Recap: Top Chef: Que Emocion!

This week, Top Chef taught us that it’s not safe to run with knives, France and Argentina are two different countries, and if you aren’t very pretty or worked out but you still want to act, learn Spanish.

I was pretty sad that Camille had to go last week. So she made a rubbery pineapple cake, big deal! She was very pretty, she had perfect eyebrow maintenance, and….who are we kidding? She made pineapple cake. Bye, bitch. Peppermint Patty is taking it pretty hard, though, so I come into this episode with mixed feelings. Will my girl be ok?

Aw, Lia. There’s no L, V or E in cooking. Just 0.

Joey gargles cig smoke on the balcony with Baldhawk. He tells us that he’s the grey horse right now. I can’t tell if he doesn’t know what a dark horse is or if he’s invented a whole new category of not good enough. He’s sitting in the middle to the bottom and can’t seem to move ahead. Baldhawk is a pretty strict bottom, so all he can do is nod and exhale like a brother as he listens to Grey Horse bitch moan and gargle. Don’t worry, Joey. There’s bound to be a Cheeze Puff and Snickers Challenge any day now. Hold on to one more day! Ah, Wilson Phillips. Joey should worry less about cooking and more about skin cancer.

Dude. Go to the doctor. And for chrissakes, get out of the sun!

Dung flashes his beady little eyes at the camera and tells us his big master plan. He’s gonna cook like it’s his last day in the competition. If only. To win, he thinks he just needs finesse, style, and grace. I agree. So go get some of that, ya greedy crawfish killer. Where’s Elia? This douche needs a shave.

Scar introduces us to our Guest Judge, Maria Frumkin. Wow. When you become a star Chef and people suggest you start writing books and making TV appearances, make sure your name’s not Frumkin. She can own the French Bakery and Duo Restaurant in Miami all she wants to, all I hear is Frumpy Munchkin. Sorry, but so far she sounds French, and as some of you know, I hate French women because of the 2005 book “Why French Women Don’t Get Fat”, which tries to teach us fat-ass ignorant Americans to only have one bite of dinner and put down the fork. NOT. RIGHT. Two years have passed, but my response is still the same. Down with French Women! I start to like Frumpkin a little more when the camera catches her from behind.

Alright, Hipster. You can stay. But you’re on probabation!

Scar angles her right arm for the camera at least four times as she explains today’s Quickfire Challenge. Guys, beauty is only skin deep, got it? Hair toss camera flirt giggle stutter giggle. Today’s Quickfire Challenge will involve the most widely used, time saving culinary innovation of all time! Yay! A fast food drive-thru window… No! Pie crust! Mmmmm. Jack in the Box.

Baldhawk is hellapissed, because he was scolded last week for trying to make pastry, and now he has to do it again!! Cheer up, man. You were scolded then because you had to cook something from scratch. As we learned from your winning boxed mashed potatoes and pre-cooked rotisserie chicken dish, you’re great at using pre-packaged crap! I triple dog dare you to use pineapple. From a can.

Scar lets Frumpkin explain the challenge. It’s difficult with that (French? Spanish? Deaf?) accent, and when she finally gets out that the Chefs will have to use the pie crust (you don’t say), Padma practically high fives her and they both giggle. Saying lines is waaaay harder than it looks at home. The Chefs can prepare whatever they want with the crust, and they have 90 minutes to create something to make up for last week’s “dessert debacle”. Oh snap, Scar. Baldhawk bites his upper lip in a hurt WHAT. EVER. As usual, he has way tinier balls in front of the Judges than he did in his private time with the camera.

If you were like this in the kitchen, I might actually like you.

Dung is sticking to his elegant and graceful roots with a banana cream pie. I am going to up him one and play some classical music while I binge on a carton of Everything But The…I got a fudge chip and a nut in the same bite! La di fuckin da. BRB.

Unpause. I feel tired, sated, and alive. Dung’s still an ass.

Baldhawk, determined to polish his recently tarninhed reputation, decides to make a strawberry tart with a side of salmon. Grodie much? How do you even think to serve those things together? I consider opening a can of tuna and downing it with a stale churro to test his comeback strategy, but Ben and Jerry’s has like 500 grams of fat. I’m done for the night. I’m just going to have to assume that fish and pie don’t mix until Frumpkin tells me different.

Joey feels confident, because he’s had a lot of experience with pie contests. He starts inhaling his crust whole, sure he’s gonna win this one. I believe in you, Joey! Howie’s pretty confident too. So confident that he goes for a long run before he gets to work.

Come on, guys. There has to be at least one towel in the Not Kenmore Kitchen! Help a brothuh out!

Wait a second, why isn’t Hung running around all over the place dropping things and turning other people’s oven’s off? Ah, his mousse isn’t setting, so he’s stuck waiting at the fridge. HAHA. You got time to lean, you got time to clean, Dung.

Karma’s one nasty bitch.

He compensates for his runny ass mousse by building a wall of strawberries around the pie slices. It looks like he’s trying to patch a broken sewer. Scar, who’s decided this season that she’s a full fledged judge, gets all up in his grill. She whines at him like he’s a boyfriend who treated her with disrespect. “Why didn’t you have enough tiiime? I saw you with a lot of time on your hands! How could you do this to me? To us? I can’t trust you anymore! I’m leaving! And I want seventy percent of your residuals for the rest of your life, you old pervert!” Wait. Sorry. I got carried away. But seriously, poor Salmon.

Howie’s peach tartin didn’t go over so well with Frumpkin, who tasted way too much toxic Flinstone sweat in his Sabayon. Glad you got in a workout, though, buddy. When Scar brings Frumpkin over to Joey, he starts with a barrage of excuses. He thought he already won immunity with the pie eating contest and has nothing for them to try. Wait a second! He made a trio of tarts as a snack for later in the hot tub. I am proud of him for handing them over to the Judges. He tells us they’re sure to be impressed, as those tarts “are like an orgasm in your mouth”. How in the hell are you supposed to swallow after that description? If Frumpkin doesn’t slap Bravo with a sexual harassment suit in the morning, she’s officially the wimpiest French woman I’ve ever seen.

CJ plays at Frumpkin’s heart strings by presenting an Ode to the Missing Ball. She tea bags it thoughtfully and gives him a hug. So BRAVE!

Who doesn’t respect a Chef willing to put his ball out on the table like that?

Tre made a fennel and apple tart tartin. It looks like the smallest and easiest simplest dish so far, but he cut out stars from the crust!! Someone gets extra credit for perkiness! I’m sorry, I meant PASSION. Brian made four tarts! Way to over-achieve! Veggie, chorizo and pepperjack cheese, berry, and (this is gonna shock the hell out of you) shrimp and scallop!! UGH. WE GET IT, TROLL PATCH! YOU OWN A SEAFOOD RESTAURANT! Fish, sausage, pepper cheese, and berries on the same plate. Yum. All you’re missing is a side of tongue brush.

Sara M seemed to jump back a bit after last week’s gelatin nightmare (Daddy Tom’s “read the box!” is still cracking me up). She prepared a Swiss chard and rabbit stew and prosciutto wrapped rabbit. Damn, Sara M. Why don’t you just walk over to Bunny Foo Foo and punch her in the face? I smell a catfight.

Peppermint Patty made pork tenderloin with a lovely artichoke and chorizo tart, but Frumpkin’s not crazy about it. She’s not much happier with Baldhawk’s “overwhelming” fish and pie plate. Frumpkin isn’t mean about it, but I think it’s cuz she doesn’t know enough English to diss it properly. She says it all with her face.

I hope they’re payin’ you well, Frumpkin.

Her least favorites were Lia’s, Baldhawk’s, and Hung’s. She pronounces his name “Hank”. Did you feel that? Hanks across the world just shuddered at the same time. Her top three were Tre, Sara M, and the big, big winner, Joey!!! Atta boy! Just when I you thought you’d never do it! Frump thinks he has a future in tarts. And a past. And a present.

The fact that Frenchy Frumpkin honored a morbidly obese person has made me reconsider my position on France. You can’t judge a country by it’s book cover. Aw! I’m totally growing, you guys. I press pause and look for Frumpkin’s website so I can write her a letter of apology and I learn that she is in fact Argentine, not French. DAMMIT!! I love Evita! Fumpy, we could have been friends this whole time! My bad.

This week’s Elimination Challenge will be to create a Latin Lunch for the cast of a telenovela called Dame Chocolate on Telemunduo. Uhhh….umkay. Good one, Lee Anne. I hope Frumpkin at least gets to stick around for food description time so we can hear her and the guests try to decipher what Howie, Hank, and Joey are trying to say. I’m gonna turn on my closed captioning during this Challenge. It’s gonna be an accent street fight. I’m excited, because the whole thing makes me think of the Tower of Babel story. No Bible readers out there? I’ll give you a hint. It didn’t end well.

A little bit of history repeating?

Hank thinks he has this challenge in the bag because he lived in Puerto Rico for three years. LOL. I live next to a gym. Guess who’s making heart shapes with his tummy fat right now? Rhymes with Clipit.

Bunny Foo Foo, who has finally stopped crying after last week’s diss from Daddy Tom, hangs out with Lia back at the Fountainbleau and says she(her maid)’s watched Dame Chocolate. It’s huge in (the laundry room on ironing night at the Foo Foo home) Mexico. Peppermint Patty, without an ounce of sarcasm, asks Foo if she has a favorite character from the show. Awkward caught in a lie pause. “…They have their sultry looking ones…and their older…people.” I am so sure, Foo Foo. Peppermint nods like she believes it, and I smell something fishy. Lia’s not that stupid. And her hair’s down. And her girls are on display. Why, Peppermint Patty, are you crushin’ on Bunny Foo Foo? Ah, hell. Why not? She may have a stick up her ass, but she’s also got a maid. Sold!

How do you say HEART in Telemundo?

The next morning, a cameraman catches Hank still in bed so he can get a shot of him not running. How is he gonna win this challenge today? He’s gonna “cook good” and whip out his Spanish. YAAAYY!!! Hank’s gonna speak Spanish! God is looking down on me and smiling tonight.

When they get to the Not Kenmore Kitchen, the Chefs are rested and relaxed because of their three hour time limit. Yawn. This will not do. Again, as if sensing my boredom, Daddy Tom comes in and tells them that the cast of Dame Chocolate had to move their lunch up, which means their prep time is cut in half. Everyone shrugs and smiles. No problem, Chef! Yeah, right. All Hell breaks loose.

Hank starts flying around the kitchen like a maniac, Howie cusses out the stoves. Even Foo Foo is flustered enough to perfectly enunciate the word “shit” once or twice. She tells us that people have lost all sense of right and wrong in the time crunch, and I laugh. Oh Foo, que emocion!

Daddy comes in to check on their progress just in time to see the spastic Hank sprinting around like a moron. You’re making chicken and rice, for crying out. Why are you RUNNING? He jerks around and almost cuts Foo Foo in the face with a butcher knife. Tom’s face says it all:

Now you see what we’ve been dealing with for an hour a week.

Tom assumes that Howie’s working the hardest because he’s sweating the most. Well, his heart’s working the hardest, that’s fo sho. He tells Daddy that his original plan was to make braised pork, and he’s not changing just because he only has an hour and a half. He does finish, but as usual, he didn’t have the time to get it done how he wanted. I wonder how long ticket times are over at Howie’s restaurant. I’m guessing there’s a magazine rack by the hostess stand.

Hank is way more confident. He tells us if he can’t cook rice, then he should just pack up and leave. Dear God, please let Hung bone the rice and quit in tears. Love, Flipit. Amen.

On to the set of Dame Chocolate! Welcome back, Gail Simmons! I see you have taken your time off to not see a stylist. If ever there was a uniform to serve brownies at a PTA meeting in, this is it. Good Lord, woman. Go shopping. You deserve it. So do we.

Come on, now. I know there are malls in Miami.

The Chefs get their food transferred to their buffet line with no problem thanks to GLAD’s light and easy tupperware. Thanks, Glad! Hung’s Spanish is as hideous and hilarious as I’d hoped, and I rewound four times to get the giggles out. The guests laugh in his face, which of course he misinterprets as encouragement.

No, really. Keep talking. You’re doing great.

Joey’s on a roll today, according to Howie. He just can’t stop eating Joey’s food! Neither can Joey. Brothers! The Telemundo crowd is by far the coolest group of guests of the season. They applaud the dishes they like, and flat out stomp on the few they don’t. One girl, who’s ridiculous name can only mean she’s an actress, says Hank killed the Spanish language arroz con pollo. And she doesn’t mean it in a slangy, awesome way. She means he murdered it. Dead.

In the beginning, there was the telenovela.

And she was being nice! This lady wasn’t as subtle.

First time she’s made herself throw up. EVER. Go, Hank!

The Judges sit with the stars of Dame Chocolate and talk about the food. No one liked Sara N’s ceviche, and Peppermint Patty’s polenta and rainbow trout didn’t go over too well, either. Genesis gets to Foo Foo’s chicken and coffee (smartly no longer named mole) molasses and just makes a disgusted blech sound. LOL, Genesis. Don’t hold back.

Enough about the food, the Judges want to know about the telenovela! This is a plug, after all. They ask who the bitch is, and the cast points to Scar. No, guys. On your show. Then they ask who’s sleeping with who and what the show’s about and what Telemundo is. Come on, Judges. At least pretend you’ve seen it. You’re not helping. I was a little disappointed that no one broke out in screaming sobs with mascara running down their face during lunch (have they not had a chance to meet Joey?), so I went to trusty old YouTube for some action. After watching Genesis play a crying suicide bomber, I’m hooked. If you are really really REALLY bored, check it out.

Glad to see Rachel Dratch working again.

Time for Judges Table! The Cave Men are called in for having the top 2 dishes, and they stroke each other’s food in front of the Judges. It’s kind of sweet. I imagine them leaving the show and staying friends, living out their years taking really slow walks together. Howie wins! Congrats, Flinstone! You give good pork. He is awarded a bottle of wine. Gee thanks, Frumpkin. Haven’t you written any books? These prizes get shittier every week. By the end, they’re gonna be handing out rolls of paper towels.

Things are pretty tense in the holding room, so Hung lightens the mood with his shitty personality as he plays with his shoelaces. “Well, I know my dish was good.” Dear God, It’s Flipit again. Please please please put Hung in the bottom! PLEEAASEEEEEEE. Amen.

And God listened!! Sweet! Thanks, God! Makes me wonder why impoverished countries don’t just pray for what they want. It totally works. Little Hank is joined by Saran, Peppermint Patty, and Bunny Foo Foo, who registers a look of shock even though she already copped to sucking it. Maybe she was just traumatized from watching the Cave Men hug. It was kinda gross.

When the Chefs enter the Judging room, Scar stares them down like she’s about to heartlessly break up with each of them individually. It’s hard to take you seriously wearing Micah braids and Paula Abdul’s line of Ginormous Clunky Jewelry from QVC, Scar, but I appreciate the effort.

Lighten up, Pocahontas. You’re a hostess.

They start with Dung. Why would he choose a bland ass dish like chicken and rice? He is immediately defensive and reminds them that it’s a very common dish in the Spanish Culture. No shit, Hank. Frumpkin says that yes, it is very typical, and no one liked his version. Oh snap, lady. Hunk smarts “That’s your personal opinion”. And everyone else’s, dickwad. Don’t make Frumpkin repeat herself. She had enough trouble saying it the first time.

Tom says that rice was underseasoned, and of course Dung disagrees, saying he felt like he was overseasoned. OK, then. It was dry, too. Dung’s defense is that it wasn’t so bad that you had to spit it out and drink a glass of water. They agree. Great argument, dumbass. Daddy Tom, unsure what to do with this little bitch, asks him to please be more careful with his knives, because he almost cut Foo Foo’s face off. Dammit! Be more careful next time means Dung’s coming back. I feel hurt and betrayed. God, we are so broken up.

Is this a trick question? I sent a blank text to 46833.

Bunny Foo Foo knows that her rice was mushy, but she thought her coffee molasses was good. The Judges are so dumbfounded by that remark that they don’t even mention the dry chicken. Frumpkin asks her if she felt all the flavors went together, and Foo Foo nods emphatically while Frumpkin looks at her like either she’s not understanding her correctly, or this girl’s an idiot.

Peppermint Patty cops to not having the best dish, but when Daddy Tom asks her if she thinks it can send her home, she says no. He gives her a “WRONG” look. Uh-oh.

Saran’s ceviche was busted. What the hell was she thinkin? She says that she once had a Mexican roommate who made guacamole with fish in it, so she did a spin on that. Blame the Mexi, why don’t you?

In the end, Peppermint Patty is told to pack her knives and get the f out. DAMMIT!!! Did no one remember take into account how Genesis might feel about this decision?

Peppermint Patty’s disappointed, but she leaves with grace and doesn’t scream homophobia or diss any of her fellow contestants. She’ll take out her frustration in the batting cages like a Big Boy. You’re a class act, kid. Good luck to ya.

Say hi to Marci for me!