My Abalone Has a First Name

And it ain’t Tom.

Now, we should preface this, possums, by saying that we admire and respect Tom Colicchio. He’s knowledgeable as hell, and, based on his blog, he’s undeniably the best writer on the judging panel, except, perhaps, for Anthony Bourdain.

This is why we were so baffled during the premiere to hear Chef Colicchio repeatedly pronounce “abalone” as “a-ba-lawn.” We checked a few dictionaries (Random House, Merriam Webster, American Heritage) and we didn’t find this pronunciation.

And so, of course, we wondered, Have we found this season’s lychee? (The “LEE-chee”/“LIE-chee” debate went on for several weeks last season after Otto Borsich left.)

So we’re not saying Chef Colicchio’s pronunciation is baloney, but can any of you, possums, help dispel the mists of “a-ba-lawn”?

Or is Tom Colicchio led astray
Just like P-A-D-M-A?

Forget the Lychees; Where's the Beef?

Poor Otto Borsich.

In Lycheegate, the first "-gate" of a Top Chef season that has had more "gates" than a Christo installation in Central Park, cheftestant Otto Borsich quit the competition after he was accused of shoplifting a case of lychees from a supermarket (and mispronouncing them, to boot).

Alas, even then, poor Otto was behind the curve, for, according to an article in Slate, he should have gone with meat rather than lychees when his fingers got itchy.

As Brendan I. Koerner writes,

Meatlifting is a grave problem for food retailers: According to the Food Marketing Institute, meat was the most shoplifted item in America's grocery stores in 2005. (It barely edged out analgesics and was a few percentage points ahead of razor blades and baby formula.)

Meat's dubious triumph is due in part to a law enforcement crackdown on methamphetamine use. Meat used to be the shoplifting runner-up to health-and-beauty-care items, a category that includes cough medicines containing pseudoephedrine, a key ingredient in home-cooked meth. In 2003, for example, a quarter of shoplifted products were HBCs, while meat took second place at 16 percent. But states began passing laws that require stores to move medicines containing pseudoephedrine behind secure counters. That was enough to cut the pinching of HBCs, which fell by 11 percent between 2003 and 2005.

Koerner points out that most of the protein-pilfering is associated with high-end cuts of meat, and that the fair sex has itchier fingers than the stereotypical meat-and-potatoes guy when it comes to filching the filet mignon:

Though men and women shoplift in equal numbers, such aspirational meatlifters are most likely to be gainfully employed women between 35 and 54, according to a 2005 University of Florida study; men prefer to lift Tylenol or batteries, often for resale and often to support a drug or alcohol habit.

So it seems Clara Peller was on to something when she tried to get answers about the whereabouts of beef from seemingly sweet, pigtailed Wendy. For all we know, Wendy had slipped the beef into her blue gingham pockets.

Amuse-Biatch's Handy Clip-N-Save Pronunciation Guide

Here at Amuse-Biatch we're not just about serving it up, we're also about serving (though we won't deny a fondness for dishes best served cold).

We have been asked why we harp on mispronunciations by cheftestants, guest chefs, and hostesses alike. We assure you that there is a method to our folie (and not just of the La cage aux variety). We do it not just because we're haughty, anal, obsessive compulsive, neo-Victorian, post-Carson Kressly mini-despots with a twinkle in our eye.

We do it because these are people who ought to know better, who are supposed to be food professionals, and that entails being knowledgeable about food. And we would feel a lot better if the people making our food knew enough about it to at least pronounce it correctly.

We won't make fun of our Aunt Lavinia for mispronouncing "amuse-bouche" at the Thanksgiving table. But when a self-described "egghead" polyglot married to a Booker Prize-winning novelist and possessed of a penchant for displaying her breasts to all and sundry repeatedly mispronounces "amuse-bouche," even after Chef Suzanne Goin pronounced it correctly in her presence several times, why yes, at that point, the yellow dogskin gloves come off.

And so, without further ado, and in the interest of service and avoiding further bloodshed, we present our handy clip-n-save pronunciation guide.

Amuse-bouche, pronounced (can you hear us, Padma?), "ah-MEWS boosh." Not "AH-moos." Not "ah-mew-SAY." "ah-MEWS boosh." Got it? Good.

Gelée, pronounced "zhell-AY," and not, as certain meringue-headed cheftestants who ought to know better insist, "jell-EE."

Lychee, pronounced "LEE-chee," a fruit of the soapberry family which, when mispronounced "LIE-chee," is known to cause lying, cheating, spasms of self-righteousness in flat-chested pastry chefs, and reality tv hara-kiri (yes, yes, bushido-heads, we know seppuku is more accurate, but we're writing for the masses here).

Offal, pronounced "AW-ful," and pronounced awfully by a couple of the cheftestants, one of whom, after pronouncing it "ah-FALL," suffered a fall from grace and was told to pack her knives.

First Reaction: Lychee Sounds Suspiciously Like "Lie, Cheat"

As usual, we will have much more to say over the next few days, as the little bees off our Laguiole knives sit in their little hives, making envenomed honey. But oh do they have a lot to work with!

Hideous fashions! A new L.A. Plague, the Pigtails! The first use of the word "multicultural"! A great debate over the pronunciation of an overripe Asian fruit (is it too early for a Ming Tsai joke?)!

A parable of feesh and lovs for our time! Subversive politics! Geography lessons! Still another profound parable, this one about Kim Jong Il, and the responsibility of speaking truth to overcoiffed dictators!

And who knew the leathery-skinned, bubble-shaped lychee would turn into "Top Chef's" version of leather bubble shorts?

The bees, they are a-buzzing, mes enfants.