Top Chef Recap

Welcome home everybody! First, let me introduce myself… I am going into my fourth year being known as J-Mo here on TVGasm.com, and I know I am really lucky that I landed the gig to recap a super-fun show like Top Chef. Believe me when I say, I’ve had my share of shit assignments here at the ‘Gasm (such as A Double Shot At Love, and Top Design, and The Miss Fucking America Pageant) so whenever a new season of my favorite cooking competition comes lurching around, I thank Jesus, God, Flipit, Andy Cohen and LaToya Jackson that it is back and I get to take a crack at it.

Second, let me get my foodie creds out of the way: I have none. At all. Seriously, my palate is about as refined as a redneck wedding. Like, if you smother it in nuclear-orange cheese, or coat it in sugar with colored sprinkles, or batter and deep-fry it, I will eat it. I am not kidding. Several people have snuck penises into my mouth using these very same methods. Well, two out of three of them. In any case, I just wanted to make sure everybody knows up front that they are not going to find intelligent culinary discourse, expert critique of cooking techniques, or an elevated love of food in these recaps. You are far more likely to find disgustingly childish .gifs, rude picture captions and fart jokes. All right, are we on the same page? Cool, let’s go…

if only they didn’t make it so easy

First up, let’s all have a sobering reminder of just how horribly wrong of a turn this show has taken in the past…

*SHUDDER*

Next, Padma “Scar” Lakshmi is back to tout the achievements of all the past winners (and oddly, these accolades include mentioning that they have all been selected as Food & Whine‘s “Best New Chef”, which isn’t really much of an achievement since, you know, it’s part of the prize package) and then she drops the bombshell that this season, there are going to be 29 cheftestants who must now qualify for one of sixteen slots in the final cast. Those sixteen will be running their asses ragged across the entire state of Texas as the competition goes on and on, and I sure hope the featured vehicle this season isn’t that teeny tiny terrible new J-Lo Fiat, or these bitches are likely to have some serious butt-sores by the time they limp their way to the Finale. Trust me, people (besides porn stars) don’t do well at their jobs when their asses are in pain.

Hey, do you guys remember the other judges (besides Scar) that work on this show? But of course! Let’s see…

well, there’s Dr. Evil here

who is joined by a linebacker in tacky drag

as well as a narcoleptic Neanderthal

and a fat guy who still seems angry with those dildoes over at the Food Network

KIDDING! That’s actually Head Judge Tom Colicchio (Daddy Tom), Gail Simmons (of American Express’ Food & Whine Magazine and who apparently just can’t say no to the Joan Collins Shoulderpad Collection™), Hugh Acheson (Hughnibrow [©2011 Alejandra] from Season 3 of Top Chef Masters) and bringing up the big round soft rear is the man who ruined the word “BAM!” for the rest of us, Emeril LaGasse.

So what can these chefs win if they make it to the end of the season and somehow impress these judges enough for Scar to tell them they are Top Chef?? Well, besides a bunch of Food & Whine-related stuff (donated for free by Gail Simmons, natch!) they will be awarded $125,000.00…

ironically donated by Diet Food, Inc. (flavor optional)

I’m curious if any of this season’s chefs have ever actually eaten a Healthy Choice product since they relaunched a couple of years ago? In any case, after a super-shortened intro (we don’t know who is on the cast yet, so they can’t make those super-sexy I’m-standing-here-trying-to-look-all-gangsta-in-a-chef-coat clips!) and some obligatory shots of windmills, boots, flags, steers & queers, we zero in on The Alamo (which I was surprised to learn was NOT inspired by the car rental agency) and our oversized crop of cheftestant-wannabees walking into view.

As they arrive to find Scar standing in front of this tragically historic building, we meet our first horny doofus of the day, generically attractive Chris Crary (from L.A.) who says that all he can think about upon seeing Ms. Lakshmi is how hot she is, and that he has to stay in the competition so he can keep looking at her…

because L.A. is not well-known for having hot people

Two things are wrong with what he said: 1.) it’s downright creepy and stalker-ish and b.) Chris needs to be three times as old before Scar will be interested in noticing (or even looking at) him. Anyhow, now that they have all arrived, several of the others are glancing around and noticing for the first time that there are waaaay too many people here for this to be the final casting call…

and I suspect they’re more worried about cooking than staring at Scar in her pretty red dress

Scar welcomes them to the Alamo and San Antonio, Texas (she has to shout because there are so damned many of them) and tells them they now have to prove they’re worthy of even competing for the title of Top Chef. Then she tells them about how they’ll be split into three groups and vying for the sixteen available spots. How do they react to this news?…

can you read lips?

Keith Rhodes is an interesting fella, and we’ll come back to him later on, but right now I want to focus on a chef who is not in the LEAST bit frightened by the thought of having to compete for a spot on the show. His name is Tyler Stone, he is 22 years old, from Sacramento, CA and we get to see a snippet of his casting video…

which looks like it was filmed through an asshole lens

I wish I were kidding, but I’m totally not, because this tool actually submitted a video featuring himself doing the lamest-ass James Bond cliché I’ve ever seen (and yes, of course he looked at the camera and said “Stone…. Chef Tyler Stone”, ugh)…

somehow I don’t think James Bond ever had an outbreak of sweltering forehead acne

In any case, Tyler tells us (with obvious and horribly misplaced pride) that he is a personal chef-slash-caterer and “kind of an entrepreneur”. He goes on to say that he knows he’s good and claims that many people mistake his confidence for arrogance, “but that’s just ‘cuz they don’t like the fact that I’m as good as I am… and half their age!”…

ahhh, the confidence ignorant arrogance of youth

Well, ‘Gasmii, I think we have our first asshat of Season Nine, but I have to give it up to Tyler, he’s certainly got balls of stone, so I will refer to him as StoneBalls from now on. Let’s head on over to the Top Chef Kitchens (San Antonio branch) and see what Group One is going to have to cook…

aww, it’s Wilbur from Charlotte’s Web (if he had never met Charlotte)

Not only is there a delicious hacked up pig on the table, but Daddy Tom is standing there with Emeril Le Gassy…

who still looks really pissed off

Daddy Tom introduces La Gassy and everyone looks suitably impressed. Then he gives the chefs of Group One a chance to brag about themselves. This means that Tyler StoneBalls gets to claim that he’s cooked for “celebrities, politicians and media personalities at a national level”. I think that probably means he made coffee for Arnold Schwarzenegger once. The rest of the chefs seem to have far more concrete (i.e. verifiable) resumés, several are executive chefs at high-end restaurants, others have worked under superstars of the culinary world, many have James Beard nominations. And then we come to a pair of guys wrapped in pink bandannas…

both with equally terrible hairstyles

Meet Chris Jones and Richie Farina, both of whom work at Moto Restaurant in Chicago, IL. I guess wearing a pink bandanna cholo-style is part of Moto’s uniform? This promises to be a little bit awkward, because Chris is Richie’s boss, so I’m betting that if Richie makes it through to the Top Sixteen and Chris doesn’t he’s gonna be in for a lot of toilet-scrubbing and fish-gut removal duties when they get home.

Now that the bragging is done (well, most of it was bragging, one chef actually had the guts to say she was unemployed “between jobs”) Daddy Tom says Group One’s Qualifying Challenge is to prepare a dish in one hour using one cut out of good ol’ dead WIlbur there. Emeril La Gassy says that there are ten different cuts of pork available, one cut for each of the ten chefs in this group, but is quick to point out that some of the pieces on the table contain multiple cuts, so they’ll have to figure out amongst themselves how to extract (via butchery) the cut they need…

the importance of this will become apparent very shortly

The challenge starts, and there is an immediate stampeding cacophony of chefs yelling out what parts of the pig they want and grabbing of the little red cards, but nobody really fights much over anything. It is then that we get to meet Grayson Schmitz from NYC. She happens to be the chef who admitted she was jobless right now…

which explains why she has so much time to spend on moussing her hair

It looks lovely, doesn’t it? For 1994. Anyhow, Grayson has grabbed the Tenderloin cut of the pig, reasoning that it would be the quickest to cook out of the other cuts. The only obstacle is that it is incorporated into the part that contains both the baby back ribs and the bone-in chops, which have been selected by Tyler StoneBalls, who seems to have cockily volunteered to do the butchery for all three cuts. Because he’s so good at everything and we’re all jealous of him.

But then Tyler tells us that when you cook privately for as many celebrities as he does, they’ve got enough money to burn that allows him to hire his own professional butcher to give him the exact cut he wants (!!!)… so he’s not exactly familiar with the art of butchery. But of course that’s not a problem for StoneBalls, who has so much faith in his own awesomeness that he believes will accomplish anything he puts his mind to… “I’ve written my own cookbook… most people wouldn’t even know where to begin and I did it in 3½ weeks…”

“and 2½ weeks of that was spent trying to decide on the right font that would best showcase my name on the cover!”

Wow, this kid is amazing…ly arrogant! Especially when he claims that he knows for sure he can slice’n'dice better than most of the other chefs. Well, obviously if he’s mastered the mysterious art of cookbook writing (i.e. compiling recipes) then I’m pretty sure he could bang out the breakdown of a piece of pigmeat on the fly, right? Jobless Grayson sure hopes so, she’s counting on him to provide her with the nice, clean cut of tenderloin pork that she needs in order to secure herself a Top Chefcoat.

Well, it seems as though StoneBalls might have been just a tad overconfident in his innate knife skills, because he has gone and grabbed a giant hacksaw (!!!) to attack the remaining clump of flesh on his table. Daddy Tom and La Gassy are looking very concerned. You know who else is concerned about their butchery skills? Vegan Chef Colin Patterson, who says he hasn’t worked with pork in ten years…

almost as long as he’s been doing that comb-forward

Can anyone tell me how a Vegan chef would ever apply to be on this show and still be able to reconcile their harm-no-creature belief system with the kind of stuff they have to do during these competitions? Is it okay if someone else killed the pig? Is tasting your own food optional? At least he’s not trying to pretend he knows what he’s doing, which quickly becomes evident to Chris Jones (of the Moto Pink Bandanna Brotherhood) who graciously steps in to save everyone the heartache of fucked-up pork cuts…

yay for 90′s Penis-Hair coming to the rescue!

Meanwhile, Daddy Tom and La Gassy are wandering around the kitchen screwing with the various chefs under the guise of chatting about their proposed dishes, but we all know by now this is just their way of making them all more nervous. Back over with the ever-brilliant Tyler StoneBalls, he is really hacking away at his pork with the overly large saw he picked up. This clear lack of skill is very upsetting to chef Simon Pantet (from Seattle) at the station next to him, who says he really wanted to pork chops for himself. At least I think that’s what he said… Simon’s got a terrible case of mushmouth, or a serious aversion to using vowels…

“M nd xctly shr whtz gng n wth Tylr nxt t me, I jzt knw hz th gy tht gtz th frggn prk chpz tht I wnt n he cn’t btchr thm n tht pzzs me ff.”

Sure enough, Daddy Tom strolls up to have a chat with StoneBalls about how hard he’s wrestling with that big piece of meat. Tyler tells Daddy Tom that he “doesn’t usually butcher whole pieces of meat like this.” Um, isn’t that kind of the point of butchering? You’re supposed to take the whole piece of meat and break it down into the smaller ones, right? I suppose StoneBalls experience with butchering has been limited to a little fat-trimming here and there. He is now admitting to us that having to cut up his own chop is throwing him off “a little bit”. By which he means “completely”.

Meanwhile, Jobless Grayson is calling out for who has her tenderloin, and someone points her in StoneBalls’ direction. When she arrives and asks for her cut, he starts handing her a bunch of random pieces of meat…

maybe he gave her chunks that spell tenderloin?

It’s pretty evident from the way StoneBalls is reacting that he thinks Tenderloin is just a neighborhood in San Francisco. Jobless Grayson is dismayed to discover that the chunk of meat she needs is now hacked up into several pieces and she sets about butchering it herself. Daddy Tom points out to StoneBalls that he cut the Tenderloin in half, which just makes StoneBalls giggle like an asshat. Jobless Grayson isn’t laughing, because she’s been left with a 3 ounce piece of meat to work with.

Daddy Tom turns to StoneBalls and asks him if he saw the messy-ass hackchops on the table in front of him at a butcher shop, would he buy them? StoneBalls says prolly not, but whines that he’s not a butcher. Daddy Tom dismisses that as an excuse and says it is a basic skill that all chefs should have (I don’t know how he refrained from adding a great big DUH onto the end of that one, but Daddy Tom is a strong man). Then La Gassy shows up and asks StoneBalls if he was butchering for someone else besides himself. StoneBalls says no, he was just taking off what he needed, which made my mouth drop open… I could have sworn that he agreed to separate the cuts at the beginning when he said he wanted the pork chops, because they were all very clearly talking about who was going to butcher the meat. So now he’s not just an asshat, but kind of a liar as well. And Daddy Tom isn’t about to let him get away with it either, because he points out that in the process of “taking off what he needed” he hacked Jobless Grayson’s Tenderloin to death and left her with almost nothing to work with. StoneBalls’ response?…

*dickshrug*

Wow, what a fucknut. He’s just grinning at Daddy Tom like some kind of servile dog and whining that they were in a rush so “they” had to “get things done”. By which he really means “he” had to “fuck things up”. Daddy Tom looks pissed and says there’s no way that this is going to make it through the round, “I think you should just leave now.” StoneBalls insists that they give him another shot, “You’d be surprised!” he squawks. Resisting the promise of any more StoneBalls Surprises™, Daddy Tom remains firm in his opinion that this isn’t acceptable, and then he delivers Scar’s line, “Pack up your knives and you can go…”

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

The other nine chefs are not oblivious to the fact that someone has just been cut, watching out of the corners of their eyes as StoneBalls leaves the kitchen. Naturally he tells us Daddy Tom and La Gassy made a bad decision because “they weren’t able to taste the expertly cooked pork chop” he would have presented, but he insists he’s not worried because he knows he’s going straight to the top. Just like he “knew” he could butcher meat better than most of the others if he just put his mind to it.

Yes, this is the part of the show where I jumped up in the air and did a muscle-pulling happy dance, it is so rare for any show to cut the total dickweeds up front like this, usually they hang on for several weeks to provide drama. Of course this makes me think that there are a bunch of even worse dickweeds in this group that we haven’t even met yet.

It would seem as though the other chefs have zero sympathy for poor StoneBalls, as Heather Terhune (my age and from Chicago) says this is a serious competition for serious chefs, and if you don’t know by now how to break down a pig then you deserve to get sent home. Why is she so vehement about this? Because she had the ribs that were the other part of the hunk of meat StoneBalls was busily fucking to pieces…

I want my baby back baby back baby back

Don’t blame you, girl. Time for commercials…

hey look, it’s my new investment strategy!

these plastic cake-figurines have more feeling than that Bartrashian chick ever did for her husband

Back in the kitchen with Group One, everyone is still kinda freaked out by the departure of Tyler StoneBalls, especially Miss Nyesha Arrington who says the competition just got “crazy-real right now”…

those eyebrows are crazy-unreal

Daddy Tom goes over to check in with Jobless Grayson, who looks completely flustered. He asks her why she allowed someone else to butcher for her, and she says she thought it would give her extra prep-time. Daddy just sadly shakes his head and reminds her that people suck. She is trying to salvage the tiny amount of tenderloin she has left by stuffing it with some kind of mushroom gluck. It’s too bad she didn’t go ahead and grab the pork chops that StoneBalls left behind.

Next Daddy wanders over to Simon Pantet to ask him what he’s doing with the ham he selected. Here is the response he gets…

“I tndrz d hm n I gng t rll it n crst it w a lttl bt f spzs n brwn sgr… Wy r y frwng lk tht?”

Seriously, this guy has a major problem with enunciation, I have no clue what he’s saying other than something about having “done his homeworks” by reading magazines, cookbooks… and watching YouTube? Wait, did he just actually say that part of his culinary training came from an online video repository?…

I am just as horrified

Well, this takes the term “self-taught chef” to new lows. Let’s go back to people I can actually comprehend, the Moto guys Chris Jones (whom I think I will just continue to call Penis-Hair) and his side-kick Richie Farina…

who has the least-threatening mohawk ever

I’m sorry, it’s not bad-ass if you have feathered, teased and (lightly) sprayed your punk-rock look, so Richie gets to join the rest of the TTMF (Terrible Topchef Mohawk Family) as its newest member, LimpHawk. Also kind of annoying is the fact that he is running to his boss (Penis-Hair) for confirmation about the taste of his dish, because apparently he tends to have a very salty palate. I would think that would be a rather large handicap for a chef, but I guess that’s not a problem at Moto (they just serve you more water to counteract the dehydration). Richie LimpHawk is also trying to sound bad-ass by saying that all the other chefs better watch out for the two of them because they will “destroy everyone in their path”. Yeah, sorry, I just can’t take him seriously with that Vegas Showgirl Plume™ sprouting from his head.

As the final minute ticks away, Vegan Colin realizes he hasn’t plated his soup yet and starts to try and pour it directly from the big stainless steel canister into these teeny-tiny square soupycup thingies, which means he’s rushing and then gravity gets the better of him and now he’ll be serving…

plates that look like Linda Blair puked on them

Yum. Time to serve to the judges, which consist of Daddy Tom, Scar and La Gassy. The first sub-group consists of Chris Penis-Hair, Sarah Grueneberg and Vegan Colin… and while Chris and Sarah put down a pair of perfectly composed plates, Colin is cringing as he lays his snotfest in front of the judges…

and Scar’s face is particularly priceless

La Gassy wants to know what happened, and Vegan Colin says something about having lost the tip on the foamer (???) which seems like an odd thing to say when this mistake was clearly caused by him dumping soup from a giant container in to smaller containers, but I guess these people aren’t used to the cameras being there to, you know, record stuff. Whatever the case, Em La Gassy looks at him and says the soup is clearly a disaster, “You did burn a Top Chef coat.” and with that, Daddy Tom sends Vegan Colin home as well. However, instead of blaming La Gassy and Daddy Tom for making a bad decision, he says he knows it was his mistake for rushing and running out of time…

“and I didn’t wanna cook that poor murdered pig anyhow”

Back with Chris Penis-Hair and Sarah, Scar says that all decisions for this judging will be by majority-rule, and if the judges agree that the chef should be in the Top Sixteen, they will get a chef coat. If two out of three think they food sucked, they will be sent home. The third option (??!?) is that if the judges are undecided, they will put the chefs “on the bubble”, which is a fancy-schmancy catch-phrasey way of saying that they will have to cook again in another challenge to earn their chef coat. I dunno that I get what the whole “bubble” thing is about, if any of you guys can explain it to me, I would appreciate it. (I would have looked it up on YouTube but I didn’t have time) In any case, let’s finally get to judging some food (twenty-three minutes in!). First up is Chris Penis-Hair…

and his dish that could be subtitled “Pork: There’s An App For That”

Followed by Sarah’s far more appetizing raviolis…

she shoulda named them the Three Little Piggie Pouches

Daddy Tom thinks Chris Penis-Hair put together a nice classic-combo dish, and votes to give him a chef-coat. La Gassy says the combination of flavors was excellent and he also votes chef-coat, which means nobody cares what Scar thinks (as usual) so Chris Penis-Hair is the first new member of the Season Nine Cast of Top Chef! He is beyond thrilled…

typical Gen X attitude

As for Sarah, Daddy Tom says she had one of the more difficult ingrediences to work with, he thinks she made it taste great, he votes for a coat, and La Gassy says she pulled it off, so he votes coat, too…

while Sarah goes all Macaulay Culkin

Now that is a little more like it, Sarah’s all but jumping up and down from excitement, and I bet her boss back in Chicago (Tony Mantuano, a.k.a. Tobama from Season Two of Top Chef Masters) is very pleased right about now. And it’s time for another commercial…

when did Katie Holmes make a zombie movie with Jill Zarin?

how weird is it that my local cable provider decided to put this commercial…

…and this commercial back to back?

Time for the second sub-group, which consists of Jobless Grayson, and Molly Brandt, who is the chef de cuisine for Allure Of The Sea on the Royal Caribbean Cruise Line. She says a lot of people automatically think when she says she works on a cruise ship that she is pumping out food in a mass-production kitchen, but she insists she works in fine dining so she can totally ba-ring it with the best of them…

other things that annoy Molly: people who make Titanic jokes

So the Unsinkable Molly Brandt is the first to present her dish…

hey, that looks like an iceberg crashing into a ship made of pork cheeks!

If it has tequila in it, she gets my vote. She’s followed by Jobless Grayson’s teeny tiny tenderloin…

sadly, it doesn’t look any larger thanks to the giant mound of vegetables she served it on

Starting with Unsinkable Molly, Daddy Tom likes her soup’s flavor, but he wanted more flavor from her pig cheeks, so he’s on the fence. Em La Gassy agrees with Daddy, the cheeks should have been more prominent, he’d like to see her cook again… which means she is the first person to be put “On The Bubble” for Season Nine! She is beyond thrilled…

ahh FML

Well that sucks. But not as much as what happens to Jobless Grayson. Scar asks Daddy Tom what he thinks of her dish (and she sounds like she’s barely suppressing laughter while she does it). He says the teeny tiny tenderloin is nicely cooked, but some of the flavors in the mushroom stuffing are out of balance, so he wants to see her cook again. La Gassy agrees, so Jobless Grayson follows Unsinkable Molly right into Bubbleville. At least Tyler StoneBalls won’t be there this time to fuck up her proteins for her.

Third sub-group is up, consisting of Nyesha Arrington, Richie LimpHawk, Simon Mushmouth and Heather Terhune, and Miss Nyesha goes first…

pandering to the local palates

Next we have LimpHawk’s soup…

wait a minute, how did he get frozen parsley powder in the…

DAMN YOU RICHARD BLAZEHAAAAAAAWK!

Jesus, here we go again! I swear, I will be so glad when these chefs stop thinking that just because you desiccate something with liquid nitrogen that it somehow elevates the food to mythical beauty and exquisite gorgeousness. It just makes things really, really cold. OK, maybe I’m upset because I have really sensitive teeth and it hurts me just to look at that Halloween witchfog, but come on, this is a played out trick! Ah fuck it, let’s move on to Simon Mushmouth’s dsh…

whch z hm rld stffd wth fg cnft & gt chz

Nice to see the vagina-plates making another appearance. Last up is Heather Terhune and her baby back ribs that were salvaged from the hands of Tyler StoneBalls and His Amazing Hacksaw…

umm, I think Heather might just be my most favoritest cheftestant ever

Let’s see what the Judges say, starting with Nyesha. She says she wanted to keep things Tex-Mex, and La Gassy says it was spot-on, incredibly balanced and she should get a coat. Scar says it was beautiful and tasty and so Nyesha gets a coat (Daddy Tom looks a little pissed that Scar stole his thunder, but I kinda don’t blame her after four decisions in a row that skipped her opinion, no matter how trite). I guess things just crazier-realer for Miss Nyesha!

Next they bring up Heather’s dish, and Daddy Tom says the flavor of the ribs were really good, it was soulful and satisfying, and he wants her to be in the competition. La Gassy agrees (has he disagreed yet… with anybody?) and so Heather is also getting a coat…

and makes the cutest I-want-to-eat-something-face ever

Heather says she turned 40 this year and wants to prove to herself that she can still compete against people half her age. Well, she outlasted Tyler StoneBalls, so that’s a start. Moving on to Simon Mushmouth, La Gassy says his ham was overcooked and very dry, he doesn’t see Simon in the Top Sixteen. Daddy Tom feels the same way, there was too much going on in the dish, he can’t see him competing any more, either…

“Bt I wtchd ckng vdz n YTb!”

Sorry, Simon, dn’t lt th dr ht y whr th Gd Lrd splt y. We have to move on to Richie LimpHawk, who is already smiling nervously. Daddy Tom wants to know what’s up with that, and LimpHawk says he’s worried that his salty palate might have sabotaged him…

hmmm, I would have said the silly Village People mustache was more of a threat to his chances

Scar is nodding gravely at him, and Daddy Tom says the dish is on the verge of being salty… but it is well-seasoned and well thought-out, so he votes for giving LimpHawk a coat. La Gassy says the dish has tremendous depth and taste, so LimpHawk gets to join his boss Penis-Hair and now the two of them will be free to terrorize mildly annoy the other chefs!

OK, it’s time for Group Two to arrive at the TC Kitchen, and instead of La Gassy for a judge, they get…

an angry Gail Simmons, feeling dumpy standing next to Scar

After introductions are made, Scar gives this group their chance to brag. More famous restaurants, more James Beard nominations, and hearing all this blatant self-promotion is making Semi-Scary Chris Crary (the L.A. boy who wants to stay in the competition to stare at Scar) feel very insecure, so after he tells everyone about the Santa Monica restaurant he is chef de cuisine at, he haughtily calls himself a “culinary artist”. Not to be outdone, Janine Falvo (37, chefbian, Atlanta) goes next and gives her own pedigree (executive chef) and then snarkily deadpans “also a ‘culinary artist’…”

sorry, Chris, not only did she just subtly stomp your nuts in front of the judges, she rocks that passé fauxhawk better than you, too

It’s too bad she couldn’t also put the next chef in his place, because it’s another cocky youngster, this time a 25-year-old restaurant owner named Chuy Valencia, who claims to be a protegé of Season One Top Chef Masters winner Rick Bayless. Naturally he is very proud of having opened up his own restaurant at age 23, which is great, but then he has to go all ageist on us and claim that at 25 he’s already in a place where people 10 years older would love to be…

what, still living at home in mom’s basement?

We’ll see if Chewy winds up on the Walk Of Shame like his arrogant predecessor StoneBalls. Right now, it’s time to learn what they’re going to have to use hacksaws on. Scar shows them a table full of varied ingrediences to choose from, and that’s great… right up until she says they all have to agree on one item that they will all be cooking into their own dish. They also get one hour, aaaaand GO!

After bandying about sea urchin (blech) and sweetbreads (yick) a rather intense tatted-up gothic chick chef from L.A. named Dakota Weiss says they’re in Texas, why don’t they use the huitlacoche? Naturally this is Chewy’s cue to snot “I’m like, the master of huitlacoche, it wouldn’t be fair.” What in the blue fuck is huitlacoche?…

*snort*

yes, let’s all make a dish with sleeping birdshit

OK, Chewy is welcome to be the master of that stuff. Meanwhile Chris Scary is looking at the clock ticking precious seconds of their one hour away and wishes they would all make a decision, so eventually they arrive at…

aww, it’s Fiver (if they had never found Watership Down)

And with that, they are off to run around the kitchen. At least nobody will have to butcher each other’s rabbit carcasses. Right away we meet Whitney Otawka, who plans to make a rabbit sugo (WTF is with all these words I don’t even know?) and tells us her culinary mentor is Hugh Acheson, who apparently brought her into the kitchen when she was very young and laid the foundation for her career today…

sadly, Hughnibrow continues to refuse young Whitney’s repeated offers to teach him depilation

Also sad is the story of Edward Lee, who comes from Korean heritage but lives in Louisville, KY, which he mispronounced (it ain’t “loo-EE-vill”, it’s “LOO-uh-vul”). He says that in Korea, being a chef is not considered a job with any status, so he feels if he wins Top Chef his parents will finally be proud to say their son is a chef…

“Mommy, Daddy, pleeeeeze love me?”

I’m sorry, but that’s fucked up. My parents are totally proud to tell people that I’m a Medicare-D Claims Analyst, and if there is a statusless job in this world, that has to be it. Of course, I had to tell my parents not to tell anyone I know anything about Medicare-D, because all of their friends are retirement age and signing up for it, and then every time we get together for dinner, their friends all want to bitch at me about how complicated it all is and how much the coverage sucks, so now I tell my folks just to tell people I write snotty things on the internet and dance backup for drag queens, none of their friends understand what either of those things are, so I can finally eat in peace. My point is, Edward Lee doesn’t even know just how good he has it.

Daddy Tom is starting to make his rounds and stops by Chewy’s station to find out what he’s going to make. Of course, Chewy has a super-complex explanation with a lot of chefspeak thrown in to impress Daddy Tom. He tells us he’s super comfortable cooking with rabbit (not the master, but close, I’m sure) saying his mom raised them for food when he was a kid. Sadly, his sister used to name them and get close to them, and then once in a while one would disappear…

and wind up like this

Chewy says they would just tell her they were eating chicken. Yay for lying to children! And I mean that in the best possible way, there’s no reason to tell kids the truth about adult things like killing animals for food, let them find out on their own. They have access to YouTube, when they get tired of watching endless variations of Rebecca Black’s “Friday” they will start seeking culinary knowledge. Simon Mushmouth said so. Sorta.

Anyhow, next up we’re going to talk to Chris Scary, who says his style is most similar to Richard BlazeHawk and Michael Voltaggio. FUCK, I KNEW IT!…

it explains the hair at least

Naturally he’s following in the footsteps of the two Top Douchewaffles by doing multiple preparations of both the rabbit and carrots (see, cuz rabbits like to eat carrots… that screams innovative, doesn’t it?). Ugh, sorry, but one BlazeHawk and one Li’l Volt in this world are more than enough. Let’s move on to someone less committed to pretentiousness…

aaaaand we’ve failed

Yes, the other Tyler was kind of a huge unrelenting dick, but at least he didn’t spell his name with a hyphen or a useless umlaut. Ty-Böre säys hïs cülinary style is uniquë because he has worked in NYC, Thailand and Denmark, and believes he has a great shot at making the Top Sixteen. He also has an unfortunate habit of rolling his eyes every other sentence.

Let’s talk a little bit more to our feisty chefbian Janine Falvo. She seems oddly intimidated by Daddy Tom, but tells us that it’s been a rollercoaster year for her because her dad died and she ended a 9-year relationship with “someone”…

and I think we all suspect that “someone” had a “vagina”

You know, normally I get very annoyed with people who come on reality TV and talk about how they are doing whatever show it is they’re on because their dead mother / aunt / cousin / brother-in-law / goldfish would want them to be there… but so far Janinebian hasn’t done that, so I will give her a pass. But if she starts pointing to the sky after every challenge or talking to ghosts during plating, I’m going to be very upset. Besides, we need some good gay people on this show after the dismal showing given by Jamie “Turdle” Lauren, who sleepwalked her way through the All-Stars season.

You know who else is kinda intimidated by Daddy Tom? Miss Nina Vicente from Seattle…

either that, or his Speed Stick has failed

After the shrinking Vicente that was Nina, Daddy Tom appears to be glad to approach the big black bearded bear Keith Rhodes (shit-sayer extraordinaire) and have someone solid to talk to. Keith says being on this show is a “solidification” of everything he’s worked for, and then tells us when he was younger he made a lot of poor decisions, got caught dealing drugs and was sent to prison for it (yowtch)! Um, is it weird that I’m finding him more sexy after hearing this?…

(((crickets)))

OK, I’m just gonna shut up and move on then. Hey, remember that intense tatted-up gothic chick chef named Dakota Weiss? The one who suggested they cook with sleepy Mexican birdshit? Well, she’s got some wacky ideas about pairing her rabbit with chocolate and roasting it crépinette-style, and believes that will make her stand out…

only on Top Chef can you have a neck full of tattoos and still feel ordinary

As the time ticks down from one minute left, there’s always one chef who misses plating a main component before time runs out. This time, that chef is Nina Vicente…

what’s even sadder is that the food is only two feet away from the plate

Also having time issues is Edward Lee, who had difficulty using the vacuum-sealer machine and then after losing a bunch of time had to resort to butter-poaching his rabbit. So now he’s serving buttery undercooked rabbit. Hopefully the Judges have been recently wormed. Anyhow, it’s time for the first subgroup to present, consisting of Whitney Otawka, Nina Vicente, Blackbear Keith and Edward Lee, and before anybody even says anything, Scar helpfully points out that Nina’s dish is missing a major component, so she gets to immediately pack her knives and go. What fun for her! Even more fun is the face that Ty-Böre makes when he sees her leaving…

please stop trying to use your facial expressions to compensate for your last name

Actually that’s Ty-Böre’s “freaked out” face, because now he’s even more worried about finishing his dish in time. I guess nobody thought they might get sent home if they didn’t present a full dish to be judged? Let’s go back and see what Whitney’s “sugo” looks like…

gee, it looks like another way to say “stew”

Next dish belongs to BlackBear Keith…

where it looks like he slaughtered an entire warren

Followed by Edward Lee and his undercooked bunnybits…

looks awful pink

Gail is chewing and chewing and chewing, which is not a good sign. Once they finish, Daddy Tom tells Whitney her rabbit was nicely cooked and Gail likes the fact that she used a completely different approach to her dish, so she, Scar and Daddy Tom all vote Whitney to get her chef-coat. I guess it’s a good thing Hughnibrow wasn’t on her judging panel or there might have been some accusations flying about.

Next, Daddy turns to BlackBear Keith and says the cold rabbit served with corn salsa was perfectly cooked, and Gail agrees, she really enjoyed it…

I mean, she REALLY enjoyed it

Apparently Gail making scaryface means she votes for a coat, and Scar does, too, so Daddy Tom makes it unanimous and then immediately insults BlackBear by mentioning they have his coat in an XXXL size! LOL fat guys: we are the worst ones about calling other people fat.

This leaves poor Edward Lee standing alone. Scar immediately says they had trouble with his dish because the rabbit didn’t seem cooked enough. This prompts both Daddy Tom and Gail to say they want to see him cook again, so it looks like it’s bubble-time for Eddie Lee…

you’re welcome

Back in the kitchen, the second sub-group’s time is bleeding away, and this time it’s Janinebian who misses getting her sauce on her plate before the timer beeps. Well, at least she got the meat on there. Her sub-group consists of herself, Chris Scary, Dakota Weiss (Gothic Girl), Ty-Böre and Chewy Valencia, and Janinebian’s the first to present…

hmmm, it does look a little dry

Next in line is Master Chewy…

whose dish has too much sauce (and just a hint of cocky asshole)

He’s followed by Chris Scary and his double dippin’ duo…

although I only see one preparation of carrot here, so I guess he lied

And then there’s Ty-Böre and his random dots…

you know I’m gonna be pissed if he makes it, it’s a pain to insert that special ö everywhere

And finallly we have Gothic Girl Dakota Weiss and her rabbocolate…

look, rabbit rice-krispy treats

Now that they’ve had a chance to chow down, they start with Gothic Girl Dakota. Daddy Tom says he enjoyed the rabbit, found it balanced and the vanilla flavor actually worked with the dish, so he wants her to have a coat. Scar and Gail are on board, so she’s outta there and happily celebrating along the way…

yes, this is her happy and celebrating look

If they ever have a cannibal challenge, I think she would win it. Let’s go back to the Judges’ Table and hear what they have to say about Ty-Böre’s dish. Daddy Tom says he liked the flavor of the rabbit and all the 839 ingrediences he used with it, so he’s voting coat, as well as Gail, sö nöw I’m döömed tö döing this shit until he göes höme. Gail and Scar feel the same about Chris Scary, so he’s in as well (good going, Scar, you just voted a stalker into the group, hope you like being stared at all the time).
Things are not quite as sweet for Janinebian, Daddy Tom clocks her right away for her sauce not being on the plate, he’s voting for the bubble. Gail disagrees and thinks there was enough skill and flavor to warrant giving her a coat, so it comes down to Scar… who says she can’t give it to her today, she thinks it would be best for Janinebian to go to the bubble. She is kicking herself for not getting that sauce down, but on the plus side, she did not blame it on missing her dad or her Ex-GF, so points to her. Time for commercial…

ew, this must be a love scene from Scotty McCreery’s new video

double ew, this must be his love interest

Back in the Bubble Room, Janinebian has arrived to find Eddie Lee, Unsinkable Molly Brandt and Jobless Grayson waiting there, and after checking them all for ink, she theorizes that the people making it through are the ones who are really tatted up. Well, that wasn’t exactly true in Simon Mushmouth’s case, and Unsinkable Molly says she has a small tat on her foot, but this does not stop Janinebian from drawing on herself with a Sharpie…

oh, you are so totally in now

BTW, the drawing is the word “DAD” in a purple heart. Ergh! At least she didn’t start crying while she drew it. Anyhow, back at the Judges’ Table, Chewy Valencia is standing there all alone, and when prompted for his thoughts by Daddy Tom he says it’s either a case of saving the best for last or the absolute worst for last. “Or neither,” Scar is quick to bitchily add…

LOL, I think I just saw most of the cocky drain out of those neck-wrinkles

After giving an overly long (and sorta faint) compliment to Chewy’s dish, Daddy Tom says he’d like to see him… continue on. Scar says he’s earned the eleventh spot, so come on down and get your chef coat and maybe cool it with the I’m-so-awesome bit, K? Except of course he ignores me and when he exits the Top Chef Kitchen he holds up his chef coat and says “BOO-yah beyotch!” Well, I guess we have to have a overly-confident youngster in the bunch, there’s no way around that. Apparently.

Earlier the Group One chefs had converged on the Hacienda Hideaway that will be their home base for this season, and naturally when Chris Penis-Hair caught sight of Richie LimpHawk coming through the door there was a squeal heard all the way back in Chicago and a lusty embrace that nearly took out a camera guy…

they’re either really happy to both be competing together or they just decided to give each other bowl cuts for their next hairstyle

Mark my words, especially what I said about the two of them mildly annoying everyone. If anyone is going to wind up with a short-sheeted bed, or their hand placed in a bowl of warm water while they sleep, or have vaseline smeared on their underwear glasses, it’s these two.

The nighttime arriving Group Two, on the other hand, is much more subdued, most likely because they appear exhausted (especially our bubble-dwellers) and there is a much quieter reunion, this time between Ty-Böre and Heather Terhune. It turns out Ty-Böre was Heather’s executive sous-chef for 2 years and they were really good buddies. Now, the reason I mention his is because they are playing sensitive guitar music while they hug and acting like this is a romantic thing (which is certainly possible, lord knows there are plenty of straight men out there who love them a larger lady) but I couldn’t help thinking in the back of my mind…

maybe she’s a flame dame and he’s one of her queers?

I dunno, time will reveal I guess. Anyhow, that’s it for our first episode! I guess Group Three and our Bubble Competition have to wait for next week, and as someone pointed out (lestermaddox, I believe) they are down to only five spots between the final ten chefs and the four bubbleers. I am going to go out on a limb and guess that whoever winds up On The Bubble, they will all be competing for ONE SPOT ONLY. It makes for good drama, and lord knows we all love us some drama.

Well, what did you guys think of this episode? Were you as shocked as I was that Tyler StoneBalls actually got the heave-ho? Are you surprised at how many of the chefs seem pretty likeable so far? Are you hopeful that a lady chef is going to beat the boys this year? And what is up with half the city of Chicago competing? Thanks again for taking time out to read, I appreciate any and all commentary, and I’m excited that this appears to be shaping up to be an interesting season.

Before I go, there are two things I want to share… one is kitty porn…

that’s Chunky on the right and his sister Chica on the left (she seepee)

…and the other is drag queens and dancing (it’s easy to find me, I’m the only fat guy you’ll see)…

 

Thanks again, we’ll catch up again soon!

love, J-Mo