Top Chef: Holy Dick

Howdy, y’all! Did I scare everybody away with my super sensational sexytime recap of last week’s show? Was it a little too much to read about blowjobs in some form or another in just about every single paragraph of a ten-page recap? Or did my little Ludoflies gross y’all out? Well, either way, I must apologize, sometimes I get carried away and I forget that not everybody is into cute chubby boys the same way that I am. Plus, I was up to my mantits in Cuervo and there’s been a bit of a dry-spell of non-solo lovin’ going on in Casa J-Mo, and when you add all of that together, sometimes the outcome is a bunch of verbal erections. And maybe a few literal ones as well. In any case, this show is supposed to be about the food (and the occasional asshole chef) and not about me getting some, so I promise to keep the sexual references (and hardons) to a bare minimum if at all possible. Besides, I really only get out of control when I see hot husky guys, so I think we’re pretty safe in assu-…

*boioioioioioioioioioing*

Whoops! Sorry, but that guy caught me totally by surprise! It’s Eric Stonestreet, I think he’s kind of adorable and he plays a fat gay dad on the hit TV show Modern Family. In tonight’s episode of Top Chef Masters we get to see the entire cast of that show and hear exactly what they think about the food they’re served during their lunch hour. Plus, you can tell that Eric is cute but he can also be kind of a bitch at times. Also we have another douchebag Master on our hands! Yay for assholes (and I don’t mean that in a sexual way)!

Okay, so jumping right in, tonight we meet the last five of our brand new Masters to compete, starting out with Jody Adams who is the Executive Chef and owner of Rialto in Cambridge, MA. Funny, that was also the name of a porno movie theatre in my hometown when I was growing up. Wait! Sorry, I promised no sex talk this time. Anyhow, Jody says she didn’t go to cooking school (ahhhh, so she’s one of those kind of Masters) because she was too busy getting her degree in anthropology from Brown University…

Don’t believe me?…

I’m not trying to talk sex, I’m just reporting what she’s doing. In any case, Gail Simmons says Cougarella Adams here is a James Beard Award-winning chef who likes to combine New England ingredients with classic Italian traditions, which means chowdah and pasta, I guess? Bet she also likes to bone the busboys on Sundays. Then again, who doesn’t?

Let’s move on to Miss Maria Hines, whom Bok Choi describes as an “organic guru” and who is Executive Chef and owner of a restaurant called Filth in Seattle, WA. Oh, wait, I’m sorry, it’s not Filth, it’s Tilth. Boy, if that doesn’t just rollll off the tongue, huh? You know, there’s a reason why you should not name your restaurant things like Tuillet, or Roiches, or The Poupé Chute, or The Bombatorium. You’re just asking for trouble…

I ain’t gonna talk about her teefs, though, cuz Punkin Hines here seems really sweet. She says that even though she’s “the organic Girl Scout” that she’s also really competitive. Jay FugTaser shows up to remind us what true ugly is, and says that Food & Whine magazine has tipped their collective hat to her as being one of the best new chefs, and James Beard gave her Best New Chef Of The Northwest in 2009. Oh, and Grubby Magazine was going to give her Best New Restaurant Name Of 2009 as well, until they found out it wasn’t called what they thought it was.

Next we have Rick Tramonto, who is the Executive Chef and owner of Tru and Tramonto Steak & Seafood in Chicago, IL. My internal Asshole-O-Meter started dinging quite loudly when this douche says (with deadly seriousness) that his food has “changed the Chicago culinary scene”…

What. Ever. This guy is so cheap he doesn’t even have a separate website set up for his other three restaurants, just a bunch of lame-ass photo galleries on Flickr. Gail Simmons is buying the big bag of bullshit, though, because she claims that if you’re in Chicago and not eating at one of Dick Tramonto’s restaurants “You’re probably eating at the wrong place.” Gee, I guess she forgot about the fact that the winner of Season One and actual Top Chef Master Rick Bayless has a buttload of restaurants in Chicago. Nice try, Gail, but no sale, and besides…

We have another ladychef tonight, and her name is Debbie Gold. She’s the Executive Chef at the simply-named American Restaurant in Kansas City, MO. And no, it’s not a barbecue restaurant. They serve wine there. Debbie totally giggles and says if she could be named Top Chef Master she would brag about it all the time. Then she shows us her mighty large incisors…

Debbie’s a little scary, but FugTaser says she trained in France at serious classical restaurants (with occasional weekenders in Transylvania maybe?) and was named Best Chef Of The Midwest by James Beard in 1999. She seems to have no aversion to daylight, either. which is odd…

Last in line tonight is our first Asian Master of the season, Susur Lee, who owns Madeline’s in Toronto and Shang Restaurant in NYC. He says his job is to win and that he really needs this “Top Chef award”…

My guess is that there was some kind of tragic wok accident in his past, and that’s where they went. Gramma Gael totters in to creepily croak that Food & Whine magazine named Sussudio one of their Ten Best Chefs Of The Millenium…

Well, now that we’ve taken Roasters Roll Call, Bok Choi welcomes everybody and then reminds us that The Dick has been on Top Chef before as a judge and wants to know how he feels being on the other side. To her, he claims it’s “nerve-wracking” but to us he gleefully brags that he had “a blast”. Then we see the flashback, and OMG, I remember this asshat now…

Granted, it was Spike Evangelass Mendelssohn he was rightously yelling at, because Spike foolishly used a frozen product (which turned out shitty) and then he tried to blame it on the fact that that’s what they had available to them that day, and The Dick’s response was the now-famous “I’ll take the shot, BRO, I had frozen scallops in my cooler… but you’ve gotta take the shot that you used ‘em!” And then Spike was sent home. And there was much rejoicing on TVGasm. Cut short by the fact that The Great Unwashed Fleasa Fernandes was still in the competition.

In any case, this whole incident caused much controversy: Why on earth would a fine seafood restaurant like The Dick’s have an inferior product like frozen scallops available for a Top Chef challenge? Thanks to Allycatt’s comment (I wouldn’t have known where to look) I found Daddy Tom’s original blog about it, and he says that shit wasn’t a part of The Dick’s normal walk-in fare, the frozen crap was brought in by a supply company that augmented the stock already available. Which is all well and good, but it never really answers the larger question of why would they ever have a supply company put frozen product out for them to use on Top Chef? They can’t afford fresh scallops? Or did Tramonto’s buy them all up?

So, okay, this wasn’t exactly The Dick’s fault, but regardless, anybody who uses the word “Bro” like that automatically sets my teeth on edge…

Hey, what do you know? A fat dude on this show that’s totally not turning me on! Let’s get to the QuickFire Challenge! Which is to create the “perfectly styled Fruit Plate”…

This Quickfire hearkens back to Season One when Stephen Assininio won with what Bok Choi calls “his ambitious platter of fruit 12 different ways!”…

Gee, does “chopping up apples into chunks” count as a “way”? This challenge should be easy then! Sussudio pipes up that he’s really excite for this challenge because he knows he have better knife skill than all these other chef. I’m excited because this kind of talk usually mean someone bout to fuck shit up baaaad.

So who’s judging their fruity-fruit plates today? Jeff Lewis? Eye-Sack Mizerahbli? Miss Andy Cohen? Nope, it’s gonna be “two people who are in the business of making food look it’s best…” Which means, Gail Simmons from Food & Whine and Stephen Hamilton, who is a renowned food photographer…

I wish Gail would worry a little less about making food look good and take a harder look at her collection of awful ill-fitting blouses. And as for Stevie Hamilton Beach’s weekly work on Top Chef, here’s what was available for last week’s episode…

…and by “mouthwatering” I mean “the water that you splash in your mouth after you’ve finished vomiting at the sight of grey steak and green sausage”. This is the reason why I absolutely had to go with screenshots only for last week’s recap, that shit was fucked up. In any case, Vampire Debbie says she’s not so into fruit (except for blood oranges, of course, ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah!) and knowing that Hamilton Beach will be critiquing her work is making her feel all oogy inside.

Oh, and Bok Choi says there’s One. More. Thing. This is a HIGH STAKES QUICKFIRE! Wow, I thought they retired that with Season Six of Top Chef, but see how wrong I am? Today’s winner automatically snags a spot in the Champion’s Round! Way to knock them all on their asses, Bokky! And with no time to recover, their 45 minutes starts now!

The Dick agrees with Sussudio that knife skills are going to be the winning touch here, and he wants to focus on the beauty of the fruit, claiming he wants to make it a “Dali” or a “Picasso” or a “Monet”…

Whatever. You won’t believe the tacky touches he’s going to put on it when he’s finished. Let’s check in with Jody Cougarella…

She’s telling us that she started cooking in high school and that she used to be one of the fastest line-cooks ever, “but that was many years ago.” so she’s a little rusty. However, she says her son told her to just be herself and keep her hands off the cameramen and not take too many risks and she’ll be fine. Awww, how sweet! See how you don’t have to come out of the gate being an asshole? Dick? Sussudio? Ludocrous? La Marquessa?

Speaking of Sussussudio, he says one of his main “philosophy of food” is “Eass Meet Wess”. I wouldn’t call that a “philosophy” as much as I’d call it a “tired cliché”. In any case, he says it’s because he grew up in Hong Kong, but became a “chef gypsy” who also has French Techniques…

He says his fruit plate is going to be base on a lot of flavors and color, and that he’s making almost like a ravioli with blackberries and thai basil inside some kind of thinly sliced pineapple cocoon. “I know this dish will get me to the Championship!” Then he says a bunch more stuff about how focus he is and how he sees the “vision” of the plate like a movie in his head. The Dick calls Sussudio is one of the “astronauts” of the culinary industry and believes he’s going to be his toughest competition. I guess he’s of the opinion that the ladies all suck.

Time to see what Li’l Punkin Hines is up to. This should be right up her alley with her background in organic refreshments. She says she feels like a duck right now because up top things look kind of calm, but underneath where the water is her legs are going like this…

She? Is adorable. She’s a little intimidated by some of the other Masters, “When they were opening up their restaurants, I was probably in the high school parking lot smoking and not inhaling… things.” LOL, well, I’m sure pot brownies are very organic, too! Anyhow, she’s decided to make her fruit plate follow the appetizer-entrée-dessert format with an “apple soup” and some grilled figs, plus a fresh berry mousse.

Also using figs today is Jody Cougarella, she’s making a fig and walnut tart with a pomegranate syrup that uses molasses and clementine juice. You know, we have a giant fig tree in our backyard, and I never know when those fuckers are ripe so the birds always get to them first. Also, all I can think about when I see it is that the leaves are huge and this embarrassing story my mom once told me about how she and my dad went to a Halloween party in the 60′s as Adam & Eve and they wore those leaves to cover their privates… not realizing that as the leaves dry out over the course of the evening they turn brown and shrivel up to a tenth of their former size. Thank God they were wearing long underwear, too…

BTW. that’s not my mom and dad. Anyhow, Cougarella also says she decided to be crazy and make ziblpblfblghtny and I was like WTF did she just say? So I rewound it about sixty or seventy times and listened over and over again until my BF’s agonized voice came screaming out of the living room to tell me “SHE SAID ‘ZABAGLIONE’!” Thanks, sweetie! So she’s making zabaglione to go with her tarts. Except she wound up putting her tart dough in the blast-chiller, where it froze solid and forced her to stick it in the oven to try and reverse that process, and now she doesn’t think she’s gonna finish in time. Um, maybe that’s why they call it a “blast chiller” instead of a “gentle dough cooler”?

Meanwhile, Vampire Debbie says she wanted to do way more than just sliced fruit, so she decided to ALSO use figs, only she’s stuffing them with cranberries and pecans…

…and then she decides she wants to give them “texture” so she creates a tempura batter and deep fries them! Wow, girl is ballsy and more than a little nuts I think. But that’s what happens when you spend every night sleeping upside down, I guess. Anyhow, she’s telling the room that she has faith that she’s going to be able to pull this off, and hearing that word spoken aloud perks up The Dick. Why? Well, because he says that his faith has been his driving force in his life…

Yes, see, because when he was much younger The Dick’s dad went to prison, he quit school and got into trouble with drugs and alcohol (his affinity for ‘tardtoos came later, apparently) and then about 15 years ago he “recommitted himself” to Christ and got clean…

Which is a wonderful thing on all fronts, and I’m happy for him that he’s better now and no longer trailing hair into people’s surf’n'turf platters. I’m just not sure that outside of the whole “loaves and fishes” miracle, God has a whole lot to do with a cooking competition. I ain’t hatin’, just sayin’.

Time’s up, and Cougarella says her tarts came out of the oven not quite finished. Poor thing, I hope her ziblpblfblghtny-stuff turns out better. Let’s see how it goes since she’s up first…

Gail says the tart is “right up her alley”, which I’m not sure if she means she really likes tarts or that she’s a slut, but since this is a non-sexual recap, we’ll just go with choice number one, likes tarts (and fug sleeveless blouses). Hamilton Beach says it looks beautiful, but Gail complains that it’s not quite cooked through all the way. Hamilton says he doesn’t mind that, he likes the “difference in textures” (i.e. he was a kid like me who always pestered mommy for a hunk of cookie or pie dough) and he thinks it’s interesting how adding some of the Random Sliced-Up Fruit to it “adds another layer”. Watching them from the Kitchen, Cougarella hears this and squawks “DUH!”

Next in line is Vampire Debbie and her deep-fried bull-balls…

Hamilton Beach agrees with me and says that while it has plenty of color, he wishes that it had more “taste appeal”…

She says it’s natural to want to tear someone’s throat out with your teeth get a little defensive when someone doesn’t like what you’ve made. Then he says he just loves the walnuts and she’s like “They’re pecans.” Hamilton Beach is coming off like kind of a dolt. Gail chimes in to say there are a lot of beautiful elements and everything was prepared very well with great technique, which I suspect is Gail’s way of saying “Meh.”

Time to see how Sussudio’s “Eass Meets Wess” turned out…

Gail immediately notices “There’s a lot goin’ on with this dish!” and Hamilton Beach makes it clear that he’s no fan of it because it violates his philosophy of “simple is better”. Gail says she has no idea what the focus is supposed to be on the plate, and Hamilton agrees there’s too much of a “3 ring circus” going on. Nobody mentions the disgusting white smears around the edge…

Sussudio is mad like hell, and says Critics always give you either The Clap or a Slap, and blames their dislike of his big plate of mess on the fact that “Maybe they do not understan different culture… those kind of thing really bugs my ass!” Ah, so this is a clear case of They’re Too Stupid To Recognize My Brilliance, eh, Sussudio? Well, then I feel I must say 关闭您的嘴! 您的呼吸气味喜欢屎!

Time for our sweet little Punkin’ Hines and her ducky little entry…

KIDDING! Besides the skidmark, her plate looks almost antiseptically clean. Hamilton comments on how beautiful figs are and Gail notes how they’ve been clearly brûléed (Punkin’ whispers “Grilled!“) and she goes on to say that while she applauds the chef for keeping things simple, she has no idea why the three elements are “playing on the same plate.” Poor Punkin is dying in the Kitchen because they’re not seeing her appetizer-entrée-dessert theme in the dish, but to be fair, I’m not sure how they’re supposed to pick up on that with all sweet items. Maybe she shoulda made a “watermelon steak” like somebody did way back in Season Two (I think it might have even been Turkey-Hair MonkeyButt Marcel).

Last in line tonight is The Holy Dick and my mouth just dropped right the fuck open…

He’s super proud of his addition of a “Versace Cup” (ugh) and his “little culinary inspirational cards” (double-ugh). Gail reads hers right away! “‘May there always be an angel by your side.’ Mine came with a blessing.”…

Hamilton Beach says he got one, too! “Good cooks never lack friends except when they get real preachy.” Gail says there’s a lot of really pretty elements on the plate (though she fails to identify the obvious Versace Cup) and Hamilton agrees that the dish is very playful, and thinks the cards add to that. The Holy Dick is beaming so hard, he looks like he’s coming close to a full-on Ascension™!…

I mean, really? What in the blue fiddlyfuck does a “Versace Cup” and a lame white-people rip-off of fortune-cookie fortunes have to do with the damned food? I know presentation is important and all, but I would have respected him more if he’d just been honest and done it like this…

Yeah, but no, instead, The Holy Dick is bragging to his undead neighbor Vampire Debbie about how his dish was “so good” and that his fruit was “so beautiful”. He tells us that he feels just awesome because when Hamilton Beach called the plate “proselytizing” “playful”, he just knew that they got it, and him, “My dish certainly screamed ‘Rick Tramonto’!”…

Seriously, what a dickbag. Let’s get to the results! Li’l Punkin Hines got 3 stars, while Vampire Debbie scored 3½ stars. Ahh, but Sussudio only got 2½ stars and now he looks ready to kill somebody! “I got real low score. What da fuck is dat?!? I am very piss off!!” He claims that’s a good thing and that it will motivate him to show them all how good he is…

Cougarella Adams and her tarts were awarded a full 4 stars, which means The Holy Dick needs 4½ stars to beat her! And after all his little tricks and gorgeous fruit and prayers and Versace cups and bragging and “inspirational cards” it turns out…

So Cougarella wins $5,000.00 for her charity Partners In Health (which brings healthcare to far-flung places) and she’s nailed the second-to-last spot in the Champion’s Round, as well as obvious immunity in the Elimination Challenge. She says her “whole body is smiling” with this news (rraaawwrrr!) and she’s gonna buy beers for everybody that night! She better get some kind of extra bitter variety for Sussudio and The Holy Dick.

Speaking of the Elimination Challenge, Bok Choi says today they’re being asked to “modernize the family dinner” for the cast & crew of Modern Family, so their food will need to please everyone, not just the actors, but also the directors, creators, extras, key grips, best boys, electricians, and a bunch of pissed-off craft services people who are now going to lose a day’s income.

I dunno why Bokky says the dish has to please everyone… in my family my mom’s philosophy was Those Who Don’t Like Any Element Of My Tuna Casserole & Pasta Shells For Dinner Are Welcome To Begin Starvation Dieting Immediately. It was always a bit of a Russian Roulette game when you sat down to dinner in my house, you never knew if you had gotten lucky and she had just gone shopping that day… or if she had just Cleaned Out The Freezer and discovered leftovers from the 70′s that were Too Good To Throw Away. Yes, my childhood was filled with a Lot Of Random Capitalization, too. Anyhow, Vampire Debbie says the first thing she thinks of when she hears “family dinner” is…

KIDDING! Actually she can’t think of a non-blessed thing! She’s got time, though, they’re gonna have 4 hours to prep and cook in the TCM Kitchen prior to serving the TV people on their lot, and with that they’re Lexusing their way to that weird ass two-story Whole Paycheck Market (do any of you L.A. ‘Gasmii know where that one is?… I’m only familiar with the busted-ass one in WeHo on Santa Monica and Fairfax).

Armed with 45 minutes, $350.00 and a Sense Of Entitlement, they hit the floor scootching. Immediately The Holy Dick believes that he’s got a chubby leg up on this challenge because his family is the very defintion of a “modern family”. And why is that? Well, his business partner and the pastry chef in his restaurant Tru is Gale Gand, who is also his ex-wife. His new wife is Elieen and they have 3 boys, 2 of which come from her previous marriage, and 1 from his relationship with Gale…

Wow, that’s simply amazing, he just described something half as interesting as The Brady Bunch (with no girls in curls). You want a real modern family? Try mine on for size: My parents were together for 25 years and then split up. Dad-Mo remarried and moved to a tiny Mormon Town in northeastern AZ where he has a ranch with horses and two gay llamas, and he barely speaks to anyone because he’s not Mormon. Mom-Mo remarried as well and after 10 years I now have a Dead Stepfather. Then she remarried again (this time a younger man) and gave us all a Live Stepfather. The two of them are senior bikers who wear a lot of Safety Orange™ and ride all over the U.S.taking pictures of every mile of it. My older brother M-Mo is the Band Director at West Point and married an Italian Mafia Wife (Joy-Mo), my younger sister B-Mo had an interracial kid out of wedlock at 19 (C-Jack) and lives with her current BF and his kid from some other lady. My younger brother Al-Mo was a mega-pothead until just a couple of years ago before he got clean and engaged to a Catholic girl. And then there’s me and my older BF, both of us big fat homos with kitties for children and lots of drag queen friends. THAT’S a “modern family”.

Enough about me, let’s see what Cougarella’s up to! She’s tasting bacon and thinking of making semolina gnocchi with braised chicken thighs and an herb salad. Oh NO, not fucking gnocchi! That never works for cafeteria-style cooking, does it? Invariably it always turns out twice as dense as lead and half as tasty. Good thing she’s got immunity, no?…

Meanwhile, Vampire Debbie’s reminiscing about when she was just a Li’l Vampire, they ate very simply, stuff like boxed macaroni & cheese and Spaghetti-O’s…

Her inspiration is coming from the Brady Bunch episode where Peter uttered his most famous catchphrase “Porkchops & appleshauce” so she grabs an entire pork belly and they head back to the TCM Kitchen for 90 minutes of prep, which seems weird that they wouldn’t have just waited until the following day and done all four hours at once, but maybe that’s part of their way of fucking with them.

We haven’t heard much from Sussudio, and I’m wondering if he’s gotten over his crushing loss at being Worst Master in the QuickFire. “When I arrive the kitchen I was still piss off! I got lowest score and dis show called Top Chef Master!” OK, so that’s a no. He says coming from an Asian background the very word “master” is very important to him. I wish the word “temper” was also in his lexicon, but I can sorta understand, it’s no fun to go on TV and be touted as this awesome chef and then wind up with *snort* 2½ stars…

So apparently he called his wife feeling sorry for himself and bitching to her about being Bottom Boy. Her response? “Shut da hell up! I no want listen to that bullshit, go out there and fight!” LOL, Missussudio! In the meantime, Li’l Punkin Hines says she’s got a true modern family and comes out as a chefbian, saying she’s been with her ladypartner Bahia for over 10 years, and that they have two dogs…

She’s making a salmon almondine, but using an almond milk sauce as the modern twist. She apparently makes this fish dish a lot, because, of course she does, she’s a lesbian. KIDDING! Sorta. Chefbians do make a lot of fish dishes on this show. Anyhow, over on the Dark Side, Vampire Debbie’s discovered with only a few minutes left that her pork belly is still super tough, some didn’t even cook at all, and she has no idea how she’s going to fix that in only 2½ hours on the following day.

Cougarella thinks the split prep-time is weird, too… “It’s like interrupted sex! We cook for an hour and a half and then we have to stop. You know, by that time… how can you climax??!?”…

Oh dear dildoes, her son must be absolutely kicking himself now that he advised her to just “be herself” but then again, how could he have known that Mommy’s hormone-replacement therapy would be so successful? But I swear, I’m not the one talking dirtysexy this time!…

…and OK, for the six straight guys who read this, here are some leopard-print encased boobs…

The following day everybody’s frantically back at work (hopefully Cougarella Adams found someone to help her *shudder* climax in the night) and Vampire Debbie says Li’l Punkin Hines had a great suggestion for her to get her pork belly cooked by simply frying it, and even lends her some of the burners on her stove. Debbie’s so grateful she promises not to go after Punkin Hines the next time she’s struck by bloodlust.

Also working at a breakneck pace is Sussudio, “I have no time to walk, I have to run over to stove, I have to run over to fridge!” He’s making roasted chicken with curry, as well as a vegetarian dish of polenta and grits. Polits? Gritlenta? “There is a yin and yang balance!” he crows. Meanwhile, he still has plenty of time to watch Vampire Debbie running around trying to get everything put together, “She look like she’s never gonna make it. She really make me laugh, she’s just like a character…”

They all head over to the ABC Studios where they’ve got one whole hour to set up before lunch is called. Right away Li’l Punkin Hines says the challenge with catering large meals like this is when food sits in a chafing dish it “loses a little bit of it’s life”. Luckily for her, the sock-eye salmon she chose tends to be a real oily fish so it can stand up to this kind of abuse a little better.

Vampire Debbie’s tasted her pork, and it’s making her salivate even more than The Holy Dick’s chubby neck, so she thinks she’s hit it out of the park. Also convinced he’s in for a home run is Sussudio, who’s busy making a giant mess of what look like cinnamon sticks, coffee beans and peapods alllll around his chafing dishes (I guess to add more ambience while the people spend all of 3 minutes in front of him getting their food?). “In term of serving a boo-fay, I done this so many time… but I never done it all by myself!” That explains why his station looks like a bunch of hyper 4-year-olds already ate there. And spit everything up.

Lunch is called and they’re all instantly mobbed by this hungry ass crew, but finally Li’l Punkin Hines gets clear enough to serve the Critics, which this week are still just Bok Choi, Gramma Gael Greene, Gail Simmons and FugTaser. I dunno why NerdMosexual’s not here again, maybe he had an Emergency Having-A-Giant-Stick-Rammed-Up-The-Butt Session to attend. Anyhow, the cast of Modern Family is also right behind the Critics…

Looking at the cast, Li’l Punkin Hines asks, “Do we get autographs?” Naturally, this is a cue for Jesse Tyler Ferguson (who plays Not-As-Fat Gay Dad) to queen out all over the place and coo “Well, if the food’s good, you can get anything you want!”…

His TV Husband looks like he wishes he’d STFU. Anyhow, here’s Li’l Punkin’ Hines’ dish…

I used to believe that old urban legend that spiders crawl into your mouth when you’re sleeping and you eat them. Like, 8 per year or something. And then I realized that if spiders were stupid enough to crawl inside your mouth at night when you’re exhaling clouds of taco-and-beer-breath, then they deserved to get eaten and die a slow agonizing death in a puddle of stomach acid. So there. Wait, what were we talking about? OH YEAH, Punkin’s food. One odd thing she mentioned was that the dish was “dusted with a little sumac”, which I didn’t realize was edible since it was one of the poisonous plants we were taught to avoid as kids. I’m assuming she didn’t use a poisonous variety. Unless Modern Family just isn’t one of her favorite shows.

Julie Bowen (who plays Not-As-Fat Gay Dad’s sister on the show) thinks it’s delicious. Fat Gay Dad Eric deadpans “It tastes like salmon.” Aaaaaaaand all he gets in return is a polite giggle from Bok Choi. Seeing that that one went over like a lead balloon, he then asks what’s in the sauce, and Gail tells him it’s almond milk. Sister Julie chimes in “With, um, some sort of bush?” Bokky’s all, “Sumac, I think.”, and Julie giggles “She told me it was a bush, heh heh heh!” Ummm, yeah, clearly these people do not write their own material on this show. There appears to be some serious tension between Fat Gay Dad Eric and Sister Julie, cuz he’s kinda glaring at her and then snots that the sumac is “refreshing”…

Not-As-Fat Gay Dad tries to defuse by agreeing that the sauce is tasty. All I hear is chewing and clacking plasticware and passive-aggressiveness. Ahhhh, now they’re even eating like a real Modern Family! If someone bursts into tears and runs for the liquor cabinet then I’ll feel right at home.

Next in line is Sussussudio, who makes me spew Chee-Tos everywhere when he says (in all seriousness) “I feel real comfotable with-uh film peopo… dey very friendly peopo, and very down to earth.”…

Yeah, I imagine the cafeteria ladies over on the The Hills would describe that cast as “friendly and down to earth”, LOL. Anyhow, here’s his chicken curry crap…

Sister Julie is orgasming, “Oh GOD, I love that!” Ugh, take it down a notch, Sister, there are no Emmys given out to guest stars on this show! Fat Gay Dad Eric is calling the tomato chutney “ridiculous” which is nonsensically positive I guess? However, Gramma Gael wonders aloud about the mint sauce that’s so hot and spicy that she’s not sure all families would “flip for that”. Right on cue we cut to an older crew guy complaining “Some of this is a little exotic for me.”

It’s The Holy Dick’s time to shine, and he’s totes peeing himself over the cast members coming up to him (and I noticed at this point that Ed O’Neill apparently was Too Famous To Appear™ today) and while he’s gushing all over them and kissing their collective asses, he’s inadvertently torturing little Rico Rodriguez (the Chubby Little Latin Kid)…

Hey Holy Dick, Jesus saith it doth be meaneth to teaseth the fat kid. Here doth be his disheth…

One of the show producers says he seems to be having to search for the truffles in the dish, but Fat Gay Dad Eric says it tastes the most like something he would have had growing up and that it’s comforting, warm and delicious. Not-As-Fat Gay Dad says it’s a great family meal, the kind of thing that would stew all day and “make the whole house smell good”. I remember those kinds of dishes growing up. My grandma would make them, and they made the house smell like feet. On the downside, Ty Burrell (who plays Sister’s DumbAssed Hubby) says it doesn’t seem like a very modern dish. He’s got a point, CrockPot Cookery isn’t exactly a newfangled thing.

Let’s see what kind of edible intercourse Cougarella Adams has come up with…

Not-As-Fat Gay Dad’s ooohing and saying he’s a sucker for “cheesy crispy-toppings” and Sister says it reminds her of something she’d make at home… “Like, if I could cook… which I can’t!” Crickets. DumbAssed Hubby Ty says he’s enjoying the richness and the herbal salad. Sofia Vergara (who plays Ed O’Neill’s Latin Firecracker Trophy Wife Who Wants To Be Charo Part II™) trills that “I lige eet, bud I theenk ees sometheeng thad joo eet jost a smoll amound, becoss ees veree reech!” The poor thing is seated next to FugTaser, who takes this as his cue to get all flirty and lame-jokey with her, “Small amounts? Eating small amounts? How does that work?” Hardy-har…

Gail says she thinks the dish was too salty and a little bit “muddled”. Sister Julie jumps in to agree, “Yeah, like, we were just questioning which was the chicken and which was the mushroom!” Fat Gay Dad Eric immediately snaps right back at her, “Chicken has legs. Mushrooms don’t.”…

Oh, how many times I have wished to have that power during dinnertime. Anyhow, last up to serve tonight is Vampire Debbie…

She’s feeling so good about her dish, she believes it’s “lighter than everybody else’s, and people like to eat lighter these days.” Because pork is one of those meats that’s just lighter than air, almost. Back at the tables, Sister Julie says it’s just a bit too sweet and Not-As-Fat Gay Dad agrees between the apple butter and the glaze and the slaw, he’s losing the taste of the pork. Charo II says “Eet waz a leedle beet undercook… a lod undercook, I doan lige eet lige dat!” One of the producers says his was really stringy and hard to cut, and complains he actually sliced through the plate before he was able to cut the meat. Ruh-roh, someone didn’t use Chinet!

With that, lunch is over and those down-to-earth TVfilm peopo go back to work on their hit show, and the Masters finally have a chance to sample each other’s dishes. Sussudio hits Li’l Punkin’ Hines’ station, “I god eat some food!” and proceeds to make a plate of her salmon dish. Wolfing it down he says “Very nice.” Then he ruins it by adding “When you hungry everything taste good!” Nice going, dickface! Punkin’s all “Ummm, thanks? I think?”…

Poor Punkin’! She can’t catch a break from The Holy Dick, either, who’s also tasting her dish and telling us he’s noticing “mistakes” that he’d “be worried about” if he were her. That’s not very nice, Dick! Didn’t Jesus say something like “Yea, verily, whosoever talks shit about my least lesbian chef, and is not a recapper for TVGasm.com, then he talks shit about me and is damned for all eternity to have weight problems and douchebag tattoos!” J-Mo 6:66

In tonight’s humorous vignette, we learn that Sussudio likes to take his shoes off in the kitchen, which is funny to the other Masters and completely disgusting to me. “Being a chef is like being a ninja, you have to be so fast and so quick and you have be free! I feel like I am kung fu master!”…

It was at this point that the dumbfucks over at Bravo decided to air a promo for next week’s show in which they clearly showed the other winner of tonight’s final spot in the Champion’s Round, but we’ll continue on and pretend like we didn’t see that and have the rest of the show ruined for us.

Back at the Critics’ Table, they start with The Holy Dick. Bok Choi wants to know since he’s been a judge on Top Chef before and has finally seen what it’s like to be on the other side, does he have a little more sympathy for what the cheftestants go through? He’s all “Ummm, no.” Surprising, right? Anyhow, after he gives them a glowing review of his own dish, FugTaser tells him he feels like the truffle flavor got left behind when the food got to the table. Dick claims he’s real careful with the truffle oil because it can come on too strong (nice try) and Gail immediately makes him a liar when she says she didn’t have a problem tasting the truffle oil, she just didn’t think that made the dish modern. His response is that his folks didn’t even know what truffle was, “So that would have been really modern for a guy like me growing up.”…

Moving on to the other asshole, Sussudio, FugTaser says his combination of Southeast Asian spices and chicken and the polenta had the potential to “create a massive cacophony on the plate”… but he didn’t, it turned out very clear and distinct and delicious. We’ll see if Fuggie still thinks so at 3am when he’s doubled over on the toilet and groaning in agony with minty chutney flames shooting out of his ass. Gail brings up that very point, saying that as far as family dishes go, is that how strong he would normally make it? “Actually I tone down a lot.”, he insists. As a child who was traumatized by a super-spicy taco at a very young age, I can tell you, it will fuck you up. I didn’t eat Mexican food again until I was in my 20’s.

As for Vampire Debbie, she explains her Peter Brady “porkchops’n’ appleshauce” inspiration, and they pretty much tell her that all of their teeth instantly rotted upon contact with her dish, it was that sweet. They like Li’l Punkin’ Hines’ dish much better, FugTaser compliments her on the almond milk, and Gail calls that a very smart and modern touch. Cougarella, on the other hand, gets no love for her thighs and whispers, FugTaser says they were just way too salty. Because she’s not a dick, Cougarella simply agrees that her seasoning wound up miscalculated and too salty. Because he is a dick, The Holy Dick gets this asinine look of righteous vindication on his face when he hears this and begins nodding in agreement…

Oh and he’s not done being a shitcock just yet, either. Back in the Masters Booze Arena, Vampire Debbie’s wondering aloud if the Critics fully understand all the challenges that go along with cooking mass amounts of food, letting it sit in hot boxes, transporting it, etc. The Holy Dick cuts her off with “Here’s the thing no matter what. At the end of the day, if I’m paying you to cater my lunch, I don’t care! Figure it out! That’s why it’s called Master chef, not just chef, right?”…

I know, Debbie, I can’t believe he’s this big of a fuckwad, either!

I’m not bothering with the Viewer Poll this week because it was the lamest ever (65% of people think “Food Is Art” and that it’s okay to take pictures of it… I’m sure all those starving people in Africa agree). Let’s get to the results. Cougarella gets 3½ stars from Gramma, Gail and FugTaser, and the diners gave her 4 stars, salty dish and all. Those people must have been insanely hungry for her to top out at 14½ stars!

As for Vampire Debbie, she gets 3 stars from Gail, only 2½ from Gramma & Fuggie and the diners, so she’s in 2nd place with 10½ stars. Li’l Punkin’ Hines gets 3 stars from FugTaser, and 3½ from the Gaily-Gaels and the diners, so she’s got 13½ stars and Vampire Debbie is out! Then The Holy Dick gets 4 stars from Gail, but only 3 from Gramma Gael, FugTaser and the diners, leaving him with 13 stars total, and Li’l Punkin’ Hines just sent his fat ass home, too!…

Don’t let the door hitcha where the Good Lord splitcha, Dickie! I’m sure they’ll call you the next time they need a really bitter judge on Top Chef.

Back to the Final Two, Li’l Punkin’ Hines and Sussudio. Ol’ Stinky Feet needs 14½ stars to win. Holy fuck, he gets five fucking stars from all three judges??!??! You have got to be fucking kidding me! Shit, he doesn’t even need the diners score now (which, BTW was 4½ stars) so he has 19½ stars and the highest score of the season!…

I’m calling major shenanigans here, there was absolutely zero indication from either the diners or any one of the judges that his food was so amazing that it deserved a five-star rating, or else this episode was so poorly edited that all this supposed praise was cut. When you add to it the fact that they clearly showed Sussudio being in the promo aired 20 minutes ago for the Champion’s round episode coming up, it smells worse than his feet.

Oh well, there we have it, whether by hook or by crook. What did you think of this episode? Do you get the feeling like a lot of the male Masters don’t seem to have much respect for the female Masters? Were you hoping that Li’l Punkin’ Hines was going to be in the top instead? Or are you just happy (like I am) that The Holy Dick didn’t make it? Next week is the dreaded Wedding Wars challenge, and it looks like a lot of shit is going to fall apart on people. Plus there’s a busty bride! Please feel free to leave some new comment love in our brand new home! I love the new layout!

Love, J-Mo 