Amuse-Biatch Guessing Game: The Lee Anne Wong Blind Item

Well, possums, we’re always suckers for a guessing game, and Season 1 contestant and Top Chef culinary producer Lee Anne Wong has a nice and not too taxing one in an interview she did with Zagat (though we must say she looks awfully thin in the accompanying photograph; don’t go overboard now, Lee Anne). Aside from taking the blame for last season’s Scallopgate (just how many people are going to fall on their sword over this?), Lee Anne drops this little bit:

I always tell the smart [cheftestants] to remember that the cameras are always rolling. Top Chef is a stepping-stone and an opportunity to find out the blood and guts of yourself as a cook, and also who you are as a person. The ones who listen to what the judges have to say and move forward usually have a better chance of keeping in the public’s good favor. Every now and then you get a contestant who believes too much in their own hype, and then they self-implode. It’s up to you to figure out who I’m talking about….

So, possums, whom do you think she means? Guess away in the comments section.

Scallopgate: The Final Words

Possums, as Spike Mendelsohn so amply demonstrates, some people just do not know when to shut up. The good thing is, it makes our job much easier; it leaves us with nothing to do but to present the evidence to you, possums. The conclusions practically draw themselves.

Here then, in the simplest version of compare and contrast, we have the blog of Top Chef culinary producer and former Season 1 cheftestant, Lee Anne Wong, and the most recent interview that Spike has done.

First up, Lee Anne:

Here’s the deal: This episode was all about partnering with Allen Brothers, a wonderful Chicago based meat and seafood company, well-known for its steaks….

The Allen Brothers tie-in to the Elimination Challenge was that they donated a bulk of the proteins for the challenge. Keep in mind, as the culinary producer, it’s my job to keep within my food budget for each episode, and the budget’s never as big as you think it is. I worked with Chef Rick [Tramonto]’s corporate chef, Greg Biggers, on making sure the fridge would be stocked with a plentiful variety of proteins and produce for our contestants to work with. However, Tramonto’s was not donating this product -- we had to pay for everything we requested and used. Chef Greg sent me his inventory list with current prices attached and I had to budget out what we could order and what could be donated. While this is not uncommon, I want you to understand why I got the scallops donated, rather than pay for 5 lbs of them. There’s nothing wrong with frozen seafood, but there were no scallops on Rick’s menu at the time, and if there had been, he certainly would not have been using frozen scallops. So all of this hullabaloo at the end of the day is MY fault. I knew the scallops were frozen, and besides the fact that they would be free, they may have been perfectly suitable in other applications, such as a seafood stew or sausage. It still doesn’t excuse the fact that Spike knew this also. He observed the quality of the scallops the minute he opened the bag and he STILL chose to use them. It was bad judgment on his part either way.

And now, here’s Spike [the questions are in dark red and italicized, the answers in green]:

At one point there were allegations that Bravo planted the scallops and that they wouldn’t be in Tramonto’s kitchen...

Right.

…And Bravo obviously says they didn’t do anything like that. Tramonto says they may have come in with another provider…

That’s B.S. I think we all know that.

Listen, Rick Tramonto does not cook frozen scallops. There’s no possible way that he has them in his walk-in. It would never happen. I mean, he knows what frozen scallops are and I know what frozen scallops are.

The misconception people got on the show is that I took scallops, looked at them and said, “Frozen scallops. Oh, my God, this is what I want to cook.” Which is not the way it went.

….

This is where my mistake was: I didn’t take the time to look at them, inspect them and see what I was getting. I just took it for granted that the scallops in this walk-in … last episode, everything’s going to be top-notch, they’re not really gonna screw with us. That’s where I bit it. From that point on, I knew that I had scallops and I had to use them. So, you see me talking myself into the dish. I was, like, yeah, “Frozen scallops, no problem.”

People get the misconception that I saw it was frozen scallops and I had no problem with that, which was totally not the case at all.

….

On Colicchio’s blog, he speculated that it came in with the Allen Brothers steaks.

Oh, yeah. The Allen Brothers have been dealing in meats for the past 60, 65 years. I’m sure they carried frozen scallops into the walk-in.

[laughs] I just love it because everyone online is calling it “Scallopgate.”

I read Tom’s blog, also. I was like, “Tom, you’re shooting yourself in the foot, kind of.” Why would they come in with Allen? They’re a meat purveyor. They haven’t dealt with seafood since the day they were born. Know what I mean? That was out of nowhere. Yeah, Allen Brothers decided to drop off a bag of frozen scallops that day.

So your bottom line is that you think the scallops came in with another purveyor?

My bottom line is that … listen, this happened a long time ago. I’ve moved on. I’m looking forward. I’m not the kind who looks back. I don’t want to bad-mouth Bravo or the producers. They’ve done so much for me. The whole experience and now my Good Stuff eatery and the launching of my new place, they’re throwing my name out there. But, you know, if I have to this one time, I will. Listen, it’s the top 5. Give us the best ingredients. Why the hell were those scallops in there? I don’t know how they ended up in there or why. I definitely don’t think they want to screw anyone intentionally, but that’s pretty much what they did. That’s not good stuff.

Well, possums, to us it looks like the shooting's on the other foot now.

It's That Guy Again

First, it was this. And now this.

Seriously, it's driving us crazy. Who is this guy, and why is he wearing flipflops? And where are their hands? Is this the mysterious male Shannon that Lee Anne Wong refers to in her blog? Inquiring minds want to know more than ever. (And he does bear a resemblance to CJ Jacobson, so that might explain a lot.)

Is Padma Lakshmi Looking for a Member of the Second Husbands' Club?

Possums, not being Miami "fashionistas" (or whatever) or Bravo insiders, we have no bloomin' idea who this man with Padma Lakshmi is. Or, as Miss XaXa put it, "Who the hell is that guy and where the hell is Padma's hand?"

We, being more demure, wondered more about the placement of his hand. And oh Padma's smile....

"She's probably thinking of seafood sausage, the one CJ made," we suggested. "Or the one she just found," Miss XaXa snorted in reply.

We remembered items in the gossip columns linking Padma to billionaire Ted Forstmann, but Forstmann doesn't look like that (maybe 30 years ago). Could it be his son? Or maybe he has the mother of all plastic surgeons.

At any rate, possums, if you know who the mystery blond is, do let us know, please.

Leave a little comment or drop us a little line. You know where to go. It'll probably turn out to be a perfectly innocent photo with some Bravo producer, but we'd still like to know.














Actually, there was another picture from the three-hour cruise that particularly intrigued us. Ignoring our chaste allusions to photographs by Jacques-Henri Lartigue, Miss XaXa spoke her mind: "Padma puts on MFMalarkey's pants and look what happens."

Lee Anne Wong and Bravo Continue Their Commitment to the Refried

As you ought to know by now, possums, there will be no new episode of Top Chef tonight. Rather, there will be a "special" epic-dose of "Watch What Happens" featuring Raggaydy Andy's chest hair (or at least that's what he said on today's now-you-see-it-now-you-don't version of his blog) and umpteen chefs and confessions from all three seasons of Top Chef. In other words, refrying at its finest.

Another fan of frying and refrying is can-do-no-wrong Season 1 contestant and culinary producer Lee Anne Wong. Which is why weren't surprised to read in the New York Daily News that producers of No Reservations, the refried remake of German movie Mostly Martha, "called in 'Top Chef' Lee Anne Wong of the French Culinary Institute to give kiddie cooking lessons to Abigail Breslin for her role."

Naturally we're curious about the film, in which Catherine Zeta-Jones, that well-known lover of extremely well-aged beef, plays an angry and paradoxically frigid chef calmed down and pan-fired, as it were, by a tall blond Mormon with an epically dimpled chin and an unbespectacled and skinny Little Miss Sunshine. Unlike chefs such as Patricia Yeo, poster boy for authenticity, Ilan Hall, has proclaimed the kitchen scenes "pretty realistic."

The German original, though no masterpiece, wasn't just a vaguely, bravely dour and formulaic chick-flick for the heaving, ennobled, NPR-beating bosom of the art house crowd. Rather, it was European Union propaganda, a Brussels wet dream about how the authentic and passionate Italians can show uptight, repressed Germans that all Arbeit and no nookie makes Jürgen a very dull boy. It was a story about the triumph of Andrea Boccelli and sundried tomatoes, and why Tuscany is overrun with Beemers. It was a story about North and South, a trope going back at the very least to Goethe's "Kennst du das Land, wo die Zitronen blühn," and which doesn't translate as well to America, unless you count the Reese Witherspoon vehicle Sweet Home Alabama.

Being shallow and reprehensible, however, we were most curious about, and indignant on behalf of, Oscar-nominated child actress Abigail Breslin. Whenever Renee Zellweger packs on the kilos and stones to play Bridget Jones, she gets praised to high anorexic heaven for looking so skinny after filming is over. However, we see no such praise of little Miss Breslin for dropping that Little Miss Sunshine potbelly and double chin. If Dakota Fanning had gained and lost weight for a role, we'd never hear the end of it. Where's the love for Abigail's lost love handles?