Live Semi-Nude Girl!: Tonight on Bravotv.com, Padma Lakshmi Live! (Well, As Live As She's Ever Gonna Get)

Tonight at 11 p.m. Eastern, Padma Lakshmi will appear live on Watch What Happens, the webcast on Bravotv.com hosted by Bravo VP and online salonnière Raggaydy Andy Cohen, who has previously testified to Padma's powers to turn gay men straight.

Raggaydy Andy takes on all comers, whether by e-mail or telephone, to answer all sorts of questions (and if you ask nicely, he might just indulge your foot fetish while on camera).

So feel free to write or call in with questions for Padma or Andy (did the cure take? is Andy still straight? are follow-up Padma-ings required? what does Padma think of Kelly Wearstler's wardrobe on Top Design? will Padma try to outdo Kelly when Season 3 of Top Chef begins filming? will Padma sport a bikini in Miami? what are the assault laws like in Florida? will Carlos Fernandez be a guest judge? what's up with the Anna Nicole Smith stuff on Bravo? why is Tom Colicchio appearing on Top Design? would Andy advise Tom to shave his soul patch?). We know we'll be watching, if only to see whether Padma has bathed with, er, Herbal Essences; we're definitely looking forward to a totally organic experience.

Katie Lee Joel Heats Up the Purple Carpet in Oven Bag

Possums, we looked at this photograph of Top Chef's Season 1 hostess, Katie Lee Joel, taken at the recent Food Network Awards, and we shook our heads in pity.

Well, before the pity came the hunger. When we buy carnitas, the nice butcher chap gives them to us in the exact same bag that Katie Lee is wearing, and looking at her made us long for pork.

At any rate, Katie Lee, possum, it's a nice try, but don't you think it's a case of "too little, too late"? (Actually, Miss XaXa suggested that it was a case of taking a tinfoil hat to the next level, an entire tinfoil collection.)

Sure, you saw Padma Lakshmi become more popular (or talked about, which is all that matters) than you on the second season of Top Chef. You said to yourself, "What does she have that I don't?" As Yul Brynner used to talk-sing in The King and I, that...is...a puzzlement.

After all, both you and Padma have the affectless delivery and slightly glazed look down pat (as well as youth and rich, pudgy, more famous husbands). You rightfully concluded, then, that Padma's whorendous, fugly outfits gave her the edge, and you decided to campaign for your old job back.

Sorry, possum, you're going to have to do better than that outfit which is both oven bag and turkey. The wrinkling is a nice touch (makes us think of the crumpled wrappers on those hot dogs you get outside Costco), but you're going to have to do a lot more to get into the Padma league. Better luck next time.

P.S. The whole Baby Spice/Katie Holmes look is also worrying us. Call us; we can help.

Padma Lakshmi Re-Animated!

She talks at normal speed! She giggles! She wears dark lipstick! She's Padma, and you'd better watch out, because this time, she's speaking softly and carrying a big curling iron.

Clydesdale Horse of the Apocalypse Clip-Clops Down the Runway, Creates Novel Legal Defense for Demented Astronaughty Lisa Marie Nowak

Call it a hunch, possums, but we get the feeling that whoever did Rachael Ray's hair and make-up to go with the unwisely chosen Donna Karan dress for the Heart Truth fashion show held last week doesn't much care for our oft-petted Clydesdale Horse of the Apocalypse. Ray, a television "hostess," cookbook "author," and, by the looks of it, a former linebacker, doesn't seem particularly comfortable as she does her little turn on the catwalk, you know what we mean?

Still, those stylist bitches backstage really did a number on her. Guerrilla bitches, we salute you for making her look embalmed, indeed, almost like a taxidermist's lemur. Talk about fashion roadkill. And to think we might have lived an entire lifetime without being subjected to the nipples of Rachael Ray's Reader-Proven Small Bazooms™.

Still, her whole Six Feet Under look has given us a brilliant idea.

As you may be aware, astronaut Lisa Marie Nowak (alas, doomed ab initio by her parents' choice of Christian names; as the only other famous Lisa Marie is surnamed Presley, need we say more?) has been charged with attempted murder in a James M. Cain-worthy plot in which she, according to The New York Times, equipped her car with "a compressed air pistol, a steel mallet, a knife, pepper spray, four feet of rubber tubing, latex gloves and garbage bags," and drove from Houston to Orlando while wearing a diaper, a trench coat, and a wig to confront her romantic rival at the airport.

Now, a U.S. Naval Academy woman with a master's degree can't simply content herself with ripping the weave off the bitch who is trying to take the affections of another astronaut whose gestures of common courtesy have been magnified into obsessive, stringy-haired amour fou. No, such a woman must needs douse her rival with pepper spray, and plot to kidnap and possibly kill her.

So what does Rachael Ray have to do with all of this? Well, we're getting to that, but it has nothing to do with adultery, or spitting, or lesbian prostitutes (at any rate, as far as we know).

Remember the mocked "Twinkie defense" (yes, we know it never really happened, and has been debunked, but bear with us), which was associated with Dan White, who gunned down San Francisco mayor George Moscone and gay martyr Harvey Milk? Well, it's just possible that space-high Lisa Marie might be able to use something of that concept here, and all thanks to Rachael Ray.

As we reported in December, "NASA asked [Rachael Ray] to create meals for the space shuttle. Thai chicken was the favorite." Captain Nowak is a NASA astronaut, and in fact flew on the space shuttle last year, and was scheduled to work on an upcoming mission. Presumably she's been exposed to Rachael Ray's food as a result. So, we ask you, might she not legitimately assert a Thai Chicken Defense? Might not a Rachael Ray product have driven her over the edge? Might not the chicken dish, created by a woman who may well know what it's like to have her man's affections toyed with, have driven her mad so that she didn't know right from wrong? It's the M'Naughton rule in a delicate coconut-milk curry. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, when faced with this case, we ask you to spit. You must acquit.

Padma Lakshmi Weekly Fashion Review: Wherein Amuse-Biatch Contemplates Western Values, Baldness, & the World's 28th Most Beautiful Lady in Red

Quickfire Challenge Outfit

We don't know whether "Mom's" letter has taken the wind out of our sails and inspired us to be nicer, or whether our synapses have just up and quit, but Padma's Quickfire Challenge Outfit appears very nearly to have robbed us of the power of speech. All we can say is, it's Hall of Shame fugly.

We mentioned yesterday that in Mistress of Spices, Padma played "a woman who has grown up in America and adopted western [sic] ways," but we didn't think it was "western" in the John Wayne/Sergio Leone sense. On the other hand, thinking back on it (e.g., the Thanksgiving episode, the firehouse challenge), she does seem to have been working a whole frontier theme this season. She's definitely prospecting for prospects. Westward ho indeed.

In order to placate "Mom," we'll say that we really like her bracelet, and that the hair is looking good, if a little stringy at the ends. But oy, the rest of it. The jeans, combined with the bell-shaped abomination that is her "vest," give her that unfortunate "muffin top" that is the scourge of women everywhere. Only the anorexic look good in those jeans, and no one wants to look at the anorexic anyway.

As for that vest, it makes her look like she is hiding a Kleenex box on either side of her navel. Go ahead, pull out the Kleenex; there's another right behind it. And oy, the itty-bitty lapels, which manage to be both twee and sexually suggestive--never a good combination. Hilary Duff, anyone? And what is it made of? Cambric and chamois? Cheesecloth and felt? Even Ilan Hall's tartare on the plate seems to be blushing in the presence of such fuglitude. What a way to ring in the new year.

This is the sort of outfit that will prompt, and has prompted, many to ask: Who dresses her? Does she have a stylist? If so, will the stylist soon find himself at the bottom of the East River with one of Philip Bloch's newsboy caps in his mouth and a thin mustache drawn on with a Bobbi Brown eyebrow pencil?

Fortunately, button-eyed boy reporter Raggaydy Andy comes through with the answer in this morning's interview of the Padma:

THERE HAS BEEN SO MUCH DRAMA ABOUT YOUR CLOTHES THIS SEASON! DID YOU HAVE A STYLIST OR WHAT?
No I don't have a stylist. Top Chef did have a costumer on the set who worked for all of us and would help us and pull clothes. We would look at what we were going to shoot and what I was going to wear. I change twice - for the quickfire - like at the fish market - and at judge's table.

No stylist. Fancy that. We never would have known.














Elimination Challenge Outfit

We don't have a lot to say about this outfit. The dress generally fits well, and the color is quite good for her. When she mentioned to Ted Allen that the Debi Mazar dinner party was sinful, he said, "So that's why you're wearing a red dress."

However, we're not crazy about the sleeves, which are neither tight enough to be sexy, nor loose and delicate enough to be feminine. They look like the sleeves of a teeshirt that has been worn once too often. And, Padma, would it kill you to wear a little jewelry? Your bosom, though stirring, looks a little unadorned. Perhaps some red taro chips? And we would suggest a tad more make-up, or at least a redder shade of lipstick.

Padma does come through with one fabulous idea, which we intend to appropriate tout de suite. It's a wonder no one has thought of it earlier. It's worthy of Diana Vreeland, e.g., Why don't you, when having glamour photographs taken, have a bald man on either side of you to serve as a reflector? The light is warmer than what you get from a conventional reflector, and picks up the highlights in your hair, and if you're lucky, one of the bald men will be straight.

Speaking of, the other thing that interested us was the position of Tom "Handsy" Colicchio's paw. Now, mind you, we're not implying anything untoward, but that paw on her right shoulder does seem awfully possessive, and Chef Colicchio has been very hands-on where Padma is concerned. We remember a number of challenges where the Colicchio arm has been around her shoulder or her waist (e.g., the Quickfire Challenge during the Thanksgiving episode). Given his general scary leather daddy-bear demeanor, it seems a little uncharacteristic. Just sayin'. (On the other hand, it's always the leather bears who have doilies at home, so go figure.)

It does lead us to something else we've been noticing and that was especially prominent during the last episode, namely, that Padma appears to work better with men. She has been much livelier and more energetic and appealing when the guest judges have been men (e.g., Raphael Lunetta), and she has done especially well with Ted Allen. They make a lovely couple, and he seems to bring out something playful and willowy in her that isn't there when Gail Simmons is around.

But are we overly sensitive, or was there something slightly awkward when the judges "sent" her to get the contestants for judges' table, and she says, "I'll be right back, gentlemen"? It struck us as more "Get us Beer Bong" than "Get us a beer," but still, there was something odd about it. We would have said, "You should go, Tom. You could use the exercise." But that's just us.

Amuse-Biatch Spies with Its Queer Little Eye on Ted Allen

Try, if you can, to tear your eyes away from the appliqué patterns on Padma's sleeve. (If you turn your head 27 degrees to the left, stand on your right foot, and squint at Padma's sleeve, you will discover what Dan Brown and the Church have been trying to hide for millennia--that it wasn't Audrey Tautou, but Sir Ian McKellen, who was the direct descendant of Jesus, because Mary Magdalen was actually John the Baptist in drag [like Nathan Lane in The Birdcage, with Jesus taking the Robin Williams role], and that the Last Supper was served on Fiestaware, of which Leonardo Da Vinci was the first great collector).

Now focus, if you will, on the "attractively" tanned man to the left of Obama-like Top Chef mentor write-in candidate Ted Allen. Who is that man? Is it Ted Allen's boyfriend, or another character actor on Studio 60? Do tell us if you know.

Padma Lakshmi Weekly Fashion Review

Well, possums, now that Christmas and Boxing Day are over, the lumps of coal are rainin' down a-plenty. In other words, it's time once again for our regular scholarly exegesis of Padma Lakshmi's fashion choices on the latest episode.

Quickfire Challenge Outfit

We admit, possums, that we had high hopes for Padma on the basis of the preview shown the week before the show aired. Cannily, the preview showed only Padma's outfit for the Quickfire Challenge, and only the upper portion at that. We saw a fleeting vision of a black chiffon-looking blouse with what appeared to be ruching, and Padma's hair pulled back into a ponytail. Elegant, classy, restrained...could it be?

As you can see from the photo, it wasn't quite that, but, really, there's not much for us to get worked up about. No, she didn't pair the top with a pencil skirt, as we had hoped, but at least she didn't trot out the Girl Scout shorts. And yes, the top isn't as elegant as it seemed to be, and if you look quickly, it rathers looks like the standard black, Saturday-night muscle-shirt-turned-disco-shirt you might find in Chelsea or West Hollywood. But at least it's not denim, and she's not sporting Farrah hair and a fireman's badge. We do, however, have an issue with the top being open at the midriff. Without wishing to be ungallant, and conceding ab initio that we're no ab initiates (we've always suspected there's a reason "abstinence" begins with "abs"), it does appear (as we have seen from other photographs) that Padma has issues with a little stomach pooch, and so perhaps it might not be wise to expose it like that. Now, now, we're not calling her fat or pointing out any muffin-tops; we're just seeking to spare her unpleasant reminders from people cattier than we (we've been told such people do actually exist).

So, overall, not a wonderful outfit, but not bad either. A fairly good effort, we say. Well-done, Padma, luv; it's a step in the right direction.

Elimination Challenge Outfit

Now, the Elimination Challenge is another story entirely. It's positively whorendous.

Let's start with the obvious. We've got nothing against yellow. It's one of our favorite colors, and it can certainly look festive and elegant (see Michelle Williams in Vera Wang and Cate Blanchett in Valentino at the Academy Awards). But Jesus, Padma, that dress is the color of mustard from a hot dog that fell on your white shirt during lunch and that only now, when it is five o' clock and the stain has dried and stiffened, you are realizing is there. Miss XaXa, being Southern and thus given to more colorful and straightforward invective, put it somewhat less delicately: "She looks like a baby shit smear on stilts."

A color that's all wrong for her skin tone was not the only problem with the dress. In principle, we have nothing against appliqué patterns, and they don't look awful on the skirt, but they're simply too heavy and stiffen the skirt in an unflattering way, preventing it from hanging and skimming in that bouncy 60s style that was no doubt the intention. The stiffness also makes the length seem wrong. The cleavage is appropriate, but ill-fitting. And the sleeves, oy, the sleeves. Was this some kind of Renaissance allusion? Is there some Da Vinci Code message hidden in the pattern? All in all, badly done, Padma, badly done.

Now, in principle, we have no quarrel with Padma's footwear here. Yes, shiny, knee-high boots are a little whorish, a mixture of hussar and hussy, but let us not forget that this is supposed to be a holiday party, and that Christmas derives from the Roman celebration of Saturnalia. And if you can't be a little whorish in an atmosphere of copious alcohol, butter, flour, cream, nutmeg, seasonal affective disorder, loneliness, and mistletoe, where can you strut your "Puss in Boots" stuff? Besides, how objectionable can the boots be if even a gap-toothed, ivory-tickling, butch-femme lesbian Secretary of State can wear them to Germany of all places? Talk about Sourpuss in Boots.

However, all of that being said, we do have an objection to Padma's boots, and it's this. They make her legs look like Mia Gaines-Alt's handrolls in the sushi challenge.

Fugg Boots Are Made for Walkin': "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" Edition

We may have many fetishes, but dead horse-beating isn't one of them.

Still, when, after being shot, the horse gets up and charges at you, nostrils flaring, cheap extensions in its tossing mane, what are you supposed to do if not reach for the Winchester '73 one more time?

Which is an oblique way of saying, Good God, why didn't anyone warn us? Raggaydy Andy Cohen of Bravo did put out a sort of Gay Surgeon General's Warning about Padma's bikini top, but no one said anything about how, to continue the horse metaphor, she would be shod.

We didn't notice it the first time, but... she's... wearing... Ugg boots! And that, possums, makes this a horse of a different color.

A reader and amateur semiotician had suggested that Padma's hodgepodge, Lindsay-Lohan-on-a-bender-at-Beyoncé's-house look was a cry for a help, a covert message to the world at large. We were skeptical at first, but the Ugg boots changed our mind.

After all, we reasoned, when it comes to wearing a bikini, Padma Lakshmi Rushdie can look like this.













So why on earth would she appear looking the way she did, echoing an underfed Jessica Simpson in the collective national embarrassment that was "The Dukes of Hazzard" (and which Miss XaXa, Southerner that she is, dubbed, ahem, "Puss in Boots")?

Naturally, we thought about burglar alarms. We had just heard that if a burglar comes upon you and tries to force his way inside your house, forcing you to disable the alarm, you can enter the alarm code backwards, which will indeed disable the alarm, but also send out a silent alert to the police, who, if you've picked the right ZIP code, paid your property taxes, and chosen the right skin color, will be there in a matter of minutes to rescue you.

So, we asked ourselves, could it be? Could Padma's bikini, 'do-rag and Ugg boots be a distress call, a giant sartorial Bat(ty) Signal launched into the darkening skies of basic cable?

We looked into the hanky code, trying to determine whether Padma was attempting to send secret messages through her choice of bandana. However, as we discovered, it makes a huge difference whether you think the bandana is "brown" or "sandalwood," a difference of the sort that we couldn't possibly print, even though we are a "family" publication (in that sly, Sly and the Family Stone sort of way).

(Still, if you'd like to know, e-mail us and we'll whisper it in your ear. And should any of you "don't ask, don't tell" Pentagon codebreakers, Lacanian grad students at Yale, or Umberto Eco disciples at the University of Bologna have any insights, please feel free to chime in.)

However, the more we looked at the original photograph, the more the conspiracy spun out. Look closely. Tom Colicchio, conscientious judge that he is, looks intently focused on the food. Gail Simmons, in her Gap gaucho capris (gaupris?), is distracted by guest chef Raphael Lunetta, he of the adorable "pott bellee" (as Maria de Medeiros pronounced it in Pulp Fiction), because really, who wouldn't be? And if Marcel couldn't resist him, why should Gail?

So....Tom, Gail, and Raphael are distracted. Now look at Padma. She's--could it be?--texting. She's seized her chance. Dear God, she's Sidekicking and screaming for help! How fast can she type "I'm a celebrity, get me out here!"? (Or was it something about Soylent Green and departed cheftestants?)

Amuse Biatch Denies Going on a Drunken Rampage in Malibu and Calling Padma Lakshmi "Sugartits"

Lord knows we love our Raggaydy Andy Cohen--Bravo VP, faygella & gay fella extraordinaire--in all his button-eyed, coy-grinned, scatterbrained adorableness, but sometimes we worry about him.

In today's installment of his blog, Raggaydy Andy takes aims at certain people:

"By the way, I for one am getting a little tired of the griping about Padma's clothes being inappropriate for the kitchen. We've got one of the few models who has written a cookbook and can speak with authority about food, so why not make the best of both situations!? Being Jewish, I was raised to believe that models who know about food should look as white-hot as possible while tasting and discussing food. Thus, I am hereby putting it out there that anyone who thinks Padma looks inappropriate just might be cloaking some form of anti-semitism in their comments and might want to look within instead of at Padma. By the way, there is a bikini top in next week's episode, which I was consulted about in advance and wholeheartedly approved. I'm just warning everybody. Change the channel if offended!"

Our first response to that is, Do two "by the ways" in a row leave you by the wayside? But that's just by the by.

We have looked within, and we've come up with several things. First of all, and not that it matters, but we're honorary Jews. Just ask our exes and our friends, who bestowed the title during a lovely ceremony at Nate 'n' Al's. Look at our birth certificate. Look down our pants. Look at our list of links on the right. Who else would even use the word "midrash"? (Well, perhaps Britney Spears in describing her symptoms after riding in Paris Hilton's Maybach with Lindsay Lohan and no underpants on. But we digress.)

Of course there is a great Jewish tradition that includes Maimonides, Spinoza, and Walter Benjamin, who indeed wrote that "models who know about food should look as white-hot as possible while tasting and discussing food." Pardon us for being legalistic and what-not, but the essential phrase is "models who know about food." Would you say that a model who can't even, despite repeated instruction, pronounce "amuse-bouche" knows about food? We thought not. Padma is thus not protected by rabbinical law from scrutiny.

Secondly, the rabbinical injunction is for such a model who knows about food, and who is thus above rubies ("Pshaw!" exclaims Miss XaXa. "Every woman is above rubies, though most are not above a diamond or two."), to "look as white-hot as possible."

And therein lies the rub. Take a look at the picture Raggaydy Andy posts with his blog entry. In legal terms, res ipsa loquitur. In American vernacular: bitch speaks for herself. Q.E.D., girlfriend.

Our complaint is not that Padma's clothes are inappropriate for the kitchen. We have known of people cooking in nothing but an apron and a goofy postcoital grin, so clearly we're not sticklers for chef's whites. Our beef is that Padma's outfits, almost without exception, are beyond bad-- knowingly, willfully, almost maliciously, fugly.

In that picture, Raggaydy Andy himself is the only one who looks good, in his pastel polo and Chelsea-toned forearms. But Padma? Those are the same black riding pants that make her look like a bowlegged Dickensian orphan with rickets. The pink top screams LPGA dyke. And the pigtails? A cross between a maid at Motel 6 and a pedophile's wet dream.

So bring it on, Andy. We can handle the bikini top. In fact, if you look at our archives, we've long been advocating for the return of the silver lamé bikini and the live lobsters. Can you make our dream come true?

Breaking "Newsies": Padma Lakshmi Offered Dual Role on "Deadwood" as Calamity Jane, Whore

Ok, bitch is just taunting us now. We complained last week that Padma's outfit for the Quickfire Challenge made her look like a bowlegged Dickensian orphan, but it's as if she didn't hear us at all. She showed up this week for the Quickfire Challenge wearing that, that, thing. Padma, luv, we may have spoken of Dickensian orphans, but we certainly didn't say, "Please, we want some more." Are we meant to be singing, "Boobs, Glorious Boobs"?

"Careful now," Miss XaXa warned us. "Go easy on the 'Oliver Twist' jokes or she might just mispronounce Fagin in your general direction. Look at what she does with 'amuse-bouche.'"

We decided that Miss XaXa had a point, as we suffer violent, antimacassar-rattling seizures whenever we hear Padma say, "AH-moose booj." It might well require laudanum and a bit of wood between our teeth (as well as an intervention by Rosie O'Donnell) if we were to hear her say that her outfit is from the "Faggin Ragamuffin" Collection by Viktor & Rolf for H&M.

"Very well," we said to Miss XaXa. "Maybe her outfit, that vest, and the shirt with those itty-bitty leg-0'-mutton sleeves..."

"If they're so small," interrupted Miss XaXa, "shouldn't they be called leg-o'-lamb sleeves?"

Feeling another one of our headaches coming on, we returned to playing with our netsuke collection and conceded the point. "Really," we continued, "the whole thing looks like it came from the Deadwood wardrobe department. It simply screams claim jumpers, mud, and moth-eaten buffalo pelts. She could be playing Calamity Jane."

"Judging by what's she wearing during the Elimination Challenge, and the way that Bourdain guy's looking at her," observed Miss XaXa, "she could be playing one of the whores, too."

"Padma puttanesca," we giggled, savoring the acid reflux of a bad joke.

"Anyway," continued Miss XaXa, "for my money, she looks like she was in that Disney movie Newsies. Remember? That musical about the newsboys? Kenny Ortega is an unsung genius. And by the way, have you noticed how lately you really sound like Stewie Griffin's prissier bachelor uncle?"

We fixed her with one beady brown eye. She has yet to figure out which of the two statements cut deepest. A genius, indeed!

Episode Three, Part 2: She Stoops to Conquer, Conks to Stupor

It's time (drumroll, please!) for the Elimination Challenge. At the Kenmore Kitchen, the People's Princess goes West. Yes, indeed. Padma, thoroughly at ease with the slumming theme, looks boot-scoot-ready in the latest from the DenimDumbDown Collection by Reba for Wal-Mart. We're talking tight jeans, midriff, cleavage, bare arms, big belt buckle, big hair, big smile -- like a backup dancer in a Billy Ray Cyrus video, or as if she were starring in a Sergio Leone version of Brokeback Mons Veneris.

She introduces the guest judge, a pudgy man with unfortunate facial hair who struts in as if expecting recognition. We waver for a moment. Are we supposed to know him? Come to think of it, we don't know what Thomas Keller, a friend of Colicchio's, looks like....But, to the guest judge's chagrin, the contestants look equally blank. And with good reason. Padma introduces him as Stephen Bugarelli, some sort of executive chef for TGIFriday's. Oh, him. We prefer to call him Boog.

The challenge, then, is to create a dish that will be craved by the craven at TGIFriday's. Boog asks the cheftestants to take a childhood favorite of theirs and give it an adult twist, which for a moment makes us think of Alice in Wonderland in a garter belt. The winning entrée will appear on the menu at something like 500 TGIFriday's locations, which puzzles us. Surely there are more than 500 of these abysmal places across this great land of ours?

We notice that Padma is completely loose and flirty during all of this. She is really getting into the whole slumming thing. They'll have the afternoon to shop, and a budget of $100, then a few hours' prep time, but the dishes will be finished at a firehouse in South Pasadena. My God, she's grinning! Well, firemen would put a smile on our faces, too.

And they're off to the races! Well, to shop...at Wild Oats! That's right, mes enfants, products from Wild Oats are being used to create dishes for TGIFriday's. Our minds boggle just a little, too. But as we said, the theme is slumming, so what could be more perfect?

At Wild Oats, Emily is fretting because she is not a "turn and burner" (though given what happens in the episode, she qualifies for "crash and burner"). Used to working with the best chefs in four-star establishments, comfort food isn't what she does. At a loss, she opts for surf and turf, which we think wise under the circumstances; our Butch Cassidy has undoubtedly surfed the turf before. Meanwhile, Beer Bong once again lives down to his nickname by taking a little from the till to buy beer for himself, "a little something for the kids," as he says. But this puts him over the $100 budget. Wait, do we have another scandalet on our hands? Alas, no. Beer Bong returns some cheese that he was planning to use for his steak sandwich (can you have a steak sandwich without cheese?) so he can pay for his $8 beer.

During the Food Montage sequence, when Chef Colicchio walks around in his dark blue chef's coat (no doubt picked because the dark blue is slimming and complements his eyes, and we have no problem with this), Spice Rack greets him with one of the best pick-up lines we've heard in a while: "Is it against the rules for you to taste my soup?" Ever the gentleman, he accepts, provided he doesn't have to comment on it. She says she will read it in his eyes, but he's one of those men who close their eyes, you know the type, and so she gets nothing.

Spice Rack is working next to Madame de Pompadour, who continually talks to himself and the camera, as if he were already on his own cooking show, telling us that the key to a proper breading technique is to keep one hand dry at all times. Wink, wink, Marcel. It's as convincing as Ellen DeGeneres' performance as a straight woman in "Mr. Wrong," and does nothing for Spice Rack: "That man is rubbing me the wrong way, and I really think it comes down to the fact that he's just pontificating to make himself sound as though he's more experienced than he is." Madame de Pompadour's sin is that he doesn't believe comfort food is on the same level as fine dining. In Spice Rack's opinion, "the most important thing about being a top chef is versatility." We are reminded that Spice Rack is from Hollywood, which places a premium on versatile tops.

To the strains of "tense music," courtesy once again of the closed captioning, we travel to the firehouse in South Pasadena. Judging by the looks she gets, Padma's cowgirl outfit goes over well with the firemen. Annie certainly got their guns. Making small talk with the commoners, Princess Padma asks the firemen, "Do you guys cook?" And later, as a mustachioed fireman tries not to look at her cleavage, she throws him a lifeline, "Are you ready to eat?" Not to be outdone in slumming or cleavage, stellar Canadian Gail comes out in jeans and a clinging, low-cut chocolate-brown tank top that does full justice to her Royal Mounties.

First up is Beer Bong's steak sandwich with onion rings. He quickly gets burned by the firemen: "It's greasy, it's chewy, it's like its presentation...it's very sloppy." Next up is Madame de Pompadour, who is also making onion rings to go with his pork chops and mashed potatoes. Unfortunately for Madame de Pompadour, in frying up his onion rings, Beer Bong brought down the temperature of the oil in the deep fryer. Madame de Pompadour's attempts at onomatopoeia to describe his little, lonely test onion ring sinking to the bottom of the fryer are precious: "Doo doo doo doo." Indeed.

Good old Elia jumps in to help him, and all she gets for her troubles is Marcel mocking her accent in the interview describing her efforts. Worst of all, he can't even manage a Mexican accent; the best he can do is a French accent that wouldn't fool Anna Nicole Smith. In fact, his French accent is so bad in general that when he finally serves his dish to Padma, he calls her "Mademoiselle" and pronounces it just like the name of the magazine. How can a man whose name is Marcel Vigneron and who works for Joël Robuchon talk like this? He should just change his name to Mark Vines and get the farce over with.

He is so upset at having had to serve his dish without the onion rings that he says, "I need a punching bag." Well, Mark, Spice Rack's got two of 'em. But she actually throws the first punch, telling him, "Anything that'll fuck you up is fair." Pulling out her Roget's, she tells him, "You're a selfish, self-centered, egotistical bastard."

He pulls out his own copy of Roget's from his pompadour: "I'm just astonished and appalled, utterly appalled, that she's trying to call me out like this." We let out a mad cackle at his version of "shocked, sir, shocked," especially at the awesomely unconvincing way he rolls his eyes heavenward and flutters his eyelashes and smiles when he says the word "utterly," the rapture of a preacher's daughter getting to second base.

Emily's up next, and her dish, Super Slammin' Surf and Turf, is slammed as thrice "salty" and inedible. Frankie the Bull's dish follows, and in perhaps the night's best pot-calling-the-kettle-black moment, Beer Bong (the pot in more ways than one) says of Frankie's dish: "It's a train wreck."

When Cliff's dish of fish sticks and macaroni comes out, Padma even stoops to slang and familiarity, telling the firemen, "Don't bogart the plate, my friends." Padma, using the word "bogart," which Miss XaXa says is particular to the Northeast?!?! Now, it's not exactly Princess Diana touching the AIDS patient in front of the cameras, but it's certainly a prime example of people's-princess behavior. And look what familiary breeds. When Padma finishes her portion of Sam's dish, one of the firemen says to her, "Do you want us to get you a straw for that?" Poor Padma just seems to invite fellatio-related innuendo when she eats with men on the show. Will Salman Rushdie ever let her out of the house again?

It's Spice Rack's turn to serve her grilled cheese sandwiches and roasted pepper soup. Unfortunately for her, the griddle is not cooperating. Marcel swoops in just as the real Madame de Pompadour did when Marie-Louise O'Murphy tried to displace her as Louis XV's mistress. He sits and gives her what he calls the "blazing eyes." He also asks her taunting, bitchy questions in what, given his strain of Valleygirlitis, is surprisingly complex and correct grammar: "The griddle is not as hot as you would have liked for it to have been?" Spice Rack responds like a properly trained Versailles courtesan: "Did anyone hear a gnat? Something annoying?" Meeeow!

We want to see hair-pulling, but it is not to be. Spice Rack manages to grill her sandwiches and present her dishes just in time. She introduces herself to the firemen as "Badabing Betty" and mentions that her dish includes "sassy bacon." We shudder to think what Frankie the Bull will do when he finds out that she's calling herself "Badabing"; she's not part of la famiglia and what does she know from "Badabing"?

At the Judges' Table, Boog tells the others that he is disappointed. He expected more "adventurism," "innovative" and "creative" dishes. Huh? Has he forgotten that he works for TGIFriday's? Still, there were some bright spots, and Cliff, Sam, and Betty emerge as the top three. When Spice Rack wins, she lets out such a scream that you can literally see the judges being blown back in their chairs, like in the old Memorex ads.

The bottom three in this challenge to create updated childhood favorites are Frankie the Bull, Butch Cassidy and Beer Bong. When he first saw Frankie the Bull's Alice in Wonderland mushroom fantasy, Chef Colicchio's two-snaps-worthy reaction was, "Is the childhood memory a drug experience?" After Frankie tries to defend the dish as "conceptual," Gail fillets him with, "Food is for eating."

Butch Cassidy is once again turned and burned over the coals for having produced an inedible and salty dish. Padma then rubs salt in her wounds, asking in her most imperious tone, "The corn, was that fresh corn?" A battered Butch Cassidy admits it wasn't. "We felt that," says Padma, in her most damning tone. Ouch. Beer Bong and his sloppy steak sandwich fare no better, and it's even more humiliating because Beer Bong actually once toiled at TGIFriday's (shocker of the night). The three cheftestants are dismissed while the judges weigh their decision.

While waiting for the verdict, Butch Cassidy bawls her eyes out. People's Princess or not, Padma has broken our Emily, and it's not looking good for her. And how awful that it should happen just as we were beginning to worship her and her wicked, salty, misanthropic tongue. Beer Bong seems suddenly to be very drunk, so we suspect some long while must have elapsed while the judges deliberated and Beer Bong pounded the 8-dollar brewskis. Beer Bong starts flailing, yelling out, "I'll beat the fuck out of all those motherfuckers." He then announces, "I need more booze." Ah, that's our Beer Bong. And a spine-tingling prediction: "That Tom and I are going to have to duke it out before this is over."

This promise of drama is what may have saved Beer Bong to fight another day and sealed Emily's fate. Unable to abandon her fine dining standards, and salty to boot, she is told to pack her knives. As another Emily once wrote, because she could not stoop for TGIF's, it kindly stooped for her.