Top Chef Masters: Return Of The Amused Douche

Welcome to Round Two, my little culinary cohorts! At the risk of revealing something personal, I’m going to go out on a limb and admit that I’m not a fan of leftovers… something that my BF is constantly reminding me of in his patented Long-Suffering-Voiceâ„¢. In fact, for the first 5 years we were together I was convinced that I had suddenly gained a magical refrigerator in which dreaded leftovers could be placed in tiny clear containers that would eventually just disappear and I wouldn’t have to deal with them anymore. It made ice, too, so I was in heaven. Eventually my BF clued me in that he was, in fact, the “Icky Leftover Fairy” and was about to go on strike unless I started helping him eat some of them. He insisted that sometimes food even takes on different and uniquely better flavors a day or two after it’s cooked. Pleasantly, I discovered he was right in some cases… however, in others I learned…

…nope, it still tastes like two scoops of douchey with a generous dollop of wackjob…

And on tonight’s episode of the uniquely fabulous Top Chef Masters, we are treated to the return of The Poopy-Cheeto-Erection Challenge (I feel so psychic!) and three of the “stars” of Top Chef Season Two… none other than Moonfaced Moron Michael, Batshit Betty and the “winner” Illyawn (who still doesn’t have a decent personality and is still a giant fucknut boogerface). Get ready to watch these three exact some sort of ill-conceived revenge fantasies after the jump.As the day dawns over an impossibly clear-aired Los Angeles (amid shots sped up to look like snippets from Madonna’s Koyaanisqatsi rip-off Ray Of Light video) we meet our first Master of the day, Graham Elliot Bowles, who owns his own restaurant Graham Elliot in Chicago. Taking one look at Teddy Graham here, I must tell you…

…I absolutely heart a man with a size 22 neck…

What a cutie-pie he is! I bet he’d never give me shit about leftovers, he’d just shut up and eat them. Anyhow, he says his culinary style could be summed up as “punk rock, if you will” and then they show this…

…aren’t these supposed to be deadly with Coke?…

Or maybe I misheard him and he really said his culinary style was “pop rock”? Does he cook with them at his restaurant? I dunno, but Daddy Tom comes by for his weekly cameo to tell us that Teddy Graham is the youngest competitor amongst the Masters, has been nominated 3 times for the James Beard award, and was also given Top Ten Best New Chef of 2004 by Food & Whine Magazine. Jeffrey NerdMosexual goes on to describe him as a “hot shot” who has a “ssssnazzy, urbane Chicago quality to him.” I’m not quite sure, is NerdMo’ saying Teddy Graham is gay? Perhaps it’s just his prissy-ass delivery that makes everything coming out of his mouth sound like an air leak in a male sex-doll. Nevertheless, I know who my boner is I’m rooting for to win this episode.

The next Master to be introduced is our first female contestant of the season, Chef Suzanne Tracht, and she owns a restaurant in L.A. called Jar where she serves up her style of simple but elegant food…

…”I was going to call the restaurant ‘Pot’, but then I figured all anybody’d order would be the nachos.”…

She seems quite nice, but I wonder if she downed a whole jar of Sleepytime Teaâ„¢ before the show, she seems awfully sedated. Anyhow, SnoozAnne says she likes to go to the Farmer’s Market to get ahold of what’s fresh and in season at that time of year. I used to go to there to cruise dudes by the cucumbers, so naturally I feel like we’re sisters.

Daddy Tom says she’s known for doing “straightforward, unpretentious food” and then Jay FugTaser is back to fuck up my TV screen and say that she’s also known as a “West Coast Chef”, which means she signed with Death Row Records and not Bad Boy. Er, I mean rather that she focuses on the ingredients and doesn’t complicate things on the plate. Lest we thing she’s boring, SnoozAnne says she loves being in the heat of the moment and that sometimes she can “kinda erupt like a little volcano”…

…SnoozAnne erupts. Kinda. …

Now bursting through the doors of GTE MonoBrand Arena is none other than über-geek Wylie Dufresne, and when he catches sight of him, Teddy Graham lets out with a big “Oh no, Jesus Christ!” and tells us privately that he’d hate to get beaten by The Doof because they’re pretty good friends and after this show one would have bragging rights and hassle the other one to death…

…and it would truly suck balls to get made fun of by someone with hair this bad…

The Doof, of course, has been a judge on Top Chef numerous times, and is the head chef and owner of his own restaurant WD-50 in NYC. He is also considered a Master of “mullet astronomy” “follicular atrocity” “molecular gastronomy”, which is a fancy-schmancy way of finding new and interesting ways to kill people slowly through chemical food additives. Doof says that he resists this title because “it doesn’t sound sexy“…

…*snort*…as if it’s his cooking style that’s adding to his unsexy factor…

I’m kidding, actually I find The Doof to be amazingly erotic. Really. Ok, no, but he seems like a really sweet and genuine guy, so I’m not going to make fun of his teeth or anything. I can’t promise the same about his hair, though. Anyhow, Gramma Greene cackles that everyone comes to WD-50 to experience the “cutting edge of creative cooking” in New York City (which means finally finding out what shit like “Xanthan gum” tastes like).

The last Master to join today’s episode is Elizabeth Falkner who eerily reminds me of a slightly uptight yet hungrily ambitious Vulcan Lesbian…

…”I must have your thoughts… so I can annihilate them.”…

Lezbeth is the owner of both Citizen Cake and Orson restaurants in San Francisco and Gail Simmons drops by for a few seconds to tell us that she is a James Beard award winner and one of the great avant-garde pastry chefs in the country. Lezbeth herself says while she doesn’t mind being known as primarily a “pastry chef” she has always done a lot of savory food cooking as well, “I’ve been kind of put in a pink bakery box.” she faux-complains…

…”And I love it.”…

She greets the other Masters by entering the GD MonoNucleosis Arena and announcing she’s been working on honing her knife skills, and then for some reason starts violently swinging some kind of a stick at them…

…smile or no, I don’t blame poor Teddy Graham for taking an involuntary step back…

What in the blue fuck was that all about? Was that a sheathed sword of some sort? And way to dispel the stereotype of the angry lesbian there, T’Pau. Daddy Tom says that it was pretty evident when Lezbeth was a guest judge on Season One that she was really itching to actually be competing instead of judging. She admits that she can be confident and cocky at times, “I like to win things… I’m rock star quality!” Ugh, I hate it when people call themselves that…

…especially when we know this is her idea of a “rock star”…

Bok Choi comes flouncing in to welcome them to the Top Chef Masters Kitchen and remind them of the $10,000.00 that’s up for grabs for their various charities, plus the chance to go hair to hair with Le Mullet in the Champions Round. And what do you know? Today’s Quickfire is the infamous “create an amuse bouche using ingredients from a vending machine” challenge. Teddy Graham is super-excited about this, it was the exact challenge he was hoping for…

…something tells me he’s not above snagging a Snickers (or two) from time to time…

Lezbeth is on hand to remind the viewing audience that an “amuse-bouche” is like a one-or-two-bite “gift” from a chef, and Bok Choi chimes in that the winner of Season Two’s challenge was Carlos Fernandez’s “carrot loaf with sunflower seeds and Squirt soda”…

…a.k.a. “Dried Sawdust Turd”…

…but nobody remembers that because of Moonface Moron Mikey’s “bizarre concoction” of the Poopy-Cheeto-Erectionâ„¢ that guest judge Suzanne Goin called “a playful presentation”…

…right before she hurled everywhere…

As if that wasn’t horrifying enough, Bok Choi lets them know that the judges today will be the Unholy Trinity…

…of Crap, Snap-Ho and Flop…

When The Doof gets a good look at these three clowns his first reaction is “Aw, Jesus Christ!” and says he was immediately concerned because he judged Illyawn in the past and is afraid anything negative he might have said will count against him. I’m not sure why he’s so freaked… after all, the little hemorrhoid won, so what’s he got to be pissed off at The Doof about? He should be far more concerned about Fabio from last season wanteeng to keek heez azz forr no likeeng Fabio’z egg deesh datta havv no egg eeneet…

…”Nowwa wee both havva estoopeed haircott!”…

At any rate, now that they know who will be unfairly judging their food creations, Bok Choi chirps for them to follow her to the Vend-O-Rama Room.

I’m thinking that added to the list of Horrible Jobs Nobody Wants should be the P.A. who gets to put tape over every single brand logo in these vending machines. So stupid…. like we can’t tell it’s Chex Mix or Skittles or Doritos. Anyhow, The Doof is up first and shares that he is “fascinated” by what goes on in a bag of chips. Ugh, that sounds creepy as hell… hopefully the chips just lay there until it’s time to make their short journey from the bag to my hand, in my mouth, winding up in my belly, and eventually, my ass. If there’s anything else going on in that bag, then I don’t wanna know about it. Meanwhile, back at the Quickfire, The Doof has bought potato chips, peanuts and two ham’n'cheese sammiches that probably taste like diesel exhaust…

…mixed with sweaty underarms…

SnoozAnne wakes up long enough to register her distaste for vending machines and their non-food-contents, saying she’s not even sure where to find one… but since she has teenagers in the house she “knows a little bit” about Cheetos and Fritos and Doritos. I love how she makes them sound so super-secretive and mysterious, like something only “the kids” would know about via something like Twitter.

Lezbeth goes for beef jerky and a can of Dr. Pepper, while Teddy Graham grabs two candy bars, a ham’n'cheese sammich and an orange juice, “And that’s just lunch… now I gotta get something for the contest!”, he quips. Oh Teddy, you’re so cute…

…”Where’s the bacon cheeseburger button?”…

He says he really needs to win this Quickfire because he gets shit from people all the time for using these type of ingredients in his cooking. That explains the Pop Rocks we saw earlier. Well, now that they’re back in the kitchen, Bok Choi gives them 30 minutes to create their Amuse-Bouches for Los Tres Douches and they’re off!

Teddy Graham’s making some tuna salad with shallots pickled in lime juice, plus some orange soda flavored with lemon grass, lime leaves and ginger. He’s most worried about The Doof, who’s planning on making a grilled cheese sammich with crispy ham and a Dr. Pepper-reduction plus he’s sautéing some peanuts that he’s going to roll in beer powder to make beer nuts. That sounds delicious, but it kinda also sounds like more than a one-or-two-bite-chef-gift to me.

Meanwhile, SnoozAnne’s still wah wah wah-ing away about having to use these non-fresh ingredients. Ugh, shut up, lady, that’s why it’s called a “challenge”, K? She’s also latched onto the shallots and onions that she’s going to use to make fried shallot rings dusted with a “Frito-flour” mixture and served with a Dr. Pepper-reduction-based aioli. She drones that it’s something her kids would be excited about…

…’cuz God knows she sure is…

Lezbeth is going to make braised beef jerky with an orange juice, lemon and horseradish ice cream. Umm, blech? She insists that she’s constantly telling people it’s not weird to think about ice cream being a part of a savory dish because “it’s just a frozen sauce”. Of course, she’s excited to be using a giant canister of liquid nitrogen to make her frozen sauce with, “I don’t even care if I’m not that experienced with it… I don’t always play it safe… and I’m okay with that!”…

…Fascinating. …

Time is running out and The Doof is getting flustered and running around with his greasy hair flapping in the breeze, he’s got too many things going on at once and feels like he’s forgetting something. When time is called he starts swearing and says in the heat of the moment everything just kinda fell apart. I’m beginning to think The Doof is a bit of a Drama Queen. I mean, how can you fuck up a grilled cheese?…

…well, surrounding it with drops of dried Dr. Pepper is a good start…

Sure enough, Batshit Betty likes the presentation, but hates the reduction, as she says in her best bitchy-yet-horrified voice, “Actually, my sauce has solidified!” And the menopause joke just writes itself. The Doof curses and says the sauce over-reduced, and now it’s just a tar-like glop on the plate. On the other hand, Moonfaced Moron Michael just grins stupidly and says “I thought it was delicious!” and says he can’t believe it came out of a vending machine…

…unlike the almost-literal piece of shit he made when he was faced with this challenge…

Of course, speaking with the weighty tone of a giant asshole Top Chef, Illyawn whines that it was “too big and kind of difficult to eat”, which makes The Doof curse yet again. Poor Wylie, he’s getting pummelled! Where’s the magic of Xanthan gum when you need it?

Next up is SnoozAnne…

…hmmmm, this looks even bigger and harder to eat than The Doof’s…

Illyawn says it smells delicious and tastes yummy, Batshit calls it “fun” and “really well done” and wants to lick her bowl. Go for it, Betty, you’ve got nothing (such as dignity) left to lose. Meanwhile Moonfaced Moron thinks they’d make a lot of money selling the dish out of a vending machine. Then again, Mikey only cooks well when he’s high on Vicodin, so there’s no way to take him seriously when he’s sober. Of course, SnoozAnne is thrilled beyond words that they are loving her creation so much…

…Yay. …

I call bullshit here, that stuff might have tasted great, but it looked like it was WAY more than one or two bites! And talk about “difficult to eat”, they showed Illyawn scraping the side of his bowl with his fork to try and lap up that last bits of that aioli! Nevertheless, instead of pointing out the obvious inconsistency in the critiques (and questioning whether or not SnoozAnne’s actually made an amuse-bouche) The Doof sucks it up and congratulates her on a job well done.

Ah, fuck it, let’s move on and see how Lezbeth’s turned out…

…mmmmm, beef’n'ice cream!…

Still blech. Living up to his nickname, Moonfaced Moron says it’s like his beef jerky fell in his ice cream and that it’s a wonderful thing, but I bet he eats hairballs, so he should prolly just shut up. Batshit, on the other hand, has her usual subtle reaction…

…FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION…

She obviously takes great joy in the fact that her own hack cooking skills are not on trial (remember “pumpkin bruleé”?) as she sneers “While I can appreciate the concept, the flavors do not work for me!” Lezbeth, naturally, takes it in stride and grins, “I’m going to have to kill Betty now!” Run, Betty, run. However, Illyawn unknowingly saves Batshit’s life when he says he liked it a lot, and enjoyed the flavor journey. Lezbeth regains her Vulcan-like composure…

…praise is like really hot pon farr to her…

Bringing up his considerable rear is Teddy Graham…

…looks pretty bouchey to me…

Batshit immediately says how pretty it looks, and that it’s like “a tuna salad that came from an Ivy League School”. I disagree, I think tuna salad is strictly community college myself, but whatever. Moonfaced Moron says it tastes exactly like his mom’s recipe while Illyawn says with the shallots it has a “beautiful acidity”…

…someone should have brought Bok Choi a bowl, she looks hungry…

Yay for them liking my cutie-pie’s Teddy Graham’s dish! Now that the food’s been eaten, the Terrible Trio are given their star-cards to fill out and give back to Bok Choi, and here are the averaged results…

…poor Doofie …

SnoozAnne mumbles how happy she is with getting the high score and then she said something else but by that time I had drifted off and had a nice nap. When I woke up, Bok Choi was telling the Masters to leave the kitchen so they could set up “some special ingredients” for the Elimination Challenge. When they return they find a table filled with all kinds of tropical ingredients…

…including a big wad of Moonfaced Moron’s back hair…

It turns out that their Elimination Challenge is to cook dinner for the creators and writers of the hit TV show Lost! SnoozAnne actually shows a glimmer of life at this news and says she’s a huge fan of the show, “I’ve been known to sit and watch the show for 3½ hours straight!” Big whoop. I’ve been known to finish an entire season of Beverly Hills, 90210 in one sitting! So suck it, Snoozy, you’re not the only one with stamina here.

Bok Choi goes on to say that the Lost writers are big fans of Top Chef in return, and wanted to know what would happen if four great chefs were among the show’s plane-crash survivors. It’s at this point that The Doof pipes up that he’s never seen the show and feels a little lost himself. That makes two of us. What? Don’t look at me like that. I’ve never been a fan of any show where you have to read every word on sixteen bazillion fan websites before you watch a single episode to have any clue what’s going on…

…*sigh*… Project Runway is so much easier to follow…

Anyhow, they have to cook dinner using the superfresh ingredients on the table, but the twist is that since there’s no well-stocked Top Chef pantry on The Island, they won’t have one, either! Ouch. However, Bokky says they will be able to buy additional ingredients from a mysterious list containing only canned and preserved items approved by “The Dharma & Greg Initiative”…

…which is a list of Jenna Elfman’s favorite foods like Easy Cheese, Pringles and Yoo Hoo…

Choi-Choi hands them the list and it’s off to Whole Paycheck Market they go, where they have $200.00 and 45 minutes to get their additional crap from the Dharma list. Teddy Graham says he’s not happy about having to use canned stuff in addition to the fresh ingredients, but he’s going to find a way to make it work. SnoozAnne’s also whining about not being able to get fresh herrrrrrbs, while Lezbeth is convinced she’s the only one who is going to make anything using any kind of spice. Meanwhile, The Doof and Teddy Graham are running all over the store giggling and talking foodie with each other as only gay besties can…

The Doof: “OMG, you know what would really rock?”
Teddy Graham: “Oooh, no, what?”
Doof: “White asparagus with lemon and garlic!”
TG: *gasps* “OMG, totally!”
Doof: “Hey, have you been working out? You look thinner…”
TG: *blushing* “Well, I’m glad somebody finally noticed!”
Doof: “Um, DUH, how could I not? Your ass is looking fine in those tight Dockers!”
TG: “Aw, c’mon, you’re just saying that!”
Doof: “Girl, puh-leeze, would I lie to you?”
TG: *3 snaps up* “Bitch, you totally would!”
Doof: “Well, what are friends for?”
TG: “Oh you. Wanna do facials at my place tonight? We can make white chocolate fudge and watch ‘The L Word’…”
Doof: *inhales* “I am so there!”

They are so cute together, both of them really would like to beat the other one in this competition, but it’s not in the usual bitter angry petulant childish Top-Cheftestant kind-of-way, you can tell they’re true professionals with the utmost respect and admiration for one another, unlike dickfaces such as Illyawn and Marcel others.

It’s the next day and nobody accidentally froze all their food overnight! They’ve only got 2½ hours to prep and cook everything, and Lezbeth is itching to get started on her rubs and sauces. Here’s her plan…

…Lezbeth just lurves her loins…

She’s going to be cooking it sous-vide which is the vacuum method that was Beaker’s downfall at the end of last season. However, Lezbeth is no stranger to this technique and insists that the loins will be cooked all the way through “but still soft and pink inside”. And the vagina joke just writes itself.

Teddy Graham is noticing that The Doof is running all over the kitchen like a drag queen with her wig on fire and wonders what is going on underneath that flopsy mop of lank, greasy hair. Personally I wish there were some TRESemmé going on top of it, but Teddy doesn’t have time to give his bestie a makeover, he’s got his own plans, and here they are…

…Teddy’s Tuna Three-way…

Teddy Graham says his dishes will be an “international tour” of South America, Asia and the Mediterranean. Ooh la la. On the other hand, SnoozAnne’s not really working the international angle as much as she’s trying to figure out how to show off the island cuisine with a myriad of choices…

…she forgot to include her Xanax Shooters…

Strangely, The Doof is looking more and more nervous all the time, he seems really scatterbrained and kinda freaked out. He’s going to go back to one of his favorite foods, which is, of course, eggs…

…Ruh-roh, it’s never a good idea to serve fully grown adults something that’s in purée form…

He’s getting ready to warm up the “immersion circulator”, which of course fascinates Lezbeth and she gets a quick tutorial from The Doof on how to use it. You have to be really careful with this kind of high-end technology, or you can cause temporal disturbances in the space-time continuum resulting in a predestination paradox or causality loop. Or undercooked chicken, which is just as bad.

Over in the dining room, the Lost writers are assembling as Bok Choi appears in her Island Girl incarnation to introduce the Critics, Jay FugTaser, James NerdMosexual and Gramma Greene to co-creator Damon Lindelof, executive producer Carlton Cuse, and a couple of writers…

…whose names are apparently unimportant…

Bok Choi wants to know if they all get together and discuss Top Chef, and Carlton confirms that, yes, first thing every Thursday morning is a chat about the previous night’s show. Damon then makes the following hilarious claim: “There’s been a big dip in quality in Lost since Top Chef, actually…” Ahhhh, so that’s why! Nice try at deflecting blame, fellas, but you can bet your smug Dharmasses that nobody’s buying that bullshit.

Back over in the G.E.D. Monoxide Kitchen time has just about run out and everyone’s madly plating. The Doof is swearing again (for such an egghead he sure has a filthy mouth, and I fucking love him for it) and think’s he’s not gonna make it. Poor Lezbeth, she turned around for a second to get some more sauce for her plates, but the strangely silent (and Dharma coverall-clad) servers had already grabbed them and taken them away…

…”Which I found quite illogical… and effin’ annoying.”…

Ah, she can nerve-pinch them all later, right now it’s time for “The Lost Supper” and Lezbeth is the first to present her dish…

Carlton and several of the Unnamed Writers think Lezbeth actually made the boar taste good, but it seems that they feel her yam/papaya pudding should have come in a tiny little jar with the word “Gerber” printed on it. FugTaser says that what might have made the entire dish a lot better would have been more sauce! Oooh, they are so going to find a pile of unconscious servers in an alley when this is all over with.

Next in line is Teddy Graham, and he’s got an entire episode’s worth of descriptions to give them…

Damon says that Teddy’s actually made “Dharma green beans” and laughs at his own joke. Nobody else does. I don’t get it, either. Unnamed Writer Woman says she loves the hearts of palm, while NerdMo’ is orgasming and saying a bunch of words with too many S’s in them to describe the seared tuna portion of the dish. Bok Choi tries to give a critique, too, but they just turn the cameras away from her in mid-sentence.

Now it’s time for The Doof to pull himself together and wow these fellow geeks…

Okay, I think Doofie’s a gentle genius and all that, but seriously, that plate looks like someone already ate half of it, didn’t like it, and then walked away. Even worse, just as The Doof finishes his explanation, FugTaser speaks up and says he doesn’t actually have any chicken on his plate!…

…I think The Doof just created an immersion circulator in his FTLs…

Luckily, the diner next to him has two pieces of chicken on her plate and graciously gives one to the FugTaser, so crisis averted. Everyone digs in, and Gramma Gael Greene finally speaks up to say she loves the slow-poached egg. Damon, on the other hand, gets all prissy and pulls a Batshit Betty, saying that while he appreciates all the work that went into the egg, the rest of the dish is like “a piece of art in a museum” that he doesn’t understaaaaand…

…kinda like your little TV show, four-eyes!…

FugTaser likes the fact that even though this is a cooking competition, The Doof still stays true to his personality and his cooking style no matter what. Too bad he’s not so great with counting.

Ending the evening on a sloooooow note, SnoozAnne deliberately (and eventually) makes her way up to the head of the table to explain her dish (which she’s calling “Christmas Dinner on The Island” while *I* call it “J-Mo’s Plate At The All You Can Eat Buffet”)…

Another Unnamed Writer says he’s really enjoying the taste of her boar meat, while Damon jumps in to hog camera time and expound that “There’s so much going on that it shouldn’t work, but it does!” Yeah, unlike your TV show, cueball. The rest of the table pretty much echoes the same sentiments. I mean, about the food. And possibly the show as well, who knows? Bok Choi hands them their star cards and then it’s time for “Critics Table”!

Starting with The Doof, FugTaser wants to know how he turned the egg into a gel and there’s some technotalk about reverse tachyon bursts from harmonic resonator emittor displays and eventually it’s revealed that they achieved their custardlike consistency through slow-cooking in a water bath. Gramma Greene says she’s always had a “natural suspicion towards chemical solutions to food cooking” but that his chicken was cooked so perfectly that it was… well, perfect.

Of course, FugTaser just can’t let go of the fact that he didn’t initially have chicken on his plate…

…I suspect the chicken caught sight of this face and fled to the next plate over…

Thankfully The Doof doesn’t apologize again and just kinda glares back at him. Good for you, Doofie. And Jesus, Fuggie, he said he was sorry, let it go already!

Moving on to Teddy Graham, NerdMosexual is dying to know how he made his anchovy aioli, and it turns out that he had the brilliant idea of putting some fresh-made salsa through a chinoise and rinsing it so he could extract the garlic and onion and tomato from it to jazz up the store-bought mayo and jarred anchovies…

…smart and cute and eats leftovers??!? I’m falling in love all over again…

Now it’s Lezbeth’s turn, and while Gramma Greene compliments her on her braised boar, Bok Choi wants to know more about the awful “pudding”. Lezbeth admits that it may have had “a challenging texture” because of the creaminess of yams mixed with papayas, and Gramma seizes on that to say it was too sweet and reminded her of baby food. FugTaser also mentions again how much the dish could have benefitted from additional amounts of saucing, which gives Lezbeth a chance to tell her “they-took-the-plates-away-too-soon” tale. The Critics all look like they could give less of a shit.

And speaking of no-shit-giving, Bok Choi suddenly asks SnoozAnne how she enjoyed the challenge…

…zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…

Once they get her sufficiently conscious, she claims (in her dead, dead voice) that she loved it. FugTaser points out that she had an awful lot of food on that plate, and Snoozey says she sure did, if they have so many great ingredients to work with “why not just go for it and make everybody happy?” Sedated or not, she’s got a point. They heap a bunch more praise on her, and then dismiss the Masters so they can all go get hammered in the Top Chelf Liquor Cabinetâ„¢.

While the Critics are rehashing their strengths and flaws, Lezbeth decides it would be great if while they’re waiting the Masters were to make some chocolate chip cookies, so they all head back to the Kitchen and whip up a batch together…

…and who knew that Vulcans had a soft spot for Tollhouse Cookies?…

Oh, and tonight’s viewer poll?…

…Where was ’5. Daddy Tom in a Speedo’??…

They get called back to the Christing Critics Table and Teddy Graham is up first. His Quickfire score was 4½ stars, and the diners gave him 4½ stars as well. NerdMosexual and Gramma Greene give him 4 stars each, while FugTaser remains pissy and only gives him 3½ stars, bringing his total to 20½ stars! Not bad, fat boy!

Next up is his bestie, The Doof, who’s starting out with a dismal Quickfire score of only 3 stars. The diners gave him another 3½ stars. NerdMo’ gives him a full 5 stars, FugTaser 4½, and Gramma Greene an even 4, which means…

…The Doof is gonna have to pay for both their mani-pedis for awhile!…

With that, Wylie thanks the judges and departs. Turning to Lezbeth, Bok Choi reminds her that her Quickfire score was only 3½ stars, and the diners gave her the same. FugTaser and NerdMosexual give her 3 stars each, while Gramma Greene is slightly more generous with 3½ stars…

…you can tell Teddy Graham’s hoping she doesn’t start swinging that stick around again…

She seems a tad less okay with these results than The Doof was. Perhaps her repressed emotions are now bubbling to the surface, and I think we might need to find her another Vulcan lesbian with her first two fingers extended stat!

Last up is SnoozAnne, who got a perfect Quickfire score of 5 stars. The diners gave her 4½ stars, Gramma gave 4½ stars, NerdMo’ gave 4 stars… and FugTaser gives her 4½ stars, which means she WINS…

…Whoop-de-fuckin’-do…

Perhaps she’s trying to attain Kolinahr so she can be gay besties with Lezbeth? At any rate, she won, so now she will return to match skillz with Le Mullet…

…and four other chefs with bad hair…

Plus she’s won $10,000.00 for the SOVA Community Food & Resource Program, and the other three will have donations to their charities as well. SnoozAnne insists she’s excited that she won, and takes it as validation that she can still cook. Teddy Graham is sweet about losing and says he feels like the four of them had a great time together and bonded. Lezbeth feels closer to them all because she secretly mindmelded with everyone when they weren’t looking. The Doof says he had fun and believes he lost a fair fight, so he’s not upset at all. Plus, he still has that “L-Word” date with Teddy Graham to look forward to!

And there we have it! What did you think of this episode? Do you suspect that Illyawn ain’t as busy as he should be if he’s able to take time off to do this show? Were you hoping for a wackier set of amuse-bouches? Did the whole “Lost” tie-in seem a tad forced? Please don’t be upset with me if you’re a fan of that show, I’m just playing around and seriously, I literally know nothing about the show (other than the title) I’m just making fun of it because that’s what I do here.

I’ll be back in the next couple of days with this week’s episode, and thanks for your patience with this recap, I was away most of the weekend doing the whole dancing-backup-for-drag-queens thing. There may be pictures to follow.

love, J-Mo