Recap: Top Chef: Ya Gotta Get a Gimmick - 
by Flipit
When I worked as a busboy at Applebee's in the early 90s, I became friends with a newly reformed stripper named Eve who worked as our hostess. Eve was what you'd call "porn star pretty", which means without strip club lighting and bare boobies, she was kinda busted. She knew this (she taught me the term) but she didn't care. She was gonna be an actress, natural beauty or not. She believed in herself, so I did too. I took her to audition after audition and ate pity cone after pity cone with her when she got rejected. Lots of ice cream was consumed.
One day I accompanied her to an audition for a local carpet company. Eve had been all out of sorts on the way there. The rejection was starting to wear on her. She was pissy at best, and I smelled booze on her breath. She cried a bit before we went in and I told her lots of cliche things like "be all you can be" and "honey! Just be yourself!" As she entered the audition room, she tripped on the rug. And didn't get up. Five to ten seconds of silence. Then, suddenly, she started rolling around on the rug drunkenly giggling and squealing. "This is the most comfortable carpet in the world! I LOOOOVE THIS CARPET!"
The other girls in the waiting room were prettier, smarter, and sober, but in the end, that's what made my friend a carpet-rolling icon. She's been El Paso Carpet's spokeswoman for sixteen years now ("I LOOOOVE THIS CARPET!") and every time I see someone trip on a rug I get choked up.
This week, Top Chef taught us you gotta get a gimmick, chemicals are good, and the only sure things in life are death and taxes.
Last week's Monkey Bash has only made Marcel more determined to come up with the chemical equation that changes food forever! He has a whole tackle box full of chemical compounds and says he wants to change the way we think about food. I always thought people went to nice restaurants to get away from food loaded with chemicals, but I'm old-fashioned that way. If any of the Judges come down with cancer later, there should be a trial. Marcel's personality could very well be the product of years and years of chemical testing.
We get the added pleasure of meeting his two best friends, who are just as geeky as he is. Awwww! Cute! They scurry around the kitchen together like mad scientists. The dishes they prepare are further evidence that they are, indeed, trippin'.
The eggs are watching...
Strung out or not, Marcel is studying and planning and has a feeling his opponents aren't doing the same. Well, they might not be using Bunsen burners...but most of them are studying.
Elia has taken the two-month shoot break to bone up on Hawaiian cuisine and grow a cute 'do. We meet her proud boss and take a look at her life as a room service cook. She shows us her huge collection of degrees and certificates and swimming medals and says she was two seconds from a gold medal once. Foreshadowing? Don't get me wrong here, because the girl is very pretty, but Elia has gained a little weight, which makes me think she's not as confident as she is letting on. I am probably just projecting. My first day in my TVgasm cubicle, I was so scared I ate a tube of raw chocolate chip cookie dough. Elia has decided to balls out go for it. Not sure how I feel about her right now. I just pray that she doesn't become a total asshole by the time this is all said and done.
Any hobbies?
As we know by now, Ilan's icky, so it's fitting that he works at a restaurant called Mono. The food he is preparing looks a little familiar.
Familiar?
His boss is very proud of him now, but I wonder how he felt in the Beach Episode where Ilan bungled a dish he apparently makes every day. He is confident in his chances of winning, even though he hasn't studied up too much on Hawaiian cuisine. He doesn't want to "learn too many new things". Sounds like a winner to me.
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