Life's Ceviche and Then You Blog

Oh the thrill, possums, the thrill.

Jennifer Carroll worked at Le Bernardin for five years, and now heads another Eric Ripert restaurant, and she can’t pronounce ceviche?!? Oh the vapors, possums, the deliciousness of it all.

It made us think of that speech Anthony Hopkins recites in The Silence of the Lambs, about Jody Foster’s character wearing cheap shoes and being a well-scrubbed, hustling rube with a little taste. We know nothing about the background of Jennifer Carroll—who, to our delight, described herself as “a freakin’ bitch in the kitchen” who’s “made enough boys cry”—but something about her gives off a whiff of the trailer park. Is it the accent, her admission that she drinks too much and does stupid things as a result? Is it the way she looks perennially unkempt, or drunk, or angry, or on the verge of tears? Whatever it is, we love this hot mess, and the woman can cook. Had this been last season, we would have pegged her as the one most likely to engage in drunken hate-sex with the Asshole of New Jersey, except that this isn’t the season of Leah and Hosea, and the Asshole of New Jersey doesn’t deserve so much as a hate ass-whoopin’, much less a hate fuck.

Make no mistake about it. She may be unfamiliar with a comb, but she can handle a spatula like a dream, and will make for entertaining television. And best of all, she might just take the whole thing.

A Scarlet Letter from Amuse-Biatch

Possums,

We won’t get into the reasons for our absence of the past week, mostly because in spite of all recent, firsthand evidence to the contrary, we refuse to accept that we inhabit a world in which illness and mortality have any more purchase than they do in a Pedro Almodóvar film. Into the bubble of the blogger’s basement no shafts of reality must be allowed to make their way, nor shall they.

Instead, let us agree to a version in which our silence was that of the well of loneliness, the soundless scream of the daughters of Bilitis, at the pykagging of our Sapphic mini-Fergie, Miz Jamie Lauren. Fortunately for us, though, our Uranian grief was assuaged by the sweet, sweet balm of the Christian Bale freakout remix on constant replay.

After all, which of the world’s ills can’t be cured by a good house beat? As a straight (that’s what he said) friend told us many years ago, being a good gay is about “dancing through the pain.” Mind you, this was in the context of the Hex Hector remix of Toni Braxton’s “Unbreak My Heart,” but the principle is the same.

And so, yes, the loss of Jamie was rather difficult, all the more so because it seemed so unavoidable and so very just under the circumstances. In the wake of Jamie’s exit, we wondered whether it was possible to feel simultaneous boredom and despair—despair at her departure, and boredom at the prospect of a final that doesn’t include her—as one feeling would seem to negate the other.

Oh, fickle, fickle gays!

We could not possibly have anticipated just how good and entertaining last night’s episode would be, and we had to laugh at the pleasure of watching the show cheerfully violate its own stated principles about it being a one-challenge-at-a-time, what-have-you-done-for-me-lately competition.

Had that principle been followed, Stefan Richter would and should have been sent packing for the undistinguished (and undistinguishable) spinach and the salmon that was unanimously deemed to be overcooked, an unpardonable sin on a season that has been so much about “respecting the protein,” and on an episode that was preceded by the hazelnut-and-butter-accented presence of the St. John the Baptist of fish cookery, Le Bernardin’s Eric Ripert (come to think of it, his accent is more the equivalent of Nutella eaten out of the jar with one’s finger, but we digress). What is a thinned hollandaise sauce in comparison to that?

Surely on the scales of PYKAG justice, Leah’s sin of a thin hollandaise sauce was outweighed by the greater, audience-perceived sins of weakness, whininess and immorality (about which more later). We declared ourselves fans of Stefan from the outset, so we would have been grieved to see him go, but it also would have made a satisfying kind of narrative sense for him to have gone out now—hubris, Icarus, the Finland vs. Sweden thing, etc. Instead, the show opted for a more timeless kind of American narrative—Hester Prynne is pilloried to satisfy public morality while the bald, stolid, chin-merkin’d Dimmesdale (and how dim indeed) is allowed to continue in a halo of xenophobic, phallocentric (tiny shrimp!, eel!) anxiety and insecurity to battle the European savant Chillingworth (we haven’t quite worked out all the details, but give us time). How will it all turn out?

News from the Department of Now-We’ve-Heard-Everything: An Eric Ripert-Catered “Top Chef” Bat Mitzvah

Fish man and panty-dropper (redundant?) par excellence, sometime Top Chef guest judge Eric Ripert is visiting our fair shores while on a book tour. Our pal Lesley of Eater LA and Betty Hallock at the bankrupt L.A. Times both snagged interviews with Coquille St. Jacques the Ripert, and collected the French-accented pearls that fell from his pillowy, piscine lips. One bit from the Times interview left us just a teensy bit gobsmacked:

One guy rented out the entire restaurant for his daughter's bat mitzvah. His daughter is a big fan of "Top Chef" and we set her party up like the show. He flew in a chef from an obscure restaurant in Maryland and we did crab cakes. There were 15 girls on my team and 15 girls on his team. His crab cakes were phenomenal. He kicked my .... !

Miss XaXa’s first reaction: “Eric Ripert gave crabs to 15 teenaged girls?”

“They were probably Reform,” we tried to reassure her, not bothering to clarify the antecedent.

What struck us, aside from the whole Gilded Age excess of the thing (and which now seems so long ago), was Ms. Hallock’s delicacy. Go on, Betty; surely on the day that parent company Tribune filed for bankruptcy protection you can allow yourself a tiny three-letter word.

Besides, what with Ripert’s melted-Échiré-butter accent, it likely wasn’t even “ass.” Rather, we suspect he said, “aws,” or maybe “ahs,” as in oohs and ahs (or is it ooze and ahs?)

As it is, we can’t wait for the episode that will feature Ripert and Fabio Viviani going acento a acento in the lambent interior of Le Bernardin. Viewers will swoon, and knickers will fly.

Despite Telling Bourdain That Eric Ripert “Hits the Tequila Hard,” Tom Colicchio Refuses to Touch the Subject of Ming Tsai’s Possible Plastic Surgery

Episode 5 - Chat With Tom Colicchio Video

Bravo Magically Shaves at Least 12 Years Off Eric Ripert's Age

In its Q&A with Le Bernardin chef and Top Chef guest judge Eric Ripert, Bravo lists his age as 30, but, as you can see, Ripert was born in 1965. For that kind of treatment, who wouldn't want to be a guest judge on Top Chef?

Spelling Bee-atch

Possums, we want to make something clear at the outset: we are not doing this just because we are pedantic and bitchy (though we are undoubtedly both). No, we are doing this because Bravo has a responsibility, and has failed to live up to it.

Tom Colicchio (and, to a lesser extent, Rocco DiSpirito) spent much of the Judges’ Table portion of the show in a snit (and rightfully so) over the cheftestants’ ignorance of classic dishes and techniques, letting on that it was an embarrassment to be competing at that level and not know such basics (and Colicchio and other guest judges have in the past railed against putting out product that is less than perfect). Well, it is likewise an embarrassment at that level not to know how to spell the names of classic dishes or common food ingredients.

Why all this talk about “that level”? Well, because, as Colicchio himself pointed out in an Associated Press article, Top Chef, the “#1 food show on cable,” one that attracts a desirable (because educated and affluent) demographic, “has become respectable” and “is being taken seriously.” This is in large part because Top Chef is now the show where culinary demigods Eric Ripert, Daniel Boulud and André Soltner consent to make appearances. Given that Eric Ripert, Daniel Boulud and André Soltner “really legitimized the show,” is it really too much to expect that the show they have legitimized will at least know how to spell duck à l’orange?

And this isn’t a typo that someone made on a blog or in an email, the sort of thing that can slip in when one is writing on the fly and that is entirely forgivable. No. The season’s first episode was filmed in October. That means that Bravo had approximately five months to get the episode ready, and surely that is more than enough time to make sure that such things don’t occur.

We were not the only ones to notice, but, Bravo, the word is “pappardelle,” not “parpadelle.” (As it happens, neither Rocco DiSpirito nor Ted Allen had any problem spelling it correctly on their Bravo blogs.) Further, the word is “soppressata,” not “sopressata,” “challah” and not “halla” (what, are there no Jews at Bravo?), and “pizza à la grecque,” not “à la grec.”

This sort of stuff is easy to fix, and should be fixed. And Bravo, if you don’t do it for your viewers, at least do it for Eric Ripert. He should not have to purse his fishy lips in pain over this sort of thing.

Amuse-Biatch Photoessay: What a Difference a Gay Makes

Amuse-Biatch Rhetorical Q: Is It Just Us or Does Eric Ripert Look Gayer Every Time We See Him? Also, Is Hot-to-Trout Padma Channeling Calamity Jane ?

Should've Seen It: Padma "Smelly Hands" Lakshmi Less Focused on Her Husband Than on Her Cumin

Now, now, possums, settle down.

That headline is more or less a direct quote from a June 2007 Food & Wine article that seems poignant and prescient in retrospect. The article, which we came across by chance this morning, details a dinner party Padma and her soon-to-be-ex-husband, Salman Rushdie, gave in their New York apartment, which Padma herself described as "Paris 1920s opium den meets British Raj meets Turkish caravan."

Padma tells the interviewer that, "There’s a saying in tamil [sic] about good cooks: 'Her hand has a sweet aroma to it.'" The aromatic-handed Padma is seen cooking cumin for a rice pilaf:

Before serving a new recipe to guests, Padma often tests it on her husband, the Mumbai-bred author Salman Rushdie. Rarely unlatching his eyes from his bride of three years, he seems like a clever schoolboy who can’t believe he’s landed the prom queen. At the moment, however, Padma is less focused on her husband than her cumin, which has cooked for too long on the stove. She throws it out and begins preparing the pilaf again from scratch, insisting that "it won’t taste right" otherwise. Rushdie leans in closer, but she’s all business. "Honey, you can watch me," she teases, "but you have to stay out of my light." Rushdie clearly enjoys not only his wife’s cooking—he declares himself an ideal taster—but also her managerial forcefulness.

Oh dear, possums, where do we even begin to unpack this? Well, perhaps, for once, we'll let the material speak for itself, since it's all in there.

Relevant to last week's Bertolli challenge, we discover that "As a young woman, Padma was engaged at one time to an Italian man, whose mother introduced her to classic European cooking techniques and taught her to make the perfect creamy béchamel sauce." Hmmmm, curiouser and curiouser.

And hey, look who's a guest at the dinner party: none other than "chef Eric Ripert of Le Bernardin, who has appeared as a guest judge on Top Chef."

Funny, then, how Ripert's wife, Sonya, had this to say to Gawker:

"I knew the marriage was on the rocks," Sonya said. "We sat next to them during the Beard dinner. Padma was all like, 'What party are we going to hit up next?' and Salman said, 'We're not going to any parties. It's late!'"

Well, possums, as we've said before, with friends like these....

Willows Whiten, Aspen Quivers as the Lady and the Shallots Come to Town: "Top Chef" Semifinal Gets Underway

Snack is reporting that the remaining cast and crew of Top Chef are reconvening in Aspen, Colorado, to film the show's semifinal.

Earlier, Tom Colicchio told Lesley at Eater LA that he would be in Los Angeles "until we tape the final show. The reveal is live, we taped everything up until that. We haven't told them who won yet."

This seems to be a little bit of a contradiction, but perhaps it's just a question of semantics, finale vs. semifinal.

At any rate, Snack, reporting that Tre Wilcox has been on vacation in New York, seems to imply that Tre is participating in the semifinal/finale. We can't say we're surprised.

Update: Apparently some kind of filming is going on. Gawker reports that Eric Ripert's wife said the fish-lipped seafood wonder is "in Aspen being a judge for 'Top Chef!'"

And Now for a Moment of Levity: Coquilles St. Jacques the Ripert

Watching the height and positioning of guest judge Eric Ripert's hands as he relates the size of the scallops (coquilles St. Jacques) served at haute cuisine fish palace Le Bernardin, Padma Lakshmi puffs up in preparation for the moment when he will turn around as he says, "Zey are ZEES beeg," hoping that he might, during his demonstration, accidentally Ripert her shirt off.

First Reaction: Amuse-Biatch Did Not Try to Choke Marcel Vigneron or Call Him a Faggot

We’ll try to bring the funny, possums, but we warn you that it was a little more difficult than usual with this episode, and we have had to scrape the sides and bottom of the barrel.

First, a synopsis.

The Quickfire Challenge was to create a dish using Nestlé’s new line of baking chocolate. The winner was Sam “Let me once again trot out the fact that I’m a diabetic” Talbot. The Elimination Challenge was to create a “romantic” five-course dinner for a contingent of couples (including the Bravo-mandated token gay couple) celebrating their anniversaries at a restaurant in Santa Barbara reportedly owned by Kevin Costner. (This seems rather fitting, inasmuch as, if the reported allegations of masseuses in Scotland are to be trusted, KC definitely believes in happy endings.)

Later that night, the cheftestants requested a video camera from the producers, and Elia Aboumrad decided to shave her head. Her Kim Kardashian, Ilan Hall, also shaved his head. Cliff Crooks decided that Marcel should have his head shaved, too. They went into the living room, where Marcel was sleeping on the couch, and Cliff put him in a headlock on the floor while Sam giggled and Ilan videotaped the whole thing and incited Sam to have a try at shaving Marcel’s head.

For his pains, Cliff was dismissed from the show, and the remaining four moved to the finals in Hawaii.

One would think that someone whose name is Ilan might, oh, you know, be sensitive to the resonance of an unpopular minority being assaulted in the middle of the night and having his head shaved while others cheer, but what do we know? And some people might have thought it less than classy for Bravo to run a poll in the first commercial break after the incident in order to determine who hates Marcel the most, with one of the answer choices being “Me,” since it might be construed as piling up on Marcel and as giving its imprimatur to the impulse behind the hazing, but what do such people know?

So what did we find amusing?

OK, here goes:

That Ilan, Elia and Marcel reenacted the Paris Hilton-Nicole Richie-Kim Kardashian triangle, with Ilan moving into Elia’s bedroom so they could wear oversize shades in bed, and paint each other’s toenails, and, as it turned out, “do” each other’s hair.

That Bravo Foreshadowing™ had Cliff declaring earlier, “I don’t plan on doing anything to screw up.”

That Sam smarmily declared, “Marcel is very adolescent.”

That Padma Lakshmi called the cheftestants, “You idiots,” in her most maternal tones.

That the token gay couple, Buck and Barry (it must save money on monograms), were celebrating their third anniversary while a few of the straight couples had been together for something like 20 years, since three is the equivalent of 20 in gay years.

That a Bravo graphic described one of the elements in Elia’s Quickfire Challenge dish as “carmelized,” which, to the extent it’s a word at all, would better describe what happened to Clint Eastwood after he became the mayor of a wealthy seaside town in Northern California.

That Cliff, who was given to wearing scrubs during the season, managed, only two days after the Golden Globes, to become the new Isaiah Washington.

That Marcel unwittingly found himself questioning being a bottom and munching rug (as well as nursing rug burns) mere seconds after the notion of being awakened by an attractive man on top of him went from being a closeted wet dream to a reality-show nightmare.

That the NBC synergy and cross-promotion machine is so well-oiled that, during the Quickfire Challenge, Padma appeared in costume for the NBC/Bravo series, Grease: You’re the One That I Want. Padma, you are….(excruciatingly suspenseful pause) NOT Sandy.

That we got to see a photo of Elia and her boyfriend on the night-stand, but no photographic evidence of a relationship between Ilan and “Carolina.”

That there was a battle of the accents and wills between Slippery-as-an-Eelia Aboumrad and Eric “Your Deesh is Beyond” Ripert.

That hot French cyborg and full-lipped “demigod” Eric Ripert declared Cliff a more authentic Mexican than Elia.

That Ilan pronounced “offal” as “ah-FALL,” since pride goeth before offal.

See? We told you it would be hard to come up with funny stuff.