project cooking things

While I was thrilled to see Chloe's win, where the fuck did this "boyfriend" come from? Did he just hop on board when she got into the final three? I've been on her side since day one. Asshole.

Top Chef has been annointed by Bravo and Heidi Klum ("What else are you going to watch?") as the successor to Project Runway. So obviously when the finale ended and my guests left I continuted to drink, alone, and watched to see what would happen to my Wednesday nights with no more Tim Gunn.

First impressions -- Katie Lee Joel is cute and all, but no Heidi. Maybe she needs to get knocked up, though that would mean carrying Billy Joel's child, which is a frightening thought. What's with these hostesses and their lame singer husbands? Also, why is Billy Joel so famous? I can only name maybe like two of his songs. But I know that he's a drunk, that he gets in car crashes, and that he dated Christie Brinkley.

Ken(my pick for the final 3) got booted from the first challenge for tasting one of the sauces with his finger. Well that's just bullshit. I worked in a very nice restaurant kitchen, and I can tell you that no plate of food made it to a table without being manhandled by at least 3 people. And nobody wears gloves, ever. Yum. I liked when he talked back to stupid Hubert Keller and asked if he actually threw out the sauce, which I bet he didn't. This guy's a badass, I am glad I picked him, he's the new Santino.

Tiffani and Lee Anne form an early coalition as two unattractive but skilled ass-kissing bitches. They both do well in the first challenge, they both jump right onto the Ken-trashing bandwagon, and they both look really severe in their confessional interviews. I'm still hoping Tiffani will be the first one off, but maybe she's going to stick around for a while. I suspect that she's the new Santino. Lee Anne will be around for at least one more episode, as she wins the first mini-challenge, which gives her immunity.

Andrea, the annoying health food chef, says that she brings to the table a unique ability to "move your bowels with vegetables." I wonder if she stole this shtick from the dude on Real World London who wanted to move my bowels with song.

Stephen is an annoying idiot freak who said that he made "seared lamb to the fourth power." That makes no sense. Maybe he could have said "seared lamb times four" or something. But just searing something repeatedly doesn't make the amount of searing increase exponentially. Seems Santino-esque to me.

Cythia was my pick to win this thing before the show started. I have a few regrets about that. She is crazier, drunker, and more ridiculous than I could have ever imagined. She does swear a lot, which I like, but I worry she's the new Guadalupe. She called her meal "crazy rice" because it had black and brown shit in it. Her words.

Candice is a model, her food looks alright, but Hubert Keller dismisses it by saying "This isn't a housewife competition."

Harold ends up winning the big challenge with a pretty lame-looking steamed fish dish (recipe here). It's much more like a 30-minute meal than a restaurant dish and it's pretty unclear to me how it won. And therein lies the problem with Top Chef. On Runway, you could see pretty much everything the judges saw. Subject to editing, you were judging the same things they were. On Top Chef, you obviously can't taste to food, so you can only see what looks good. Shit that's overcooked or poorly seasoned can still look great, so the viewer is not at all on the same page as the judges. I think that's gonna reduce the appeal a lot.

Ken gets sent home, and there goes the first of my absolutely terrible picks for the final 3.

Verdict: I'll keep watching, for now, but I certainly don't love it. Also, there's no Tim Gunn character. Why can't he do this show, too?