Minicap: Top Chef Texas

Good evening ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to another Minicap of everyone’s favorite Bravo tv show, Rich People Being On TV (a.k.a. Top Chef Texas). If you’re like me (and I suspect many of you are, because you get a lot of my dated humor) then you can remember back to a cherished time when wealthy folk were looked up to and emulated, when beautiful people with lots of money were our collective obsession, and we gazed in loving adoration at the glittery lifestyles they led, wishing that our own mundane existences could match just the tiniest glimmer of the drama and excitement that fills the worlds of the well-to-do…

Well, ok, so we’re still kinda living in that time, at least if you based it on what’s most popular on TV today. But what I’m really referring to is the chefs’ destination in tonight’s episode, the magical city from the late 70′s and early 80′s known as…

where men were men, and they all wore really tight polyester boner-showing pants

Yes, it looks like we’re gonna say goodbye to the good folks of San Antonio for a while, because the chefs are moving up north to far richer pastures. Well, sorta, they kinda get sidetracked first into a real pasture for their QuickFire Challenge, which is to cook in the middle of a field using the contents of a “survival kit” and some campstove burners. This does not sit well with the sideways mouth of Ninja Eddie, who immediately begins complaining about everything under the sun…

whyyyyy do I have such terrible TMJ???

We get a lot of the typical ingredient-snobbery that chefs always seem to have towards the prepackaged foods they’re being forced to use, foods that you and I often use because we work in office cubicles for 12-14 hours at a stretch, and by the time we fight horrible traffic and get home none of us fucking feels like making some kind of elaborate-ass meal with fresh ingrediences. We want to eat something you put in a box, push some buttons and then need scissors for. SO, it’s kinda fun to see the chefs have to figure out how to repurpose Saltines and Vienna Snausages. OH, and the winner gets $5,000.00. Which is pretty cute considering there hasn’t been a single prize yet for winning an Elimination Challenge this entire season.

After that, the chefs finally make it to their new hotel in Dallas, and once their dirty undies are stored in a brand new set of hotel drawers, they go off to meet some rich-bitch couples that want to be made a hoity-toity meal for a “progressive dinner”. I have heard of these before, where you have each course at a different couple’s house in your group… like, you start at the Schmeckelmanns’ for cocktails because the Mister is a hugely functional alcoholic with the best booze cabinet on the block… then you go to the Purcells’ for appetizers because they shop only at Costco, and therefore always have 4,500-count bags of pizza rolls and mini-taquitos… the lesbian couple (Billee and Andie) are Vegan, so they always offer to do the salad course with lots of leafy greens and tofu-cubes and seeds that will make you poop (and they never understand why everyone forgets where their house is)… the Corks’ do the main course because Mr. Cork is a psychotically avid hunter and insists on grilling his mysterious “steaks” that always taste vaguely of buckshot… and then you end up at the home of the Tubbinses, both of whom are enormously chubby and think nothing of putting cake-frosting on ice cream.

Well, that’s how us poor people would do a progressive dinner. The rich elite of Dallas, however, get to have their progressive dinners televised and catered by professional chefs…

because who wants to cook when you’re recovering from one-too-many facelifts?

The chefs only have to do appetizer-entrée-dessert, and each of the three couples that are hosting are just as boring, picky and self-important as you might expect. Seriously, this is a pretty joyless bunch, and I couldn’t help feeling like everybody in the room would have felt so much more relaxed if they had only taken 15 minutes out to go masturbate. Hey, come on, I can think of at least one chef who probably uses that method to loosen up before dinner service…

and he probably uses pictures of his own naked ass

The chefs put forth some pretty good food… and then there are some vile surprises, and the Loozahs group winds up being a perfect storm of bitchy dickbaggery. Also, we find out several things, such as the source of Chris Scary’s hatred of fat people, Cocky Chewy’s dad is a latin MacGyver, and Bore-verly thinks that Dallas is famous for a country singer that was born and raised hundreds of miles away from Texas. Also, Fag Hag Heather and I have something in common, and it’s not just our weight. Check back in a few days for the full recap to find out the deets, and while you’re waiting, you can always check out the recap of last week’s episode, which is sure to kill a couple of hours of your day.

love, J-Mo