Why Gael Greene Is Disqualified from Judging the First Episode of Top Chef Masters, or, Indeed, Anything Else Ever Again

Possums, fear not. We’ll get to our impressions of, and reactions to, the first episode of Season 2 of Top Chef Masters in two shakes of a lamb carpaccio’s tail, but we simply could not go on without getting this off our chest.

Well, more like getting this unstuck from our craw, where it has lain for a few weeks since we read this account of Judge Gael Greene’s date night, er, morning, on her Twitter feed.

Ah, yes, that renowned romantic masterpiece Precious…. You know, possums, the one that features—in no particular order of tribulation—incest-rape, teenage pregnancy, Down syndrome, illiteracy, morbid obesity, poverty, colorism, AIDS, and Mariah Carey.

Or, as Miss XaXa so pithily put it, “Gael, girl, that’s just naaasty.”

Mercifully, the tweet does not contain sufficient temporal clues to determine whether the necking took place during or after the watching of the film. Frankly, there’s not much of a choice between the two, for either you were inspired to neck by the film, or the film wasn’t repellent enough to put you off your necking. (As for the culinary accompaniment to a viewing of Precious, surely salad is a little unimaginative, given that pig’s feet, bacon, and fried chicken make memorable appearances in the film.)

Now, if that is the Insatiable Gourmet’s idea of a date night (or date morning), we submit that she is not the right person to judge a challenge designed around the proper meal to accompany a first date. Indeed, we would question her very aesthetic bona fides. Sure, we know from her autobiographical tales of the Elvis-bagging days of yore that she’s a freak bitch, baby, but is this a freak too far?

What say you, possums? Are we not giving a fair shake to the kooky, oversexed, milliner’s wet dream of a great-aunt?

Consummate New Yorker Mr. Cutlets Thinks “Top Chef” Did Very Wrong by NYC

Now that the season is over, Josh “Mr. Cutlets” Ozersky—lover of the Lucullan, heterosexualist high priest of the hamburger, and sybaritic singer of the porcine pleasures that the citizens of New York are heirs to—laments what the producers of Top Chef have done (or, rather, not done) to his city:

The biggest disappointment by far — by far! — was having the show in New York, and then not doing anything with the local resources. This season could just as easily have been shot in Moonachie. Where was the visit to Katz’s? Or Flushing Chinatown? Or the run-in with David Chang? Le Bernardin may well be the best restaurant in America, but it’s not what you would call a “New York restaurant.” Every week should have brought in a real New York chef and a real New York locale. How could Top Chef, which did such good work in Chicago and Miami, not know this?

Despite the new authority conferred on him by “the disease of kings,” we disagree with his assessment of the show’s use of Chicago, but as far as New York is concerned, he is spot on. For all we know, the show was probably shot in Toronto, which so often stands in for New York (but even there they have a great food scene). As for the rest of his criticisms and suggestions, read the full corrido de Cutlets and tell us what you think.

Gail Simmons Twitters Reaction

Gail, possum, if we had a heart, it would be broken, too.

Richard Blais’ Speaking-from-Experience Reaction: “Sometimes, the Best Team Doesn’t Win the Game”

From his Bravo blog:

"Padma says it best when describing Stefan’s food. He exhibits an elegant classicism. The guy's very talented. The pigeon was the best thing I tasted that night. Sometimes, the best team doesn’t win the game."

First Reaction: Aw Shucks Oysters

Gail, Gail, Gail.

Even if nothing else during the episode had worked, the return of Gail Simmons would have been enough. In Hootie’s words, “Love ya, girl!”

But that was actually quite a tasty episode. We got: Carla winning the challenge (and a car, and bemoaning the unreliable character of men’s promises in a "Bessie Smith does Much Ado About Nothing" soliloquy); the return of Leah Cohen (who apparently learnt how to use make-up in the interim); Fabio's pink scarf and mohawk; Carla's new hair; our little longer-haired scallop Jamie Lauren (though she went a tad overboard on the Miss Clairol or the lemon juice); Jeff’s chance at redemption (sadly, no more treasure-trail shots by cameramen intent on objectifying him); “a butt-rubbing contest”; Stefabio forcibly separated; Carla's beautiful table manners; more phallocentric taunting of Hosea (just what does Stefan know? Did he see Hosea naked in the bathroom?); Padma looking like a mail-order whore in a Sergio Leone western; Fabio revealing that he’s watched masked porn; Jeff McInnis mispronouncing “chipotle”; Stefan as Mr. Grits; a patient, inoffensive, and understanding Emeril Lagasse; and Gail, Gail, Gail.

Oh, and as you can see from the picture above, Stefan actually did help Carla shuck her oysters. So much for the soulless villain.

Our Sentiments Exactly

The 12 Days of Lame-Ass

Expect no further comment from us, possums, until we get over just how lame and stupid last night's episode was.

Culinary Boner Goes Down

First Reaction: Not (the) Shit

Possums, we don’t know if it’s simply that absence makes the heart grow fonder, or that, after the difficult personal circumstances that necessitated our recent absence, our critical faculties have been dulled, but last night’s episode was fantastic: a pointless and irrelevant challenge serving as the background for a one-act opera about revenge, condescension, bitchiness, bears, and drunken orgies at the tubs—in other words, the gay world writ large (and small) by Bravo. Our only regret: we won’t have smarmy “metrosexual” (uh-huh) Ryan Scott to kick around anymore.

More analysis and bitchery as the day continues.

First Reaction: Like Deep-Dish Pizza and Sex, Even When It’s Bad, It’s Still “Top Chef”

Possums, a more complete reaction and analysis will be forthcoming.

First Reaction: Cuisine de Grand-mère and Not So Grand Mair

Well, possums, as anyone who's ever seen The Triplets of Belleville will tell you, having a French grandmother can make all the difference of the world. One must never underestimate Mamie dearest.

And Casey Thompson's Mamie certainly came through for her, inspiring Casey's chicken dish, even if the name (and the pronunciation, ouch!) were a bit of a coq-up. And even though tough old birds* faulted her for not using a tough old bird, we don't fall in that camp. As some of you may have discovered at some point in your lives, possums, coq is occasionally difficult to come by, no matter how much vin is involved.

But you know, there is one thing that gave us pause and made us uneasy, namely, the condemnation by all and sundry of Hung Huynh as being a technical wizard but lacking soul. Perhaps we just have sensitive noses, but we detected the whiff of (perhaps unconscious?) racial stereotypes of Asians as emotionless automatons. We thought immediately of an article by classical music critic Alex Ross that we read in The New Yorker in April:

In the classical-music world of ten or fifteen years ago, you heard intermittent murmurs of unease about the number of Asian performers who were showing up on the rolls of conservatories, in the ranks of orchestras, and on concert stages. The oft-repeated criticism was that these players showed great technical dexterity but lacked the mysteries of “depth” and “soul.” Such talk had an unsavory taste....

As does the talk about Hung lacking "heart" and "soul." Well, he is bisexual, so undoubtedly the heartless part is correct. But the rest of it does smack of something unattractive, even if it's not sinister. It's a way of dismissing those who are better than you: what I do may be a mess, but at least it's got heart. "Heart," whatever the schmaltzy term means, seems to be of paramount importance in our country. Emotional truth trumps all else, and cannot be questioned. Laziness, idiocy, lack of skill, and lack of competence can all be forgiven and covered up with "heart," with "gut instinct," which is why we're asked to elect the candidate we'd most like to have a beer with, and to "trust" our leaders, especially when they have "gut instincts" and can look into the "hearts" of Russian tyrants.

But we digress, possums, and we'd better stop ranting before we find ourselves unwittingly quoting Ayn Rand, who is not our cup of tea (though she is a good deal of camp fun, especially the movie adaptation she wrote of The Fountainhead, starring Patricia Neal and Gary Cooper, a phallic pneumatic drill, Miss Neal's pneumatic breasts, and a beautiful and no doubt unintended homoerotic subtextual love affair between Gary Cooper and Raymond Massey).

*We kid, possums. We have the utmost respect for André Soltner and the rest of the FCI panel. Just read David Kamp’s The United States of Arugula to get a sense of the watershed importance of Soltner’s restaurant, Lutèce.

Jowly Green Giant CJ Jacobson Takes His Ball and Goes Home

Oh, come on, possums. As if you all weren't thinking the same thing. At any rate, farewell to the big crawfish, who at last fell awry.

We Got Nothing

First Reaction: 'Cue the Violins for the Last of the Fauxhawkians

“Two puns in one headline? Isn’t that a little much?” asked Miss XaXa.

We stared at our nails. Yes, it’s true, possums, our favorite martial-arts-practicing, slogan-teeshirt-wearing, magazine-editing lesbian, Sandee Birdsong, was, in the lexicon of the game, pykagged last night.

“Besides,” Miss XaXa continued, “it isn’t even true. She’s not the last one with a fauxhawk; there’s still Dale.”

But of course. Who could forget Dale Levitski? Well, apparently, just about everyone. As we said to Miss XaXa, “If he were a superhero, he’d be the Invisible Gay.” He was hardly to be seen in this episode, but perhaps that’s just as well, as attention seemed to be an unwelcome thing last night.

The Quickfire Challenge—to use Florida citrus—was judged by Chef Norman Van Aken, who, fittingly enough, was the very definition of “acid,” and perhaps also “florid.” Micah, who is not a morning person (though Lord, is she ever a mourning person), made it into a bottom three with a dish of baby spew, er, pardon us, “avocado soup,” along with torch-wielding petal-pusher Sandee, and confused, carapaced, veiny shrimp Sarah Nguyen (really, though, we’re not the ones calling her a shrimp; it was CJ, who envied her for being 5’3”). And it was CJ who, despite spilling his citrusy seed upon the dish, was in the top three, along with Hung and Tre. Ultimately, it was Hung, huffin’ and puffin’ his way to villainy, who came out on top and earned immunity, if not camp status.

The Elimination Challenge was to cook “upscale barbecue” for Lee Schrager, founder of the South Beach Wine & Food Festival and, according to the South Florida Business Journal, the spokesman for “Southern Wine & Spirits, the nation’s largest alcohol distributor.” No wonder he has access to champagne and, by extension, women, as Hung admiringly points out. (We reiterate: you don’t have to be gay to be a Gay Villain. And really, how convincing was Hung anyway?)

Which brings us to our main problem with the upscale barbecue: where was the upscale? 14 small grills on a strip of mangy lawn by a canal does not upscale make. As Tom Colicchio himself put it, which is the greater sin, no barbecue or not upscale?

This question, along with other, more pressing ones, will be answered in a proper episode recap coming this weekend.

First Reaction: Fried or (Half) Baked?

Oh, possums, just when she was doing so well....

Watching Top Chef: 4 Star All Stars (surprisingly, it was not subtitled, “The Grudge”), we were paralyzed for many reasons (about which we will have much more to say later). But it was the 28th Most Beautiful Lady in the World, Padma Lakshmi, who gave us the biggest jolt of botulinum.

Her hair looked good. Her clothes were sexy but tasteful—the black polka dot dress looked good, the pants ensemble looked good, the cinnamon-colored dress looked good. Heck, even her scar looked good. No hot pants, Ugg boots, or shearling vests in sight.

Our unfurrowed brow began to furrow.

And then she corrected Marcel’s pronunciation of “gelée,” just as we were in mid-wince after hearing “jell-EE.”

Aghast, the twin figures of Henry Higgins and Mr. Blackwell, who daily battle for such scraps of our soul as remain, stood mute.

Would there be anything for us to do on Season 3? Would we have to retire? Would we be perennially doomed to sweetness and light?

Fortunately (for us, at least), last night’s premiere of Season 3 revealed that there is, indeed, a reason for us to go on living. You ought to have seen the grin of relief on our basement-dweller faces, possums, as she mispronounced “amuse-bouche” yet again. Ah-MOOZE? That’s nooze to us.

And then, of course, she went on to utter the immortal line of the night, “You could fry my toe, and batter it well, and it would taste good.”

Though Tom Colicchio rolled his eyes, we positively purred. We may well have cackled. Miss XaXa, momentarily lulled into compassion by the booze, pleaded, “Come on, give her a break. She’s still making progress.”

Remembering those hot pants from last season, we had to concur. From camel-toe to fried toe is quite a journey indeed.

Is it any wonder she married the man who wrote The Ground Beneath Her Feet? (We will have much more to say about this as well; here and now we call Top Chef 3, “The Foot Fetishist’s Season.”)

Still, Padma, fried or baked, we’ve missed you, possum. Welcome back. And to you, possums, we say, as our other theme for the season, “Welcome to Meowmi.”

P.S. Regular posting will follow, including a full-fledged, Amuse-Biatch recap.

First Reaction: Elevated Taro Alert

Well, possums, we didn’t think we’d have to quote Elton John so soon again, but hey, hey, the beetch ees back. Fortunately, so is the food, at least for most of the episode.

Here, then, the obligatory synopsis (though you’ll have to forgive us if our notes aren’t exact, since we were laughing too hard to catch everything; as Nancy Mitford was fond of saying, it was “blissikins”).

The show began with montages of the four finalists—Marcel Vigneron and Elia Aboumrad in Las Vegas, Ilan Hall and Sam Talbot in New York—packing their bags to travel to the “finale” in Hawaii. There was also footage in which—shockingly!—coworkers of all four finalists said nice things about them on camera. There was even footage of Marcel in an apartment with two other guys—Gary and Kenny—whipping up new and exciting dishes, as if to say to the audience, “See? He’s got friends, maybe even room mates. He’s not a total pariah.”

We also got to see that, young follicles being what they are, Ilan’s and Elia’s hair had started to grow back. But that wasn’t the only surprise. When we first caught a glimpse of the new and improved Sam Talbot, we were surprised that Bravo, slavishly given as it is to product placement, didn’t emphasize Sam’s recent discovery of the Mach 3 and Pert Plus. And it seems that he defied Ilan’s accusation of “wussiness” by finally taking the clippers to his own hair, as the greasy topknot appears to be gone as well. Alas, all it did was emphasize just how elfin his features are, practically ideal for a Franklin Mint series of Lord of the Rings characters.

(Speaking of product placement, we were definitely convinced that Marcel is a good sport by the little routine he did when they entered their hotel suite in Hawaii and he feigned excitement at finding “fine champagne,” a bottle of Korbel, waiting for them. A man who is a master cook at Joël Robuchon’s restaurant, and therefore knows that Champagne is an AOC (appellation d’origine contrôlée) and, consequently, that to refer to Korbel as “champagne,” let alone “fine champagne,” is not only an act of extreme charity but very possibly a WTO violation, nevertheless does just that—and on a cooking show, no less—to satisfy Bravo’s insatiable product-placement whores. Once we wiped away the tears of laughter, we asked rhetorically, “How can anyone possibly say that Marcel is not a team player?”)

At LAX, on their way to Hawaii, Elia, Sam, and Ilan arrived conveniently (and contrivedly) before Marcel did, giving them an opportunity to start slamming him in the comfort of Business First Class. (Remembering the deceit on the plane to Paris during the last season of Project Runway—what we saw was staged, and it wasn’t the real plane they took to Paris—we wondered just how real this little scene was.)

Once in Hawaii, the finalists were met by the reigning Miss Hawaii in a shockingly ill-fitting and fugly yellow dress (paging Kayne Gillaspie!), and taken for a helicopter ride to a wondrous Hidden Valley, there to have a celebratory Hawaiian lunch with guest judge Alan Wong. We were immediately reminded of Nancy Drew and the Mystery of the Golden Pavilion, from which we learned everything about Hawaiian culture and cuisine before we’d so much as heard of James Michener or Magnum P.I. Chef Wong seems like a lovely, sincere, and hospitable man, but the whole traditional Hawaiian prayer before the lunch, featuring a buff, half-naked man, was decidedly uncomfortable and smacked of the sort of retrograde, pandering tourist ethnography that is the hallmark of the Nancy Drew books. (Although, as Miss XaXa pointed out, looking at a half-naked man with perky nipples as he blows a large conch is a form of worship for some people.)

After lunch, Padma Lakshmi informed the finalists that there would be one more Elimination Challenge, and that two of the cheftestants would be sent home. The challenge? To put a personal spin on traditional Hawaiian luau dishes for Chef Wong’s birthday luau.

During the cooking and serving process, Elia went into full-beetch mode about Marcel, complaining about offenses various and sundry. Ilan and Sam then tried to convince Elia that she should say something to the judges about how Marcel cheated: “If I say something, you have to say something.”

At Judges’ Table, the judges spoke long and well about the various dishes, relieved to have the focus finally back on the food. There was even a little scuffle between Padma and Tom over Sam’s dishes, with Tom taking Sam to task because his dishes involved no cooking, just marinating, which Padma insisted was cooking of sorts. (We’re going to borrow Alanis Morissette for a moment to talk about how ironic it was for Tom to make a crudo on the Today show today of all days.)

During Judges’ Table, we were distracted by the outbreak of soul patches among the men on the show, with Ilan being the sole soulless one. We confess we’ve never seen the point of sporting a merkin under one’s mouth, but chacun à son propre goût and all that.

We were snapped out of our soulful contemplation when Tom called Elia on her bullcheat. It was actually Ilan who set the ball rolling, “Elia and I were talking…all of us feel…blah blah blah,” and Elia floated cheating accusations against Marcel. This did not please Tom, who looked on the verge of spontaneous combustion. When pressed for details, Elia was unable to provide any. Sam, who earlier was encouraging her to talk, hung her out to dry, as did Ilan. And Tom let her have it with both barrels, and Padma sent her packing. Pobrecita de Elia. She trusted those two gringo boys, and look what happened. Tsk tsk. You should have remembered the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and the Gadsden Purchase, querida. And then Sam got the axe. Padma was so genuinely verklempft at having to let Sam go that she said Ilan was going to the Top Chef “final” rather than “finale.”

Of course, the episode was full of the usual unintentional double entendres—“feeling the itch in the back part of my hard palate,” “cause a reaction in your throat,” “Ilan’s leg in my lap,” “My poke is the best,” Elia’s unfortunately named “tuna juice” creation—but the real doozies came after the elimination, when Ilan and Marcel were the last two standing. To wit:

Ilan: “I can’t wait to make you cry tomorrow.”
Marcel: “Don’t flatter yourself. It’ll take more than a little paprika to make me cry.”
Ilan: “I’ve got more in my knife kit than paprika.”

For Jeff Stryker’s sake, who writes this stuff? It’s like sub par Gordon Merrick, or premium ChiChi LaRue, the sort of dialogue usually uttered in a scenario featuring tool belts, baby oil, and a Tangerine-Dream-on-Quaaludes soundtrack. Indeed, we nearly got a chortle-induced hernia when the West Coast broadcast we saw carried an ad for “KY Brand Intrigue.” And a friend of ours, a real con-o-sewer of these things, pointed out that “Marcel” and “Ilan” are archetypal Bel Ami names, proving, if proof were needed, that Bravo really has taken the “gay network” crown from Lifetime.

But really, we were most reminded of that Technicolor Western camp classic, Duel in the Sun (referred to by wags as Lust in the Dust), David O. Selznick’s folly of a follow-up to Gone with the Wind, in which Gregory Peck, playing poky cowboy Lewt McCanles, and Jennifer Jones (Mrs. Selznick) in brownface, playing “lusty half-breed” Pearl Chavez, love each other so much that they hate each other. In fact, they hate each other so much that they finish by killing each other. At the end, they have a real humdinger of a shootout in a cinematically craggy landscape, then crawl, bleeding, across the rocks to make out and die in each other’s arms. It’s quite something, and our money’s on Marcel for the Jennifer Jones part. (Why? Just take a look at these choice bits of dialogue: “Under that heathen blanket, there's a full-blossomed woman built by the devil to drive men crazy” & “Pearl, you're curved in the flesh of temptation. Resistance is going to be a darn sight harder for you than females protected by the shape of sows.”)

Miss XaXa's First Reaction: Bearish on the Bull

Oh no he di'int!?!

Did our Frankie the Bull just go all “Al Pacino” on Marcel the Monkey's ass?

Oh yes he did!

Way to go, Frankie, picking on a boy half your size….and over the fact that you left your skanky toiletries in the kitchen!!

Che cazzo, Frankie…in the kitchen! Jeezus, just like my nonna told me, yet another Italian man you gotta clean up after! And Jeezus, Frankie, couldya lay off on repeat watchings of “GoodFellas”? You must be wearing a groove in them–those DVDs. You’re making us “Eye-talians” look real good! In fact, Frankieboy, guys like you are the reason some people still say “Eye-talian”…..

So yeah, pick on someone your own size.

I'm actually beginning to feel sorry for our little monkey! Perhaps Marcel is just a bit “Miss”understood?

First Reaction: The Nasty Bits

We like to think of this episode as an after-school special, where we learned about the importance of choice and consequence, caring and sharing, and getting a good lab partner.

We also learned that Gail Simmons did listen to Miss XaXa’s advice. She was the most fabulous woman on last night’s show, and we saw her in a situation that involved swinging and chandeliers…earrings, that is.

We learned that Tom Colicchio is pro choice, and that he makes a terrible beat cop and probation officer. For him, it’s all about the execution.

We learned that our sweet Elia has been hanging around Madame de Pompadour for too long and has started to pick up his eye-roll and his ‘tude. We’ll explain later in more detail, but we think that, as with much else involving Madame de Pompadour, it involves hair products and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

We learned that sweetbreads are neither sweet nor bread. In consequence, we learned just how tasty lymph nodes can be, so tasty that they gave Sam the win in the Quickfire Challenge.

We learned, much to our shock, that Frankie the Bull doesn’t like “subtle.”

We learned that Madame de Pompadour apparently drinks pig’s blood and may, in fact, be a vampire. Most importantly, though, he had an on-camera therapeutic breakthrough, and we learned about the traumatic prom incident from his youth that led him to retreat into a world of hair gel and alliteration.

We learned that Jennifer Coolidge is a cultural, perhaps even sexual, litmus test. Miss XaXa’s first reaction: “Jennifer who?” Beer Bong’s first reaction: “Stifler’s mom!” Our first reaction: “The hairdresser from Legally Blonde! Snap and bend!”

We learned that, for perhaps the first time in his life, Miss XaXa’s Carlos was forced to bottom, but that he can take it like a man. And a gentleman.

We learned from Chef Michelle Bernstein that, contrary to popular belief, dark lip liner is not a Latin girl’s best friend.

And finally, after Tarte Titass and Josie were sent packing (omigawd, a double execution!), we learned, for the second time this season, that butch girls do cry. (Confidential to Padma: We have it on very good authority that if you keep making the butch girls cry, the Lesbians will make sure you never get within sniffing distance of Stephanie Seymour. If we were you, we wouldn’t go out alone after dusk in New York. You might find yourself in a dark alley with Rosie O’Donnell and a dental dam. If you see a hulking figure in a leather jacket from the Broadway revival of “Grease,” run the other way as fast as your Louboutins will carry you. That’s not the kind of “pink lady” you’re looking to meet.)

First Reaction: Knight of the Long Knives

Oh, noodge, what a show that was.

Little did we know, when we first set out to pontificate on this, how the "Project Runway"-fication of "Top Chef" would proceed by leaps and bounds.

We now have cheating scandalets in every episode and no one got sent home (will we also have a final four this time around?). And anyone who expected Spice Rack to fall on her limited edition Kyocera ceramic sashimi knife had another thing coming. Instead, the long knives were pulled out, Sam revealed himself as Mr. Knightley when it came to those long knives, and we inched closer to reality show nirvana, "Project Runway" meets "Lord of the Flies."

So, again, what did we learn this week?

We learned that we're content to let Bravo exec Raggaydy Andy have Padma. After all, what's the point, since she would never be able to pronounce our name. Honey, it's Ah-MEWS-bee-yotch to you.

Thanks to Raggaydy Andy, we also learned we are getting a whiff of Haley Joel Osment's sixth sense: We see dyke people. And we're in love again. Our fickle, fickle hearts are Goin-Goin-gone.

We learned that everything tastes better with an accent.

We also learned from Elia that the urge to do yoga could strike at any moment, so it's best to carry your yoga mat with you at all times.

We learned that Marcel uses sugar and not Splenda to get his meringue hair to froth up in those peaks. And the mixture of egg whites and sugar is no doubt what keeps alive the white Angora cat residing in there and waiting for its Blofeld moment. (We could have sworn we saw Marcel petting it when he referred to Spice Rack as his "arch nemesis.")

We learned that Miss XaXa's Carlos knows from phallic, and when he tells us something is the most phallic thing he's ever seen, we believe him.

And speaking of dicks, we learned, through Beer Bong, that straight women are less choosy and more forgiving, and straight men luckier, than even we suspected. The proof? Some woman actually actually saw fit to marry Beer Bong. If that's not an argument for gay marriage, I don't what is.

First Reaction: A Bunch of Snotty Little Kids

You could feel it.

Even we could feel it, and we had a head cold. Yes, with this episode, this season of "Top Chef" at long last hit its stride. At first we were a little thrown off, but once we got what this episode was about, namely, slumming, we got it. And we'll get into a bite-sized disquisition on this a little later today, but first let us start with what we learned from this episode.

We learned that Breathe-Rite strips don't work.

We learned that Marcel is really Liberace reincarnated as a Valley girl.

We learned that Padma is, or wants to be, the People's Princess.

We learned that only 38% of Americans eat in "fine dining" restaurants.

We learned that the Redondo Seaside Lagoon existed (and we're from Southern California).

We learned that when it comes to ice cream, Heston Blumenthal of The Fat Duck is He Who Must Not Be Named.

We learned that Humbert Humbert is a diabetic.

We learned about the dangers of sugar for one's posterior and one's periodontist.

We learned that Cliff, who won the Quickfire Challenge, is poised to become "Top Chef's" version of "Project Runway's" Michael.

We learned that bacon can be sassy, that food is for eating, that you can screw up a steak sandwich, that Betty has more nicknames than we can keep track of, and that her lungs are a force of nature.

Finally, we learned that when it rains, it pours, and that Emily is even saltier than she declared. And just when we began to love her, we lost her.