Top Chef: AmerIcan(’t make a) Pie

Happy 4^th of July, everybody!  I hope you guys did something fun and exciting to celebrate our nation’s freedom.  I had my little brother Al-Mo and my little sister B-Mo over this weekend with their respective GF/BFs and we had a fabulous chicken dinner that my BF put together.  Then we proceeded to get hammered on margaritas and reminisce about the horrible road trips my parents used to kidnap us for take us on as kids.  I found out that this one time Mom-Mo and Dad-Mo got into a huge fight near Moab, Utah and proceeded to immediately cut the vacay short and drive the 450+ miles straight home, seething with anger the entire way.  I was lucky I missed that one.  We were all lucky when the two of them finally got divorced.  It was almost like Independence Day for us kids, setting us all free, and everybody gets along SO much better now…

unfortunately these people can’t get divorced so we all get to watch the grim, angry 450+ mile drive to the Finals

And I, for one,  wouldn’t have it any other way.  What this season of Top Chef lacks in talent (and boy does it lack in talent) it certainly makes up for in drama and screaming and tantrums and attention-grabbing behavior.  Take Bloody Mandy, for example, who is pensively sitting on an exercise ball in the bathroom and sonically brushing her teeth.

while the ham-fisted product placement goes on around her

Smooth, Dial Corp, very smooth!  Anyhow, poor distraught Mandy claims that upon awakening this morning without HomeSchooled Jackie in the house, “the gravity of what went down the night before is hitting home.”  Yes, Mandy, it’s very shocking when your bitchcock move of hogging precious budget dollars for booze caused someone else to go home when she was left with only bananas and milk and couldn’t find a way to MacGyver a tasty Bananas Foster out of only those two ingredients.  Come to think of it, Bananas Foster would have been a way better use of alcohol.

But we needn’t have worried about Bloody Mandy feeling sorry about HomeSchooled’s departure, because she’s actually feeling sorry for herself:  “Some of the chefs said that, like, *I* should have been the one to go home.”  It’s my belief that all of the chefs who said that are, like, right.

Meanwhile, KennEgo’s gotten a letter from his girlfriend “Juicy” back home.  What is this, summer camp?  Boot camp?  World War II?  They’ve been there 4 whole days!  Anyhow, this SchmaltzCard™ is coming just in the nick of time, KennEgo really needs it, because he’s busy whining about the fact that he hasn’t won a challenge yet and how much it sucks to play second fiddle in The OranJello Show and wah wah wah.  The card is unintentionally hilarious, too, because Miss Juicy says something about hoping he’s not embarrassing the other contestants too badly…

only with his behavior, Juicy-girl!

We’re about to get a taste of just how hurtful that behavior was, because we quickly flash over to OranJello smoking in the garden…

sadly it’s not because he’s on fire

Gee, you don’t think he, like, knew he was giving the camera people some kind of pensive pose, do you?  I mean, that looks totally natural, right?  Anyhow, OranJello’s whining about how much it sucked to be in the bottom and how hurt he is that KennEgo didn’t stand behind his “teammate” (meaning himself).  Never mind that KennEgo’s “teammate” had immunity and a blatantly strategic plan to try and get him sent home by throwing the challenge and winding up in the bottom.  Poor guy, he says this kind of behavior is making him want to isolate himself from everybody else.  Someone should mention to him that acting like a smarmy dick sorta makes people treat you that way.

Even more hysterical is hearing GayNold clucking clichés to the camera, talking about how “It’s game on!” and how “A lot of people are so ready to throw each other under the bus already!”…

and acting like he isn’t one of them

Ugh, is there anything original about this queen?  I thought my gay brothers and sisters were supposed to be creative trendsetters, but I swear, he’s going to be the first one to say he’s not here to make friends or some shit like that.  Let’s get to the QuickFire.

Over at the Top Chef Kitchen we find Scar has two guests today, Gail Simmons and an Elvis Impersonator named Johnny Iuzzini, who are the judges for the brand new upcoming spin-off Top Chef:  Just Desserts.  Tamesha thinks Johnny Zucchini there is hot like a hunka hunka burnin’ hair-grease, and Big Haired Andrea says he’s pretty much the pastry god right now…

meanwhile, Scar’s busily trying to hide the fact that she’s pissed Gail gets her own show

Yes, the cheftestants all applaud at the announcement of this new show dedicated to desserts… right up until the moment that Scar says the QuickFire for today is actually a dessert challenge as well.  I’m having a hard time reading ChesTiffany’s expression right now…

is that ecstasy?  or apoplexy? a prelude to projectile vomiting?

I’m gonna go with C.) prelude to vomiting, because that’s what just about every single chef does on this show the minute anybody mentions DESSERTS.  No wonder they had to have a separate show for such a competition, they make it seem like pastry chefs are these magical unicorns flitting about the rainbow forest and shitting out perfect little chocolate éclairs.  Yum.

The sad thing is that this QuickFire isn’t even an imaginative one, it’s super-straightforward:  make a pie from scratch.  That’s it.  A pie.  Any kind they want.  From scratch.  So why is it everyone looks like ShortyPants?…

busy making buttmud pie

He rightfully points out that the first two losers of this season went home for doing shitty desserts, and seems pissed that he was alllll ready to wow the judges today with his awesome ability to walk under a coffee table without ducking cooking talents, and now they’re being forced to do something that he just doesn’t have much experience in.  Boo hoo.  I guess he’s just going to have to wait a little bit longer for that QuickFire that’s perfectly tailored to his narrow range of skills?  Anyhow, because this is a pastry-related challenge, instead of the usual 30 minutes, they’re given two whole hours, which should be more than enough, but we will shortly see is completely not.

Immediately we see Miss Swan and GayNold getting into a pissing match because he thinks she stole his workstation!  That bitch!  How dare she try to use a workstation that she stored her things underneath!  Doesn’t she understand Her Majesty’s decrees about Eminent Domain?  GayNold is displeased:  “It surprises me how annoyed I get of her!” and at last, we find one stereotype he doesn’t embody:

the well-spoken gay man

I might say the exact same thing about GayNold (only I would have said it correctly) but before I can open my mouth he continues his bitchfest “It’s just really unbelievable on how seemingly two-faced she is!”  That does not even make any sense, but whatever, it’s clearly his sorry attempt at a sound-bite.  I suspect what he’s really trying to say is “I am a pretty, pretty princess who gets whatever she wants whenever she wants it, and that meanie-beanie Miss Swan isn’t feeding into my self-centered behavior, therefore she is a great big bitchypoo and I now hate her forever and ever, ppppbbbbflflflblt!”

In any case, while GayNold’s still muttering malapropisms under his lispy breath and shooting dagger-eyes in her direction, Miss Swan’s just merrily going on her way making her pie, since desserts are something she actually does have some experience with.  This actually makes sense, because she tells us that when you own your own small restaurant “You get good at every job pretty quickly!”  That’s true, unless you just dump all the day-to-day details on management staff and flounce about being a glamorous (and mostly hands-off) owner, which is how I suspect GayNold runs his three restaurants.

Interestingly enough, OranJello says he’s never made a pie in his life, but instead of whining he’s trying to sidestep the problem by treating it like it’s really “a curry challenge”.  Huh?  I guess he’s using sweet yams and making it a curried yam pie, which, a spicy pie?  You go, boy…

and don’t come back

Actually, if any of these boobs can pull it off, it’ll be our citrus-colored buddy.  I don’t want to admit it, but he’s kinda growing on me the way he doesn’t let the challenge obstacles stymie him, he just thinks his way around the corners, instead of bemoaning his fate. And he does it with a bitchy smirk.

Let’s check in with Instructor LynnBian…

who is once again beating the hell out of some innocent dough

Poor LynnBian, they always seem to catch her at her angriest.  She’s once again insisting that even though she’s older than everybody else she can still cook, and she’s feeling especially confident for this piddly little pie thing because (as she puts it), “I don’t need recipes to do desserts.”…

“and I don’t need a chin to look pissed.”

Hey, what’s Bloody Mandy up to?  Well, she’s telling us she doesn’t really like pie (which is utter blasphemy in J-MoVille, unless the pie in question is of the hair variety) but she’s made an apple pie before, so she’s gonna make “an apple, rosemary, bourbon and vanilla pie”.  JESUS, does this woman ever not make anything alcoholic?  Then again, she is probably the most disliked chef in the Bilious Brownstone at the moment, so I guess I don’t begrudge her an extra belt here and there.

We haven’t heard much from Nosferatu who has gotten as far as deciding on an almond crust and after drawing a blank on what to fill it with, he chooses tapioca.  Blurk!  “I’ve never heard of this pie, I’ve never made this pie…”

and you’re not gonna win with this pie, either

Also making fun of his idea (and his incredibly thick crust) is KennEgo who says he’s “laughing inside” because of its adobe-like construction…

You know who else is looking down on Nosferatu?  MassholEd, who’s starting to live up to his nickname quite admirably as he snots that Nosferatu’s “thought process is underdeveloped, he is a slob, he has no technique, I mean, I can go on for an hour if you want…”

“…and maybe then I can forget the shame of KennEgo and I having both been in the bottom last week while he wasn’t.”

Seriously, what kind of dickhead makes these sweeping statements about another chef they barely know?  I mean besides me.  Nosferatu was part of a good team last week, and he was in the Top Four the first week, how in the hell does MassholEd divine that he lacks technique or thought process?  And what’s his brilliant choice for winning pie?  Well, he’s making a banana cream pie, which is one of my favorites (besides strawberry-rhubarb) but he’s struggling to think of a way to “elevate” it.  His brilliant solution?  Celery with peanut butter on it.  “All good, familiar flavors, and I think Johnny would respect it.”

Well, I see someone has short-term memory loss.  Wasn’t he just standing in front of the judges, like, a day ago, and hearing them rip all over the peanut-butter-filled-celery that OranJello did?  And he’s certainly no OranJello, so why would he think this was a good idea?  And how does that even connect with banana cream pie?  And do you notice how many of these chefs seem to feel they can’t just make a good apple or cherry or banana-cream pie, they have to “elevate” it in some way?  Stupid.  But funny.

Also kinda stupidly funny is dear Trucksy, who put way too much butter in her almond blueberry pie, “It just tastes like butter!” she moans…

and sadly, she didn’t think to just rename it “Butter Pie”

She’s suddenly remembering that measurement of ingredients is crucial to pastry perfection, “I didn’t measure the ingredients, I don’t know what I was thinking.”  Trucksy decides she’s going to have to start all over again and isn’t sure now that she’ll even have a pie to present.  I guess this would explain why she takes the first failed one and instead of throwing it away, hides it on the bottom shelf of her prep-table.  Well, I guess better a butter pie than no pie.

Meanwhile, KennEgo’s making a Bananas Foster pie, but with a twist.  Instead of just putting down crust and the fruit, he’s made a light batter to pour over the top of it, so when he bakes it, it turns into “a light cake”.  OMG, cakepie sounds delicious!  KennEgo may be a dick, but that’s one sexy fucker of an idea he’s got there.

The camera pans left (and down) and we get to see that ShortyPants has found the child-sized workstation no problem.  He’s excited about his “curry-apple-whiskey-date” pie, which he calls “non-traditional” and says it tastes really good…

my guess is he tasted the whiskey several times, too

He thinks he might even have a shot at winning this one!  Or he’ll just have a shot, period.  One person who could USE a slug of whiskey is poor Trucksy, because her second attempt at blueberry almond pie has pretty much failed as well, and now she’s calling it a “crumble”, which is much like her chances of winning this QuickFire.

Time is called, here comes Scar, Gail and Johnny Zucchini to try KennEgo’s cakepie first…

which has a side dish of overkill as usual

Johnny Zucchini comments on how Chinese Five-Spice is not often used in pies, but KennEgo insists he loves the balance of the flavors in it (all five of them, so there!)  Let’s move on to Bloody Mandy’s boozepie…

great, it has booze AND weed

Okay, can someone explain to me how this dish incorporates “rosemary” when it’s just laying there on the plate?  And don’t tell me it’s “infusing it’s essence” cuz that’s crap.  So is Mandy’s description for Scar, Gail & Johnny Zucchini:  “I think that… given that I’m not a pastry chef… I didn’t mess anything up too terribly?”  Gee, trying to head off the criticism by being self-deprecating much?  This is why it’s so delicious when Johnny Zucchini shuts her ass down:  “I think it’s kind of a cop-out that you say you’re not a pastry chef, like, my grandmother’s not a pastry chef either, and she can make a pie.”

guess who thinks someone’s grandmother is a bitch right now?

You’d think she’d start to shut her mouth after these kind of epic burns keep happening to her.  Anyhow, let’s check out ShortyPants’ entry in the raided-the-liquor-cabinet category…

oddly it doesn’t mention the whiskey he used

Gail takes a bite and comments “There’s something sour in there!”  Scar agrees.  ShortyPants just became ShittyPants.

Next up is Miss Swan (and yes I agree with the commenters, she looks like both the Countess and Laurie Metcalf as Aunt Jackie on Roseanne, but I’m sticking with Miss Swan because I don’t want to type Countess Jackie Swan the whole season, sorry)…

I think the only flaw here was plating it like a murder-scene

Zucchini compliments her on how smooth her ganache is, “You have a nice emulsion.”  This is what passes for sexytalk amongst the pastry chef crowd, I guess, cuz Miss Swan’s a-blushin’.

Time for GayNold’s version of homopie…

and what’s with the dribbles everywhere?

Sorry, but that ain’t pie.  GayNold also decides to try and liquor up the judges, only with less finesse as he just serves them a straight up shot of Korean sake (that’s that “Soju” stuff).

with more weeds in the middle of it

Scar wants to know what the “green herb” is inside the shot, and GayNold tells her it is just mint.  A) Scar is disappointed (because we know how much she loves her green herb) and B) didn’t I call it that GayNold’s gonna put mint in everything so he can call it “Myint”??!?!  Putz.

Enough of him, let’s roll on over to OranJello’s concoction…

which looks like a pile of meh

He does make sure to tell the judges that he made his own curry blend.  They appear to remain unimpressed.

They certainly won’t need to change facial expressions, because they’ve wandered into Trucksy’s double failurepie zone…

which promptly collapsed into a sad little mound of defeat

Zucchini says it sure seems like this pie “released a lot of liquid” and wants to know if she put anything in there to thicken it up, like corn starch, or pectin, or Elmer’s glue.  Trucksy admits she did not.  Then there is awkward silence.

Ohhh-kayyy, let’s see what ChesTiffany’s got for us…

something you need dental floss for

Johnny Zucchini comments on how dark it looks, and that’s about all they’ve got.

I’m curious to see how Miss-I-Don’t-Need-Recipes-For-Successful-Desserts-Cuz-I’m-An-Instructor-LynnBian’s bit of haughtypie turned out…

it’s smiling at me!

After tasting it, Gail innocently asks “Have you ever made the crust before… with the basil?”  This clearly ruffles LynnBian’s feathers and she gets snippy (skating up to snotty) in response, repeating everything back at Gail:  “No, I HAVEN’T made the crust before with the basil…”

“…have you ever had your pudenda flattened with a rolling pin?”

That was uncomfortable.  Let’s pay MassholEd a visit and listen to him drone on about how his grandmother always had banana cream pie, and that he just “added a couple of things to it” including an oh-ver-lee ee-nun-cee-ate-ED ce-le-ry SPOO-ma.  I guess Gail has discovered the Joy Of Fucking With Cheftestants During QuickFire Judging™ because she immediately sasses him back with “How does this compare to your grandmother’s celery spuma?”  MassholEd’s left sputtering and without a comeback…

now whose thought process is “underdeveloped”?

I dunno about you guys, but I got the clear feeling that she was poking him a little about the fact that he felt he needed to “add things” to Grandma’s pie.

Time to see how Nosferatu’s pretendpie worked out…

that no one has ever heard of before (and likely never will again)

Zucchini immediately asks if there is egg in the mixture, and when Nosferatu agrees, he gets slammed with “So, it’s more like a quiche.”  RUMBLING BASS-NOTE HIT.  Nosferatu looks stunned, but duh, that’s what happens to eggs when you bake them.

I guess they ran out of time because they didn’t bother to film critiques of everyone’s pies.  Here are the rest of them that clearly aren’t either winning OR losing (along with my guesses as to why they didn’t win):

Big Haired Andrea’s…

too busy

JerseyMoob’s…

too simple (and it looks like it washed up in the Gulf Of Mexico)

Tamesha’s…

too many clashing pastels?

Bobby Brown’s…

too anal and too much work to actually eat

Oh, dootie-bubbles!  Well, let’s see whose pies REALLY sucked:  Nosferatu because the texture was more quiche than pie, Trucksy because her crust was too thin, the top was burnt and the bottom wasn’t cooked all the way through… and MassholEd!  Oooooh, burn!  Johnny Zucchini says he didn’t understand why he took something simple like banana cream pie and “muddled it with all these extra things”.  Naturally MassholEd just can’t fathom why he got called out in the bottom…

“Wait, so you’re saying it’s brilliant, right?”

Douche.  Don’t you know by now?  You don’t fuck with the classics.  Anyhow, let’s see who wins this bad boy (along with immunity).  Well, it turns out that Miss Swan’s Sexy Emulsion was a favorite (Gail makes sure to say that you don’t need all the extra bells and whistles, “A perfect simple pie goes a long way.”  Word up, Gail!)  Another favorite was ShortyPants’ Sourpuss Pie, which Gail says had a very surprising flavor combination that really worked.  Nice mislead, editors!  We thought they hated it!  And so the winner of the QuickFire is… KennEgo??!?!?!

Not so nice mislead, editors!  I’m certain they mentioned they liked his cakepie and they just didn’t bother showing it.  Very weak, Magical Elves, very weak!  BTW, don’t you love KennEgo’s budding bitchface when he thought someone unworthy else was going to win?…

I wonder why he’s smiling so big now?  Immunity is irrelevant, isn’t it?

They catch OranJello looking dejected that his curried sweet potatoes didn’t win, but weirdly he looks more disappointed in himself than jealous of KennEgo’s win.  Also saddened is poor little ShortyPants, who was really hoping to win this one.  Poor little thing.  I just kinda want to give him a hug and a sucker for being such a good little boy and trying so hard.  Meanwhile, KennEgo spouts some meaningless bullshit about how this win means he’s getting “into a groove” where he knows he’s going to really start to shine, “and once I get into a groove, it’s over… it’s a wrap!”  Please, he won one lousy QuickFire for no extra money and a reward he considers beneath him, this is by no means a harbinger of everyone else’s doom for the remainder of the season.

Elimination Challenge!  Here’s what it is:

yes, girl, a main dish and two sides

They’ll be serving this picnic at George Washington’s Mount Vernon Estate and Gardens.  Nosferatu is very excited upon hearing this, he has grown up grilling, he’s never been to Mount Vernon before, plus he says “I have never taken advantage of an intern!”.  Gee, that’s kind of a weird comment…

does that mean he’s hoping to get the chance now?

Hey, you know who isn’t excited by a grilling challenge??…

Miss Mary LaMartha Washington here

Yes, GayNold assures us he’s “not a grill guy” because “it’ll clog the pores way too fast”.  Hahaha, see, cuz gay guys don’t do anything that messes with their facials.  Or something.  Twat-waffle.  Let’s go to Whole Paycheck Market with our $400 and our allotted half hour to shop.

JerseyMoobs says his wife’s family is Puerto Rican so he’s going to go “outside of a typical American barbecue” and serve rice, beans and flank steak along with a lot of other latin influences.  ¡Que sabor!  I hope that includes one of my all-time favorite latin influences:  tequila.

do he and MassholEd have the same eyebrow artist, or what?

Meanwhile, Trucksy’s tiptoeing around the bread aisle…

soft as a summer rain, this one

She’s decided she wants to do a homemade sausage for the judges and just blow them away with it.  “You know, I make sausage all the time, this isn’t gonna be hard.”  Of course not, Jimmy Dean did it for years before he died, and that guy sounded like he barely knew how to tie his shoes.

It appears that Bloody Mandy is running about the store and jostling people right and left in her mad dash to get to the booze aisle the supplies she needs.  She says she’s determined to do her best and then tells this weird story about having been “out to lunch” the better part of her mid-20’s.  Huhwha?  I went to “out to lunch” a lot in my mid-20’s, too, and it didn’t stop me from being courteous at the grocery store and not running over people’s feet with my baskcart.  OH, wait, I’m sorry, I guess that was her cutesy little way of saying she was a huge addict:  “I had a problem with cocaine, and um, pills, and eventually anything I could get my hands on…”

METH:  making undiagnosed alcoholism seem tame “one day at a time”

KIDDING!  She’s all better now, except when she says “If you survived all that, you can do anything!” I think what she really means is “I’m a former addict and now I can use that to walk on people when it suits me.”  Seriously, what did her being in recovery have to do with this picnic challenge?  To explain why she seems to lack social filtering?  It’s a mystery.

It’s back to the Top Chef Hilton to begin their 3 hours of prep time, and KennEgo’s here to say winning this challenge is important to him because grilling reminds him of being with his dad before he died.  Aww, that sounds kinda sweet!  Then he claims he started cooking on the grill when he was only seven years old.  Aww, that sounds kinda like bullshit!  Or child-abuse.  Someone should explain to him that setting your sister’s Barbie Doll on fire doesn’t actually count as “grilling”, it’s just “fire containment”.  Anyhow, he believes that this memory of his makes the challenge “more personal” for him.  I dunno, he’s gonna have to go a helluva lot further to beat out Bloody Mandy’s drug-addict-at-the-grocery-store story for sheer Random Personalness™.

GayNold’s back to annoy us, telling us all about the lamb meatballs he’s going to skewer on lemongrass, which actually sounds kinda good, but it makes my appetite shrivel up when I have to hear him whining in the kitchen “My God, this is ridiculous!  Like, rilly, can my, like, magic ingredient be my sous-chef in my back pocket, please, seriously?”…

bitch, bitch, bitch, that’s all you ever are

Okay, rilly, like, seriously A) maybe if you took your sous-chef out of your back door and B) stop acting like someone held a gun to your head to make lambballs for 150 people!  How much do you guys wanna bet that his role in his restaurants is mostly (bitchily) supervisory?  And yet we all know the original Top Chef Harold Dieterle still cooks every day in his restaurant.  So sad, cuz it looks like GayNold really does know his way around handling meat.  That came out wrong, but you know what I mean.

Let’s go where the gay is much more fun, and that’s over by Miss Trucksy, who is busy talking to herself, saying all kinds of nonsense phrases and whatnot, and generally annoying everyone around her with her wacky banter.  Then, like a gift from Jesus, her meat grinder breaks down and she shuts up while she fixes it.  It turns out she has suddenly realized she has nowhere near enough time to actually stuff sausages into a casing, so she’s now planning on making Italian sausage sliders with a Vidalia onion and bell pepper relish.  I’m starting to get that bad feeling again.

What happens next makes my bad feeling into a mad feeling, as suddenly Bloody Mandy’s yelling at Nosferatu.  Apparently he put some of his food in an oven to cook, and somehow missed the fact that she had her name written on it?  I guess like dibsies or something?  Don’t they have enough ovens in the Top Chef Kitchen?  Anyhow, regardless of that, nobody uses the oven with Bloody Mandy’s name on it (even though apparently there was an empty one right next to it) and so she just went ahead and took his food out.  Nosferatu is so mad he’s simply sputtering, “I can’t believe you took it out of the oven!  You’re such a… why would you do that?”  Her big comeback is “BECAUSE I LABELED THAT ONE!”…

gee, are we sure Mandy’s not on any meds these days?

The best part about all of this is:  most of the nuclear exchange is in front of Daddy Tom, who just happened to walk in the door right after they started screaming at each other.  He decides to have a chat with Miss Mandy first, and asks her what the yelling was all about.  She gives Daddy Tom her lame-ass story about having labeled the oven, and admits she took someone else’s food out even though it was already cooking.  He immediately cuts through her bullshit, asking if any of the other ovens were labeled.  She starts sputtering herself, saying something like, “No, but generally we labeled ovens, like… that was mine… prison rules?”  Daddy Tom’s like, “Prison rules?  I’ve never been to prison, I don’t know how those rules are…”

he looks oddly interested to find out, though, doesn’t he?

In any case, Bloody Mandy doesn’t really have a comeback for that one, mainly because now she just looks petty and stupid.  Daddy Tom decides he’s had enough of her bitchassness and moves on to an even bigger bitchass, Her Majesty Miss GayNold, who fetches a giant theatrical sigh when he comes up, making Daddy feel unwelcome.  GayNold relents and admits he’s pressed for time, and Daddy picks right up on why he looks so stressed:  “You didn’t expect that you were gonna come here and have a sous-chef, did you?”  BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Daddy then asks if this lambball thingy is the type of food GayNold usually does, and sure enough, he mentions that it’s the kind of food at one of his restaurants that he “writes the menu for” but isn’t actually in the kitchen doing.  I guess because that’s what far less fabulous underlings are for?  No wonder she’s being such a bitch, she normally doesn’t have to get bits of lamb asshole wedged up under her preciously manicured toities!

Moving on to ShortyPants, he’s doing a rather odd dish consisting of bacon-wrapped Chilean Sea Bass, but Shorty insists that this dish is “tried and true”.  Except I thought that Chilean Sea Bass was a no-no for buying or serving?  Can anybody help me out on this one?  Nevertheless, it’s hard to tell if this is going to be a good thing to grill or not, I guess we’ll find out soon enough…

ShortyPants’ edits have become unpredictable

Later on, at the Bilious Brownstone, more and more chefs apparently feel comfortable with smoking on camera, because now we see Bloody Mandy, OranJello, ShortyPants, Trucksy, AND Miss Swan all out there puffing away, and it’s really starting to irritate me because, well, I miss smoking.  I know it’s stupid and cancerous and will probably still end up killing me someday, but I really enjoyed it (especially after a good meal) and it’s been just under a year that I’ve been tobacco-free, and I just fucking miss it.  End smoking rant.  Before I go light something on fire and try to inhale it.

Trucksy’s asking Bloody Mandy about her dish, and she tells them she’s making ribs.  OranJello and ShortyPants start peppering her with questions about whether or not she’s steamed her pork, or if it’s tender enough to just pull the bones out, or if she’s gonna label the grill they’re assigned at the picnic with her name or not.  I’m kidding about that last one.  Anyhow, they’re really giving her a hard time and normally I’d be kinda upset at them for being so nasty to her…

except they look so cute doing it

Poor Mandy, she thinks nobody takes her seriously as a chef and wants so badly to prove everybody wrong.  She could start by discarding her silly “prison rules” where ovens are concerned and just, you know, use the empty one next time.  Oddly enough, OranJello interviews that he actually thinks she’s a good chef and very smart.  But he also believes there’s no way she can beat him, either.

It’s the next day, and they’ve only got one hour at Mount Vernon to cook, and GayNold actually does something smart for a change!  You see, because of all the horrible and suicide-inducing pore-clogging that grilling causes, he doesn’t have much experience with even starting the charcoal for a grill.  Instead of whining about why he can’t have an assistant to do that for him, he shuts up (yay!) and just watches KennEgo set his up, and mimics everything he does with a 2 second delay.  “His flame goes POOF and my flame goes POOF, then I know I’m all good!”

guess whose flame POOFS a little harder?

I’m impressed!  Way to man up, there, sister!  Less impressive is Bobby Brown bragging about his grill skillz and saying that the women aren’t as excited about doing it, implying that women just aren’t as good at grilling as the men are.  I was all set to argue the point, up until we hear Trucksy yelling out “How d’ya turn this grill down?!”  And Trucksy’s a lesbiana!  I give up.  Ladies (and GayNold), you’re on your own to prove the men wrong now.

T’would not be a Top Chef Season 7 Challenge without KennEgo harshly critiquing OranJello’s choice of doing Asian-inspired food, saying that he thinks it’s a bad idea for a picnic…

um, not to Asian people

Didn’t the Chinese, like, invent the grill?  Oh well, as the interns start to file in and relax, GayNold returns to tell us his sister was an intern, and describes it as “you’re somebody’s bitch for a while… I’ve never been the bitch… *giggle*”…

oh yes, that face just screams “power top”

Puh-LEEZE.  Girlfriend is a catcher, not a pitcher.  Let’s serve some food, and look who we have joining the judges today!

It’s WAXIE!

Yes, it’s Jonathan Waxman, Chef Obi-Wan KeWaxie from Seasons One and Two of Top Chef Masters (and from last week’s episode of The Next Food Network Star, I might add).  He’s been brought in because he truly is a master of simple food.  And apparently (as a bonus) to make Gail and Scar look thinner.  They start out with GayNold’s non-traditional picnic dish…

I dunno, that blackened lambball doesn’t look so much appealing as it looks dry

Next they hit up Miss Tamesha…

doesn’t that wispy fennel always look like you got spiders in your salad?

Tamesha’s a smidge nerve-wracked because Waxie’s such a grilling god, but OranJello’s cool as a coke-head after a couple of lines…

what a pretty julienne!

Then they head on over to Nosferatu’s station where he serves up a big cheek’s worth of pig butt…

Nosferry gets a big kick out of saying “pork butt” as much as possible and confides to us “I would wanna eat the ass outta this pig allll day!”  Funny, whenever I say that about my BF I get labeled a pervert by Focus On The Family and then they try to take away my human rights.  Fuckers.

In any case, back at the Judges’ (Picnic) Table, they start in on GayNold’s lamb kofta.  Daddy Tom immediately mentions that it’s seasoned well, while Waxie says he likes it and that it took talent to grill something like this so well.  Gail likes his barley salad for it’s freshness and ability to remain cool in the heat.  As for Miss Tamesha’s skirt steak, Daddy likes it, but Waxie thinks it’s too chewy because it’s been overcooked…

stretch out with your fillings, Waxie!

Gail says she likes Nosferatu’s pork butt (snicker) and thinks it’s beautifully cooked, but Waxie says the sauce was a little sweet for his taste, and thinks he should have had some fun by adding some habañero or something spicy to it.  As for OranJello’s Asian taco, Waxie says “This is a magazine cover dish.”  I’m not sure if he means that as a compliment or not, his face looks kinda gassy when he says it.  Gail likes the smoky flavor of his egg salad, though.

Next they move on to Bobby Brown, who’s been bragging about what a great griller he is, and about the special rub he brought with him from his restaurant…

I’ll say that loin looks dry, it’s cracked!

Before he can finish his description, however, we hear the sound of honking geese as they dive-bomb Bobby Brown’s serving table…

I love how Waxie doesn’t even move

Gail’s immediately comment:  “Wow.  Bullseye!”  LOL, Gail.  They cut to a shitsplat on a workstation, but I don’t think its actually Bobby Brown’s, even though they imply that it is.

Well, now that the chocolate rain is over, let’s move on to Bloody Mandy’s ribs…

that look surprisingly good for food created with such angst

Yuh, okeh, it looka lika Miss Swan do traditional Gorgeous Pretty Beauty Food too…

it looooka lika Manwich

And instead of a Moobwich, JerseyMoobs is proud to serve his Puerto Rican dish…

believe me, you won’t mind that I covered up the beans and rice

Starting with Bobby Brown’s two-ways pork rib and loin, Daddy thinks the meat tastes okay, but the sides are awful and overcooked.  Scar giggles and says “Maybe that bird knew something we didn’t.”  Groans.  I would have given anything if a goose had poobombed her right then, just to show what it was they were really aiming for.  Anyhow, Miss Swan’s bison burger is labeled as bland and possibly too simple of a presentation.  Next they try Bloody Mandy’s ribs, and Gail immediately says she likes the flavor much more than Bobby Brown’s (ooh, slam against his restaurant’s rub!) and Waxie says the grilled asparagus is delicious.  Lastly, they try JerseyMoobs’ Taste Of Puerto Rico, and Waxie immediately calls out his beans for being undercooked, while Daddy says the rice is totally bland.

Bravely, they head out for more food, starting with Instructor LynnBian…

which looks rather wormy

Meanwhile, KennEgo also went the exotic spice route…

which looks rather like fudge marble cake

This is followed by Trucksy’s “Italian sausage slider burgers”…

didn’t she do a boogersnot salad last time?

They begin with KennEgo’s harissa’ed out pork, which Gail thinks is well-cooked.  Scar says LynnBian’s lamb dish is very heavy tasting “even though it looks very light” due to some kind of cheese having been added to it.  Waxie agrees.  As for Trucksy’s slider, Daddy Tom appears to be having trouble choking it down because his sausage patty has a HUGE amount of fennel in it…

Daddy Tom’s FennelFace™

Waxie complains that it’s really too big to be a slider, and Gail says hers is undercooked.  They cut to Trucksy asking random passersby what they thought of her burger, and when one of them comes back with “It was spicy!” she’s all “Least it had somethin’ goin’ on with it!”  She’s right, in a wrong sort of way.

Last group starts out with ChesTiffany…

which looks double-D-rrific

Which leads them into Big Haired Andrea’s beef…

and it’s weird jus-ey-ness

This is followed by ShortyPants and his chopped up phalluses of phish…

fishdick is yummy

And rounding out the challenge is MassholEd’s Moroccan Delight…

a veritable bazaar of color… if a trifle jizzy looking

MassholEd insists to Waxie that this is something he would serve his family at a picnic.  All’s I can say is, sucks to be a mini-Masshole.  Then he tells us how confident he is in his dish because his father was an executive chef, and “He never thought of doing half the shit that I’ve done in my life already… and he told me years ago that I already surpassed him…”

at least in the eyebrow maintenance department

And also in the Being-A-Huge-Dickhead-Ungrateful-Asshat-Son-On-TV department!  Seriously?  Who says shit like that about their parents?  I would rather cut out my tongue than talk about my dad like he was some unibrowed dumbfuck with no imagination.  My dad may never have danced with a drag queen, but he has a PhD in Microbiology, you tell me which one is more useful?  Mine may be more fun, but his helped keep me in food and Husky TuffSkins for many years, and I am grateful to him every day of my life for it.  MassholEd, you are a fuckwit.

Okay, back to the stupid food.  They seem to like MassholEd’s dish, Waxie calls it “picnic-friendly” and Daddy Tom says it has a lot of flavor.  As for Big Haired Andrea, Daddy takes one bite and says “Boy, that is root beer…”  Gail agrees that the glaze is way too sweet.  ChesTiffany’s couscous comes over as bland, and Waxie says he’s saddened by the fact that her tamarind glaze has no flavor.  The worst is yet to come as they try ShortyPants’ sea bass.  Gail looks disgusted, saying that it’s not good at all and “sorta stringy inside and it’s really chewy and hard to get through on the outside!”  Daddy Tom agrees, and says the bacon got crispy on the grill but didn’t have time to render its fat out into the dish.

Here’s where it gets weird.  What is OranJello doing?  He’s up at Bloody Mandy’s station and asking to taste her ribs.  I was expecting some kind of smarmy comment from him, but instead he’s raving about it, saying he thinks it’s one of the best dishes there, EVEN BETTER THAN HI—

*THUNK*

Sorry about that, I just fell out of my chair.  OranJello actually said someone else’s dish was better than his…

although admitting it is making him itchy

He’s calling it excellent and brilliant and encouraging others to try it.  Wow, maybe he doesn’t like being isolated after all.  I have to be honest, though, I was half-expecting him to turn right around and go tell Kenny to try Trucksy’s or ShortyPants’ dishes, LOL!

Trucksy’s feeling pretty good about her dish, too.  Right up until she starts tasting all the other dishes and discovers that everybody’s food is great.  Then we get treated to a vignette of her displaying her psychic/clairvoyant abilities and making Big Haired Andrea almost cry…

I think she told her that having a big Julia Roberts mane of moussed up hair went out of style around 1993

ShortyPants is in the middle of speechifying about how he thinks his dish was so great (and Instructor LynnBian is just shy of openly rolling her eyes in his direction) when Scar comes in and asks for MassholEd, Bloody Mandy, OranJello and GayNold.  This time they turn out to be the Goodies instead of the Baddies, and after reiterating everything the loved about their four respective dishes, you’re not gonna believe who the winner this week is…

MISS THING!

Okay, I know I’ve bitched up a storm and back about Miss GayNold, but I have to give it up here, if Waxie and Daddy Tom and Gail said his dish was the best, then he must truly have some serious food talents.  Now if he could just adopt a less-grating personality.  But then I wouldn’t have him to bitch about, so keep on girlfriend, congrats on the win, but I ain’t lettin’ up on your uppity queen crap, either!

Bloody Mandy isn’t even sad that she didn’t win, she’s taking the fact that she wound up in the top four as proof that she can cook.  That’s great, but I would have hoped that making it onto this show would have been proof enough.  It’s not like this is Hell’s Kitchen (sorry Fran And Berry, no disrespect meant towards you guys, but you know they pick shitty chefs for that show on purpose, right?)

GayNold comes back and makes a power-curtsey when his win is announced (see what I mean?) and then says the Judges want to see Bobby Brown, ShortyPants, Trucksy and JerseyMoobs.  Bobby Brown is trying to hide behind a strained smile, but you can tell he’s hurt and pissed…

he thought he was good enough

Scar starts by asking ShortyPants if he had ever made his dish before.  He says not for a picnic, and Gail lets him know the bass was totally unappealing.  Daddy Tom says the bacon had no char, and even worse, his couscous was greasy and flavorless.  I kinda feel sorry for Shorty, he looks like he’s about to cry…

or be forced to go see one of the “Twilight” movies

As for Bobby Brown’s dish, Gail says she just didn’t care for his veggies, some were overcooked, some were undercooked, and Daddy Tom seems mad that everything was underseasoned, saying they had plenty of time the day before as well as today.  Waxie thinks he shied away from his own dish.

Then Scar tells JerseyMoobs that his dish was “the safest Puerto Rican food” she’s ever had.  JerseyMoobs is aghast and insists it wasn’t safe at all, saying it’s the exact same food the Puerto Ricans he knows would do.  Gail jumps in, “Are they chefs?”  JerseyMoobs says no, and she zings him with “Exactly.  You are.  So show us great Puerto Rican food that a professional chef would make.  Step it up!”…

now look who’s making ShortyPants Cry-ey Face™

Lastly, Scar asks Trucksy if she’s at all surprised to be here.  No, because she’s psychic, remember?  Waxie wants to know if she tasted the sausage and wonders if maybe she should have crushed the fennel seed in with the other spices instead of leaving it whole.  Trucksy claims she tasted it, but then allows that some burgers might have had more fennel in them than others.  Gail pipes up that her patty was really pink, almost raw.  Daddy Tom gets another dig in, saying “If that’s what you call Italian food then it’s almost insulting to Italians… me being one!”  Waxie delivers the coup de grace, telling her part of being a top chef is to figure out how to fix what’s wrong with their dish, and accuses her of having stopped trying.

almost cry-ey face #3!

Let’s leave the sadness for a bit and check out the satisfaction we can get from this week’s Viewer Poll…

you fuckers

So after I gave BravoTV.com my cell phone number and voted, it shows 71% of people say knowing pastry is what makes a Top Chef, and 29% say fuck that shit, hire someone who does it for a living.  Thanks Bravo!

Back at the Judges’ Table, it’s no surprise (and you don’t need to be psychic if you’ve at all noticed how much face time she got in this episode) that Trucksy’s the one packing her knives to go home.  I read in Daddy Tom’s blog where he said they had to play down just how bad Trucksy’s dish was, otherwise it would have made it way too obvious who was going home, but apparently hers was truly the worst from the get-go.  And she’s not being a bitch about it, either, she thinks the judging was fair, she deserved to go, and she’s okay with it…

bye girl, I’m gonna miss that booming voice (and that evil cackle) of yours

And there we are!  What did you think of this episode?  How do you guys feel about the poll question “Should these chefs be skilled in pastries”?  Did you think it was funny that KennEgo did not make it into the Top Four after talking about how he was “in a groove” and gonna beat everybody?  And is it just me, or is it a East Coast/New England-y kind of thing to be competitive with your parents the way MassholEd talked about his dad?  And has anyone else ever heard of “prison rules”?  I feel like I should have, but I honestly don’t know what they are, either… can someone tell us?

One last thing before I go (and I really must go, because I’ve pulled yet another all-nighter and now I get to go to work, hee hee!) I wanted to share with you guys what else I did for the Fourth Of July:  I didn’t get to see any fireworks… I was trying to create them.  Here’s the latest project, which was choreographed and staged by yours truly…

Love,  J-Mo  : )