportunity to create some goodwill with the others by being extra-helpful to them instead of making it the other way around.
Here comes Daddy Tom in his pretty purple chef's coat to make them even more nervous! Stopping by Gay Ashlee's station he wants to know if he has a lot of experience with Shepherd's Pie. Ho-ho, nope, just with the shepherds themselves. Ba-dump-bump-tsss! Ashlee tosses out a few words like "flavors" and "textures" and "pureé" but that doesn't fool Daddy Tom who clocks him on the fact that he has no idea what he's doing other than lamb and mashed potatoes.
Meanwhile, Bitter Jen is doing everything in her power to stay as far away from Daddy Tom as she can, every time he approaches her station she runs away to another part of the kitchen, apparently because she's scared to talk to him doesn't have time to talk to him. Instead, he checks in with Island Mon Ron, who immediately says he needs some luck. This request confuses Daddy...
...because how else has Island Mon made it this far in the competition?...
Ron says he needs luck because he always makes traditional paella. Daddy Tom reminds him that the challenge is to make an untraditional paella. Then Island Mon's cracks really start to show when he flat out asks Daddy Tom if he knows any good tricks to accomplish this! Wow, did he really just ask for help with the challenge from Daddy Tom? Daddy just laughs and says he can't give any answers, he can only ask questions. Not to state the obvious, but that was not a smart move, Ron.
Finally he gets over to Bitter Jen's station to ask her about her deconstructed lasagne. She says she's got a pure tomato sauce, some flatiron steak she'll be cubing up, and she's made her own pasta (instead of going with Barilla or Buitoni). He notes that she seems rather stressed, and she admits deconstruction isn't something she's done before but she's sure as hell gonna try. Or make someone cry.
Back at the Chefs McMansion, Island Mon is starting to seriously freak out about having drawn paella, because apparently that's a major part of Michelle Bernstein's menu. Suddenly Fat Kid appears (in an undershirt with a horrible greenish stain over the left tit) and asserts that Ron better do a good job on it, because Bernie really knows her food and knows what she's talking about. Which is weird, because earlier he seemed to think that she didn't know fuckall and was so swayed by 80's Hooker's sob story that she stupidly handed her a Quickfire win and immunity to boot...
...come on Fat Kid, you're on TV for God's sake!...
It gets even worse when Fat Kid explains that the rice in a paella is fully cooked and gets crunchy on the bottom of the pan from drying out. For someone who claims to make paella all the time, this appears to be news to Island Mon Ron...
..."Bedizzleff karumphostylix peezelswuffit blig?"†...
†"What?"
DirtyBear is honest and tells Ron he's afraid he's just making regular old paella and not deconstructing it at all. Then he and Fat Kid spend the next 20 minutes telling Ron how he can achieve that, and I'm left wondering would any of them have been this helpful to a fellow cheftestant if it had been one of the girls?
Speaking of which, Sticky Wickett, MaryMann and Bitter Jen have all gathered to have a bitch session. Sticky's super-irritated with 80's Hooker and the fact that she just won't STFU when she's in the kitchen. However, her mood is somewhat brightened by the fact that Sexist Pigshit apparently still has no clue what's actually in Eggs Florentine.
It's the day of the Elimination Challenge, and today they are cooking in the kitchens that belong to Marinelli's Restaurant inside the "M" Resort and Klassy Kasino, and they've got only one hour to cook. They'll be serving in pairs, but their food will be judged solo. As the diners gather we are treated to yet another unpleasant sight...
...a scowly little penis with ears...
And a brand new scar on the top of his noggin (you can almost see where they tried to cover it with makeup on the upper right side of his forehead)! Li'l Volt and Sexist Pigshit are going to be the first to go, and naturally Li'l Volt is excited because this challenge was made for him (plus, let's face it, he's like a sunburnt Jesus in the Kitchen, if Jesus was kind of a dick to everybody). Sexist Pigshit, on the other hand, is not at all happy with the presentation of his dish, he thinks it looks sloppy (and he'd be right, it looks like barf-o-rama) but he's sure it tastes good. That sureness drains away when he gets a good look at Tiny Tewwible Toby sitting there like a hungry yet malevolent yard gnome.
And leading off is Li'l Volt...
...truthfully, my favorite kind of salad has only two pieces of lettuce in it...
...followed closely by Sexist Pigshit...
...and if you can't think of any other way to Greek it all up, just add phyllo dough!...
Pigshit is so fucking nervous that he stumbles all over his description, sounding completely incompetent compared to Li'l Volt's confident little speech. After the Mikes leave, they attack his dish first. Scar asks Tiny Tewwible Toby if he liked the Eggs Florentine, and he replies "I didn't really care for it, I mean, I... no." He says it wasn't a deconstruction as much as a reinvention, and he likes the original better. Daddy Tom wants to know where the egg whites are in the dish, and notes that Pigshit left some stuff out. Perhaps even more telling is Teller's face after eating it...
...perhaps this is International Mimeface™ for "I'm choking on shitty phyllo dough!"?...
However, Li'l Volt's dish is getting universal praise, Bernie says the execution on it is beautiful and notes that he really embraced the deconstruction theme. Tiny Tewwible Toby complains, though, that the spherified salad dressing didn't "explode" the way Li'l Volt said it would when he broke it open (which is stupid, because he didn't say it would "explode", he said it would "ooze" down into the rest of the salad) and this leads to Penn jokingly saying that he and Teller could make the dressing explode... but it would kill everyone. This amusing little sally is greeted by crickets in return and I gather from the look on Toby's face that he's thinking...
..."Finally! Someone who is unfunnier than me!!"...
Big Volt and Sticky Wickett are going next, and Sticky's still fucking around with her crappy little tater chips. After deep frying them they're still soggy, so she tries to crisp them up in the oven. And immediately incinerates most of them. So now she's got exactly two chips for each plate. Poor thing, the word was "deconstruction" not "destruction". Big Volt, on the other hand, is feeling just fine because he's got everything under control... until he walks out and sees how huge Penn is, and how small his tiny Reuben-esque sammich is in comparison, and thinks maybe he should have upped the portion a little bit. See for yourself...
...it's like eating a little crime scene!...
However, Sticky Wickett's dish fared far worse on the anemic artwork scale...
...like a trail of sad little bread crumbs leading to the Land Of Disenchantment™...
She does her best to present it well, and lays out how she's covered all the ingredients ("The only thing I'm missing is the newspaper!", which I didn't get at first, but then the BF told me that in the U.K. it's traditionally served wrapped that way) but Tiny Tewwible Toby's just staring at his plate and looking puzzled.
Bernie says she doesn't love the fish, and Daddy Tom echoes that, saying it's dry and overcooked. Tiny Toby points out that "She left out the chips!" and Scar agrees! Teller's making more overexaggerated faces to show he doesn't like it and I'm kinda wishing he'd choke a little because he's kinda annoying with that shit.
However, Big Volt's done it again, Bernie loves the tuna and wanted to lick the plate. Daddy Tom is impressed that if you close your eyes you can taste the same flavors as a Reuben. Ahhh, but big fat Penn says he hates to disagree with "the experts" but he didn't think it tasted much at all like corned beef and sauerkraut. Teller's face says it wasn't Reuben to him, either. Or maybe he has to take a really urgent dump, six of one, half-a-dozen of the other.
Back in the kitchen, Gay Ashlee's discovering that his parsnip pureé has turned out "a little bit gummy" so instead of serving it, he replaces that part with pureéd peas. How very Blechsorcist of him! Oh well, even though he just boned his own dish, he takes time to help Bitter Jen plate hers by putting garlic chips on top of her gnesala (that's "lasagne" deconstructed, natch!) and tells her "If you win I expect $15,000.00!" Jen laughs bitterly and says "Ahhh, this isn't winning."
Of course, it's even more fun to watch Ashlee realize that he's serving a fucked up Shepherd's Pie to a cranky Brit like Toby, but here goes anyhow...
...for some strange reason looking at this dish has me hearing Tubular Bells and thinking erotic thoughts about Jesus...
And here's the heaven that is Bitter Jen's dish in comparison...
...she's right, it is sloppy seconds...
Bernie is impressed that Bitter Jen has pretty much nailed it to the wall with a textbook deconstruction of meat lasagne, and Scar likes the fact that her crispy parmesan cheese captured the crusty top that comes on such a dish. On the other end of the spectrum, Daddy Tom is disgusted with Gay Ashlee's terrible cooking of the lamb chops, some are near-raw and others are blackened husks. Toby can't believe that Ashlee thought he could get away with substituting peas for the potatoes that are kind of a main ingredient in Shepherd's Pie. FAIL.
Now it's Fat Kid stuck with Island Mon Ron as they attempt to get their shit ready to present, and he's telling us that Island Mon seems to be totally out of it, running about the kitchen looking dazed, as if he's not sure what's really going on. OH, that's right! He really doesn't know what's going on! Poor guy, he can't get his rice to crisp up for his paella-ish thing and is stressing bad. At least I think that's what he said. Too late now, it's time to face the bitchy little Brit...
...and try to make him nauseous...
Whereas Fat Kid's plate looks more pornographic than anything else...
...with a sexy pair of disembodied porkesticles...
As was feared, Island Mon Ron's description basically points out that normal paella is made with garlic and oil, and he's simply made the same thing and substituted lemon for the garlic. He also mentions the dish having an ingredient that sounded like "cho-cho". Anybody have any ideas there? Curious. Fat Kid's dish looks divine by comparison (especially when he mentions the "light light light citrus dressing" he's used on his raw broccoli salad).
No one's singing any paeans to the paella, and in fact everyone is finding it exceedingly dry, the rice is totally overcooked and Bernie's super-disappointed that there's no crispety-crunchety-crust like paella should have. Scar says it's not deconstructed at all, and Daddy Tom calls it "a sad, sad bowl of food"...
...that's currently trying to throw itself off the table...
On the other hand, Daddy's liking the taste of the pork balls, but Tiny Tewwible Toby thinks the dish looks horrible, "like a couple of bull's testicles!" at which point Scar pipes up that she's had author's bull's testicles (Penn makes sure to interject a smarmy "I'll bet." here) and that these pork balls are "actually a little big". Penn goes on to say that there's something a "little bit unhealthy and unpleasant about sweet & sour pork" and that unpleasant unhealthiness is really coming across in Fat Kid's dish. But he means it as a compliment. Gee, if it's unhealthy then I hope it doesn't give you cancer, and if it does, you betta not tell nobody but God. Otherwise you're being disgraceful and making a cheap grab for attention. Fat little fuck.
MaryMann and DirtyBear are the last duo to go, and DirtyBear thinks his dish looks like 13 shades of shit. MaryMann's not too excited for her presentation, either, but here they come...
...aaaauuuggghhh, not foam!...
Does carrot foam make you fart orange clouds? I wonder. Oh, and here's DirtyBear's...
...he's right, it looks like a rest stop in Nogales...
DirtyBear's description lasts about 27 minutes because there are so many damned ingredients in his dish, and I think he really pulled the hardest one of them all. When he gets done and they start eating, Penn is the first to break the silence and say he doesn't want to have any other mole ever again after eating this one. Wow. Bernie says it's clear he worked his chubby little butt off on the plate. Teller looks like it was good enough that he might even speak.
Also, Bernie thinks MaryMann "kicked ass" on her dismantled pot roast, and Tiny Tewwible Toby thinks it's the best cooked piece of meat they've been served all day. Daddy Tom simply thinks she nailed it.
They should have been playing clown music as 80's Hooker readies her dish to be served, because it just looks wacky as fuck. She claims that she's still nervous even though she has immunity, and I say that's a load of mole. She also makes a rather bad choice of wording when she tells the diners that drawing New England Clam Chowder was "a dubious honor" because that clearly says she didn't like the original dish. So here's what she did instead...
...yay for white Jell-O salad!...
Scar says it reminds her more of cream of celery soup than clam chowder. Tiny Tewwible Toby says that the texture of it is "repulsive... like soup that's been left overnight". Oooh, good one, T³! Yup, I'd say that's another FAIL. But did anybody really expect anything different? I know I didn't. And with that, it's time to head back to Judges' Table.
In the Stew Room, Scar arrives and calls for MaryMann, Li'l Volt, DirtyBear and Bitter Jen! Didn't they sometimes used to call the bottoms first? I wish they'd do that once in a while, it'd be fun to watch Sexist Pigshit's face when he finds out he's in the bottom, LOL! Actually it's fun right now to watch him and Fat Kid looking all pissed off because they know they're not in the top, either! It's a win-win.
Daddy Tom tells Li'l Volt that his use of chemicals in his Caesar Salad Dresspheres was used to great effect and it's dishes like that that make people get excited about food. Oh please, show me a Double Whopper with Cheese and I'll get plenty excited. In any case, Bernie tells MaryMann that she's normally not a fan of Pot Roast, but she fell in love with her version of it. Daddy also tells DirtyBear that there while there were a zillion things going on in his dish, they were all necessary and all perfectly in balance. Tiny Tewwible Toby tells Bitter Jen that he was impressed with the confidence she showed in keeping her dish so simple, but it worked extremely well, and Daddy thinks it was a nice surprise that things turned out so well in light of how freaked out she was when he talked to her the day before. So who won? Bernie gives the honor to... DirtyBear (for win #2!)...
...I just love to include Li'l Volt's Many Faces Of Frustration™ with our winners...
PLUS, DirtyBear wins a set of Calphalon Unison Nonstick cookware! Or, at least the box that contained it, because there's no way he'd be able to carry it that easily if those pots were really in there. After going back to the Stew Room where everyone oohs and ahhs over DirtyBear's new pots and pans, they find out the loozahs tonight are Sticky Wickett, Island Mon Ron and Gay Ashlee.
There's no point in reiterating all the ways in which these three sucked shit through a tube tonight, the bottom line is that they didn't so much deconstruct the food as they devolved it. Much like tonight's viewers' poll...
...3. He's an idiot who thinks you pronounce "paella" as "pie-ELLAH"...
And the one going home is no shocker at all... it's Island Mon Ron. He's very philosophical about it, saying he's got no regrets about how far he came, and says to be a part of Top Chef when he started out as a poor boy in Haiti is one of the best American Dreams he can think of. Awww, that's so sweet. At least, I think that's what he said.
So there we have it! What did you think of this episode? Was Fat Kid wrong for making the comment he did about 80's Hooker mentioning her cancer, or do you think she did it for sympathy? Is DirtyBear a dark horse to maybe win this thing? And can anyone explain the appeal of Penn & Teller to me? I'd love to know what I'm missing out on.
Since there is no new episode this week, I will be returning with a new recap sometime after the 7th. Truth be told, I threw my back out today and I could use a rest from sitting at the computer, so I'm going to take some drugs and bid you goodnight. Thanks again for all the fun comments, even if you disagree with me!
love, J-Mo :)
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Tuesday, October 06, 2009
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Current mood:  annoyed
Hey hey hey, what's up people? I may have spoken about my brush with the culinary world before. I don't like to talk about it much, because I don't want people to think I'm trying to be all grand or pretentious. However, I can say that I was a chef for about 11 months at one of the world's best-known restaurants, making some of the most famous and popular dishes of all time, such as Big Macs™ and Quarter Pounders™ and lemme tell y'all bitches, I was goood. I handled the entire New Year's Eve Dinner Rush of '88 all on my own... well, OK, there was another kid named Robert who was supposed to be working the grill with me, but he was literally semi-retarded and kept wandering off to the walk-in fridge to stuff cheese-wrapped McNuggets in his mouth so I wound up working both grills by myself for most of that evening while he made smiley-faces out of pickles on my prep-table and giggled and farted a lot... 
...and this is how much I was paid per hour...
Yeah, that's not a lot of compensation for having to put up with Mr. NuggetChomper McPicklefart all night. Eventually Robert had an "accident" and had to go home. Anyhow on tonight's episode of Top Chef it's going to be all about the "deconstruction" of food, which I never realized I actually had experience with, because during my tenure at Mickey-D's we were still making the fabulous McD.L.T. that is pictured above! For you kids out there under 30 who might have missed out on it, this was a sammich where they kept the sizzlin'-hot meat patty away from the ice-cold lettuce, tomato, pickle, onion, cheese and mayo portion of the burger by means of a bulky (and highly environmentally unfriendly) styrofoam package, and the customer was responsible for putting the two sides together (which would never fly these days, people are too fucking lazy to put their own hamburger together... hell, they've barely got the energy to waddle up to the counter and order the damned things! Or maybe that's just me). Anyhow, after the jump, we'll get to see 80's Hooker annoying the shit out of everyone, Sexist Pigshit becoming more and more hostile, and Fat Kid making snide comments about people with terminal illnesses...
After we get to relive Daddy Tom spitting out Sattine's food and our fey Frenchman getting le kiquéd a le curbe we open on a rather somber atmosphere in the Chef's McMansion...
...Ahhh, poor Sattine. *snif* Je vous verrai aux carrefours...
Next, we get to hear Sexist Pigshit saying how much everyone loved them some Sattine, and so he decided to go into Sattine's closet and pull out his French Maid costume pile of little red neck scarves, and so today all of the cheftestants are going to "wear his colors" and "represent" for him. Yeeeah, bwoyee! That may be the first time in years that an American has said that about someone from France. It's especially amazing coming from a wanksta like Sexist Pigshit. White people are funny.
Of course, once again, he's complaining that Sattine was a better cook than some of the people that are still in the competition, namely 80's Hooker. He doesn't sugarcoat it, either, "She can't cook for shit." Speaking of 80's Hooker, she's yammering a bunch of crazy shit to her roommates Sticky Wickett and Bitter Jen (some kind of wacky story about her childhood neighbors and the way they used to collect rattlesnakes) and I dunno if she's got a mild case of Asperger's Syndrome or what, but they're clearly annoyed with her constant yappy-yap-yapping and are not bothering to hide their annoyance in their faces...
...these expressions may be non-verbal, but I'd say they're at full volume nonetheless...
And somehow she still keeps babbling at them like they want to hear the fascinating story of Robin As A Child™. Bitter Jen thinks 80's Hooker has been lucky and that the other cheftestants are "getting fed up with it." Ah, but maybe 80's is more perceptive than I gave her credit for, "The general concensus is I should have been the one that was gone." Mmkay, but then she heads right back over into Deludedville when she insists she's proud of the "simple food" she's put forth, and believes that that in and of itself sets her apart from the others. Well, in a way she's right: no one else has set about trying to poison the judges.
Things are getting tense, though, and you can clearly see that as they're preparing to leave the McMansion for the 2 hour drive to the "M" Resort and Casino. Everyone's wearing their Sattine-scarves except her, and since no-one bothered to give her one, 80's Hooker is forced to go up to Sexist Pigshit and ask him for one. He's not even bothering to hide his utter disgust for her, and won't even look at her as he hands her one...
...wow, another full volume non-verbal expression!...
I'm kinda shocked he didn't try to strangle her with it. In any case, once they arrive at the "M" and walk into the Top Chef Kitchen and Scar sees they're all wearing their red scarves she actually breaks character and cracks up...
...which is nice to see now and then...
Standing next to her is today's guest judge, James Beard Award Winner Michelle Bernstein, who's been on this show before, and has even beaten Bobby Flay in an Iron Chef America challenge. DirtyBear says that Bernie there has eaten at his restaurant in Atlanta before, and he knows she likes "clean and simple food". I'll bet she likes "clean and trimmed facial hair", too. Just sayin'.
Meanwhile Scar's telling us that Vegas is the land of temptation (and venereal diseases, don't forget our little microscopic pet friends) and that there's a constant battle going on between the angel on your left shoulder and the devil on your right. Oooh, that is so true. Unfortunately for me, my angel is thin and pasty and wears skinny jeans and eyeliner and whines like Christian Siriano, saying "fierce hot tranny mess girlfriend snap snap head roll" a lot and annoys the fuck out of me, while my devil is big and beefy and wears booty shorts and not much else and says dirty things in the deep dulcet masculine tones of John Goodman while flashing his big dick at me and guess who I wind up hanging out with a helluva lot more?
Well, for today's Quickfire Challenge, they're going to be asked to make a duo of dishes that represents their personal battles as a chef between good and evil, "Like the battle between being healthy and clogging your diner's arteries." Scar intones darkly. Or, you know, like the battle between marrying for love and marrying a super-rich author old enough to be your daddy. Anyhow, they get one hour, and the winner will get immunity in the Elimination Challenge.
Because he is a moron and clearly (if subconsciously) wants to go home, Gay Ashlee decides he's going to ignore the Lesson Of The Ice-Cream Maker™ and attempt to produce a duo of custards. In a Quickfire. "I'm taking a pretty big risk, but if I execute it perfectly I know that I'd win a Quickfire with two custards!"...
...and it's just perfect that he's making this face, cuz I think he's about to blow it...
Fat Kid, on the other hand, is hearkening back to last season's theme of Top Scaylope by making scallops two ways, and blah-blahs that his angel vs. devil is fatty vs. fat-free, natch! Yawn, zzzzzzzzz. I do wake up a little bit when he gets even puffier as he insists he deserves to win this Quickfire "because I'm the best fucking cook here!"...
...funny, I would have said he was Most Deserving Of A Swirlie, but that'd be redundant...
We'll come back to this chubby little prickpoke later. In the meantime, 80's Hooker is about to drop her bombshell, and it's a doozy. She says her inspiration for her dishes today is the fact that she was diagnosed with cancer, and her angel vs. devil was going sugar-less vs. sugar-y, because apparently sugar is a no-no for cancer victims and she had to struggle between trying to be healthy and being bad. Wow, that's some heavy shit. I wonder how the others are going to react when they find out about that.
Over in Bro-Ville, Big Volt's taking a cue from Li'l Volt and is trying to use the liquid nitrogen to make something. It seems like all he's succeeded in doing is freezing his ladle to the bottom of his pan, and upon seeing this Li'l Volt offers to help him out. All he gets in return is a peeved "I know how to do it, shut up asshole!" See why I call Biggie only marginally more mature?...
...somebody needs a nap...
Big Bry notes that while he's won three Elimination Challenges, he's been kinda sucking baboon ass in the Quickfires, mainly because he's been "trying to do too much". This time he's going to make a dessert with simple colors and flavors and textures. And liquid nitrogen.
Let's cruise on into the land of I-Fucking-Told-You-So, where Gay Ashlee is pissed because *gasp* his coffee custard isn't setting properly... "I got kind of heated eggs." he moans. I guess he's giving up either the angel or the devil side of his dish now. I would have served an empty ramekin and said my devil was invisible. Or serve the unset custard and tell them it's evil-tasting...
..."If you eat us, we will give you diarrhea! mwuhahahahahahahaha!"...
Time has run out, and here come Scar and Bernie to see what Li'l Volt did...
...ooh, he got to say his favorite StuffyCheffy™ word again!...
He says his salmon rillettes represent the "traditional method" while the confit is the "modern method" so it's "traditional vs. modern". I'm not sure why he thinks modern cooking methods are the devil since he loves to use that kind of stuff, but I don't think he really understood the challenge completely. Bernie just says "Very interesting, thank you." and they move on to DirtyBear...
...who took a slightly more literal approach...
He points out that the halibut is really light and fresh while the devilish part is the pork product. Scar seems kinda impressed, "That's a big fat piece of bacon, Kevin!" and he giggles and says "That's the big fat bad part about it!" while Bernie takes a big fat bite of it with a big fat grin on her face. I think those are two of my favorite words now.
One guess as to what main protein Island Mon Ron used, and if you said beef or pork or fowl then you would be...
...completely wrong...
Much like Ron's entry into the Quickfire Challenge. Again, I suspect he didn't fully understood what they were asking for, and he never explains why corn hash is angelic and why yucca (or, as he pronounces it "YOO-ka") is devilish. Scar's pissed because she's gotten a piece of fish with a buttload of bones in it. Luckily for Bernie, her piece was properly boned. Much like Ron's entry into the Quickfire Challenge.
Hey, looks like MaryMann's also making a bid to take us back to Top Scaylope as well!...
...does that translate as "seared scallop bitchiness?"...
At least she comprehended what the challenge was, since she describes her angelic scallop crudo as being "light and delicate", and the devilish puttanesca as being "salty and aggressive". Mmmm-hmmm, I bet the Devil is pretty salty and aggressive, just the way I like 'em! Wait, er-- did I say that out loud? Um, let's move on.
And it's Fat Kid's chance. I don't know why he's even bothering, clearly he deserves to win this one because he's such an awesome cook...
...and he never explains what the three giant loogies in the upper left-hand corner of the plate are...
I'm not sure if he's trying to be flirty or just kissing Bernie's ass in a ridiculous fashion, but when he gets done with his dish description he tells her it's "real cheap thrills." Without missing a beat (or a chew) she replies "My favorite kind of thrill." Careful Bernie, with Fat Kid I imagine your thrills are not only cheap, but mighty short-lived, too.
Time to check in with Big Volt and see if he was able to make liquid nitromagic...
...which he might as well have called "Skidmarks'N'Spooge"...
That. Plate. Is. Just. Fugly. I think Bernie agrees with me...
...or perhaps it's bringing back terrible memories of her date with a guy who had an adult diaper fetish...
All she says is "Thank you." and they skitter on over to Bitter Jen, who makes tonight's third entry into Top Scaylope!...
...but hers is prolly the prettiest...
Bernie calls the butter sauce "very addictive". Jen still looks bitter. I dunno why, at least she's not double-butt-fucked like Gay Ashlee...
...whose single custard offering looks pretty pukeworthy...
Ashlee says his biggest devil was time, and tells Scar and Bernie that they would have had a lovely coffee custard on the other side, "It was delicious... in my head." Bernie's a good sport and replies "In my head I will imagine it." Ashlee might as well begin to imagine not winning this Quickfire, too.
It's time to hear the story behind 80's Hooker's dish...
...which looks surprisingly normal for a change...
So she tells them that four years ago she was diagnosed with a duo of lymphomas and she became obsessed with eating raw food for health reasons, which is why she made the organic arugula salad. Obviously the apple ginger crisp is from the devilish non-health-conscious side. Bernie tastes it and seems pleased, "This is lovely, nice and simple." Hmmm, I seem to remember DirtyBear saying something about how she liked nice simple food. Meanwhile, some of the others are totally shooting daggers in 80's Hooker's direction...
...I'm guessing these two won't be buying her a LiveStrong bracelet anytime soon...
Let's see what our Sticky Wickett was able to put together...
...looksl ike someone's angel is kinda leaky...
Bernie has no comment except for "Thank you." Sticky looks like someone just twisted both of her nipples and she's not allowed to yell.
Oh well, last in line tonight is our Sexist Pigshit, who surprises us all by making...
...what a shocker, more Greek-esque food!...
Once again, the angel vs. devil attributes of each dish aren't really clear, but that's not really surprising considering the fact that no matter what the challenge, Sexist's just gonna make what he makes, yell "Opa!" and not worry about it. Better yet is when Bernie takes a bite of his food and says "This is a little bit too salty." This pronouncement gets a pretty hard Fuck-You-Face™ outta Pigshit in return...
...made worse still by the fact that the one judging his food is nothing but a lowly inferior woman...
It's pretty clear that he's not cool with a bitch like Bernie, and I'm loving the fact that there's nothing he can do about that. Well, let's see who's topsies and bottomsies. On the "least favorite" side of the fence is our Gay Ashlee (natch!) not just because he didn't complete the challenge, but because the custard he did serve was runny and overspicy. Ouch. Also, Big Volt's Dirty Diaper Dish gets cornholed for being a poor execution of a good idea. Oh, poo! Also, Sticky Wickett's leaky chicken dishes get chastised for their having "nothing new, nothing expiring whatsoever on the plate." I think Bernie meant to say "nothing inspiring" but "expiring" is a Freudianly good way to describe that dish, too.
Her favorites were Li'l Volt's salmon duo (which was "a bite that transported" her... to where exactly, I'm not sure), Fat kid's Loogie Art (she loved the brown butter risotto which, as we all now know is not a rice but a style of cooking as well as the crisp bite of his radish pesto sauce) and the third favorite... was 80's Hooker!...
...the news of which causes multiple orgasms of delight...
Bernie says her salad was "an absolute pleasure" and that following it with the contrast of the apple crisp was really nice, and that even though it was simple, it was very well executed. So who wins? "The one that really showed us the true angel vs. devil... is Robin!" Oh boy, if you thought people looked pissed off before, it's looking like a lynch-mob now. The best illustration of this is Li'l Volt's face before and after the announcement that 80's Hooker has won immunity and they'll be stuck with her for at least another week...
...Before: "I'm gonna fuckin' win, I can almost taste it!"
After: "I lost, and it tastes like rotten 80's hooker vag on my tongue."...
They must really hate her to be so pissed off about her win. Or these people are the biggest bunch of sore-ass losers I've ever seen in my life. Naturally, 80's Hooker is elated that in less than 24 hours she went from being on the bottom to being on top, and is encouraged and believes this means she still belongs in the competition.
Hey, you know who doesn't believe that? Fat Kid, who gets my award for DogPiss Asshole Of The Year when he says "That's a pretty good way to win a Quickfire is tell people you have fucking cancer! [mimicking Robin] 'When I had cancer I could eat this, and when I didn't I ate this.' It's like, oh, okay... I mean, weak!"...
...says the fat, schlubby, bitter little fuck with almost no chin and a ridonk hairstyle...
For realsies? What an asshole. 80's Hooker might be annoying as fuck, but that's still a pretty fucking horrible thing to say about someone who's survived a disease like that. In a blog on this week's episode, Fat Kid claims now that he thought Li'l Volt's dish should have won because it was elaborate and brilliant, and that Robin's was weak, had "little technical work or conceptualization", and that most distasteful to him was the fact that by her mentioning surviving cancer "she made it appear cheap and as a grab for attention".
Hold up a second. We're in the sixth episode here, and this is the first time we've heard her mention having had cancer. If she had been saying this from the get-go and trying to find a way in every single challenge to bring it up, then yes, I'd say that was a cheap ploy for attention. You know, kinda like when Island Mon Ron made sure to mention his life-threatening boat trip from Haiti (that happened 20+ years ago) in the very first episode as being a "vice" that he still had. But she didn't, she mentioned it in the context of this challenge about healthy vs. not-so-healthy food and how it affected her personally as a chef, which is exactly what they were asked to do.
And let's also look at what Fat Kid is essentially saying about Michelle Bernstein: that she would have ignored her professional capacity as a judge of how the food tasted in favor of giving a win to 80's Hooker because she felt sympathy for her having had cancer. I think she just appreciated the simple food more than the technically complex stuff that Li'l Volt put forth. Either way, Fat Kid's not likely to have Bernie showing up to eat at his restaurant any time soon.
Well, let's move on to the Elimination Challenge, which involves what Scar calls one of Las Vegas' "dynamic duos". I was totally hoping they were going to bring out Siegfried and Roy with a great big gay white tiger that would pounce on and chew up Fat Kid and Sexist Pigshit, but no, the guests are magicians Penn & Teller...
...and some of their dinner leftovers, I guess...
DirtyBear's grinning like a kid, he's a huge P&T fan and thinks they are just the funniest thing ever. I'm kind of in the other camp with these two, I've never totally understood their appeal, but clearly they resonate with some people or they wouldn't be popular, right? Kinda like Crocs. Anyhow, they come out and perform a trick that they call "the classic version of 'Cups And Balls'". And already I'm annoyed because they're wrong about that, the "classic version" of "Cups And Balls" comes from a 1982 HardStrokes™ video called "Locker Room Lotharios". Jeez. Anyhow, after they run through this trick once, they do it again, only this time they do the "Penn & Teller Deconstructed Version" using clear plastic cups...
...the best part of which is when he turns his eye into a lime...
Yeah, I turned to the BF after that little segment and asked "Did I miss something funny?" and I got a hearty "Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz." in return. Moving on, Scar says for their Elimination Challenge they will have to "deconstruct a classic dish", which Li'l Volt helpfully explains is to take apart each element of a dish and allow the diner to put it back together when they eat it so they get the flavors of the original dish. This sounds like something that would really appeal more to lazy-ass chefs than industrious diners, but whatever, they have to draw knives to see what dish they get.
And some of them are doozies! Bitter Jen gets "Meat Lasagne", Li'l Volt picks "Caesar Salad" and Gay Ashlee lands "Shepherd's Pie". 80's Hooker pulls "New England Clam Chowder", Fat Kid (and his cancer-survivor-hating-lumpy-ass) receives "Sweet & Sour Pork" while Sticky Wickett has "Fish'N'Chips". DirtyBear hits the shit-jackpot when he reads that he's supposed to deconstruct "Chicken Mole Negro", which is very similar to the dish he made on last week's Kowboy Kampout™ and he has not forgotten that he "didn't fare so well" with it. Plus, doesn't mole have, like, literally 27 ingredients? Good luck, DirtyBear!
Big Volt gets to deconstruct the "Reuben Sammich" while Sexist Pigshit draws "Eggs Florentine", MaryMann takes on "Pot Roast" and Island Mon Ron seems overjoyed when his knife says "Paella" because he says he serves it on his menu back home, so this is familiar territory for him.
They'll be serving in pairs on the following day to a table including Bernie, Penn & Teller, the judges and a newly-returned-and-healed from his bike accident Toby Young. The chefs faces all crumple a bit at that little announcement, and MaryMann says the pressure is turned up a notch now that "the meanest guy in food criticism is gonna be sitting at the table." Which is weird, because last season he didn't seem all that imposing, and in fact, I thought he and his elaborate (yet lame) jokes seemed kinda desperate and more than a little sad. Plus it was clear that Daddy Tom hated his ass and could barely stand to be at the same table with him...
...so welcome back, little fella!...
Time for the trip to Whole Paycheck Market, this time they've only got $125.00 to spend in 30 minutes, and absolutely nothing of interest happens there, with the exception of Fat Kid and Sexist Pigshit having their usual shopping cart derby races.
Back across the International Date Line at the "M" Resort & Klassy Kasino, they've got 2 hours to prep. It turns out that Sexist Pigshit has no clue what Eggs Florentine is, he's thinking maybe it's like an omelet with spinach in it? Displaying his awesomely formidable nicknaming skillz he says he's calling it "Eggs Foreign-To-Me"...
...ha...
Okay, truth be told, I wasn't sure what it was, either, but that's still a shitty nickname. Anyhow, Pigshit says it's really tough because he can't go online and look up recipes, so what's he gonna do? Yup, you guessed it! He's gonna ignore the challenge and just make some Greek food. And that's why he's clearly among the top echelon of this seasons cheftestants.
Meanwhile Li'l Volt looks like he's hacking apart some chickens for his Caesar Salad. He's also baking his own bread, "spherifying dressing" and making an emulsion out of egg yolks. Plus, he's softening his hands while he does dishes. At one point DirtyBear calls out asking if anyone is using bread to not throw away their crusts, which gives Li'l Volt the chance to let everyone else know he's baking his own. Upon hearing this, Big Volt interviews that Li'l Volt's just a big showy showoff. Oh, wah. You're just pissed because you served what looked like a chocoturd and the contents of a used bath-house towel to Michelle Bernstein.
DirtyBear says that his biggest competition there is the Volts, because they're both used to making deconstructed food. However, since he actually has experience with making mole, he feels like he's been given a second chance to show the judging panel that he really knows and understands the complexities of the dish. Now if he'd just stop making that silly fauxhawk in front of his bald spot, he'd be good to go!...
...seriously, dude, stop it, between that and your giant beard you're making your own head look freakishly huh-yooge...
Strangely, Bitter Jen seems to be really spinning her wheels and having a hard time coming up with a plan to deconstruct her lasagne. She blames it on her classical training, which apparently doesn't cover this sort of thing, and at one point we hear her say "What the fuck!" in a quavery voice that sounds dangerously close to tears. Come on, Jen, don't pull a Biker Chick and wuss out now!...
Be back with Part Two in two shakes of a cooked lamb's tail!
love, J-Mo :)
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