Top Chef Masters: Tobama And The Last Lesbiana

Welcome back sports fans!  I never thought in my entire life that I would ever begin a recap with those words, but here I am doing it right now.  You guys prolly know me well enough by now to realize that despite my burly bearishness (yes, that’s my current euphemism for “fatass” these days) I am generally not the butchest of boys.  I spend a lot of time with other people who know all 143 possible vocal inflections for the word “girl”, and I know each and every one of their different meanings.  I have never changed a flat tire, I don’t know where my radiator is or what to do about it, and I seriously only found out a couple of years ago what “rotating your tires” really means.  I’m not even kidding, true story, you should have seen the look on the auto-mechanic dude’s face when he asked me if I wanted my tires rotated and I said “Why would I want to pay for that?  They rotate several thousand times a day… when I’m driving on them. Duh.”  Oh yes I did actually say that to him.  And he looked at me exactly like this…

“Girrrrrl?”

Well thankfully tonight’s episode of Top Chef Masters found one of the few ways in which I would ever be able to partake in a sporting event and not feel that I was sticking out like a huge erection in a non-gay locker room… by combining food with it and having a tailgating party!  Although I confess for the longest time I thought “Tailgate” was referring to that incident in Las Vegas at the Hilton with all those horny U.S. Navy guys.  *sigh*  I miss all the good parties.

Let’s get it started!  We regain consciousness on the streets of downtown Los Angeles…

this is the first thing you see after the hallucinogens in geoduck finally wear off

First we check to see if we have underwear on.  Good!  One less thing to explain.  Next we realize we have to really get humping in order to make it back to the Top Chef Masters kitchen to rejoin everybody getting a good look at Bok Choi’s new minidress…

looks like Bokky ran out of Bounce dryer sheets this week

She observes that there are now only six Masters left and La Marquessa responds with the inexplicable comment “Getting tighter and tighter!” while leaning waaaaaaay over the prep table…

can it, Skankarella, and go get horny on your own time

Poor ChicleTeeth is bummed that she’s the last female standing, she’s really wishing Cougarella was still there, but she’s also used to it being pretty much her and a bunch of guys in the culinary field.  Plus, she is kind of an honorary guy, sorta.

QuickFire Challenge! Bok Choi says they’ll get to prove who has a “leg up” on the competition.  I was really wishing this challenge would have something to do with awkward and uncomfortable sexual positions, but no, it just means they have to use leg proteins, ho-hum.  It gets even worse when Bokky says “One of our diners today definitely has LEGS and knows how to use them!” and then reveals the Guest Judge today is Jason Lezak, who helped the US Men’s Team win a gold medal in Beijing two years ago…

and he’s gained some considerable forehead since then

Wait, what?  Really?  What in the blue blowjobs does an Olympic swimmer have to do with a food competition?  I have never even heard of this guy, and they don’t even bother trying to give him any kind of lame-ass food credibility by saying he attended culinary school once or that he owns a Taco Bell or anything.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s really cool that he’s an Olympian and all (the only Olympic medal I have any hope of winning at this point in my life is for either Competitive Bitchery or Marathon Masturbation) but come ON, show!  We know Michael Phelps was out of your budget, but seriously, was Mark Spitz too busy?

Wait a sec, my BF heard the bitchy tone of my typing and just put another photo of Jase in front of me…

and now I’m mildly more interested in his presence here

They should have had him sitting there with no shirt on in the studio (at least, according to my BF).  Oh well, besides LazySack, our other judge is going to be… AAAAAUGH, it’s FugTaser!  I thought the disgusting challenge that made everybody nauseous was last week?  This is shaping up to be a big bowl of boo.  And their 45 minutes starts now!

So, Bok Choi mentioned that all of their proteins were in the fridge, and this guarantees that there is an instantly massive Master bottleneck at the door…

where Tobama’s fat ass burly bearishness is blocking everyone

I’m surprised nobody got hurt or accidentally sodomized.  Reverend Moonie decided that he wasn’t about to fight anybody for proteins, so he chose to work with octopus legs.  He’s right, nobody fought him for them.  He says 45 minutes isn’t nearly enough time to really cook octolegs in a traditional manner, so he’s slicing the legs apart and plans to sear them at really high heat and then bake them in the oven.  Even then, he’s afraid the muscular flesh is going to be tough to eat.  Maybe he shoulda waited and tripped Tobama when he walked by with his container of crab legs.

In the meantime, Sussudio is centering himself by performing some Tai Chiapet moves…

this will make his chi-chill last longer

He does have a lot of very flashy knife skills and every time they show him machine-gun chopping up some poor chives or peppers into tiny slivers, I find myself crossing my legs and putting a protective hand over my dick (as if he might lose control of his sharp knife and it could come flying out of my TV somehow).  Yes, I’m a little weird, please stop looking at me like that.

The producers must have realized how lame the whole “Not Nearly As Famous Olympian From Two Years Ago” thing was, because all of the Masters have apparently been instructed to give interviews about how competing in the Olympics is almost exactly like being on Top Chef Masters!  All you have to do to blow that analogy apart is take two seconds and get a good gander at Tobama and Waxie

Speaking of Waxie, the eerie music is playing again as he gently feels his way through The Force (and the pantry) for where the spaghetti is.  He says that swimmers eat a lot of pasta, and you cook pasta in water, and swimmers do much of their swimming in water, and crabs also come from water, so it’s a “no-brainer” that he’s making some kind of crab legs and pasta.  In water.  While he’s using a heavy pan to crush the exoskeleton on the crab legs, he’s planning on adding mint and jalapeno to the mix…

he is currently envisioning NerdMosexual’s face under that towel

Er, I mean, if he’s not now, he will be later on.  Let’s go see how pretty La Marquessa’s feeling right about now.  He decided to do frog legs, and he insists that while they don’t have that much flavor, they certainly have texture and are complex to cook.  “All my food is risky!” he brags, “I’m not going for the regular stuff!”  He’s right. I never knew anybody who did Beef Stuffed With Babyshit before him.

Our Final Little Lesbiana Chef ChicleTeeth actually has had a pretty smart strategy with these challenges, instead of trying to go for the obscure or esoteric or super-technical dish, she’s always trying to see what she can make that she actually likes to eat, and then fit that into the challenge. Since she was able to grab chicken legs (mmmmmm) and she shares my insane passion for crispy chicken skins, she’s slow-cooking them to give them extra crunch, and then making a quinoa pilaf with cumin-cilantro sauce…

Dear stupid clucky little fat birds:  you are so tasty and I love you

Sussudio’s back to say he hasn’t won a QuickFire yet, so he’s going to make an Indochine-style leg of lamb, which is a technique he’s very familiar with.  Do tell, since DUH, it’s Asian-inspired.  Then he reveals that he quit school at 16 and was just hanging out on the street until his brother told him to cut the shit and come work at a restaurant with him.  “I love da kitchen!  Chef would be smoking and yelling and swearing… dis exactly what I want!”…

“Plus I learn how to roll super-ninja-doobie.”

Once again, Sussudio seems to be encroaching on Tobama’s space, because he’s using the blender on the Italian’s table to purée some green crap.  Tony seems puzzled as to why Sussudio feels the need to be all up in his workspace again, especially when he mentions that Sussudio has two other tables in use!  Is Sussudio starting to have a little chubby-chaser action going on?  “I just love to hang out with you, Tony!  You my lucky charm, ‘member?”  Awww, if that isn’t just… creepy.

As for Tobama’s dish, he’s also cutting the hell out of some crab legs and he’s going to use them in a nice warm potato-crab salad.  This is apparently a dish that they serve on the menu at his restaurant, so it should hopefully not be too hard for him.  Except then he mentions that he has “a substantial staff” who probably do everything for him including wipe his ass, and he wonders if he’s “still got it”.  Bitch, please!  It’s 45 minutes, not a full 8 hour shift…

and learn to wipe your own ass!

Now that time has run out, let’s ask some really inane questions of our Olympian!  Bok Choi starts: “Tell me what it was like to win the gold.”  I would have fallen in love with LazySack had looked her dead-on and said “It completely sucked balls, and I wish it had never happened.”  But no, I suspect that comedic timing is not his strong suit.  However, speaking in a monotone with zero emotional inflection  or personality seems to be right up his alley…

“Um, it was, like, really, really fun & stuff.  I liked it.  Winning, I mean.  The gold medal.  Yup.”

Bokky now looks like she wishes she had kept her questions to herself and he wouldn’t have ruined her fantasy bone-session with him by opening his mouth.  I know what she means, and pardon the pun, but my gay accent queers more deals for me than anything else.  I can’t help it that I pronounce the letter S really, really well.  Anyhow, here’s the first dish, and it happens to be Tobama’s…

wow, THREE types of CORIANDER?  Now THAT’S fancy-eatin’!

His dish immediately gets sent straight to the bottom of the pile when FugTaser pulls a piece of crab-cartilage out of his mouth.  Ah fuck, he boned it for not boning it thoroughly enough!  And that’s not all, because Fuggie says in his opinion “It’s an underdressed salad.”  But then LazySack comes to Tobama’s rescue when he says “I actually disagree.  I think what they got in here is great and, uhhh, it gives it a nice little flavor.”  Welllll, LazySack may be like lightning in the water, but he’s not exactly descriptive with his critiques on land.

Here’s where it became clear to me that FugTaser’s not having a fun day on TCM, because this is the face he makes when they first put Sussudio’s dish down in front of him…

think he might have seen a mirror and learned some hard truths today?

Or maybe he just thinks it’s the dish that’s ugly…

lambballs are not pretty

LazySack says some more monotonal simpleton shit that pretty much convinces me that FugTaser is sitting there eating and judging food with a complete moron.  As for the dish itself, Fuggie says the little lambballs are actually cute!  I would say that term for him is quite relative.  Sussudio is not pleased with this kind of praise, either…

“People need to stop pissing me off and just tell me I win.”

Laughing uncomfortably he interviews “I no like to hear da word ‘cute’ in my cooking… because I serious, not cute!”  OK, it’s all ugly.  Happy now?  Jeez.  Let’s move on to ChicleTeeth’s messy-ass dish…

this looks both predigested and probiotic

FugTaser immediately calls out her sloppy plating, saying the chef responsible for this dish is “hiding their legs under a bushel.”  Then LazySack jumps into the action, saying it’s quite tasty even though he “wasn’t quite thrilled by looking at it.”  This causes ChicleTeeth to slap on a WTF-face…

“Why do they keep saying my food is so ugly??!?!?”

this is why

Yeah, not too sure why this particular critique comes as such a shock to her, every single dish she’s ever done this season pretty much looks like she just said a little Hail Mary and threw the food onto a plate that was already spinning atop a circus pole.  During an earthquake.

Perhaps Waxie can do a little better, since his dishes rarely need fancy plating…

but you never know, Obi Wan KeWaxie just might have hand-knotted all 8,472 strands of pasta

Fuggie says his immediate reaction to the dish is that there needs to be more crab in it, there are just way too many noodles.  Perhaps Waxie pulverized most of his crab meat into mush when he got a little carried away pounding his pot into it?

now he feels a disturbance in The Force… or that taco he had for lunch

Of course, this means that LazySack is going to defend the dish in his heartfelt yet totally uncomplicated way:  “This good meal for athlete.  I like taste of pasta.”  FugTaser’s got that look on his face again…

“You, sir, are a fucking moron.”

Let’s see how La Marquessa (and his no doubt “risky” dish) did…

talk about dirtysloppy plating

Can anyone tell me what the purpose is of frying some of your dish into a hard shell on the side of the plate or bowl?  Is this just his way of giving a big “Fuck you” to the kitchen dishwashing staff by saying “Hahaha, this shit is cooked on, good luck removing it!”  Nah, more likely he thinks this is right along the lines of his “risky food” bullshit.

And the risk is not paying off, because LazySack makes ill-concealed gagging noises and says “This dish too rich me, sauce taking over whole thing.”  On the other hand, FugTaser says he admires the “big, bold flavors” and enjoys that it’s a “complicated plate”.  I guess too complicated for poor LazySack and his rudimentary little ganglia.

The final offering tonight comes from Reverend Moonie, who can never be dinged on HIS plating skillz…

and oh, how most of the boys I know love anything in a hole

Wow, this really is exciting for LazySack “This put together good, I like how looks, now I eat some.”  Both he and FugTaser begin a marathon of chewing.  With his mouth still full, Fuggie says octopussy legs are “an unforgiving ingredient”.  Finally removing the piece of meat from his mouth (with his icky fingers, ew) he says “It’s a workout!”  Back in the kitchen, Moonie’s vainly trying to correct him, “It’s… toothsome!”  Hahaha, remember when DirtyBear tried that tactic last season?  It almost worked, but he’s way cuter than Moonie could ever hope to be!

Now that they’re finished, Bokky asks LazySack if any of the chefs are “in the gold medal range today”?  Naturally he says all six were.  FugTaser corrects him with a far more honest approach, “There are a lot of good silvers, there.”  While they’re filling out the star cards, Tobama takes a minute to whine about how intense all of this is, especially when they’re all so tired and they’ve worked so hard, and now he thinks the judges are being far more critical than before, “And that sort of pisses me off!”

wah

Time out!  I call bullshit.  I think this is his petulant ego talking.  I would be willing to bet you dollars to donuts that these guys are so used to everybody telling them how awesome all of their food is, and what amazing chefs they are, and I think it’s just plain too much for Tobama’s ego (He Who Has Cooked For Our President) to have to admit he isn’t perfect all the time.  And he’s only going to get worse…

“Girl.”

“Girl?”

“GIRL!”

Sorry, I got carried away.  Back in the TCM Kitchen it’s time for the results!  Tobama gets 3½ stars, and he thinks it just sucks, FugTaser “didn’t get the dish at all” and it’s not a fair score…

and the big baby went off to visit Waaahmsterdam

But there were three kinds of coriander!  CORIANDER!!  Ah fuck him, he ain’t winning today, so let’s move on.  Waxie gets the same score, 3½ stars, but he doesn’t start bitching, maybe because Reverend Moonie and La Marquessa get only 3 stars each!  Ouch!  ChicleTeeth is definitely frightened, these scores are abysmal… until she winds up with 4½ stars!  Wow, so that means Sussudio needs a perfect 5 star score to win, and if anybody can get 5 stars, it’d be him…

only not this time

Sussudio loses some of his cool points with me again, because he just can’t seem to not take it personally when he doesn’t culinarily beat the living shit out of everybody else.  I swear, the guy has had higher scores than just about everybody and yet he always manages to look like someone peed all over his tofu treats if he’s not on top and dominating every challenge.  For fuck’s sake, learn how to lose, loozah!

Oh well, ChicleTeeth is super happy that she won some more money for the Scleroderma foundation, and tells us about her friend who died of the disease and how happy she would be to know that Chicky was helping her cause by making messy but tasty food.  Let’s move on to the Elimination Challenge.

Bok Choi says going to the football game is an “important American tradition” (she should have added “for those who can afford it”) and that for today’s Elimination Challenge they’re going tailgating!…

“We will now smile and pretend we know what that is.”

Yeah, really, Sussudio has no clue what’s going on, “I never gone to tailgating pardy, I never see a live football game!”  I have, and believe it or not, I have actually played in a few… and I learned very quickly that I could become a star player in Flag Football if I just rotated my little flag-belt so they hung down in front of my crotch and my ass… nobody wanted to risk reaching out to grab my flag and wind up grabbing a handful of fag instead… everybody knows it turns you gay.  I guess.  I’m still unclear on how it happened to me, I never touched any gay guys until I already was one.  It’s a mystery.

Where was I?  OH, the Tailgating Challenge!  This was won in Top Chef Season 4 by Dale (Dung v2.0) before he started acting all hardcore Blasian Ninjanksta and grabbing his dick and punching walls and screaming and stuff.  I kinda miss him, though, remember last season when he did this?…

severely annoyed Michael Chiarello?

That?  Was awesome!  I wish someone would do that to Smirky Michael on a daily basis.  Anyhow, Bokky’s still talking, so I should sorta shut up.  She says they’re going to cook for 100 ravenous fans (and football fans tend to be fat, so really it’s prolly more like cooking for 200 fans) and they’ll be using Weber grills…

which apparently have the power to make White People attempt to dance the Cabbage Patch even after all these years (and countless injuries)

Awww, my little WeberBear is a cutie-pie, no?  Or at least he is when he’s not doing the Power Poop Squat™.  Anyhow, Moonie’s feeling awesome, he’s done plenty of tailgating, and Waxie’s happy because he says he’s basically been professionally grilling for 35 years, so he’s all about this challenge.  Meanwhile Sussudio’s looking more and more freaked out all the time.  Sorry Sussy, but you had the advantage last week in the Terrible Things Nobody Should Ever Be Forced To Eat Unless They Are One Of The Gosselins Challenge.

In any case, because ChicleTeeth won the QuickFire, she gets an official USC cap, jersey and apron to wear.  Some advantage!  They shoulda let her have some extra cash or a second grill…

or maybe a box to stand on when she’s serving so people can see her

They’re only gonna have 90 minutes to work today, plus 2 hours in the parking lot tomorrow, so let’s us head on over to Whole Paycheck Market with half a G and 45 minutes and now we’ll get to see where the real dick moves begin in earnest!

Reverend Moonie is so amazingly excited by this challenge because he just loves to grill stuff, and he knows exactly what he wants to cook, and then he gets to the meat counter at Whole Paycheck and finds that La Marquessa has gotten there first.  Ok, no big deal, right?  Except La Marquessa is buying up every single one of the boneless chicken thighs they have, and that’s exactly what Moonie needed for his dish.

Naturally La Marquessa says Moonie is “Mr. Tailgate” and therefore he’s going to use every advantage he can get his hands on to beat him.  Even if that means intentionally buying product that he’s not really going to use just to fuck with him…

“No, really, I am so very confident that my food stands on it’s own…”

HATE.  Remember in Season 4 when that fuckwit Spike Evangelass pulled that same kind of bullshit on everybody, where they let him pick out his ingredients first and no one else could choose the same thing, so he chose the most common stuff around in order to make sure nobody else got to use it?  I have rarely been so gratified as I was when he wound up in the Bottom Three and almost got sent home.  I guess I’m a little surprised that a Master chef would resort to those kind of tactics, I mean, shouldn’t they be confident enough in their food not to need “every advantage”?

Fuck him, I’m moving on.  Tobama’s eschewing the meat counter because he’s planning on grilling pizzas.  That’s an interesting idea, but wouldn’t the bottoms get kinda blackened?  And the last thing you want to go to the game with is smutchy hands, right?  I dunno if this is so smart.  I like ChicleTeeth’s idea better, she’s going to make tacos with sliced skirt steak.  You know what?  Waxie had the same idea…

and instead of being a dickface, he actually showed ChicleTeeth where the tortillas are

His idea is to combine steak and guacamole in his version of the Tailgate Taco, and oh, how I love that flavor combo (plus sour cream, natch!) and I think I’m about to bust out some chips and salsa right now, be right back…

So they’re in the middle of checking out, Sussudio is standing there waiting for everybody else, suddenly he turns to Tobama and says “Oh, you know what?  I think-uh you would be perfeck in da show for, uh, Sopranos.  I know those Sopranos chefs, you prolly have a BIG cooler in da back!” and he starts to giggle at his own little joke.  Tobama’s light-hearted response to this?…

is to get all butt-hurt and cry racism

“And now you must die.”

Tobama tells us “Susur annoys me at times, it’s like, thank you for the stereotype.  Right now I’m just focusing on the positive and preparing the winning dish.”

Hold up, wait a minute…  Does anybody out there think that Sussudio was being malicious with his little comment?  Anybody else out there think that Sussudio prolly has to put up with about 23 times as much racial stereotyping and dumbass Asian jokes in his everyday life?  Is it the fault of those damned Jersey Shore kids that the Italian-American community seems to have lost their sense of humor about themselves?  My brother M-Mo’s wife is full-on Italian and the first day I met her father he told me if my brother didn’t treat his little girl right he was going to call the Mafia and put a hit out on all of us.  I’m pretty sure he was kidding around.  Anyhow, I think Sussudio was just joking and Tobama is clearly getting tired and frustrated that he’s not doing better in the competition…

*sigh*… “Girl.”

Maybe he needs a handjob.  Anyhow, everybody’s back in the kitchen and starting to work, ChicleTeeth’s starting to feel like maybe she’s taken too much on, noting that she’s never cooked at a football game… in fact, she’s just like me in that she’s barely even seen a football game.  Still, even her limited experience is far more than what Sussudio’s got to work with.  I think he’s aware that he may not be so successful with standard American fare like burgers or pizza or tacos, so he’s reverting to his Asian background and planning to marinate his skirt steak, possibly with a spicy Ponzu sauce.

You can see Tobama at the table next to him listening to his plans and openly rolling his eyes, and he interviews that since he’s from Chicago he certainly knows tailgating, unlike Sussudio who clearly has no clue, “It would be very satisfying to beat him.”  Oh, OK, I guess there’s that whole “focusing on the positive and preparing the winning dish” thing he was talking about.  Putz.

Checking in with the other asshole, La Marquessa’s saying how good he feels about the fact that he’s got his chicken marinating, and Reverend Moonie’s casting a wry glance in his direction because he, too, has chicken, but he’s being forced to spend a bunch of time de-boning the bone-in thighs he was forced to buy.  Still, he does a minimum of bitching and just keeps it moving, concentrating on his food, which is going to include grilled charmoula chicken and something that sounded like “yabba dabba douche”?  WTF??!?  Let me hear that again.  OH, it’s “baba ghanoush”, which is apparently some kind of Middle-Eastern eggplant dish.  He’s going to serve these components inside a pita pocket…

you know, once he debones his 40+ chicken thighs

As for our little Baba The Douche (La Marquessa), he believes he’s going to win this by making a stew (??!?) and then serving it with skewers of shrimp.  Plus a hamburger.  OK, first of all, none of this sounds like it absolutely required boneless chicken thighs, so, way to go asshat.  Secondly, hot stew on a hot sunny day?  Stupid.  Third, he’s making his hamburgers using an Ethiopian chickpea flour called “shiro” which he believes will bring a “new taste” to the judges and the poor, sad, culinarily ignorant American People.  Whatever.  I hope someone gets drunk and pukes up stew right next to his station.

The next day as they arrive at the stadium for the game, La Marquessa is amazed at seeing all these “hardcore football fans in big cars drinking beers at 7 o’clock in the morning!”…

this is the life I would like to live every day

Minus the football and the big cars part, just give me the big boy and the beer, I can work with that much.  Anyhow, as La Marquessa and Sussudio’s Lexus Full Of Cluelessness pulls up, Sussy’s still unclear on what’s going to happen.  Looking at other people already grilling and eating he observes,“There are other chef here too today?”  La M says no, those are the other tailgaters.  Sussudio looks again, “But not just us?  Other people, too?”  La M says no, this tailgating thing is “their culture”.  Sussy’s trying to make sense of it, “Oh, so you get fed before you go to da game?  Now I kinda get dis!”  La Marquessa’s rolling his eyes.  Because he clearly understands tailgaters really want hot stew and shrimp and Ethiopian chickpea flour-dusted burgers.  Dickbag.

ChicleTeeth has donned her USC gear and feels like it’s gonna be a huge advantage…

I still can’t believe their team mascot is named after the condoms

Then Chicky drops the ultimate WTF bomb of the night when she says she was actually a cheerleader in high school…

hooray for homos!

Eeeeeee, if she wasn’t just the most adorable budding lesbiana I have ever seen!

even when she’s making muff-diving jazz hands

Back over in Cluelessville, I have to hand it to Sussudio, because even though he knows that he’s hopelessly disconnected from American football and the kind of food its fans crave, he’s still going to try to do his best, “And hopefully da fans accepting it!”  Awwww, no they won’t, but isn’t he cute for still hoping?  He’s made little pouches of some kind of cauliflower wrapped in bacon (???) and then a semolina dumpling (!!!) that he’s basically used the grill to boil water for.

Then again, how weird is it to use a grill as a pizza oven?  Let’s see how that’ s working out for Tobama…

are they still considered “grill marks” if the entire thing is blackened?

Yeah, he’s pretty much burnt the everlovin’ shit out of that crust, but still insists that it’s going to be awesome.  La Marquessa’s also struggling to get his stupid-ass stew finished off (I would like to point out once again that he did not need boneless chicken for this dish in the slightest) and hasn’t even started on his burgers yet.  Reverend Moonie thinks La M’s downfall is going to be his tendency to just put way too much shit on his plates, “He’s gotta gild the hell outta that lily, torturing the plate to the point where it might backfire on him.”  Sure enough, as time begins to run out, Marquessa realizes he’s not going to be able to do his precious skrimp skewers, so he just dumps them into his dipshit stew.  There’s that amazing creativity and risk-taking he’s always yammering on about.

And the Battle Of The Tacos rages on between Waxie and ChicleTeeth.  Hey, did you know that Chicky has her own taco truck?…

because of course she does!

She says this is way more difficult than normal, because when she makes them on the Hairy Pink Tacomobile there’s a gang of four staff members just trucking the day away.  Here she’s stuck having to handle all the tacoing by herself.  And when time is called and they release the hungry half-drunken football fans it’s a complete madhouse.

Waxie’s taco is the first up for being eaten by the Critics tonight…

he’s calling it ‘It Might Be Ugly But It’ll Taste Good’

The fans seem to be pretty turned on by it, but NerdMosexual says what’s undoing the dish for him is the stale tortilla!  OH slam!  So much for Whole Paycheck Market’s “made fresh daily in-house” tortillas!  Gramma Gael, on the other hand, is loving the side dish of corn and onions, which is nice, but it’s never really a good sign when they like the side dish better than the entrée…

and she should remember that natural lighting is no longer her friend

They move on over to Reverend Moonie next…

gee, come to think of it, he really didn’t absolutely need boneless chicken for this dish, either

NerdMosexual immediately applies Waxie’s label to Moonie’s dish, saying that it’s ugly but tastes fabulouthsssssssssss.  And apparently that’s all anybody has to say about it, because they’re heading right on to La Marquessa’s station…

(lame ass stew not pictured)

Right away NerdMo’ observes that La M’s got a buttload of components to put together as the Critics all wait for him to hand them a plate of food.  Once they actually get ahold of it, he says he’s not sure what it IS, exactly, but it sure tastes good.  And I guess this part of the episode should be called NerdMo’s Opinion Only, because that’s all we hear and then it’s Tailgate Time With Sussudio…

around the world in four bites (straight to the toilet in four steps)

KIDDING, it doesn’t really look that bad.  NerdMo asks him if he’s ever cooked at a tailgate party before (which is funny, cuz I’d bet blowjobs to beernuts NerdMo’s a tailgate virgin, too) and Sussudio just laughs and makes Gramma Greene giggle when he says “No, dis is first time, I never been to live baseball, I mean football game!”  Oh Sussudio, you make culture clash cute.

As for his food, the fans seem somewhat confused by the dumpling, and NerdMo is quick to say the plate is full of “non-traditional tailgating foods”.  Duh.  Gramma Gael thinks the Austrian dumpling is completely out of place, but FugTaser’s in love with the beef.

Now that they’ve had an imaginative (if rather odd) plate, it’s time to go have some of the totally non-stereotypical Italian fare being provided by Tobama…

Tour Of Shitaly™

Once again, NerdMosexual’s opining that the pizza toppings taste okay, but the dough in the crust got totally overcooked.  Maybe Gramma and Fuggie’s microphones weren’t working?  I dunno, let’s see how ChicleTeeth and her USC fake-fanwear did…

yay for Trojan Tacos™!

The fans really seem to be taken in by her wearing that jersey, and I’m wondering if she’d just served a plate of red and yellow M&M’s would they still be as enthusiastic?  I’d like to think football fans are smarter than that…

and yet I wonder

This is NerdMosexual’s best quote yet:  “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m feeling more like a manly American by the minute!”  BWAHAHAHAHA, what that has to do with the food, I dunno.  FugTaser’s laughing his nubs off and replies “James, any plate of food that can do that for you is a miracle!”…

nope, he still looks pretty gay

and yes, you’re stuck with big fat gay old me in D.C. as well

still heart you DirtyBear!

Back at the TCM Kitchen waiting to go into Critics’ Table, Sussudio’s really nervous and telling the others he’s convinced he’s going home because “da tailgate thing” is so very American, “What you gonna do, cook Chinese food?  I don’ think so.”  ChicleTeeth is trying to soothe his nerves with humor and jokes that the last time she did a Chinese tailgate she made vegetable dumplings and everybody cracks up.  Then La Marquessa makes an attempt at humor, too…

oh no he DI-ent!

Well, this would have been a perfect chance for Sussudio to get piss off like Tobama and claim offense because that whole being good at ping-pong shit is a total stereotype of Chinese people, but like I said, I think Sussudio actually has a sense of humor and is prolly used to this kind of kidding around, so instead of whipping out his knives and dicing La Marquessa to death, he just laughs with everybody.

As for the Critics, starting with Waxie, Gramma says she loved the guacamole with the New York steak, it was perfectly cooked, but NerdMo has to whine about his tortilla being tough and cold.  Waxie admits he could have had them warm off the grill but he was concentrating more on the beef part of things.  Then Nerdy starts complaining that the steak could have been more thinly sliced and that it “overtook” the taco for him.  Waxie’s reaction is immediate…

“Bitch you crazay.”

Waxie just throws his hands up and says he completely disagrees with NerdMo’, “You’re wrong.  It’s a tailgating thing, we’re not talking about haute cuisine!”  Nerdmosexual’s reaction is immediate…

“Bitch I am crazay and I will lisp all over your ass.”

Gramma Gael sides with Waxie and says the size of the slices was perfect, but NerdMo insists that “in the context of that taco” it was off-putting.  Waxie’s like, whatever, the tortilla’s what really sucked, let’s move on to someone else before there’s a slapfight.

FugTaser tells ChicleTeeth that she put out a “serious” plate of food with big flavors, and Gramma Greene says she enjoyed the “afterkick” in her mouth “that lasted till we got in the car to come back!”  Bok Choi’s curious if Chicky thought maybe the spicing overwhelmed the meat, and she admits it might have a little.

As for Tobama and his grillizzas, he claims that tons of the fans told him it was the best pizza they’d ever had.  FugTaser says when he finally got a mouthful with all of the ingredients in it, it was very flavorful.  Then Tobama claims his pizza crust was also perfect, and NerdMosexual is right up on it to say hell no, bitch, that shit was dry and tough…

“You are not helping me build my world of delusions, Mr. Chicken-Neck.”

Yeah, Tobama’s sticking to his story that it was great food, the subtext being that NerdMo can pretty much just go suck it.

Sussudio admits he really didn’t understand the concept of the tailgating, which is why he went with European and Asian stylings.  FugTaser says he adored the beef, but didn’t care for the dumpling, and didn’t know why it had to be there.  Sussy’s like “I wan to give dem somesing a lil bit light to introduce a lil bit of culture.”  Gramma Green jumps in to laugh and say maybe a tailgating party “is not a moment for high culture”.  She’s right, it’s more of a moment to get drunk and wear brightly-colored body paint.

Moving on to La Marquessa, Fuggie says he loved the chicken’n’skrimp stew, especially the chili burn at the end, but the burger was dry.  La M insists that he added so much flavor to it (I guess he’s talking about the magical dusting of Ethiopian Shiro flour) so that even if it turned out dry, it would still be good…

Arrogant much?

Then NerdMosexual inexplicably claims that his burger was a really “tasty juicy mouthful” and he just loved it.  NerdMo needs a BF (or maybe just a BJ), I think.  Lack of sex is making him extra slobbery these days.

Finally, Bok Choi says she enjoyed the Moroccan flavors of Reverend Moonie’s chicken pita dish, and Gramma Gael thinks the baba ghanoush and the slaw were fabulous, but NerdMo’s back to bitch that he wanted the ingredients stuffed inside the pita bread, not laying on top where they were prone to sliding off.  Maybe he wanted someone to chew his food for him as well?  Jeez, what a bitch.

They dismiss everybody and after some more of listening to NerdMosexual’s Mary Contrariness, Bok Choi calls back Sussudio, La Marquessa… and ChicleTeeth.  Oh shit, they’re the Top Three!  La Marquessa gets 3 stars from NerdMo’, 3½ from FugTaser, and 4 stars from Gramma and the fans, so he’s at 14½.  Sussudio gets 3½ stars from Gramma and NerdMosexual, plus 4 stars from Fuggie and the fans, so he beats Marquessa and moves into the lead with 15!  Not for long, because ChicleTeeth gets 4 stars across the board for 16 and wins this Elimination Challenge and another $10,000!  Bokky congratulates her on having won both the QuickFire and the Elimination, and she’s also pocketed the most money of anybody so far, totaling $32,500.00!

yay for thought-bubbles!

I’m kidding, actually for once Sussudio doesn’t seem to be upset that he lost, I think he’s more relieved than anything that he didn’t wind up in the bottom or get sent home.  Also, I almost typed “thought-bubbies” because the Real Housewives Of New Jersey is on in the background here, and I hear stupid coming from the tv speakers.  Whatta buncha losers.

Speaking of which, the parade of Loozahs tonight is Waxie, Moonie and Tobama.  Starting with the Reverend, he gets 3 stars from NerdMo’ and FugTaser, plus 4 stars from Gramma, and 3½ from the fans, making his total 13½ stars.  Waxie fares far worse, getting 3 stars from Fuggie, 2½ from Gramma and only 2 from a clearly pissed-off NerdMosexual.  He manages to get 3 stars from the fans, making his total a truly dismal 10½ stars and sending Moonie back to safety.  If Waxie goes home I’m going to be rather upset, and possibly eat my way through an entire Jell-O No Bake Cheesecake.  I might also do that as a celebration if he stays, we’ll just have to wait and see.

Tobama’s scores are a straight up 2½ stars from all of the Critics.  And all those people who told him that grilled mess on a cracker crust was the “best pizza they’d ever eaten”?  Well, clearly they all lied, because he only gets 2½ stars from the fans, giving him a total of 10 even and he’s going home…

You can look as closely as you want, Tobama, even I can count up to 2½

He’s not leaving without $15,000.00 in pocket for his charity, though, and honestly, I think from his whole demeanor he was fed up with the competition and the critiques and is ready to go back home to his own Kitchen Kingdom, where what he says goes, and they have a few extra large freezers in the back just in case.  You’re welcome for the stereotype, Tobama.

And then there were five!  What did you think of this episode?  Was that LazySack dude a lame-ass choice for guest judge, or what?  Did it seem weird that the two guys who understood the least about tailgating did better than the three who knew all about it?  Have any of you guys tailgated before, and if so, what do you like to eat when doing it?  And most importantly, do you think Tobama was right to feel offended by Sussudio’s comment, or was he just being a big pissbucket?

Thanks for all your views and sharing your comments, you guys.  There’s gonna be a bit of a change on the way.  This next week I am going on a driving vacation with my BF and my Vegan BFF, we will be winding our way through Payson, Snowflake and Window Rock, Arizona, followed by Albuquerque, Santa Fe and Taos, New Mexico, moving on to Colorado Springs, Denver and Grand Junction, Colorado, then we’ll be heading to St. George, Utah (is that where Big Love is filmed?) and winding up in Fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada for a few days before hitting Route 66, Kingman and Flagstaff, Arizona and then heading back home again…

hopefully we will find a place like this somewhere along the way

In the meantime, SlifeGoesOn has graciously agreed to sub-recap next week’s episode for me (thank you in advance, sugarpie!) and I will return the following week.  Hopefully with some fun pictures and an embarrassing video or two.

Love,  J-Mo : )