“Top Chef” Product Placement Too Shameless and Not Shameless Enough

So claims Product Placement News:

First of all, the product was not used or included in any of the cooked meals. Needless to say, it was an inorganic product placement. Secondly, the product had too many camera shots, which made the placement blatantly obvious. Lastly, some critics felt strongly that the chefs were forced to drink Dr. Pepper. After all, true chefs are always after the flavor and meals/drinks without sugar just don’t fit the profile.

But Betty “Spice Rack” Fraser and a visibly uncomfortable Stephanie Izard sure fit the profile, right?

(You know, possums, now that we think about it, we’d totally watch a remake of Two Fat Ladies featuring Betty and Ariane. Wouldn’t you?)

“Little Chop of Horrors”: A Season 2 Update

Well, possums, Season 2 cheftestant Betty "Spice Rack" Fraser, the subject of perhaps our most controversial headline ever, is back in the news, and, as you can see from the photograph, the spice rack is still fully stocked. Indeed, the spice rack will be enjoying a larger cabinet, as Betty reports that she and her "restaurant partner Denise DeCarlo" have expanded their operations and opened a new restaurant, The Fountain Court. Betty has apparently also been approached by, er, boob-tube producers and is "actively pursuing a couple of show ideas."

In a discussion of sexism in the professional kitchen, Betty says, "[W]hen I was on Top Chef one of the contestants, Elia [Aboumrad], was trained in France and she told us horror stories about how some of the male chefs would try to sabotage her. All I can say is, don’t forget boys that it was your mother who fed you!"

Love the allusion to the spice rack, Betty!

And funny you should mention classically French-trained, headshaving, Britney-Spears-avant-la-lettre Mexican socialite cum chef, Elia Aboumrad, for we have just come across the most delicious and intriguing rumor.

In January of last year, in an interview she did with Chow.com, Elia and interviewer Joyce Slaton had this tantalizing exchange:

Joyce Slaton: One thing I’m curious about—are you back working at Mandalay Bay now?

Elia Aboumrad: I am, yes.

JS: And what made you go from working with Joel Robuchon in Vegas to working at Mandalay Bay? It seems like, on the face of it, it seems sort of like a step backwards.

EA: It does.

JS: It does?

EA: I cannot talk about this too much, ‘cause I was not, I’m not allowed by MGM Grand.

JS: Oh wow.

EA: But I was transferred here to upscale the service and the food of Mandalay Bay and the tower and the hotel and all of room service, hospitality and the café. I can’t really say any details about it.

JS: There’s a story in there somewhere, but I hear we’re not going to get it.

So imagine, possums, how intrigued we were when we came across this story on Monday in The Vegas Eye (the story has now, mysteriously, disappeared from their website, but Google had cached it, and hence the screencap).
















Fascinating, n'est-ce pas, possums? It seems that, even if it's fresh when it's thrown, fish rots from the head.

"Alien v. Predator" Finally Has a Worthy Sequel: Spice Rack to Take On the Jowly Green Giant

That's the scoop that our pal Lesley of Eater LA brings us. On Sunday, October 14, in Los Angeles, California, Betty "Spice Rack" Fraser will go funbags to (smaller) funbag with CJ "Jowly Green Giant" Jacobson in a cook-off.

CJ, possum, you'd best be careful. You may have survived Arianna Huffington, but Spice Rack is a real ball-buster, a giant-killer.

"Hell, she's a man-eater," Miss XaXa concurred. "Just look at that picture. It looks like she's eating CJ's remaining..."

"Now, now," we hastened to interject. And with good reason, for Lesley has another scoop up her sleeve (she could work at Baskin-Robbins). But don't click unless you want to view an extremely plausible spoiler alert about the finale.

For those of you who don't care, go fish.

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.

Amuse-Biatch Relapse

Possums, we’re afraid that a solid week of sweetness and light was simply too much for us. The strain of having to say so many nice things so often and in such a short period of time simply took us over the edge. (And to those of you who wrote to complain that we weren’t saying anything nice at all, that it was all thinly veiled sarcasm and left-handed compliments, we say, with troubled mien, “O ye of little faith!”)

So yesterday morning we made a run for it. We broke out of the Rainbow Springs Gayhab facility through the window and high-tailed it to the nearest IHOP and ordered ourselves the Rooty Tooty Fresh ‘n’ Fruity, the absolute gayest thing we could find. Then we watched the Oscars, and that was truly our downfall.

And the moment when Melissa Etheridge accepted the Oscar for Best Original Song from Queen Latifah and Queen Lottafat (sorry, John Travolta), with Ellen DeGeneres still onstage—well, so much concentrated gayness simply overwhelmed our neurons, and the careful conditioning of Rainbow Springs went out the window, too. We began playing “Spot the Lesbian” (Jodie, possum, those shoulders!) Our every extremity began to tingle when Jennifer Hudson outsang and outracked Beyoncé (heck, she could outrack Betty “Spice Rack” Fraser). We got verklempft when Marty won for Best Director.

That’s it, possums. We’re never going back to Rainbow Springs. If they want to take us back, it will take more than butterfly nets. They’ll have to take us out feet first, and in a gold lamé “straight jacket.” Sorry, Teacup Kitten and company. And hey, hey, possums, the Amuse-Biatch is back.

Amuse-Biatch Shares Its "VD" with You -- Valentine's Day, That Is

Normally, we hate Valentine's Day, mostly because of all the people who say "ValentiMe's Day." However, this year is different, because we got a Valentine's Day card from reader Dianna, and we are only too happy to share it with you. And look, Mrs. Hall, proof that Ilan is straight!

Amuse-Biatch Cocks Its Eyebrow as "Top Chef" Contestants Discuss Female Curves and Swollen Appendages

Just in time for Valentine's Day, Rob, ahem, Baedeker of Forbes Traveler, brings us an article on the most romantic restaurants in America, as picked by contestants from both seasons of Top Chef, and in which the contestants provide food for thought on the subjects of romance, sexiness, and Annie Oakley's trigger finger.

As always, we bring you the cherce bits, seasoned with our gratuitous commentary.

“I’m a sucker for a sunset,” says Harold Dieterle, winner of "Top Chef" season one. And to soak up the day’s last rays over a romantic meal he recommends The Beacon restaurant in Sag Harbor, New York. Dieterle warms to this venue’s top-notch cuisine, “rustic” ambience and magnificent view of the harbor. For even more rustic charm he recommends the Saddleridge Restaurant in Beaver Creek, Colorado, where “old-school Western antiques” like Annie Oakley’s gun lend a meal the romance of the frontier.

Um, we love you, Harold, and you may, indeed, be one of the coolest straight men we've ever encountered, but taking a woman on Valentine's Day to a place named Sag Harbor or Beaver Creek seems a little cruel (should I get plastic surgery?) or overeager (is that all you think about, wading in my beaver creek?). And Annie Oakley? Totally a dyke. Just ask Calamity Jane.

Unblushingly, though not surprisingly, Marisa Churchill favors "finger foods" from, er, The Slanted Door.

Stephen Asprinio, winner of the Duh Award, and amusingly described as a "young chef-entrepreneur" (what, is "sommelier" no longer every other word he utters?), preaches the importance of sexiness. “This sexiness can be expressed through a multitude of design elements, such as a chair shaped to resemble the curves of the female body, or captivating color schemes within a particular décor.” Dude, that's the gayest thing we've heard since Ilan last opened his mouth to talk about his girlfriend. On the other hand, we might be wrong, and it might be the case that straight men consider "captivating color schemes" and think of an Eames chair as a metonymic vagina.

Betty "Spice Rack" Fraser tries to make a sexy pun that falls flat, if you will, telling us that a Valentine's Day meal should include “bold flavors that will excite, if you will, the taste buds....”

Andrea Beaman argues for a Valentine’s Day meal, since “[o]ver-seasoned food can make the diners retain water, and swollen hands, feet and eyes are not conducive to romance....” We can, however, think of other swollen appendages that are conducive to romance.

First Reaction: Good Sports, Bad Sports, and Water Sports

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Betty "Spice Rack" Fraser Now Certifiably a Whore

Back in December, we quoted from a profile of Betty "Spice Rack" Fraser in the LA Independent, in which Spice Rack discussed her acting career before becoming a chef, including her stint as "a 'hooker with a heart of gold' on the 1980s television 'Wolf.'" Curious about Spice Rack's role on Wolf, we turned to the Internet Movie Data Base (IMBD) and other similar websites, but found no record of her Wolf gig.

Now, let's be clear about something. Contrary to what some readers seemed to believe, we never insinuated that Spice Rack was lying about the gig. The fact that her role on Wolf didn't appear on IMDB was not conclusive; just because a tree doesn't make a sound on IMDB doesn't mean it never fell. As we were reminded, IMDB is notoriously spotty, and Wolf wasn't exactly a top-caliber show attracting careful scholars and archivists.

However, we just received news from a reader that IMDB has woken up to its spottiness, and now Spice Rack is recognized for her role as "A Prostitute" on Wolf. Mind you, IMDB misspells her name as Betty Frasier, and lists the Wolf gig as "Frasier"'s only credit, but it's the thought that counts. As Betty Fraser, Spice Rack has two credits, for playing herself on one episode of Top Chef (which rather begs the question, Just what was she playing the rest of the time?), and for playing "Chef" on Holiday Home Invasion in 2005. Does anyone know anything about this?

But for all of you who wondered, the matter is now, er, laid to rest. According to IMDB, Spice Rack, who is scheduled to return in tonight's finale, was, indeed, a whore.

Sphinx-Like Guest Chef Anthony Bourdain Breaks His Silence on "Top Chef" Contestants

Retiring, soft-spoken guest judge Anthony Bourdain, guest-blogging on Michael Ruhlman's blog, finally takes a timid sip of sherry and dares to pipe up ever so gently about what he thinks of the Top Chef contestants. You can read the entire thing here, but we have provided the cherce bits for you below:

On Elia Aboumrad:

Chef material? Not just yet. Why not? Her insistence on making everything to order "a la minute" during the "Hollywood cocktail party" was a really bush league move. And the "I quit" business--same episode.( Leaving the line for emotional reasons--unforgivable in a professional kitchen). Everybody who's ever done a volume passed hors d'oeuvre party knows from painful experience that you have to make compromises. (half cook that shit in advance!) Drunks want food fast. They want it hot. They want it NOW!

On Michael "Beer Bong" Midgley:

Let this guy run a kitchen and the food and booze would be running out the back door with his cooks--who he'd probably be drinking with. That said? I love this kid. There would have been a place for him in nearly every kitchen I ever ran. Probably the grill. (Don't let this Manimal NEAR saute!!)

On Betty "Spice Rack" Fraser:

Forget about. Very limited skills--and it showed.

On Cliff Crooks:

VERY solid cook. And will definitely be a solid chef as well. He crossed the line Big Time with the Marcel incident and he knew it. He deserved to get canned, would have been canned--and surely sued--in any professional situation where he behaved similarly. Period.

On our chulo chef, Carlos Fernandez, whom he (unintentionally?) dubs "Alex":

Nice guy. And back in the minor leagues--where he should have stayed.

On Sam Talbot:

Probably the closest thing to Chef material this season--with the most chefly demeanor and attitude (generally speaking).

On Marcel Vigneron:

But his Chef potential? Presently zero. You have to get along with the people you work with--and I can't imagine this guy "working with others" over time. He's petty, vindictive, immature, a loudmouth, not a team player by any stretch of the imagination.

On Ilan Hall:

Okay: So Ilan cribs his offerings shamelessly from Andy Nusser. And he's a manipulative, conspiratorial, vindictive, weasely little shit....(Hardly impediments to a career as a chef). These are classic assets. If Ilan has a fatal flaw, it's that he let Marcel get up his nose so easily and predictably. And that when he (again and again) conspired to sabotage or screw over his enemy--either directly or through surrogates, he was both obviously behind it--his fingerprints all over the place, and worse--FAR worse-- unsuccessful!


On THE INCIDENT:

I agree with those who suggest that it would have been fair if EVERYBODY involved in the "full-Nelson incident" had been kicked off the show. The event reflected most poorly on Ilan. Who came off as an instigator--and a weasel. It would have been appropriate for him to have stepped up and thrown himself on his sword when Cliff got canned. Wouldn't (and shouldn't) have saved Cliff--but it would have been the Right Thing to do. Instead, he behaved like a punk and let the black man take the fall. It was sickening to see him stand silently by while Cliff took the full freight. Notice that Cliff kept his mouth shut, blamed no one else, took his jolt like a man.

Update:

Bourdain has now posted this in response to some of the comments on his post on Ruhlman's blog:

An earlier response disappeared into the ether, but I'd like to add that Marcel deserves a lot of respect for simply having the strength to hang in there--in the face of relentless, naked hostility. It's an admirable character trait that will serve him well in the business. I'll stress again that he clearly deserves to be in the top two. Bottom line for me was: Do I want to eat his food? And: Would I ever want to hire the guy? I base my judgements/opinions, btw, solely on close viewing of every episode, on nearly 30 years as a chef/manager/employer and ONLY one day as an actual judge who ate the contestants' food. Fair comment above. And it was "Carlos" NOT "Alex". Apologies to the departed.

Amuse-Biatch Is Just Sayin': Ambiguously Gay Duos

With two exceptions, these photographs are all from the treasure trove of the cheftestants' Bravo photo diaries. Again, captions in quotes were presumably written by the cheftestants themselves. Any reading you give to the photographs and/or captions, possums, are between your conscience and Jacques Lacan. Tend to your entendres (double or nothing) on your own.















"My friend, Ryan, and I
Hanging at Underbar."

























"Vita Prep
Posing with the Vita prep."



















"With my Woman
My girlfriend, Carolina."














"Not sure what's going on in here."















"I love these guys!"
















"Jill and I
My breast/best friend!"

















"Me and Hedy
Hedy runs our kitchen at Grub. She's a very strong and talented woman."















"John and I
John is a professional organizer whom I've known for 25 years. He organized my life."

Amuse-Biatch Investigates: Elia Aboumrad Firm Believer in Hippocracy & Literacy

With thanks to reader Virginia, who in sending this to us reminds us that there really is a Santa Claus, here is a photo of our Elia Aboumrad reading in bed, accompanied by what Virginia figures to be "a stuffed heepo."

Virginia, we definitely gave a woolf-whistle to see Elia spending the hours reading in what, now that Betty "Spice Rack" Fraser is gone, is a room of her own. We still can't tell what the title of the book is. Is she reading the Michelin Guide? Like us, does she find le guide rouge more pornographic than any bodice-ripper? Perhaps it's simply her diary. After all, as Oscar Wilde put it, "I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train."

Or, in the case of Top Chef, to read in the bus off which, or under which, everyone is always getting thrown.

At any rate, Google Perv, knock yourself out.

Elia Aboumrad: Boys Do Make Passes at Girls Who Wear Glasses

And we don't mean just Ilan "Goldilocks" Hall. (Which, since we're feeling a little scatter-brained this morning, makes us ask: When two people who wear glasses kiss, do they clink glasses, as if making a toast?)

Google Perv, who comes to Amuse-Biatch de temps en temps after Googling "Elia Aboumrad Bikini Shot," is not the only one to have a yen for her yin. And who can blame him or her?

The bitch has better skin than Shiloh Pitt-Jolie. (Or is it Jolie-Pitt, as for Zahara and Maddox? Goodness knows we're not Doctor Spock, but it seems to us that raising a girl surnamed Jolie-Pitt is asking for a teenage slut in a decade or so; you might as well make "Plan B" her middle name. As the Spanish proverb might put it, "Cría curvas, y te sacarán los ojos, pero de sus órbitas.") As we have seen from her yoga workouts, she is quite, quite flexible. Leaving aside all the G.I. Jane/V for Vendetta talk floating around about the rest of the season, we also admire her springy, Salome-temptress curls.

And then there's the accent. As Padma Lakshmi herself says, "Sometimes I ask her questions just to hear her talk." We can well imagine some perv in the linguistics department of a state university being aroused by the idea of hearing her say, "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious," or mulling the fantasy of feeding her not cherries and chocolate, but tongue twisters ("Peetair Pipair peeked a peck oaf peekold peppairs...").

But it was only while watching this week's episode again that we discovered what we find sexiest about Elia. The beginning of the show finds her lying in bed, sporting a pinkish tank top, and sighing attractively. However, it wasn't her heaving bosom that caught our eye. No, it was the fact that she was reading a book.

We admit that we have a thing for people with brains. (The dirtiest, sexiest, most titillating thing a boy has ever said to us? "Hold on a second, I've got the OED right here.")

Our curiosity was whetted (no need to double-check the spelling there). What was that red book so enticingly open in her hands? Was it the Michelin guide? Does she read le guide rouge because it is more pornographic than any bodice-ripper, just as we do? Is that why she was sighing, and not because Betty "Spice Rack" Fraser was gone?

So, possums, if any of you has a screencap of Elia in bed reading, send it in. If you are able to identify the book she was reading, let us know. And most importantly, what is that stuffed animal keeping her company in her tank-topped reverie? Though we were faithful watchers of Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, we were unable to identify it. Was it a donkey (maybe even the donkey from Shrek)? Was it a platypus? Inquiring, dirty minds want to know.

Padma Lakshmi: Mistress of Spice Racks

Now, this photograph (which we find strangely...stirring...must resist...must not...ooh, look at how artfully that tendril of hair is arranged over her left breast...and look at how fabulous her shopping basket is...oh good, we're back to ourselves) isn't just an excuse for us to make another Spice Rack joke now that Betty Fraser, our original Spice Rack, is gone from the show.

(Watching last week's episode again, we wondered what the show's editors are going to do for reaction shots now that Spice Rack is not around to telegraph every emotion and plot point. Whenever a reaction to any of Padma's pronouncements and proclamations about challenges was called for--wide-eyed glee, frowning concern, brow-furrowing suspense--Betty was there to provide it. It was like watching Derek Zoolander trying to channel Lillian Gish.)

Padma actually did play a role in the screen version of Mistress of Spices, the novel by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. As has often been the case with Padma's film projects, the critics were not kind (though, in all fairness, her work in this film wasn't mentioned):

From the New York Times: "Imagine Alfonso Arau's Like Water for Chocolate without the passion. Imagine Lasse Hallstrom's Chocolat if the chocolates that Juliette Binoche was selling became angry with her....This is a one-dimensional, sometimes illogical film, but it's certainly good-looking....the photography often looks like an enticing food-magazine layout."

From Variety: "Beautiful but lifeless, poetic but unelevated...."

According to IMDB, one of the movie's subplots involves "a man (Anupam Kher) who is distressed over his granddaughter (Padma Lakshmi), a woman who has grown up in America and adopted western [sic] ways, much to his dismay." Have any of you, gentle possums, seen the film? Was Padma, a woman who has grown up in America and adopted Western ways, good in the part of a woman who has grown up in America and adopted western ways? Let us know.

Padma Lakshmi's Alliterative Assault on Spice Rack?

"Also the savory and sweet layering of Sam's flavors [during the Quickfire Challenge] was more sumptuous and inviting bite after bite than Betty's green grub. Betty lost sight of the taste, the presentaion [sic], everything. I know it's only half an hour, but so? Her competitors came up with much more interesting, and delicious and adventurous plates."

We wonder, is it merely coincidence that Betty "Spice Rack" Fraser's restaurant is called Grub?

Betty Fraser: The 'Rack' is Stacked and Packed

Or, as Siskel & Ebert used to say, perhaps in reference to Betty "Spice Rack" Fraser's battery of keyhole tops and decollete blouses, the balcony is closed.

As happy as we were to be 'name-checked,' albeit indirectly, in her Sirius interview with Larry Flick yesterday (and we thought that the fact she was going to be interviewed at all was an indication that she would be sent packing that very night), we were quite dissatisfied with one aspect of the interview. Larry Flick never asked, and we never found out the answer to, the question we have been brooding on for ages: Does she crunch or does she munch? With her combination of stevedore and 'bar wench' (her words, ladies), we thought she would make a wonderful addition to the cast of The L Word, but, aLas, we wiLL never know.

Though she is gone, her influence will live on, as was evident last night. When, at the fixtures store and with the largest crowd possible (for purposes of maximum impact), Sam Talbot went all Sicilian on Marcel's ass (see? we told you he was Keyser Soze), the one thing that struck us and had us a-cackle was his use of the word "gnat" to describe Marcel.

Let's see, where had we heard that before? Oh yes, from Spice Rack herself during the TGIFriday's challenge in the fire station. Let's face it, whatever his virtues, Sammy the Sicilian isn't nearly clever enough to come up with "gnat." If we remember aright, during his last attempt at shit-stirring, trying to get fellow Sicilian Frankie the Bull to beat Marcel so badly his own mother wouldn't recognize him, the best ole Sammy could come up with was "kid," i.e., "if that kid was my room mate, etc." So next time you hear the word "gnat" being thrown at Marcel, remember the Spice Rack.

First Reaction: Irony is the Eighth Deadly Sin

Well, irony in the Alanis Morrissette sense, not in the true sense, but we'll get to that.

So, after two weeks without a new episode, Bravo treated us to a "supersized" episode packed to the gills with sin. We encountered all manner of deadly sins, and learned that fuglitude is the ninth of these, as Padma Lakshmi made our new year by returning in an outfit so whorendous that it really must have required the full two-week hiatus to come up with it. It was a fuck-you to viewers' corneas, and we almost had to admire Bravo's brazen disregard in showing it without a warning stating, "Some Viewers May Find the Fugly Outfits Disturbing. Viewer Discretion Advised." Raggaydy Andy is lucky the FCC levies fines for swearing and not for fugly clothes.

The Quickfire Challenge was to create a dish based on a color. As Miss XaXa pointed out, it was the gayest of challenges, as it involved recreating the rainbow (well, with the exception of blue and the addition of brown). Beer Bong, enervated by the Vicodin in his system following an emergency tooth extraction, won the Quickfire Challenge, but, alas, no immunity.

The Elimination Challenge was to create a meal for yet another busty B-list celebrity with a gay following and a group of sketchy friends. Instead of Jennifer Coolidge, we got former Madonna BFF Debi Mazar hosting a seven-course dinner based on the seven deadly sins. The top three dishes were created by Sam, Elia, and Beer Bong, and wouldn't ya know it, the result was a tie, a win to be split equally between Beer Bong and Vicodin. The bottom three were Marcel, Betty "Spice Rack" Fraser, and Ilan Hall. And just like that, Spice Rack was in the soup and undone by the nitty gritty of the thing. She packed up her knives and readied herself for the ten-minute drive home to her restaurant in Hollywood. As we pointed out this morning, Spice Rack, honey, we named ya but we hardly knew ya.

So what did we learn?

We learned that getting a good performance out of Michael "Beer Bong" Midgley really is like pulling teeth. As Tom Colicchio put it, he should cook on Vicodin more often.

We learned about Alanis Morrissette irony (AMI), with the "brown girl" (Elia Aboumrad) being assigned white, the African-American (Cliff Crooks) being color blind and seeing black, and the chef who drew the sin of wrath waxing very wroth indeed. (We also learned, together with Sam Talbot, just how handy it is to have Sicilian blood to blame one's anger on; we wonder whether Frank "El Bully" Terzoli left behind little Sicilian heritage cards to pull out whenever the holder throws a hissy fit in the direction of Marcel. No doubt we'll find out next week that Ilan Hall yells at Marcel because he's a Sicilian Jew.)

A propos, we learned that Ilan Hall is unnaturally fixated on Marcel's cherry, all the while insisting that cherries lower libido. Of course, AMI struck back when Padma described Ilan's effort as "limp and flaccid."

And we learned that Marcel Vigneron still can't pronounce "gelee" to save his life or his virginity.

She Reads Us, She Really Reads Us!: Betty Fraser Hearts Amuse-Biatch for Dubbing Her "Spice Rack"

As promised, possums, we listened this morning to Miss XaXa's OutQ in the Morning Overlord, Larry Flick, as he interviewed our very own Betty "Spice Rack" Fraser on his show on Sirius Satellite Radio.

We had pen and paper at the ready, so we have all the highlights of the brief interview, but first, on a completely egotistical note, this was our absolutely favorite part, an eyes-closed, tummy-kneading, purring start to the day.

Towards the end of the interview, Betty was discussing the reaction she gets from fans of the show, and she mentioned that she has been given all sorts of nicknames, such as Betty "Spice Rack" Fraser.

We froze in our tracks. Dear Lord, that's us!, we muttered with as much dignity as we could muster.

"Honey, we've been calling her that since the show premiered," observed Miss XaXa before letting out a trademark Texas "yee-haw!"

Betty asked Larry Flick if he'd heard that nickname, "Spice Rack," and he said he had and called it "clever." Betty herself called it cute.

Betty, honey, if you're reading this, we know more about spices than about racks, but yours definitely rattles the marjoram and dried oregano in our high school woodshop final project. ("Don't forget the cumin!" adds Miss XaXa.) Alright, then. And the, er, cumin too.













Alright, now on to the interview.

When Larry Flick complimented her by saying, "You stir the shit," Miss Spice Rack took the homage in stride: "If you gotta do it, you gotta do it."

On Marcel Vigneron's hairdo: "I don't think the guy can do anything else with it." She also checks out the bonus material and the Bravo website and approvingly singled out Sam Talbot's comment that Marcel's attempts to hog credit were perhaps due to the fact that he's only five-foot-two.

On how much of what goes on is canned production stuff: They get the instructions for the challenge, but "everything else is really happening, it's really us, and really evil."


On Michael "Beer Bong" Midgley: "Mike is Mike. You wouldn't know it, but he's very talented." Apropos of the vending machine challenge, Beer Bong had told Miss Spice Rack that "Cheetos with Snickers was his favorite dish when watching football," and he was so mad that by the time his turn at the vending machine came up everything was gone that "he chose the Cheeto that looked the most phallic."

The person she was most surprised to see packing her knives and going: "Josie."

On Mia Gaines-Alt's decision to leave: "Elia was going to get canned. Mia has two lovely children, and I know she was missing those kids. People come to a boiling point."

On the holiday challenge: She worked across from the other team on the Warner Brothers lot, and she felt that even if all of her team's dishes were terrible, they should win just because they had so much food out there.

On her career as an actress: "I sucked."

Her other nickname: Betty "Botox" Fraser.

We still think Spice Rack is better.

Well, possums, that's all we were able to scribble down (we took shorthand at the same school as Joan Crawford in Grand Hotel, so it's not our forte), but we got most of it down.

Amuse-Biatch Investigates: Just How Big a Boob Is Rachael Ray?

Every time we swear that we are not writing about Rachael Ray again for a while, and are going to go back to discussing all things Top Chef, something comes up.

But this time we mean it. Seriously, this is the last Rachael Ray post for a while.

Still, attentive and responsive as we are to our readers, we couldn't ignore the charges that we are mistaken about Rachael Ray having "large bazooms."

In our defense, we should say that, given our, er, proclivities, we have no "hands-on" experience with bazooms, large or otherwise (except for that brief postnatal interlude when they were merely a pair of nourishing spigots). We're also terrible at parallel parking, so perhaps our depth perception isn't all it could be. (And you may not know this, but gay men's retinas are stamped with a warning similar to that on sideview mirrors: "Objects are smaller than they appear on the Internet." So perhaps we didn't pay heed.)

And yet, judging by the floating montage of Rachael Ray adipose chest-growths above--it's sure to give us nightmares, though it's more like a Fellini wetdream by way of Magritte--they look large enough to us.

Nonetheless, we will defer to the more practiced eye of our readers (not that we would want to chance a closer inspection of the bazooms in question), and have corrected our post accordingly. In a way, getting rid of the adjective makes our point all the better.

However, this does raise the worrying (and Top Chef-related!) possibility that we've been mistaken all along about Betty Fraser, and that she doesn't deserve the moniker "Spice Rack." What say ye? Do our homophilic eyes deceive us?

Gridskipper Leaves Skid Marks on "Top Chef" Locations

Bad-boy travel blog Gridskipper has a snarky guide to the Los Angeles locations used on this season of Top Chef, which it damns with the faintest of faint praise as "about food, it's shot in locations all over LA, and the people on it are slightly less obnoxious" than the people on The Amazing Race. Oh, and they repurposed one of our favorite Padma Lakshmi lingerie shots as a graphic.

Stirring stuff, isn't it? However, we think that Frank "El Bully" Terzoli and Betty "Spice Rack" Fraser would take umbrage at the notion that there are more obnoxious reality show contestants than they.