Virginia Woolf and Padma Lakshmi Be Damned, Uncle Ted Allen Finally Gets a Judges’ Table of His Own

Possums, the first thing you have to know is that, whatever else people who have not seen the show may say, Chopped, the Ted Allen-hosted cooking-competition show premiering tonight at 10 p.m. on Food Network, is not, we repeat, not a “Top Chef rip-off.”

As Uncle Ted himself put it, on Chopped, “[t]here is no sleep deprivation, no ‘Big Brother’ house full of bunk beds and cameras, no booze-fueled personal drama (as much as we all love the brainwashing and catfights on that certain show I used to judge).”

Or, as Miss XaXa put it, with Chopped you get no nuts.

That’s not to say there aren’t any fireworks. As Uncle Ted told us yesterday during a presser, “There is a lot of drama, [and] buckets of tears come out, [but] all the drama comes from the cooking.”

That’s right—Chopped is a straightforward cooking competition. Each self-contained episode features four young chefs and sous-chefs, mostly from the New York area, in a one-time competition for a $10,000 prize. The contestants have 30 minutes to prepare an entrée that must include all the ingredients in a mystery basket. The entrée is judged by a panel of chefs and the least favorite is, you guessed it, chopped. The remaining three contestants then prepare a main dish using yet another mystery basket of ingredients, and again the judges’ least favorite is chopped. The final two contestants prepare dessert with a third mystery basket of ingredients, the loser is chopped, and the winner gets the dough. Easy as pie, n’est-ce pas?

That’s it, which means that, unlike on Top Chef, “[t]here are no team or catering challenges. Best of all, there is no product placement, so you never see passionate lovers of good food being forced to use packaged convenience junk thanks to Kraft/ Altria/ Exxon’s sponsorship.”

(We loved seeing Uncle Ted playfully but deservedly nibble on the well-manicured but grubby hand that occasionally fed him.)

Sad as we are that we no longer get to see him on Top Chef (and that we were consequently saddled with Toby Young), we are, of course, delighted that Uncle Ted now has his very own show. Instead of merely being a guest at Tom and Padma’s table, the table is all his now. We were intrigued by a little move he gets to do on Chopped, removing a silvery cloche dish cover. During the presser, we asked him whether, as a gay man, he felt he had done it better than a straight host might have (we wouldn’t advise Tyler Florence to try the giveaway move). Uncle Ted conceded that one might perform the move in countless ways—“You could just pick it up like you’re picking up a cat, or with a flourish like a bullfighter with a cape”—but in the end he copped, not immodestly, to “extraordinary élan” in raising that cloche.

We encourage you to savor his extraordinary élan as Food Network raises the cloche on Chopped, tonight at 10 p.m.

(We are working on an exclusive interview with Uncle Ted, which we will bring to you forthwith, in which he discusses, among other things, seeing Padma Lakshmi naked. Miss XaXa, not to be outdone, replied, “Oh please. Everyone’s seen her naked. Practically every Monday on this blog.”)

Topping Leads Dale "Caveman Hands" Levitski to Victory

Cobbler topping, of course, possums.

His prize?
















A cameo on Noah's Arc.

Cheftestant Sara Nguyen Attacked by Angry Tam-o’-Shanters!

Well, at least according to the translator who renders Carlos Fernandez's blog into Spanish for Yahoo! Telemundo.

We're beginning to suspect that the Spanish translation of Carlos' blog is being done as a collaboration between Google Translator and Thomas Bowdler.

As regards Sara and the Tam-o'-Shanters (not a bad name for a band, Miss XaXa points out), Carlos' original text reads, "Oh, those raging Scotch Bonnets. They look so cute, but ouch." The Spanish reads, "Ay esas rabiosas gorras escocesas se ven tan monas, pero ¡ay!" The translator apparently doesn't know that Scotch bonnets are chile peppers (the Spanish equivalent would be "chiles habaneros"), and has translated the term literally. Thus, to a Spanish-speaker, the sentence seems like a tag line for the remake of Brigadoon as a horror film. Beware the rage of the tam-o'-shanter!

And while we're at it, since when are "webisode" and "wrap" (as in "wraps de lechuga") Spanish words? And, of course, there are spelling mistakes (and FYI, blood orange is supposed to be translated as "naranja sanguina," not just "naranja"; an orange and a blood orange are not the same thing).

Perhaps most annoying of all is the bowdlerization. The translator (presumably) has edited the blog to remove even Carlos' mild attempts at ribaldry, and has excised all mention of Carlos' husband Chuck and their Monday evening outings. Do they not want people to know Carlos is naughty and gay? Chica, puhleeze!

Somebody get our Chulo Chef a better translator, pronto.

“Top Chef” Shocker! Gay Cannibal Declines to Eat Tom Colicchio!!

You know, possums, it must be difficult for journalists to resist BabbaWawwics, the urge to ask kooky questions that will elicit revealing answers, e.g., Barbara Walters’ own immortal, if perhaps somewhat apocryphal, “What kind of tree would you be?”

This may perhaps explain why the boys at gay news website AfterElton.com posed this question to Top Chef judge Ted Allen:

“You’re trapped on a deserted island with Tom Colicchio, Carson Kressley and Rupert Everett. Whom do you eat to survive, and how would you prepare them?”

Our first reaction was to say, “Congratulations, possums, on making another successful connection between gays and cannibalism! Gay blood libel, yay!”

Actually, if we’re honest, our first reaction was, “Nice going on the ‘whom.’”

Miss XaXa, as usual, was a bit more sanguine, “Oh come on, they just wanted to ask a dirty question. What’s wrong with that? Besides, he’s not a cannibal. Maneater, maybe; cannibal, no. Look at those adorably rabbity front teeth. He eats carrots, not people.”

She did, however, have a problem with Ted Allen’s answer, which was:

“First of all, I’m not eating Carson. He’d be all stringy. Carson is a little too lean. Tom Colicchio is a delicious-looking man, but I think I’d have to go with Rupert. Many of us in the community would find him the most delicious. If we’re on a desert island, I’d dig a pit. Something spicy or sort of Caribbean would be good for Rupert Everett.”

“Rupert Everett?!?” sneered Miss XaXa. “He’s like that rib you throw back on the platter because there’s not enough meat. Not worth the mess.”

Did we mention that Miss XaXa is from the South?

Our objection was, “Rupert Everett is so venomous that eating him would be like eating fugu.”

“Don’t you mean ‘fagu’?”

We had to concede the justness of that.

Still, seeing as how Tom Colicchio is all meat, the very definition of “beefy,” we were at a loss to explain Ted Allen’s answer. But then it hit us: this was an LSAT question, a logic puzzle.

Let’s say you were stranded on a desert island with hot daddybear Tom Colicchio, Carson Kressley, and Rupert Everett. You may be there for years, or however long it takes J.J. Abrams to screw up the concept, and you want to end up with Tom. What do you do? First, you get rid of the competition. Rupert Everett is much better-looking than Carson Kressley, and if anybody’s going to turn Tom gay, it would be Rupert. And so, pet to pot. That leaves Carson, who is indeed stringy, but since Tom is such a good chef, he would be able to give him the Crafsteak treatment and tenderize him. And that leaves you and Tom.

Ted Allen, you’re a genius. We’re sorry we ever doubted you.

Hung Jury Still Out

As you know all too well, possums, Bravo’s self-promotion is relentless.

But during Wednesday night’s premiere of Top Chef, it seemed that the promos for Kathy Griffin’s show were coming at the rate of one every other minute (we surmise even the Cubans don’t have to put up with that much Fidel on their televisores). As such, we think Miss XaXa can be forgiven for channeling Bravo’s seemingly new Fearless Leader halfway through the TC3 premiere and yelling the party slogan, “Where are my Gays?!”

Ubi sunt her Gays indeed. Hell, where are ours?

Not that she’s fickle, but Miss XaXa pressed the point, “Where is my Carlos for this season?”

It made us check and replace the batteries on our gaydar, for we heard only the faintest twittering during the show. No immediate sexual tension, no knives-as-phalluses metaphors, no bunkbeds (though that hot-tub does bring with it the hope of a new Mike-Melissa-and-Flora thing, but if we were you, we wouldn’t admit to getting that allusion).

(Yes, of course, there is Dale, he of the faux fauxhawk, but if you recall our screeds on the hermeneutics of homo hair from last season with respect to Marcel and Ilan, you will understand our dismay at the fauxhawk as a gay signifier. As Miss XaXa put it, “I mean, is it ‘cause he’s from Chicago?” And don’t even get us started on the whole Dickensian urchin look he sported during the Elimination Challenge, with those Oliver Twist manpris and boot-things. We’re all for “food, glorious food,” but how can you “consider yourself a [Gay], consider yourself one of the family”?)

Does that mean, then, that Hung might just be our Great Gay Hope?

(Mind you, we’re not discounting Sandee as a possibility for this season’s Josie, down to the twee ‘50s first names. Though her Bravo bio doesn’t say anything on the subject as such, the four people for whom she wants to cook a meal are Angelina Jolie, Gina Gershon, Jennifer Tilly, and Anna Nicole Smith. As Miss XaXa says, “I mean, come on.” So you have Jenny Shimizu’s ex-girlfriend, the stars of Susie Bright-approved, cult lesbian criminal sex romp Bound, and Anna Nicole Smith. Alright, we’ll give you Anna Nicole Smith, but, really, come on. But, again, even if it’s true, we are distressed by the fauxhawk. Hedi Slimane, what hast thou wrought?)

Now let’s talk about Hung for a moment. As we’ve complained in the past, Bravo breezily traffics in stereotypes, both good and bad (don’t get us started on the whole “spicy Latin” thing; we got a cramp when we heard the Bravo announcer on one of the promos say, like some drunken frat boy, “Moo-ee caw-lee-en-tay”). But there’s something altogether admirable about Hung so wholeheartedly embracing the stereotype of the (Potentially Gay) Asian Villain. He says as much himself.

Having just finished The Book of Salt, Monique Truong’s rather splendid novel about a gay Vietnamese chef who cooked for Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, we were looking forward to Hung as a gay Vietnamese chef who, well, you get the point (though in his case, the novel would probably be called The Book of Vinegar).

And yet, vinegary as he is, Hung still lacks something in the villainy department. We admire the way Hung playfully subverted the whole Asians-are-good-at-math stereotype by saying he is a “CPA…[beat]…Certified Professional Asshole,” but there was something a little forced in the quip. An asshole is usually just an asshole, and it takes more than monomania to make a good villain. It’s a question of style.

Take last season’s Marcel Vigneron, for example, whom Hung knows. Though we in the end concluded that Marcel is not gay, he was the superior Gay Villain. (As for Ilan….)

Of course, we have our doubts about Hung. Miss XaXa convincingly argues that no gay man would call himself “Hung”—too much pressure—and would instead have changed his name to “Jimmy” or “Ken.” It’s a powerful argument, though we note that Hung also has a little fauxhawk thing going on, throwing us further into despair.

Look, Hung, possum, it’s like this. We want you to succeed. We want you to achieve your villainous goal. And we think you could benefit from a little instruction. Let us tell you a story.

Recently we picked up an old magazine that had a piece on the actress Gong Li and her first English-language role as Hatsumomo, the bitch goddess villainess in gay Rob Marshall’s version of Memoirs of a Geisha. According to the piece, when Gong Li did her first scene with the child actress who was to play her nemesis, Gong Li had only to look at her and the child started crying. In fact, she couldn’t stop crying and had to be replaced. Gong Li didn’t have to say a word; all it took was a look. Now, that’s how you play (Potentially Gay) Asian Villain.

So we ask you, Hung, please, take a tip or two from Gong Li, if only so that we can make “Hatsuhomo” and Memoirs of a Gay Chef puns.

But regardless of what stereotype you want to embrace—whether you want to be known as Hung the Merciless or as Hatsuhomo—we support your endeavor. (If we were you, we’d start by burning the hat that the Vince Vaughn wannabe from San Diego is always wearing; trust us, it’s what Gong Li would do.)

Betty "Spice Rack" Fraser Munches (Hors D'Oeuvres, Of Course) at Bravo West Hollywood Gay Soirée

We were petting our teacup kitten this morning as we gazed at pictures of a shirtless Matthew McConaughey on TMZ.com, and a few more keystrokes took us to today's entry by the Little Beau Pepys of the Internets--Bravo VP, boy reporter, and bloggervardier extraordinaire, Raggaydy Andy Cohen. And possums, just look at what we found:

I had to run out to go to an event at the Abbey sponsored by Out@nbcu, the companywide gay organization. "Work Out" supertrainersuperstar Jackie Warner was going to be there and I had (sadly) cancelled on training with her earlier in the day and needed a hit of her before I split town.

Little did I know when I walked in that Top Chef 2's Bada-Bing Betty would be in attendance, no less in a white knit cap. I love me some of that Betty so I always like running into her. Betty reports that she is still in touch with most of the chefs from her season, especially Elia and Ilan. Her business at Grub is booming and she is best pals with her ex hubby. Bada Bing is on top of her game.

We were shocked--shocked!--that Elia Aboumrad and Ilan Hall are the two people with whom she is closest. We were as shocked as Raggaydy Andy that Betty was sporting a white knit cap. We were shocked that "she is best pals with her ex hubby." Not, of course, because she has an ex hubby to begin with, but, rather, because on her Bravo photo diary she had identified the woman at left as "Jill[,] [m]y breast/best friend!" Were we shocked that Betty--who shares the name of a band that saddled The L Word with perhaps the worst opening theme in television history--appeared in the gay epicenter of the gayest of cities at an event sponsored by the NBC Universal gay organization? Not so much.

The Completely Heterosexual Man in the White Suit: Ilan Hall Channels Dirk Bogarde, "Death in Venice," in South Beach

Our first reaction to this photograph taken at the recent South Beach Wine and Food Festival was, "Wait, isn't Sam supposed to be the metrosexual?" Our second reaction was, "Is Ilan really wearing a two-tone shirt with that suit?" Our third reaction was, "Whom was he trying to channel? Dirk Bogarde? Peter Sellers? Al Pacino? Mr. Chow?" Our fourth reaction was, "How much did the suit cost?" Our fifth reaction was, "Tom, it really is time for you to shave that soul patch. Seriously. Trust us, it doesn't work for you. Ask Frank Bruni." Our sixth reaction was, "Where's Beer Bong? We thought Ilan was going to take Beer Bong with him to South Beach." And our final reaction was, "Damn, Gail, you look good."

Arse & (Penthouse) Letters: New York Times Restaurant Critic Comes Out of the Closet, Provides Example for Ilan Hall

Well, we'd had our suspicions, of course, as had any sentient reader of The New York Times Dining & Wine section. But Frank Bruni, the Times' chief restaurant critic--currently embroiled in a feud with Jeffrey Chodorow (the impresario behind Social Hollywood, where Top Chef filmed the lunch held for Jennifer Coolidge)--appears finally to come out of the closet in his latest review, due to be published in tomorrow's paper, but available tonight online.

Mr. Bruni chooses a peculiar coming-out journey: a trip to review the steakhouse inside the Penthouse Executive Club. Yes, possums, as in Penthouse Letters. And so Mr. Bruni set out with a group of men for the fleshpots of the Far West Side. As he tells it:

We were strangers to such pulchritudinous territory, less susceptible to the scenery than other men might be, more aroused by the side dishes than the sideshow: underdressed, overexposed young women in the vestibule, by the coat check, at the top of the red-carpeted stairs up to the restaurant, on the stage that many of the restaurant’s tables overlook.

Mr. Bruni is greeted by a lissome lovely, who says that her name is Mahogany.

“Mahogany?” I said.
“Yes,” she purred.
I was getting my bearings. “Mahogany,” I asked, “do you know where you’re going to?”
She didn’t miss a beat, noting the reference, summoning the singer, and moving on to another of the dreamgirl’s hits. “I’m ... coming ... out!” she sang, waving her arms, wiggling her hips. Mahogany and I would get along just fine.

That's right, possums. Frank Bruni is exchanging Diana Ross cues with a hostess at the Penthouse Executive Club. This may indeed be the gayest exchange in the history of the English language, and we are immensely proud of Frankie.

Not that the review doesn't get gayer, and saucier:

And when one of her sorority sisters sidled up to us to pose a question not commonly uttered in fine-dining establishments — “Is there anyone I can get naked for?” — the response was silence. On this visit to Robert’s and on subsequent ones, I was derelict in my duty, failing to sample much of what the restaurant had to offer.
But the beef, I devoured — breathlessly, ecstatically.

Way to go, Frankie. Or, better yet, you go, girl. And should we ever have you over for drinks, we'll make sure the gin is Beefeater, or nothing at all.

Amuse-Biatch Watches Morning Television at Gayhab As Ilan Hall Shows FOX His Coq

What Valentine's Day would be complete without our beloved, entirely heterosexual adjudged Top Chef winner, Ilan Hall, appearing on Fox's Republican-but-randy morning show? That's The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet, the guilty pleasure about which The New York Times television critic wrote:

He’s smarmy. She’s contrived. He leers at girls like an old stage ham. She talks about freezing her eggs and getting her breasts done. Together they’re Mike Jerrick and Juliet Huddy, Fox’s new morning pair, who use their unholy chemistry to pervert the breakfast hour on “The Morning Show With Mike and Juliet.” We owe these two a warm, warm welcome.

We know what morning shows look like on the networks accused by conservatives of liberal bias, but a morning show produced by Fox is more mysterious. Will it just be a last stop for “American Idol” rejects? Can we expect hair-care demos from Hannity and Colmes?

Surprise. In its more than three weeks on the air, “The Morning Show” has opted, above all, for creepy prurience.

And, well, Ilan's appearance did not disappoint. It was smarmy, and contrived, and creepy, and a little bit prurient. Ilan, sporting an increasingly porcupine-like "mulhawk" and apparently having ditched the multiple-wristwatch fad he blames on Suyai, appeared to teach ole Mike and Juliet how to make coq au vin. He sounded gayer than we've ever heard him before, but then our counselor here at Rainbow Springs Gayhab in the Hollywood Hills pointed out that we were spewing homophobic invective, and we felt mightily guilty for setting back our sobriety.

Fortunately, this being Fox, such unpleasant thoughts of gayness were not allowed to linger, and we were treated to a live appearance by... Ilan's girlfriend! Carolina! Yay!

Ok, that was our best Kermit the Frog impression. We have to sit down for a minute now.

And she talks! And she breathes! And wouldn't you know it, they conveniently started dating on Valentine's Day a year ago. Awwwww.

Watch for yourselves as perky blonde Juliet, relieved that no Frenchy-named, molenukewler gastrowhatchamacallit contestant took the prize, trills to Ilan, "Thank God you won! Thank God you won!"

Thrill as Ilan presents her with a gift, a framed picture of himself! Share our pain in gayhab as we struggle not to yell at the television, paraphrasing a Top Design contestant, "How can you argue with a narcissist?"! Delight in how quickly the girlfriend trope is trotted out! Wink virtuously as Carolina admits she's never had Ilan's coq, and Juliet invites her to sample it! Laugh "Rapturously," "Left Behind-edly," and no-land-for-peacefully as Ilan takes the sprinkling of kosher salt to remind the faithful base that he is Jewish, you know, like, from Israel! Shiver with naughty delight at Shriner-style ribaldry as Mike talks about chicken sucking up sauce! Sigh heteronormatively as Mike tries desperately to get Ilan married!

It's a belated valentine from us to you, possums.

Completely Heterosexual Otter Ilan Hall Gets Real About Reality & Epistemology, Falls Prey to Fideo-Eating "Hyperbola" Virus

In a companion piece to his mother's editorial on why people care so much about reality television and how unjustifiably mean people were to her baby boy, Ilan Hall talks to Newsday about: keepin' it real, how we can ever know what reality is, how Frank Terzoli's quest to promote cheeseball Italian stereotypes extended to singing opera on the set, how Michael "Beer Bong" Midgley gave the Roseanne Barr treatment to "The Star-Spangled Banner," the politics of the ladies' room, his bad reputation on the blogosphere, Marcel's sneakiness, and how (in hyperbole that would do the Bravo marketing department proud) the Bravo editors are like Michelangelo (who, of course, was straight). Here, as always, the cherce bits:

It's interesting to see what the editors decide to keep or leave out. There was a whole thing in the first episode of "Top Chef" where Michael got into an argument with Frank for singing opera. They made an agreement that if Michael would sing the entire national anthem perfectly, then Frank would stop singing. Michael is a natural comic and doesn't have the softest voice in the world. It was hilarious. We thought it would be entertaining for us as potential viewers, but it was never used.
...

[The editors] create situations that make you seem a little more conniving than you actually are. They don't show entire conversations that would explain why you are reacting in a certain way. They will cut out encouragement or instigation from other contestants. But I would say the editors' work is like Michelangelo's. He felt that the final sculpture was already inside the stone, and his work was to bring it out. The editors are polishing off bits they feel are unnecessary. They are sculpting this world from many hours of shooting.

...

They kept me saying some nasty things and cut away some nice things, because they wanted to make it more compelling to watch. But they never put words in my mouth. What you saw on TV was me, just an edited me. I didn't feel self-conscious during the filming, but you always know the camera is there. Sometimes you can find ways to sneak around it. The other finalist, Marcel, was a master at avoiding saying nasty things on camera. When we saw the show on TV, we thought, "What about all the stuff he said the second the camera turned away?" The portrayal of him is what he wanted it to be. Viewers think he's a little annoying, but he's really much more difficult to get along with.

Amuse-Biatch Emerges from Its Homophobic, Agoraphobic, Misanthropic, Camera-Shy, Envy-Ridden Dark Basement to Admit It Has a Problem

This fine Sunday morning, we sat in the bright sunlight streaming in through the French windows here at Withering Depths, lost in what poet Wallace Stevens termed "complacencies of the peignoir," and looked up as our houseboy Agador, clad only in his habitual marabou thong (well, after the split from Helen Hunt, Hank Azaria had to find work, and we were only too willing to oblige), brought us our glass of soursop-and-blood-orange juice and our stack of morning papers.

Imagine our delight when, flipping through the pages of that fine Long Island institution, Newsday, we came across an editorial written by Mrs. Rita Hall, mother of Top Chef victor Ilan Hall. Mrs. Hall, who happens to work at Newsday, wrote a trenchant analysis of reality television, and described her own reactions to watching Top Chef:

What I didn't expect was how much I believed what I saw and how much friends who have known Ilan since he was little reassessed their opinion of him, good and bad, based on the edited version of reality that they saw weekly on the small screen. And how just as involved - though utterly presumptuous and cruel - the viewers in the blogosphere can be.

"Utterly presumptuous and cruel?" we queried of the cryptically-monikered Miss XaXa, as she looked at us through her sunglasses and cocked her Hermès-scarf-swathed head at us.

"That sounds about right," said Miss XaXa, interacting with us. "How very well-put."

We sat back, pleased with our human interaction, and resumed reading.

And what of the anonymous souls who spent so much time discussing and disparaging a person they would never meet and who would have no effect on their lives? Cryptically named writers jumped to wild unsubstantiated conclusions and, despite having slavishly watched each episode, made charges and claims that belied what they had seen:

Ilan doesn't deserve to win. (He won more elimination rounds than anyone and was in the group judged the worst only once, far fewer than anyone.) He's gay. (This homophobic invective didn't bother Ilan except that he has a girlfriend and he said so.) What was with the head scarf? (He covered his head for continuity; he changed his hair at the end of filming and they needed to insert interviews into previous episodes when his do was different.) Why the sunglasses in bed? (To avoid the morning onslaught of the bright lights and cameras that was their wake-up call.) Ilan is the bad guy. (In an ongoing conflict with fellow contestant Marcel, bloggers largely sided against Ilan, even though, over 13 weeks, almost every chef had a dispute with Marcel.)Why were they so interested? So certain of their impressions?

I can only imagine that cabin-feverish loners sitting in dark basements envy and loathe reality-TV stars. Reality TV provides a chance for previously anonymous Everymen to become well known. The blogosphere allows people who previously had to interact with other people to bloviate anonymously. How frightening the cameras would be for them. And how they must hate people who live with live cameras so easily.

First of all, Mrs. Hall, it's not a basement. It's a tastefully appointed subterranean lair. Or at least that's what the realtor told us.

And speaking of euphemism, "he changed his hair at the end of filming"?!? But we understand, Mrs. Hall. You're a mother, and we know that if we'd had a mother, it also would have been difficult for her to write, "He shaved his head after instigating and videotaping an assault on Marcel that included an abortive attempt to shave Marcel's head."

But the homophobia? We're afraid we must plead guilty to that. When we, of all people, speculate that someone is gay, it most definitely is "homophobic invective." As soon as we file this post, we will be checking ourselves into the same gayhab that Isaiah Washington so recently and so successfully attended. In fact, while we're there, we're also considering the three-week counseling program that turned pastor Ted Haggard "completely heterosexual." It's the least we can do.

Still, the most valuable lesson to be extracted from Mrs. Hall's editorial is this: Mothers, don't let your babies grow up to be reality-show winners.

Finding Out They Make Little Boys Gay, Hasbro Recalls Almost One Million Easy-Bake Ovens

Well, possums, we had a feeling there was a problem with those Easy-Bake ovens, and now some of them are being recalled.

The Associated Press begins its report thus: "Lots of young girls have an Easy-Bake Oven, or have a friend who has one. Now, Easy-Bake Ovens that have been sold since last May are being recalled because a girl can burn her hands on them."

Awww. Isn't that cute? Isn't that droll? A girl can certainly make condescending jokes, can't she?

However, when discussing the recall of the toys, which (ding, ding, ding!) "are purple and pink and resemble a kitchen stove with four burners on top and a front-loading oven," the AP changes its tune a little. Now it is not just girls who are in danger of getting burned. Instead, "Hasbro says it has received 29 reports of children getting their fingers or hands caught in the oven's opening. Five children have been burned."

So it's children, is it? Not just girls? We demand to know: Just how many little gay boys have gotten "their fingers or hands caught in the oven's opening"? And how many have been burned? If a whole generation of little homos is dissuaded from cooking by traumatic experiences related to faulty Easy-Bake Ovens, the whole future of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia could be at risk.

Amuse-Biatch Homoerotic Super Bowl Ad of the Week

What is it about chocolate, men and cars? First it was the Oreo ad with the two cops, and now this. The Christian fundies assert that soy beans make you gay, but now they may have to worry about chocolate, too, and Hershey, Pennsylvania, could become the new Key West.

Butch(er) Knife: Rosie O'Donnell Shows Marcel Vigneron That She is a Woman of Steel

Ilan Hall Tries to Earn His Straight-Boy Street Cred by Calling His "Girlfriend" Fat

Silver-tongued smooth operator and newly queened, er, crowned Top Chef Ilan Hall, winks and clicks his tongue at Entertainment Weekly as he gives them the skinny on being a former fatboy, exposes his "girlfriend"'s eating habits, and demonstrates a surprising amount of adjectival self-awareness. As always, the cherce bits:

Did you think you guys were portrayed accurately?
Yeah, absolutely. You can show a limited amount of things from so much footage, but I think our personalities came through.

Have you been getting more hate from fans, or more love?
I'm getting a lot of love. I'm getting a lot of hate on the Internet, but to my face, everybody's been really nice to me.

So you're keeping up with things on the Internet, then?
I mean, people send me things. My friends send me things here and there. What can you do?

...

Do you cook for your girlfriend?
Yeah, I do.

Does she do any cooking?
No, not really. She just eats a lot.

How did she feel about having a third of the restaurant that you, Mikey, and Sam created for that elimination challenge named after her?
She was very honored, and then upset with me when she found out that it failed.

[Miss XaXa's reaction: "Nice try, honey. I'll look for the 'topchef' screen name in the Water Sports chat room on Gay.com."]

...

Have you always been so skinny?
No. That's a funny question. No, actually. Toward the end of elementary school and through junior high school, I was quite heavy.

...

Have you ever done anything risqué while on the line, Kitchen Confidential-style?
[Laughs] I'm not gonna tell you that...

Okay then, a few quick-fire questions for you: Favorite protein?
Pompano fish.

Favorite fruit?
I don't know — these are hard! Honey crisp apples?

[Stop, E.W. You're killing us. We need to get our eyes checked, as when we first read the answer to his favorite protein, we saw the word "Pompadour fish," and immediately thought of Marcel. As for his favorite fruit, before we could say anything, Miss XaXa broke in soothingly, "Let it go, baby, let it go. It's too easy, even for you."]

...

Describe your style of cooking in five words.
Simple. Salty. Clean. A little greasy. Is that five words?

[Well, other than clean, we think the self-portrait hits the nail right on the head. "Oh, I think he's clean," said Miss XaXa, "since Marcel said he used to spend forever in the bathroom."]

Amuse-Biatch Queery: Does Cooking Make You Gay?

It's yet another of those bedeviling questions, one that we have pondered not only throughout this season of Top Chef, but also after reading a provocative article by Adam Roberts yesterday on the Serious Eats website. Start your Easy-Bake Ovens, possums, and let us know what you think.

New York Times' Frank Bruni Spills Purple-Prosed Foam of Love All Over "Top Chef"

We know, possums, we know.

Our hypocritical hubris in referring to the prose stylings of New York Times food critic Frank Bruni as "purple" has no doubt resulted in a thunderbolt coming from the general direction of Mt. Olympus to strike us dead. Well, "arse" longa, vita brevis.

So, yes, in today's Food Section of the Times, Bruno (it's so unfair to refer to him by the plural, "Bruni," since he lost all that weight) tackles the phenomenon that is Top Chef, in the process making the Bravo execs at 30 Rock very, very happy.

Here, then, the cherce bits:

Marcel Vigneron’s self-love is as garish and repellent as his winged hairdo, which looks like an attempt to evoke “The Flying Nun” without a headdress or a habit.

Only in contrast does Ilan Hall seem humble and winsome. Don’t be duped. In this season’s first episode he flatly declared, “I want to be famous.” And as he inched ever closer to his goal, he sometimes regarded his adversaries with a look of unalloyed contempt.

...

For all its generically hyped-up drama, cheesy gimmickry and abject fealty to the tropes of reality television, “Top Chef” really is about cooking: what goes into it; what comes out of it; what reliably succeeds in the kitchen and on the plate; what predictably doesn’t.

...

“Top Chef” came into its own this season, its second, as it found a kind of traction that many other cooking-related shows — a bloated field at this point — haven’t.

Its contestants and judges wound up in gossip columns. Its twists and turns fueled chatter on the Internet, including the possible disclosure of the victor in tonight’s episode, which was taped a while back. Its ratings rose to an average of nearly two million viewers a week, according to Bravo, and that number put it well ahead of the second season of “Project Runway,” Bravo’s runaway reality hit, which will embark on its fourth season this year.

The reasons are many and varied. “Top Chef” did a deft job assembling a racially and ethnically diverse cast of characters, a shrunken high school in which every clique had a representative. There was the peevish whistleblower (Marisa), the priggish A student (Elia), the good-time blonde (Betty), the disheveled slacker (Michael), the laconic hunk (Sam), the trash-talking spitfire (Mia).

“Top Chef” offers the reliable, although perhaps not always intentional, hilarity of its blunt product endorsements and of its host, Padma Lakshmi, a k a Mrs. Salman Rushdie, a model-turned-actress whose epicurean musings are less riveting than her sluggish, mouth-full-of-molasses style of speech and strenuously come-hither poses.

As she makes her costume changes you can almost read her thoughts: “Does this skirt go with hamachi?” “Is this too much cleavage for a chicken liver canapé?”

Exclusive! Amuse-Biatch In-House Paparazzo Uncovers the Truth Behind the "Top Chef" Finale

Reader, aspiring Eve Harrington, and new Amuse-Biatch in-house paparazzo Laz is not, unlike Miss Elia Aboumrad, a man to give up easily.

After witnessing Ilan Hall playing "In Your Eyes" for Marcel Vigneron on a boombox in Las Vegas, he knew something was up. He'd watched Double Indemnity plenty of times, and though he looks nothing like Edward G. Robinson, he had a gut feeling about this one. The weekend of Cointreau and go-go boys could wait. He sat in his convertible, cowboy hat pulled low over his aviator shades, and chewed on a toothpick while pondering the saffron strands of this mystery.

And then the targets were on the move. Laz followed discreetly as they drove north in Ilan Hall's rented convertible. "So they're pulling a Thelma and Louise," Laz gruffly thought to himself, taking swigs of Pepto-Bismol à la Cliff Crooks.

By the time the rental crossed the state line into Montana, Laz had figured it all out. Of course! The signs had been there all along. The attraction between the two had been instantaneous, electric, Kenmore Pro. As Laz was later to hear Ilan huskily whisper to Marcel, "You had me at, 'Do you wanna see my knives?'"

So the two met in the bathroom, unheard by anyone save Frank Terzoli's toothbrush, and planned it all out. They would just pretend to hate each other, displaying such camera-ready animosity and dramatic confrontations that the producers would have no choice but to ensure that they ended up in the finale together.

It was risky, but well worth it. After all, once they were in the finale, it wouldn't matter who won the title and the money. No matter where it came from, $100,000 would buy a sweet little gastropub in Helena, Montana, where they could serve dishes featuring Ilan's chorizo and Marcel's foam.

Laz followed them to the outskirts of Helena, where, using his telephoto lens, he took the photograph you see above. Once they were inside the cottage, Laz approached and peered through the window.

"I wish I knew how to queet you," Ilan said breathily to Marcel.

"Just ask Elia," replied Marcel, as they laughed, and began to kiss.

And what happened next was so ineffably tender that neither we nor Laz have the words for it, and so we turn to former New Jersey governor and "gay American" (Gaymerican?) Jim McGreevey and a charged passage from his memoir, The Confession:

"We undressed and he kissed me. It was the first time in my life that a kiss meant what it was supposed to mean -- it sent me through the roof. I was like a man emerging from...a cave to taste pure air for the first time, feel direct sunlight on pallid skin, warmth where there had only ever been a bone-chilling numbness....I pulled him to the bed and we made love like I'd always dreamed: a boastful, passionate, whispering, masculine kind of love."

How's that for a Wednesday morning? Well, it was just like that, Laz assured us. As for who really earned the title of "top" chef, well, we'll leave that to your imagination.

Raggaydy Andy on Why There Won't Be a Reunion Show

In today's installment of his blog, Bravo's Raggaydy Andy Cohen answers another of the questions that have been bedeviling us: Will there be a reunion show?

According to Andy:

The answer is NO. Last year's reunion capped what we thought was a drama-filled season and turned into "The Jerry Springer Show" so I am thinking this year's would turn into a reenactment of the day that guy got murdered on "The Jenny Jones Show".

Hmmmmm. Very interesting. Would that be the one where, according to CNN, "Jonathan Schmitz...[was] accused [and convicted] of murdering Scott Amedure after Amedure announced on 'The Jenny Jones Show' that he had a homosexual crush on Schmitz"? Yes, very interesting indeed.

Amuse-Biatch Questions Ilan Hall's Bloodless Sausage

Among the many, many things that have been puzzling us since last week, one small question continues to bedevil us.

During last week's "Finale - Part 1" (insert clarion call), the Bravo graphics told us that Ilan Hall's dish contained "morcilla," a Spanish blood sausage. However, Ilan himself told the judges that he had used "chorizo," which he had made at home (insert onanism joke), but which does not contain blood. So which is it? Was Ilan's sausage gorged with blood, or was it not? Inquiring minds want to know.