Top Chef: Taters & Thunderbirds

Hey there everybody! I’m only one day back from Vegas and I miss it already! I can’t tell you what it was like to spend five days in the company of 799 other fat gay men except to say that I felt positively svelte when laying out by the hotel pool and watching some of the other guys getting in the water. As it turns out, I actually don’t have the Biggest Ass In The Westâ„¢ after all…

…and DirtyBear would have been right at home amongst the scent of gently frying pork that permeated poolside…

…plus I was able to coerce the BF into taking me to dinner at the fabulous Lawry’s Prime Rib that just happened to be across the street from our hotel, so we were able to get our foodgasm on. Ahhh, good times… but now I’m back to work, and on tonight’s episode of Top Chef we’re treated to Bitter Jen getting in touch with her outer bitch, Sexist Pigshit has a hissy fit and Team Rainbow v2.0 sorta implodes. I know it’s late and the show is going to lap this recap, but come join me anyhow, we’ll have some fun after the jump…In the Vegas suburb of AnusVille, there’s a committee meeting going on, and it’s being chaired by Sexist Pigshit, who’s telling some of the other boys “I want the challenges to be tough… weed out the weaker ones and the strong will survive. Two down… only fourteen more to go!”…

…I can’t quite tell if he’s talking about eliminating contestants or the number of jars of Dippity Doâ„¢ he’s gone through…

It doesn’t help that the majority of the ladies this season seem to be consistently hoovering mud in every challenge, and Sticky Wickett’s feeling all intimidated because she hasn’t been in culinary school for 19 years. She claims that she made the decision early on that she “didn’t want to sacrifice everything to be a ‘rock-star’ chef!” Okay, well, how about sacrifice a teeny amount of something in order to not suck so much?

She’s whining to Gay Ashlee about how “lonely” it is in the girls bedroom because they’ve lost two roommates now, they’re down to just her, Not-So-Pretty and Biker Chick. Really? You went from five people crammed in one room down to three and it’s lonely? Clearly Sticky Wickett never grew up having to share a room with siblings. The day my older brother M-Mo moved out and joined the Army, I came home to a room that belonged solely to me for the first time in my life and proceeded to dance a jig of glee, followed by celebratory masturbation in the open (no more annoying interruptions during that little pastime, yee-haaah!)

Okay, so that was a bit of an overshare. Awk. Ward. Let’s check in with Biker Chick (and her multiple head-holes) and see how she’s feeling today…

…”I’m thinking of getting something else pierced… like Tom Colicchio’s penis.”…

Yeah, Chicky’s wallowing in her dismal track record so far of being in the bottom of almost every challenge. She knows she’s better than that and wants to prove to the judges that she knows how to do more than strain spaghetti with her lower lip, she deserves to be here. Except didn’t we have this exact same speech from her last week right before she started playing ginger-roulette with her dish and wound up crying at Judges Table? The Secret is so not working for her.

Well, no time to play weepy-crawlies now, they all suit up in their chef’s coats and head off to the product-placed “M” Resort, who want to remind you that being able to wander from casino to casino is such an “old school” way to do Vegas. It’s much better if you’re stuck in one place way out in the middle of nowhere. Anyhow, as the cheftestants enter the TC Kitchen they spot today’s Guest Judge, who is none other than Mark Peel, owner of Campanile in Los Angeles, and a recent competitor on Episode 4 of Top Chef Masters!…

…not only is Marky Doody a talented Master Chef, he can also hear footsteps on Pluto…

Marky tells them that he started his career working for the old donut-tosser himself, Wolfgang Puck. Back then he was “vegetable boy” and says he spent a lot of time with a potato in one hand and a knife in the other. I’m guessing he was brandishing them as weapons against anyone who made fun of his ears.

Anyhow, there is a giant pile of 83 different kinds of potatoes on a table in front of them, and today’s Quickfire Challenge is quite simply to create an “Out Of This World” dish featuring potatoes. Aw, maaaan! Hoser from TC Season Five was born for this Quickfire! He was the Potato Kiiiiiiing!…

…guess who fancies themselves the Potato Prince??…

If somebody doesn’t make Freedom Fries I’m gonna be super-disappointed. They get 45 minutes and the contents of the TC Pantry to make their dishes. Annnnnd, let’s go spoil some spuds!

Bitter Jen grabbed some mussels and is heading in the direction of making a potato-based sauce while Island Mon Ron is making a sweet-potato-crusted Yellowtail Snapper. Does this guy ever cook anything besides fish? It makes me wonder if he’s just looking for another opportunity to tell his Harrowing Haitian Flight Storyâ„¢ again. Ah, not this time I guess, because instead he’s getting all metaphorical: “I feel like I’m Bob Marley wid music… to me, food is like peace an’ love.”…

…”No seafood, no cry.”…

Gay Ashlee’s telling us that potatoes are bland and boring, and in his head pops the idea for a sweet potato ice cream, which he calls “a wow dish”. Too bad it’s next to impossible in 45 minutes and also, those ice cream makers are evil and never work on demand. He’ll be serving super-sweet orange-colored soup.

My bad. It’s Biker Chick who’s decided to make sweet-potato soup, ostensibly because she “loves soup” and finds it “comforting”. I think it’s because she “lacks imagination” and finds the challenge “daunting”. I’m no chef, but I can think of a lot better things to do with taters than make soup out of them. Besides, I don’t know why everybody always says that soup is so “comforting”, all it ever seems to do is make me have to get up and go pee more often. Another overshare. Um, anyhow, Biker Chick says that her soup is going to be “a nice balance of sweet and spicy”.

Hey, wanna detour over into AnalVille? Me, either, but we’re going anyhow, and Sexist Pigshit has decided to cut up his potatoes to the same size as grains of rice and cook them the same way he’d make a risotto. Of course, he makes sure to get all snotty and addresses us directly so he can remind us that “Risotto’s not a ‘rice’, for the viewers out there, okay, just so you know, it’s a style of cooking!”…

…and just so you know, fauxhawks are a style for dickbags…

They are also very 2004. In any case, thanks Sexist Pigshit for edumacating us on that incredibly important distinction. I mean, here I’ve kinda been wasting my time worrying about the economy and healthcare nightmares, but this is good to know, too.

Soooo, we’ve got ice cream, we’ve got risotto. You know what else never works? Gnocchi! You know who’s decided to make some gnocchi? Chefbian MaryMann! Yup, naturally she says she’s nervous about making them in only 45 minutes, but thinks she’s prepared enough to pull it off. I guess we’ll see.

Checking in with the last member of Team Rainbow, Not-So-Pretty’s kind of going for more of a visual effect than a taste effect, she’s going to pair her bright yellow banana fingerling potatoes with bright green asparagus and bright red tomatoes. The judges can pretend they’re eating a traffic signal…

…”Or a boring side dish at Luby’s Cafeteria.”…

She’s spouting off a bunch more stuff about having to “bring her A-game” this week, and that’s another expression I’m getting tired of in reality TV. Girl, clearly you brought your A-game last week, it just happens to be the exact same thing as your Z-game because, well, you kinda suck at this under pressure. We’re about to see a case in point.

Not-So-Pretty’s looking for water to blanch her oddly phallic asparagus spears in, and DirtyBear points her in the direction of a pot that he was using that’s ready to boil. She runs off to chop her asparagus and claims that when she comes back, DirtyBear’s pot of water is mysteriously “gone”… but MaryMann now has an identical pot of water boiling for her ill-conceived gnocchi on the burner next to where DirtyBear’s was, and Not-So-Pretty just dumps her bright green asparagus into it…

…it’s totally not her fault, it’s not like DirtyBear was very clear about which pot to use…

MaryMann comes over to start her gnocchi and sees green penis-shaped objects in it and goes right the fuck off, yelling “Dude! This is my fucking water, don’t put any green vegetables in here, please! Jesus Chrrrrist!” Not-So-Pretty starts apologizing like mad and immediately makes things worse by taking it upon herself to empty the pot she just soiled with asparagus juices and start another pot of water to boil. She goes to let MaryMann know this, and I think we’re about to see some dyke-on-dyke violence as MaryMann incredulously screeches “Did you get rid of the other water?!??!?” Not-So-Pretty tries to sidestep the question by pointing out her brand new pot of cold unboiling water that she started in order to help out her lesbiana sister, and you can see MaryMann is struggling with the urge to throttle the girl as she asks a second time “Did you get rid of the other water?” Not-So-Pretty finally admits that yes, she did.

There are only 13 minutes, 15 seconds left to go…

…and it’s getting ugly(er) up in there…

Duelling dykes are never a pretty sight (and I’ve seen the fistfights at Gay Pride that prove it). MaryMann comes completely unhinged and winds up tossing a full pot of something in the sink while she swears and stamps her feet and whines that she needs boiling water 10 minutes ago. Not-So-Pretty keeps trying to apologize (and sorta tries to blame DirtyBear for being unclear about which pot was whose, which I think is rather dickish of her) but MaryMann’s having none of it, and her tantrum has officially become tiresome. Give it a rest, girl, it wasn’t a case of Malicious Blanching, the girl just got confused and used the wrong pot. It could happen to anyone.

Meanwhile, other chefs in the kitchen are silently and furtively watching the drama unfold…

…some, perhaps, more furtively than others…

Yeah, Bitter Jen’s pretty much laughing about the whole thing as she says if Not-So-Pretty had blanched veggies in her water “I just would not have been as nice as Ashley!” Um, MaryMann’s foaming at the mouth, screaming curses and in dire need of sedation, and Bitter Jen thinks that she’s being nice??!? I wonder what her definition of “mean” is?

Enough lesbian drama, let’s check in with the much more likeable member of Team Rainbow, our Gay Ashlee. Oooh, what’s this? The ice cream machine isn’t working properly? It’s not freezing into ice cream?? You don’t say! Sorry, Gay Ashlee, but calling the machine a “mother-plower” isn’t going to make it work better. In fact, that’s such a lame faux-curse, I wouldn’t have been surprised if the thing had just fallen to pieces and burst into flames right then and there.

Guess who else is having a terrible life-crisis? I mean besides Paula Abdul! Yup, Biker Chick once again found a way to fuck things up for herself. It seems as though she’s tasting her sweet potato soup, with it’s “nice balance of sweet and spicy” and discovers that that’s a total lie, she’s used way too much cayenne pepper and the shit has become mouth-melting with all the capsaicin floating around in it…

…”This never happens to me!”…

Oh, wait, yes it does. She knows the flavor balance is completely fucked, but decides to serve it anyhow. Right about now I’m seeing an immunity-free future for her. Time runs out, it’s utensils down and Scar and Marky Doody come in ready to begin tasting.

They start out with Gay Ashlee…

…whose dish has curiously morphed from “ice cream” into “custard”…

Gay Ash can barely get through describing the dish to them without giggling (clearly he’s expecting to get bent over the ice cream machine) and is completely blown (no pun intended) when Marky Doody says he actually likes the texture of it! Now the look on Ash’s face is the same one you get when you go home with a schlub at Last Call (who drives a Yugo and has his very own bedroom at Mom’s place) and you half-heartedly unzip his pants (while you’re already thinking about what kind of fast food place you want to hit on the way home) and he pulls out a big, beautiful, giant-sized Dick of Deathâ„¢ and you barely have time to think…

…”I won the PowerPenisBall!”…

…before you head on over to “downtown” and sweet ecstasy. Good for you, Gay Ashlee!

Next in line is Big Volt…

…more fuckin’ babyfood…

All Marky has to say is “It could have been gluey… but it’s not!” I guess that’s a thumbs-up? Or at least not a thumb-inserted-in-the-ass?

Time to see how Not-So-Pretty’s dish turned out after she screwed over her Chefbian Sistah…

…heyyyyyy, that’s actually pretty (for a change)!…

Marky Doody listens to her colorful description and gives it a “Very nice.” before they move along to Li’l Volt…

…how cool, it looks like tuna that barfed on itself! Yummy!…

He’s calling this dish basically a tuna-fish sammich, which is bullshit when you don’t have margarine-slathered bread anywhere, but whatever. He also gets great joy out of using the word “confit” a bunch of times, and Marky Doody’s looking kind of impatient to actually get to taste the damned thing. When he finally does, his verdict is that the potato is a little bit underdone (or “pas assez cuite” if he wanted to get all cheffy about it) but the tuna is cooked well and the flavors, colors and textures are well-balanced. Li’l Volt ain’t happy, though, and looks like he just found out his brother has a bigger dick than he does. (Secretly I hope he does, not that I’ll ever see either of them)

They mosey on over to Bitter Jen to find her claiming that her dish contains potatoes three ways…

…funny, it looks like one way to me (i.e. predigested)…

Sooooo, different colored potatoes count as two different “ways”? I call potahtoe! She also gives a super-involved description of the dish, which I’m noticing seems to be a trait amongst our more highly-strung cheftestants. It’s like they have to make certain the judges all know just how. Much. Shit. They. Did. After all her blabbering, what does she get in return? Scar: “Very nice.” Marky Doody: “Thank you.” J-Mo: “Bwahahahahahahaha!”

Hey, looks like 80′s Hooker used three different kinds of potatoes, too!…

…it’s eerie, no matter where I am in the room, her dish feels like it’s staring at me…

Marky comments offhandedly “It looks like breakfast.” which causes 80′s Hooker to completely lose her cool and start kissing his ass at warp speed, “And I love breakfast, breakfast is, uh, one of my favorite meals, all the time!” Lemme guess: her other favorite meals are “lunch” and “dinner”? C’mon, 80′s Hooker, I’d expect a much more composed reaction from an old pro ho.

Time to check in with Papi Cholo and his weird-ass dish…

…and guess who else did “potatoes three ways”?…

Talk about looking like breakfast! That’s a plate of Lucky Charms! Or Encantos Afortunados if you prefer. Anyhow, Papi says all three potato dishes are very Latino American, and my favorite is actually the one they don’t show in the picture, it actually looks very creamy and tasty. Marky says it has good flavor. I just can’t get over the purple Rice Krispy Treat. Plus, Papi always looks so mean all the time.

Sticky Wickett starts things off by striking a blow for vegetarians everywhere with her “out of the world” dish…

…okay, where can I get a big bag of those fingerling chips?…

Okay, now if all vegetarian food could look like that, I’d eat it for sure. With meat added, of course.

Ahh, mon cheries, eet eez time for zee fabbolos Sattine…

…and he pronounces it “poached code”…

He should have called it “The Save-Your-Poligrip Special” and provided a straw instead of forks, ‘cuz there’s no way you need any teeth for that dish. Marky Doody does comment on how pretty it looks, but pretty much shuts up after he tastes it.

DirtyBear (and his lazy ass) only did two varieties of potatoes…

…oooh, bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon, it’s baaaconnnnn!…

Scar clearly likes it, and Marky Doody says it’s very good and has beautiful coloring… right up until he spits out a beard hair.

Now they are approaching that smug-ass Sexist Pigshit and his risotto’ed potato grains…

…and now I hate him even more, because that looks pretty damned tasty…

Even more annoying is the fact that Marky appears to be super-impressed with Sexist Pigshit’s methods and execution… until he tastes the dish and says “It’s a little salty.” Scar goes for the save and says “But nice idea!” and grins real big as the Pigshit’s face literally crumples…

…waow waow waow waaaaow (sad horns)…

Hey, you know what would be fun? To see how MaryMann’s ill-fated gnocchi turned out!…

…is “Hen Of The Woods” related to “George Of The Jungle” or “Lady In The Water”?…

Marky seems impressed that she made the ricotta cheese herself (with no help from Not-So-Pretty and her water-meddling ways! *glare*) but beyond that they really don’t say much besides “Thank you.”

Fat Kid immediately tells Marky that he’s from The South (which is funny ‘cuz he totally has a New Yawk accent) and says he’s doing a play on sweet potatoes with marshmallows…

…and what in the blue fuck is “whipped bliss”?…

I can’t figure out if he means bliss potatoes, or if that’s some kind of Southern expression for Marshmallow Fluff, or what, but why don’t we just call this the Gerber Challenge and be done with it, because this makes, like, seven pureés now. And still no Freedom Fries. Fat Kid, too, gives a meandering description while they’re eating and when he finally runs out of breath Scar asks him if he shelled the pistachio nuts himself. Ruh-roh. Fat Kid says no, they were pre-shelled, at which point Scar pulls a piece of shell out of her mouth and slowly wipes it on a napkin on the table, while Marky Doody looks on disapprovingly and says “Oh dear!”. Bwahahahahaha! Fattie can’t believe out of the 14 million clean pistachios he had to work with that Scar just happened to get the “rogue” one. He doesn’t think he’s going to win it now, but he believes he won’t be on the bottom. Yay mediocrity!

Yah, mon! It’s time to be jammin’ with the seafood on Island Mon Ron’s dish…

…there’s nothing quite like having a giant Chee-To on your plate…

Britney Spears would be all over that shit. Apparently Marky Doody’s not such a fan, cuz he says his favorite part of the whole thing is the fennel and leek side dish. Island Mon smiles and nods like he’s complimented, and somehow I think he’s missed the fact that the challenge was supposed to be about, you know, potatoes, and the main part of his dish that featured, you know, potatoes was not a favorite.

Still, I bet he’s golden compared to our poor Biker Chica…

…like someone peed sunshine in a bowl…

She’s super-nervous as Scar and Marky approach, for some reason she’s twiddling an empty water-bottle back and forth as she describes her soup, and you know, how does she even eat soup without making a total mess? How can food be comforting if you’ve dribbled half of it down your breasteses? Anyhow, Marky’s complimenting her on the great texture and the beautiful color, and then he slurps a spoonful, his eyelids melt and he turns his weeping, reddened face to Biker Chick and says…

…”You like cayenne!”…

She admits to him that it’s pretty f’n spicy, and he agrees wholeheartedly with her as entire organ systems in his body begin to shut down from capsaicin overload. Chicky interviews that she knows she fucked up and starts literally beating up on herself and calling herself stupid and saying “I hate me!”…

…”And now I’ve got a fuck-in’ headache!”…

She whines that she just doesn’t want to be in the bottom again. Well, let’s see what Marky Doody has to say to them all. He says he understands how hard the Quickfire challenges are and that the most difficult ingredient that they have to work with is time. In the end, though his least favorites are Fat Kid (the dish was far too sweet), Island Mon Ron (bland yams on top of overcooked fish) and BIker Chick (natch!) for her far-too-heavy hand with the spices. Damn, that makes four in a row! I’m totally impressed by her committment to suckitude!

On the upside, he liked the combination of flavors, textures and colors in Bitter Jen’s mussels dish, as well as Gay Ashlee (who now looks like he just came in his Jockeys) for the nice seasoning and flavoring of his “custard”, and lastly MaryMann gets praise for her gnocchi being good and for how she delicately cooked her mushrooms. There are a couple of interesting expressions being captured on some of the other cheftestants’ faces…

…guess who thinks they should have been in the top three?…

I guess Marky and Scar just weren’t impressed by pretty colors or risotto techniques. And the winner tonight is? Bitter Jen, and that’s her second Quickfire win! She doesn’t get $15,000.00 this time, though. All she gets is lousy immunity in the Elimination Challenge.

Of course, this is just frosting the Misogynistic Cookies of our Sexist Pigshit, who spits “It’s favoritism to me at this point, you know what I mean? Whatever! Whatever, you know what I’m saying? So, if I put a little potato broth on my plate I’m gonna win??!?” Ummmm, sore loser much? Just because you went through all that trouble of risotto’ing your potatoes and just because Marky Doody didn’t turn over the keys to his restaurant and Scar didn’t offer to fellate you right then and there you think it’s “favoritism”? Take your dumbass fauxhawk and your douchebaggy overpriced Ed Hardy/Affliction T-shirts and go fuck yourself, Pigshit.

Moving along, Scar says for the Elimination Challenge she’s going to introduce them to a a special guest, and in walks a trim, square-jawed man, wearing a highly-decorated military uniform, and no, it’s not a Michael Jackson look-alike, but a real-live, actual Colonel in the Air Force…

…this outfit doesn’t have enough sequins or rhinestones to be one of MJ’s…

Scar seems kinda turned on by a man in uniform, too. She introduces Colonel Belote and asks him to give the cheftestants their orders. Their mission is for them to report to Nellis Air Force Base (home of the USAF Aerial Demonstration Squadron o.k.a. “The Thunderbirds”) and prepare a meal for 300 airmen and their families. He goes on to say that some of them have recently returned from overseas duty (yay!), while others are just about to be deployed (boo!). The Col also admonishes them to not be fooled into thinking that all these servicepeople know is that “shit on a shingle” crap, because many of them have been stationed all over the world, exposed to a wide variety of cuisines and have developed discerning palates.

Scar says they’ll be working as one giant team for this challenge, and they’ll have 4 hours to cook… but they won’t know their ingredients or what kind of equipment they’re going to have until they report for duty the following day. Gay Ashlee looks like his formerly rock-hard erection over seeing a man in uniform just deflated.

Back at the Chef’s McMansion, the 15 of them meet in the HoneyComb Loungeâ„¢ to discuss how to go about doing this, and Sexist Pigshit’s taking control and proposing Bitter Jen be made into their chef tournant (which is kind of like a “swing cook” or “relief chef” that can help out the others) and the rest split up into 7 teams of two, with each team taking a separate dish. Bitter Jen is cool with that since it’s kinda her everyday job anyhow… she just hopes everyone will “respect each other” and work as a team…

…and I’m sure that’s code for “respect Bitter Jen or she will make you cry”…

The non-immune chefs all start choosing their teams, Not-So-Pretty gravitates towards Sticky Wickett, ostensibly because of their “California connection” but I think it’s really because her chefbian sister MaryMann’s still pretty pissed at her. Fat Kid heads towards DirtyBear, who says they’re already friends because they’re both from the ATL and their restaurants are not far apart from one another, and because they “bond on a fat kid level as well”…

…which is evident from the way that DirtyBear gets so easily distracted by the plate of cookies someone has off-camera…

Gay Ashlee volunteers to partner up with MaryMann, Sexist Pigshit gloms onto Li’l Volt (who says he would really have liked to have been paired up with his brother, but believes Pigshit is “competent enough” to work with him). Big Volt winds up choosing Sattine, Papi Cholo gets his groove on with 80′s Hooker, which leaves Island Mon Ron and Biker Chick to be the final team…

…whom I will go ahead and call The Gruesome Twosome…

Island Mon is nervous about being stuck with Loser Biker Chick, but it’s too late now, they need to come together like a chubby Ebony and Ivory in order to win this thing. Or at least not wind up in the bottom.

It’s the next day and everybody’s up at the AssCrack’O'Dawn because the servicemen and women will be eating at noon. 80′s Hooker is absolutely in love with the challenge and is super-excited to have the chance to “cook” for all of the airmen…

…”…which reminds me of how much I was ‘cookin’ for the Navy at Tailhook in ’91…”…

They all pull up to Nellis AFB and make their way into the kitchens where they find that almost everything is in cans (including several cases of Spamâ„¢!) and there are no stoves or pots, just a couple of industrial-sized woks and a couple of clamshell-looking things. This is actually no surprise to DirtyBear, who says that he was in ROTC and has cooked in military kitchens before. I bet he sucked at the rifle drills, though.

Bitter Jen is listening to each of the teams come up with several ideas for dishes and helping them to select the best out of those, and in a rare moment of coolness, Li’l Volt squelches some of the others who are bitching about the equipment by reminding them that the cooking staff on Base has to deal with it every day, so the pampered cheftestants should just suck it up and make it happen this once. Amen to that!

On a very weird side-note, Not-So-Pretty is telling us that the “defining moment” for her realizing she wanted to be a chef was September 11th. Huhwha? “We all experienced that day in many different ways, and for me the only thing that made sense was to cook!” That seems kinda strange, because most people I know never felt less hungry in their lives than they did that week, but whatever, Not-So-Pretty’s kind of a wingnut, and if it makes her feel better to use 9/11 as a reason to go to culinary school then I say have at it my manly-looking sister…

…trained and ready to make Dinners of Mass Destruction…

Meanwhile Li’l Volt’s planning on making a soy and mustard-glazed pork belly, and since Sexist Pigshit sees he’s got the meat clearly under control (i.e. he’s clearly not needed for the success of that dish) he decides to “bang out” a cold shrimp and tomato Greek salad on the fly.

Big Volt lets us know that he and Sattine are going to have a carving station where they’ll be serving New York Strip steak along with a cauliflower gratin and button mushroom demi-glace. Sattine tells us they’re making “a leedle Franco-American fusion!”…

…too bad somebody already beat them to it…

Team FatBear DirtyKids is planning on making a Georgia-style braised pork with potato salad, while Biker Ron and Island Chick have gone with the rather odd choice of making a nice hot clam chowder (Island Mon says he’s won the Montauk Chowder Festival four times with his recipe) and they know it’s a risk to serve a piping hot dish on a piping hot day, but he believes the airmens’ love of chowder will trump all. I’m dubious of how many guys really want to eat a nice slushy bowl of clams’n'cream before heading up into the Wild Blue Yonder (which could easily become the Chunky Gray Cockpit if there’s a lot of turbulence) but the two of them see it as “taking a risk”.

It looks like Papi Hooker and 80′s Cholo are going to join forces to make another hot dish, this one a 3 bean chili with roasted chicken, and Papi tells us “I no worreed adoll sairveen cheelee onna hodday, een Meheeco an Taigzazz das why joo eet hod food! Joo eet hod food dadeez spaicy aneet meka joo swait an coolz joo down!” Joo no sayee, Papi… Ai ai yai! Just what you want is 300+ sweaty airmen. Um, on second thought, maybe that doesn’t sound so bad after all.

Team Cock-Smokin’-Carpet-Munchers is chopping up bread into cubes to make a chocolate brioche bread pudding, but MaryMann’s making me nervous when she says everyone’s going to just love the dish because it’s such a “crowd-pleaser”. So far the ones who keep insisting that they have “crowd-pleasers” on their hands have been Not-So-Pretty and Biker Chick, and these have seemed to be more “judge-annoyers” than anything else…

…only when the BF and I have been too horny to make it back to our hotel room…

Team Pretty Wickett have settled on making a farfalle pasta salad (zzzzzzz) because they want to offer a dish that’s both “familiar” and “vegetarian”, not to mention “boring” and “safe”. Suddenly, things start getting a little frantic as the various teams realize they all need the heating sources and things start piling up, but never fear, Bitter Jen is here to coordinate for everyone and make sure they all have time and resources to cook their dishes!

Jen herself says she’s very strict but fair in the kitchen, and likes her chefs to stay neat and organized… “But, don’t cross me, don’t try and get some shit past me that you know is wrong, or else you’re geh’in kicked off the line and maybe not comin’ back!” Case in point, Papi Cholo’s chit-chatting rather aimlessly with 80′s Hooker as he works…

…he’s prolly asking her if she likes to get freaky con el estilo del perro…

…clearly 80′s Hooker does, and it seems like the conversation is distracting Biker Chick, so Bitter Jen zooms over and asks if they can just concentrate on talking about the food they’re cooking and save the sex small talk for later. She gets a “Si.” out of Papi, but when her back is turned he and 80′s Hooker start making nom-nom-nom-vagina-faces at each other and giggling.

And that’s it, they’ve got everything wrapped up and ready to go! The team cheers and heads outside where they are loaded into a large open-air truck for the trip across the base. Sexist Pigshit thinks this is just too awesome (I guess he doesn’t get to ride in a lot of open-air flatbeds in Jersey) and says that it’s “pretty cool, it’s like, you know, just like we’re going to war or something!” Oh, I’m totally sure those guys who are about to be deployed into actual war are thinking it’s really “cool”, too. Pigshit’s such a tool…

…yes, D-Day was exactly like this…

Once inside the hangar where they’ll be serving they find there are a couple of jet fighters casually placed (as conversation pieces?) and a slew of chafing dishes, plus carving stations. Bitter Jen jumps right on in, directing everyone where to go, and since MaryMann and Gay Ashlee’s peanut-butter-and-chocolate bread pudding doesn’t involve much more work they offer themselves up as serving bitches to the others (in addition to Bitter Jen already pitching in wherever needed). See how helpful gays can be? (I’m looking at you and your “A-Game” Miss Not-So-Pretty!)

Speaking of which, Team Pretty Wickett are both feeling nervous because now they can clearly see just how lame their pasta salad looks next to all of the other dishes. Fat Kid takes a minute out to tell us he doesn’t think a nice hot clam chowder on a “150 degree day” makes a lot of sense…

…yeah, well, neither does your Sonic The Hedghog hairdo, Fat Kid!…

A real-live functioning HumVee pulls up outside and out step the judges…

…and I’m immediately curious as to why Scar would have thought a tight leopard-print miniskirt was appropriate lunchwear…

Perhaps she thought she was donning her version of “camouflage”, I dunno. At any rate, here come the airmen (and women) and they seem to be digging in to the food with a good will. All the chefs are feeling some measure of emotion over having the opportunity to do something nice for the servicepeople, and I have to say I kinda know how they feel… See, my older brother M-Mo is a career officer in the Army and has done an extended tour of duty in Iraq, so this hits close to home for me. Our nation’s armed forces may have no use for a hot sweaty and sexy chubby gay guy like myself, and I have some definite opinions about wars and conflict, but that’s never stopped me from feeling appreciation and gratitude towards the men and women who have chosen this as their job.

All right, enough of that, let’s see how they did on the food itself! Scar and Co. approach the table and for some reason Not-So-Pretty is serving Sexist Pigshit’s Greek Salad dish, and then she gets to present the dish that she and Sticky Wickett came up with…

…and the repetition of Not-So-Pretty’s stoplight palate isn’t making it any more interesting, either…

Biker Chick gets the chance to serve the judges a nice toasty bowl of her and Island Mon’s New England Clam Chowder…

…one of the few dishes that looks the same both before and after you eat it…

They move on to 80′s Hooker, who’s been winking and waving at some of the single airmen, and she presents the dish that she and Papi Cholo came up with…

…served in a sexy, slinky, slightly slutty red bowl!…

I guess they’re really loading up their plates, because they trot right on over to DirtyBear’s station for his and Fat Kids’ Southern Stylin’…

…damn if that doesn’t look goooood, go Fat Kids!…

Colonel Belote says the tater salad looks just like the kind he grew up with in Virginia, and DirtyBear looks like he’s about to burst with pride. On the other hand, someone whom I wish would burst with food poisoning is Sexist Pigshit, and he’s somehow attached his name to Li’l Volt’s dish just ‘cuz he’s serving it (when in reality, the Greek salad is his baby, abortion though it may be)…

…this is how the captions really should have read…

We’ll see if that gets mentioned later on, right now it’s time for Big Volt and Sattine to shine…

…and their beef to blind you with it’s pinkness…

Bitter Jen takes a moment to step up behind Papi Cholo and chide him for taking too long to explain his dish (how long does it take to say “Eez cheeken & cheelee!”??!?) and that they need to keep the line moving because so many people are still waiting to eat.

Over at the Judges Table, Marky Doody’s marvelling at how the chefs were able to complete all these dishes without the benefit of their normal kitchen tools, and the verdict from some of the soldiers seems pretty positive. One young mother tries to get her little girl to tell the cameras that the beef dish was her favorite…

…and she shyly decides to show us instead!…

Daddy Tom likes Big Volt and Sattine’s beef, too, he says it’s well-seasoned and well-cooked. Marky Doody points out that it’s holding up quite well for having had to be kept in stasis for so long. On the other hand, Gail says that Sticky Wickett and Not-So-Pretty did “a half job” with their sad little pasta salad. Daddy simply grunts “A little salty.” Scar tries to play Devil’s Advocate, saying it is nice to have a vegetarian alternative that is light and cool on such a hot day. Gail immediately jumps all over her shit saying it’s not inspired, it’s not interesting and it’s not creative! LOL, she might as well have said “Bitch, I already said it sucked… stop trying to defend it!”

Moving on to Papi Cholo and 80′s Hooker’s concoction, Scar says the chicken chili is yummy, and Daddy Tom compliments it on having “authentic flavor” (I guess as opposed to having “Taco Bell flavor”) while Gail thinks the celery leaves add a certain coolness to the dish. As for Island Mon Ron and Biker Chick’s Chowdah, Daddy says it’s a little on the thick side, but tastes pretty good. Scar wonders about the choice of having the hot dish on the hot day, and Daddy points out they’re also eating hot chili as well. Gail clarifies that it’s not eating something with heat that’s making her feel bloated and hot-flashy and irritable, but the heavy creaminess of the chowder is too rich for the outside temperature…

…”Plus, I’m getting my period, so fuck all of you anyhow.”…

They go on to ooh and aah over DirtyFatKidBear’s pork shoulder while Marky Doody especially loves their potato salad, and says it tastes exactly like his aunt’s recipe that she was famous for (maybe his aunt was Emma Peel?). Gail also says that the bacon that is part of Li’l Volt’s lettuce-wrap dish is “super-mega-delicious” and Daddy Tom thinks the way “they” (meaning Li’l Volt) cooked it was really smart. Then he brings up the shrimp Greek Salad. Scar immediately sneers “I’m not loving that!” and Marky says “It’s not really a Greek Salad.” Daddy hates the fact that the skrimps are really super-mega-under-cooked.

We haven’t been privy to how Queer As Folk’s desserty-thingy turned out, and finally we get to see it…

…looks good for soothing PMS, Gail!…

Marky Doody says it’s a little dry, and Scar says it’s a little “dense” for her (says the woman at the US Military luncheon wearing leopard print) but Gail comes to the rescue saying that while it is a tad dense, she finds it really “flavorful and satisfying”. Dingdingdingdingding! I toldja! PMS averted! Daddy says it kinda tastes like a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cupâ„¢ and Gail comes right back with “I think that’s the point.” You can tell she barely restrains herself from finishing that sentence with a great big “Duh.” LOL, love love love you, Gail. As for Bitter Jen’s job in being executive chef, Daddy Tom and Marky agree that overall it was a really good meal, she kept everything on track.

Now that it’s winding down, Biker Chick is starting to wonder about her choice to go with a hot creamy dish in the middle of the desert (they hilariously cut to various diners wiping sweat from their brows) and is hoping she doesn’t wind up on the bottom again. She’s glad they pulled it off as a team, though.

You know who’s not so much of a team player? Fat Kid, who’s standing around congratulating himself and DirtyBear on how awesome they did, and talking shit about how “other people’s flavors” were not so good. A) What a dick. and B) How about wait until you’re on the bus (or recapping the show) instead of still at the function to be talking smack about people?

…blah blah blah we’re so awesome blah blah blah everybody else sucks blah blah blah my right hand is still my best friend…

Eventually Colonel Belote gathers them together, thanks them profusely and dismisses them so they can head on back to the Stew Room and Judges’ Table. As they are receiving a heartfelt round of applause from the room for putting on a good lunch Island Mon Ron says it doesn’t matter to him if he wins or loses the challenge, the important thing for him was to have done something good for the servicepeople.

Scar visits the Stew Room with her Serious Faceâ„¢ and asks to see Fat Kid, DirtyBear, Li’l Volt and Sexist Pigshit. I don’t know why she tries to sound so grave, it seems like they always pick the winners first anymore. They repeat all of the same praise they’ve already given, the only thing different here is that the Judges are able to get Sexist Pigshit to admit that the only thing he had to do with Li’l Volt’s awesome pork belly lettuce wraps was serve them, his own effort was the Not-Greek Salad. Interestingly enough, while Sexist is blathering on it seems as though Daddy Tom doesn’t care so much for him…

…”I’d love to listen to your fascinating explanation of how you came up with a salad, but there’s this really pretty moth I’m staring at on the ceiling…”…

Eventually Pigshit arrives at the real reason for his little speech… he wants to remind them that they were only required to do one dish, but he and Li’l Volt banged out two. Daddy Tom asks him if he was happy with the way the shrimp turned out, which is always a trap and chefs should know by now to just stop and ask if something was wrong (if they don’t know) but Pigshit ignores the warning and just blithely insists he loved it and that it was a dish that they “needed”. Clearly he’s not winning (and yay-happy-dance for that). Marky Doody gets the honors of announcing tonight’s winner… and it’s Li’l Volt and his amazing bacon lettuce-wraps!

Scar asks them to send back Not-So-Pretty, Sticky Wickett… and then asks Sexist Pigshit to return as well! Oooooooh, Pigshit is pissed. Daddy Tom calls him on his attitude the moment he gets back into the room with the girls, and he’s just incredulous that he’s in the bottom for having done a dish he “didn’t have to do” but that he did it to “help out the team”. Marky Doody points out he was still responsible for the dish and it wound up bland, underseasoned and the shrimp were undercooked. Sexist Pigshit is literally sputtering now, he’s so angry. Finally he admits “I wasn’t even 100 percent about serving it, to tell you the truth, I’m not gonna lie!” (this is right after he just got done lying and saying he thought it was awesome) and Scar says in an icy tone “Then you shouldn’t have served it.” Daddy Tom has forgotten all about the moth on the ceiling, now he’s watching Pigshit’s meltdown with a barely suppressed smirk.

…my heart belongs to Daddy…

As for Sticky Wickett and Not-So-Pretty, they try and hem and haw about which one of them came up with the idea to make a boring pasta salad, but they’re not budging, saying they can’t remember who said it first, which makes Daddy Tom angrier. Sticky tries to blame the canned ingredients, and Daddy Tom immediately jumps all over her reminding her everyone had to work with canned stuff and still managed to make good dishes. Not-So-Pretty pipes up that she thought their dish was good. Now both Marky Doody and Daddy Tom are looking at her like she’s sprouted a penis from her forehead.

Gail says it just didn’t feel creative, and Not-So-Pretty goes for the bus-throw by asking if they thought there was something really inventive about clam chowder on a 90-degree day. Daddy Tom says not at all, but it was a better version of clam chowder than their version of pasta salad. SLAMMAH!…

…Oooh, girl just got owned!…

Scar asks Sticky Wickett if she thought their salad was good, and she admits it wasn’t the winning dish but they filled in the vegetarian niche, and this just pisses Scar off who asks “Why didn’t you try to cook a winning dish?” and Sticky replies “To be honest with you I think I completely forgot about the competition…” Upon seeing the judges’ expressions simultaneously turn to stone she realizes her blunder too late, “That was a bad answer.”

Marky wants to know out of the two of them who is better. Not-So-Pretty tries to sidestep some more and Scar goes right for her homegirl’s throat, “So would you like to both go home together?” and Not-So-Pretty replies “I’d like no one to go home.” Turning chilly once more Scar narrows her eyes and says “That’s not going to happen because this is a competition.” BWAHAHAHAHA! They get sent out.

After laughing some more about how clueless Not-So-Pretty was, how disconnected Sticky Wickett was, and especially how pissed off Sexist Pigshit was, the Judges call them back and tell Not-So-Pretty she’s going home. Bye, girl!

Again, I apologize for the lateness of this recap, you must know I’d rather stab myself in my big fat gut than let a show lap me like this, but it was simply unavoidable this time. However, I’m starting right in on this week’s episode, so watch for that in another couple of days, okay?

love, J-Mo