Top Chef “Yes, We Have No Bananas” Shocker: Lesbian Falls into Semiotic Trap!

Who, you? Yes, you.

It’s no use looking shocked and sheepish. You’ve been found out. How, Preeti, possum, how do you fall into these semiotic traps?

First came the encounter with the Sorting Hat at the start of the Quickfire Challenge, in which you showed the world just how lucky and satisfied your girlfriend—pardon us, your “lady”—must be.

Even your fellow member of this season’s Team Rainbow, who ought to know a thing or two about AshFulk-ing, looks impressed with your technique, the just-so curve of the hand.

Then came the Quickfire Challenge itself, during which you repeatedly admitted that you’d never opened a clam before, which prompted us to yell at the television, “Go on, pull the other one. It’s got bells on it.”

But it wasn’t until we reviewed the premiere episode carefully that we noticed how you’d slipped on a metaphorical banana peel and fallen into the biggest lesbian semiotic trap of all.

Oh, possum, how could you? Didn’t you know that there are cameras everywhere, and that those horrible, basement-dwelling bloggers, who suffer from dirty minds and compulsive screencapping, would be ever at the ready? On the other hand, it was your first day on the show, indeed your first hour, so we’ll cut you a little slack.

Top Chef: Masters and Margaritaville

Possums, it is with the sanity of bloggers as with Roquefort cheese—it’s a goodly spell in a nice, dark cave that does the trick.

In our case, you have only to imagine the salutary effects of 90-odd (and 90 odd) days with nary a thought about His Bearness or, um, Her Highness. Week upon glorious week neither knowing nor caring about Padma’s apartment, her burger commercial, or her wearing of silk charmeuse without a bra on noticeably cold nights at public events.

Day upon day unfolding without ever having to hear the phrase “throw under the bus,” or ponder the ominous portent of scallops, or come up with ursine metaphors, or decipher the semiotics of fauxhawks and t-shirts obviously chosen to attract attention.

Night upon night of sleep undisturbed by dark dreams of Bravo conspiracies bearing the suffix “-gate.” Rien de rien, possums.

By the end, we had very nearly returned to our customary, half-human state.

And then it occurred.

Suckling at the teat of cable television one afternoon, we landed on an oh-so-alliterative Food Network show titled Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives, hosted by preposterously peroxided putz Guy Fieri. Normally, we are as allergic to him as he is to long trousers and intellectual depth. Indeed, chez Amuse-Biatch the show is referred to as Douchebag, Dipshit, and Dumbass. This time, though, we cocked our head and said aloud to ourselves, “You know, he’s kind of charming.”

The Patsy Stone-like scream from Miss XaXa was blood-curdling. We cannot say whether it was “No, Eddie, nooooo!” or “No, Charlus, nooooo!” we heard before we lost consciousness. It was not sal volatile or booze that brought us round, but, rather, Miss XaXa’s perfectly manicured nails digging into our neck as she dragged us by the scruff to where our laptop lay in desuetude. “That’s it!” she kept saying, “Vacation over! It’s time!”

So, yes, possums, we are back to the venom, vim, and vitriol of the internet, and we will be blogging the bejeezus out of Top Chef: Masters. The show premieres Wednesday, June 10, at 10 p.m.

Gesticulating with Gail: Amuse-Biatch Blushes While Ms. Simmons Tries to Teach Us Canadian Sign Language

Amuse-Biatch Iconography: Someone at Bravo Was an Art History Major or a Fan of “The Da Vinci Code”

Amuse-Biatch Answers Possum Query #1

Possums, let's face it, shall we? The most recent episode was dull, dull, dull--for, oddly enough, the participants appeared to enjoy themselves more than we in the audience did.

This generally violates the rules of reality television, and left us, as you no doubt have noted, very little to work with. We are therefore turning to answer your queries and questions, possums, insofar as we are able.

Without further ado, then, let us turn to Possum Query #1: Is Stephanie Izard a lesbian?

Judging by the number of you who have inquired, the question has been weighing on your minds. Miss XaXa comes down firmly on the side of "nope, straight girl." We, on the other hand, are not so sure. Needless to say, we don't know, but all we can say is, Look at the evidence and decide.

Koren Grieveson: Lesbian Avenger or Avenger of Lesbians?

Possums, while it’s true that the ancient Greek goddess of revenge was named Nemesis, we have a sneaking suspicion that her modern incarnation may well be named Koren Grieveson (or, as Miss XaXa put it, Grievances). For there were two who had sinned against the daughters of Sappho, the heirs of Radclyffe Hall, and by Grieveson’s hand would those Grievances be addressed.

Spike (Through the Head) had grievously sinned against Lez Girls—his outbursts against Zoi and Jen, getting Zoi booted, dropping a tomatillo that very nearly caused Lisa to break her leg at the store—and so had Dale with his vastly hypocritical and vastly entertaining attacks on Lisa for her negativity.

And now both found themselves in the bottom three of the beery, Grieveson-judged Quickfire Challenge, with Jen giggling and Lisa smiling and uttering the for-the-ages line, “Good, bitch. Have fun on the bottom.”

But, having a one-track mind, what we wondered was, Is Koren Grieveson a lesbian avenger or merely an avenger of lesbians?

We have to confess that looking at her behind the row of beer pitchers, our gaydar went, Ding, ding, ding, ding! But that is hardly conclusive.

So we did a little digging and dabbed a bit of semiotics on our wrists and behind our ears, and this is what we came up with.

Grieveson, who was just chosen by Top Chef sponsor Food & Wine Magazine as one of its Best New Chefs for 2008, is South African, and lived in Angola and Iraq. Well, that tells us nothing. And she was in the army for eight years. Ah, ding, ding, ding!



















And she’s wearing a shirt with a Padma shape-alike, and has arm tattoos. Ding, ding, ding, ding!


















And what’s this? A chain-wallet? Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, DING!

Q.E.D., possums, Q.E.D.

UPDATE: And we have a winner. Enterprising possum Heather went out and got the evidence, which is much, much better than we had dared to hope. To wit, Koren's favorite kitchen appliance is "My 15-pound sausage stuffer." (!!!) Koren listens to country music, especially the Dixie Chicks. And her "girl Frog" is a clothes designer. Project Runway, what are you waiting for? This means that, if our math is right, in just the first six weeks of this season, Top Chef has featured four out lesbian chefs. That's quite a coup.

Padma Lakshmi Admires Colicchio’s Technical Skills, Enjoys the Taste of His “Huevos” in the Morning; Colicchio, for His Part, Likes His Pepper Peeled

That, at least, is what we gleaned, possums, from the following exchanges in that now notorious “sandwich” interview:

What one dish do you think says the most about a chef?
Tom Colicchio: So - go ahead Padma.

Padma Lakshmi: I don’t think grilled cheese is that difficult to make nor do I think eggs are very difficult to make. But I do think the way you make eggs in the morning shows a lot about your technical skills. Tom makes really great eggs, by the way.
….
So what are your food pet peeves? Everyone has one. What’s the one thing that just really - you just can’t deal with on a plate?

Padma Lakshmi: Tom doesn’t like skins on bell pepper.

“Well, well,” said Miss XaXa, “she certainly knows an awful lot about Tom, doesn’t she? Which came first, the kissin’ or the eggs? And do you think she likes them runny or sunny-side up?”

“Now, now,” we tut-tutted. “Colicchio is a married man. And as for Padma, Page Six says she’s dating billionaire Adam Dell, brother of Steve Dell, as in—”

“Dude, she’s gettin’ a Dell!”

Exactly.

We do have questions for the photographer-semioticians at Bravo, though. Could you pack any more phallic and other symbols into that publicity still? The tie at attention is a particularly nice touch. We get it—the whirlwind that is Padma knocks Tom off his feet, ruffles his nonexistent hair, and stirs and stiffens his necktie into a 45-degree angle. And who could blame him?

Fun with Semiotics: Is Bravo Trying to Tell Us Something About Lia Bardeen?

Possums, there are times when it seems we have fallen asleep with our head on an Umberto Eco tome and then feel like Scully and Mulder in an episode of The BiSex Files. And we wonder, Has the truth been "out" there all along? Are bisexuals the new Knights Templar?

It makes us re-examine everything we thought we knew.

And so, looking at this Bravo publicity shot of recently pykagged cheftestant Lia Bardeen, signs seem to jump out at us: the narrowed eyes, the tough stance, the Jean-Paul Gaultier-esque stripey top, the Carrie Bradshaw-revived name necklace, the studded leather bracelet, the nesting bowls, the fish about to be slit, the Playtex 18-Hour Bra-like curtains, and for God's sake, the papayas (and in Miami, no less, where, as the Miami Herald notes in article on just how easy it is to be unintentionally obscene in Spanish, "let's not forget that flesh-colored tropical fruit full of dark seeds and digestive enzymes that we Havana natives call frutabomba (bomb fruit) because of its shape, reserving its original name for -- well, you figure it out.")!

What's it all mean?

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?)