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.

Possum Communiqué

Well, possums, thus endeth the season that established the FCC is apparently ok with “pussy” and “twat” airing on basic cable, the season of interesting personalities and not-so-interesting food.

On a personal note, it was also the season that proved once and for all that our fan favorite endorsement is the kiss of death. For Season 6, we will be accepting cash and gifts from cheftestants in order not to endorse them for fan favorite.

Now that the season is over, posting will be much lighter, as and when the spirit moves us. We are working on a couple of interviews for you, and will post them when they’re ready. We haven’t yet decided whether we will blog Marco Pierre White’s new show, Chopping Block, but we will most definitely keep our claws in working order for Top Chef Masters when it airs. (And look for us on Twitter, where we are sure to spend far too much time.)

Mil gracias, vielen Dank, and merci to you, the possums, for reading, commenting, and sending in tips and piquant (often salacious) rumors (and photographs). (And as the casting and other preparations for Season 6 get underway, please continue to send those in.)

Mientras tanto, hasta la próxima….

Is There an Amuse-Biatch “Top Chef” Curse?

Well, possums, perhaps it serves us right for being so immodestly pleased that, as shown above, our endorsement of Carla Hall for the title of Fan Favorite (and its attendant prize of 10,000 scallop shells) is going to be shown on tomorrow night’s Reunion Show. Caught and held fast in the gauzy web born of the Gail Simmons giggles we inspired, we failed to think our usual pessimistic thoughts.

Fortunately, one of the properly cynical possums, watching the second video’s bit on the “birthday curse,” suggested that there might be an Amuse-Biatch curse as well, at least where Fan Favorites are concerned.

A curse? Sure, “fan site” is not exactly how we would refer to this endeavor (“cyber scratching post,” or “tiny, clawed fist shaken in the general direction of the aspirational reality tv panopticon” might be more to our liking), but a curse?

But the Santayana-quote-wielding possum was merciless in her remembrance of things past. We were reminded that during Season 2, we endorsed Carlos Fernandez, only to have him lose to Sam “Not That Guy” Talbot. During Season 3, we endorsed Dale Levitski, only to have the title won by Casey “Beaver Boots” Thompson, a title she might not win again if the voting were held today. During Season 4, we endorsed perhaps the biggest fan this website has ever had, self-proclaimed metrosexual and logorrhea sufferer, Ryan “Chicken Piccata” Scott, but the fans chose Stephanie Izard instead.

We must face the very real possibility, then, that in endorsing Carla for Fan Favorite we inadvertently doomed her chances of success, putting us in the company of none other than Dick Cheney. Just great. Why, oh why, didn’t we endorse Ariane “Silencer of the Lambs” Duarte? Why?

A Scarlet Letter from Amuse-Biatch

Possums,

We won’t get into the reasons for our absence of the past week, mostly because in spite of all recent, firsthand evidence to the contrary, we refuse to accept that we inhabit a world in which illness and mortality have any more purchase than they do in a Pedro Almodóvar film. Into the bubble of the blogger’s basement no shafts of reality must be allowed to make their way, nor shall they.

Instead, let us agree to a version in which our silence was that of the well of loneliness, the soundless scream of the daughters of Bilitis, at the pykagging of our Sapphic mini-Fergie, Miz Jamie Lauren. Fortunately for us, though, our Uranian grief was assuaged by the sweet, sweet balm of the Christian Bale freakout remix on constant replay.

After all, which of the world’s ills can’t be cured by a good house beat? As a straight (that’s what he said) friend told us many years ago, being a good gay is about “dancing through the pain.” Mind you, this was in the context of the Hex Hector remix of Toni Braxton’s “Unbreak My Heart,” but the principle is the same.

And so, yes, the loss of Jamie was rather difficult, all the more so because it seemed so unavoidable and so very just under the circumstances. In the wake of Jamie’s exit, we wondered whether it was possible to feel simultaneous boredom and despair—despair at her departure, and boredom at the prospect of a final that doesn’t include her—as one feeling would seem to negate the other.

Oh, fickle, fickle gays!

We could not possibly have anticipated just how good and entertaining last night’s episode would be, and we had to laugh at the pleasure of watching the show cheerfully violate its own stated principles about it being a one-challenge-at-a-time, what-have-you-done-for-me-lately competition.

Had that principle been followed, Stefan Richter would and should have been sent packing for the undistinguished (and undistinguishable) spinach and the salmon that was unanimously deemed to be overcooked, an unpardonable sin on a season that has been so much about “respecting the protein,” and on an episode that was preceded by the hazelnut-and-butter-accented presence of the St. John the Baptist of fish cookery, Le Bernardin’s Eric Ripert (come to think of it, his accent is more the equivalent of Nutella eaten out of the jar with one’s finger, but we digress). What is a thinned hollandaise sauce in comparison to that?

Surely on the scales of PYKAG justice, Leah’s sin of a thin hollandaise sauce was outweighed by the greater, audience-perceived sins of weakness, whininess and immorality (about which more later). We declared ourselves fans of Stefan from the outset, so we would have been grieved to see him go, but it also would have made a satisfying kind of narrative sense for him to have gone out now—hubris, Icarus, the Finland vs. Sweden thing, etc. Instead, the show opted for a more timeless kind of American narrative—Hester Prynne is pilloried to satisfy public morality while the bald, stolid, chin-merkin’d Dimmesdale (and how dim indeed) is allowed to continue in a halo of xenophobic, phallocentric (tiny shrimp!, eel!) anxiety and insecurity to battle the European savant Chillingworth (we haven’t quite worked out all the details, but give us time). How will it all turn out?

From the Depths of the Savanna, a Message to the Possums

We ought to have known, of course, sensing, as we did, a disturbance in the Force. Still, we didn’t fully understand the state of things until we heard Miss XaXa’s dulcet but Vincent-Price-ominous tones (or is it C. Aubrey Smith filtered through Texas bonhomie?) warning us, “The possums are getting restless.”

Possums, possums, possums, you ought to know by now that we live only to saunter onto the reality-tv savanna in order to bring down the sick and the lame for you to feast on. Given our less than wholesome psyche, it makes us happy in a way that few things can, and it displeases us to no end to have to disappoint you.

But as we all know, possums, no one, not even us, can afford to take gainful employment for granted In These Troubled Times. We have been travelling for work all week in regions where the pink-particled beam of Bravo’s signal doth not penetrate, and have consequently not yet seen this week’s episode. But we are set to return to the realm of the Bravo-accoutered cable box this weekend, and will watch the episode forthwith and bring you its bloodied carcass. It’s a promise, possums, from our heartless hearts.

Amuse-Biatch Has a Gail Time: Two More Reasons Why Gail Simmons' Husband Is a Very Lucky Man

Amuse-Biatch Night Vision, or Is It Nightmares? We Spy with Our Little Jaundiced, Giggling, Insinuating Eye

Amuse-Biatch Pictionary: “Brunoise”

According to Wikipedia:

“Brunoise is a method of food preparation in which the food item is first julienned and then turned 90° and diced again, producing cubes of a side length of about 3 mm on each side or less. Common items to be brunoised are leeks, turnips and carrots. The diced vegetables are blanched briefly in salty boiling water and then submerged in ice water for a few seconds to set the color. The brunoise is often used as a garnish in many dishes. A common dish which often uses a brunoise as a garnish is a consommé. A brunoise must be very consistent in size and shape, as it helps to ultimately create a visual effect.”

Amuse-Biatch Heterosexual Monday: We and Padma Lakshmi Are Back, Giving You Our Best Come-Hither Look

Amuse-Biatch Heterosexual Wednesday: Padma Lakshmi Inspires Us to Bare All

Well, possums, we have now returned from the customary hiatus that follows the end of a Top Chef season, a time during which we attend to what, if we remember correctly, James Mason in The Shooting Party referred to as “death, disease and dentistry.” Mind you, we also use the time off to grow new claws, and new brain cells when we can manage it. This time around, though, we did a little something different. Foodie networking site FoodCandy kindly and unexpectedly asked us to sit down for an interview, and we—inspired by Padma Lakshmi’s penchant for self-exposure—couldn’t help but say yes. We won’t take off our top, but we will reveal the innermost depth of our shallowest thoughts.

So if you’re interested, possums, do go and have a LOOK.

Our thanks to dB of FoodCandy for a wonderful experience.

Bee-yotch: Ryan Scott Stings Amuse-Biatch in Fresno Bee

As you are no doubt all too aware, possums, the last seven days have been an unceasing dirge, an expression of mourning for our inconsistent, self-avowed “metrosexual,” and Little Mozart of the Fryolator, Mr. Ryan Scott.

Encased, as he was, in the aspic of his own smarm, he was a sitting target, and we will miss him. Oh how we’ll miss him!

It appears, however, that he won’t miss us.

According to The Fresno Bee:

[Ryan] Scott was more curt when asked about amuse-biatch.blogspot.com, a blog that skewers all “Top Chef” contestants.

“You’ve got to have something better to do with your time than that,” Scott says.

Oh, Ryan, possum, we’re hurt, even—dare we say it—hoit.

How odd, and yet how apt, that it should have been your pretty-boy predecessor in loquacious smarm, last season’s Brian Malarkey, who leveled the same charges only last year. And we say unto you, as we said unto him, “We do have better things to do (and we do them); it’s just that we enjoy doing this.” As you yourself might have said, we don’t just blog with our hands; we blog with our heartlessness.

Mind you, we haven’t been as heartless as we could. We received some very interesting correspondence from people very close to you that we refrained from publishing. We have also resisted spinning out your narrative arc as a tale about the revenge of chicken, for it was chicken (piccata) that first brought you national disgrace, and chicken (thighs on a bed of bread) that got you kicked off the show. Did you see a single “When the Chicken Piccata Comes Home to Roost” headline from us? No.

Moments after Padma pykkagged you, you said, with a little poached pear of a sob in your throat, “What this show brought me was cooking, yes, and what it does is it humbles you and teaches you that, you know, it’s, like, wow, I'm not the shit, so, thank you.” But did we do a post about your Pauline conversion titled, “Turd Discovers He’s Not the Shit”? No. And yet this is how you treat us.

But just as our sorrow threatened to overwhelm us, we listened once again to your final words on the show: “This personally changed my life, so it’s gonna change the way I cook. It’s the way I look at an ingredient, but it's not gonna change me, Ryan Scott, as a person.”

Does that mean you’ll still be the vain, smarmy, inconsistent, prevaricating self-avowed “metrosexual” Ryan Scott we know and love?

In that case, possums, we will stop weeping into our gnocchi-soft pillow and face the new day, for though this may be our last Ryan Scott post for a very long time (as you no doubt will appreciate, possums), lo he is risen and will smarm again.

Though It Requires Every Last Ounce of Self-Control, Amuse-Biatch Has No Comment, Bites Forked Tongue Hard

From Ryan Scott's March 17, 2008, interview with our pals at YumSugar:

YS: Are you worried about how you're going to be perceived?
RS: Wow. Good question. How'd Andrew answer that? [Laughs] I guess I don't care. I was myself. I'm trying not to read all the freaking blogs. People critiquing you who don't know you, or they know you and worked with you in the past. . . . I went in there and knew I was truly myself all the way through. Editing is a beautiful thing. One of the blogs said I was the bad guy. How in the hell did I come off as the bad guy?


From Ryan Scott's April 18, 2008, interview with our pals at YumSugar:

YS: Sounds good, we can't wait to hear more about this. But now we have just one last question, have you been reading the blogs?
RS: No. Why what do you want to know? Is there something one of them says?
YS: Oh nothing in particular, we were just wondering if you've been reading what people have to say about you.
RS: No, Sam recommended that I don't read them, so I haven't been. Why is there something negative I should know about?

Spelling Bee-atch

Possums, we want to make something clear at the outset: we are not doing this just because we are pedantic and bitchy (though we are undoubtedly both). No, we are doing this because Bravo has a responsibility, and has failed to live up to it.

Tom Colicchio (and, to a lesser extent, Rocco DiSpirito) spent much of the Judges’ Table portion of the show in a snit (and rightfully so) over the cheftestants’ ignorance of classic dishes and techniques, letting on that it was an embarrassment to be competing at that level and not know such basics (and Colicchio and other guest judges have in the past railed against putting out product that is less than perfect). Well, it is likewise an embarrassment at that level not to know how to spell the names of classic dishes or common food ingredients.

Why all this talk about “that level”? Well, because, as Colicchio himself pointed out in an Associated Press article, Top Chef, the “#1 food show on cable,” one that attracts a desirable (because educated and affluent) demographic, “has become respectable” and “is being taken seriously.” This is in large part because Top Chef is now the show where culinary demigods Eric Ripert, Daniel Boulud and André Soltner consent to make appearances. Given that Eric Ripert, Daniel Boulud and André Soltner “really legitimized the show,” is it really too much to expect that the show they have legitimized will at least know how to spell duck à l’orange?

And this isn’t a typo that someone made on a blog or in an email, the sort of thing that can slip in when one is writing on the fly and that is entirely forgivable. No. The season’s first episode was filmed in October. That means that Bravo had approximately five months to get the episode ready, and surely that is more than enough time to make sure that such things don’t occur.

We were not the only ones to notice, but, Bravo, the word is “pappardelle,” not “parpadelle.” (As it happens, neither Rocco DiSpirito nor Ted Allen had any problem spelling it correctly on their Bravo blogs.) Further, the word is “soppressata,” not “sopressata,” “challah” and not “halla” (what, are there no Jews at Bravo?), and “pizza à la grecque,” not “à la grec.”

This sort of stuff is easy to fix, and should be fixed. And Bravo, if you don’t do it for your viewers, at least do it for Eric Ripert. He should not have to purse his fishy lips in pain over this sort of thing.

And the Abbie Goes to....

Possums, what with the writers’ strike this year, we felt deprived—deprived! we tell you—of our yearly dose of meaningless awards. To remedy that problem, we have decided to create our own. And so, Amuse-Biatch (i.e., “A-B”) presents the inaugural handing out of the Abbies.

Awards will be handed out on a weekly basis, and the winners will each receive a Golden Possum (well, as soon as we can catch one and spray-paint it gold).

We encourage you, possums, to submit nominations for future awards, and will post the best ones. And so, without further ado (drumroll, please).

*Best Argument for Banning Meth Use During Pregnancy and Outlawing Exposure to Hip Hop and Hispanics for White Boys in Their Formative Years: Andrew “Casa, Motherfuckers. Oh What Phatness!” D’Ambrosi



















*Best Repeated Use of Editing Cut to a Black Muslim Woman to Show Just How Shocking—Shocking!—a Lesbian Relationship Is, with the Hope That Said Black Muslim Woman Will Say Something About Allah and Sodomites to Create Drama on Season’s First Episode: Bravo Editors (Sergei Eisenstein would be proud!)

*Best Use of Subliminal Advertising: The moment when, after being dressed down by the judges, Nimma Osman was shown sitting against the wall of Glad products while saying, off-camera, “There’s people that are glad that it’s over with….” Bravo, hast thou no shame?














*Best Use of Artfully Disheveled Hair by a Previously Disgraced and Overcoiffed Chef Who, Accused of Being a Little Light in His Kitchen Clogs, Seeks to Combat Rumors by Butching It Up: Rocco DiSpirito.

To which Miss XaXa said, “Seriously. It’s like he wanted to convince people with that hair that the pizza delivery had caught him in the middle of topping Padma’s deep dish. As if.”

*Best Former Culinary Bad Boy Defanged by Wife and Child: Anthony Bore-dain

*Best Use of Potato-Dumpling Metaphor by Pot to Call Kettle Black: Pretty boy Rocco DiSpirito, for saying of pretty boy Ryan Scott, “It’s not just his gnocchi that were dense.” Aw snap! (Or should it be, Aw two snaps?)

To which Miss XaXa said, “Why don't you just call it the Hate-Fuck of the Week Award?”

*Best Shaggy-Haired Mentor Who Won’t Get Off a Chef’s Back (And Yes, Rocco Is Disqualified): The Yoda backpack sported by Stephanie Izard.

Amuse-Biatch Shudders to Remember the Most Earth-Shattering Moment in the History of This Blog

Possums, for the past few months, we have been hiding a dark secret, a secret so traumatic that it very nearly drove us from blogging forever!!!

“Could you be more dramatic?” said Miss Xaxa.

Picture it. On account of our work—yes, possums, lilies of the field though we are, even we must toil and spin to earn our daily pain Poilâne—we were near the Los Angeles location of Tom Colicchio’s restaurant, Craft. We were in the lobby, on the cell phone, in the midst of a v. v. important call, but staring off into the distance, when all at once we saw a cloud, a host of—

Well, not daffodils. Of Top Chef, rather, for it was none other than Padma. Fucking. Lakshmi. Making straight for us.

Our mind raced and reeled. We felt like Ebiatchnezer Screwge. Was this the Ghost of Bitchmas Past or merely an undigested bit of potato?

But no, ‘twas She, clad all in black, and moving smoothly toward us like an avenging angel, a great Hindu goddess of destruction. And in that moment, the warp and woof of World Wide Web was rent and ripped, and a small frisson of the apocalypse overcame us.

“Oh, lighten up,” said Miss XaXa. “She was probably just coming back from lunch with Tom Colicchio at Craft, on her way to see a lawyer or an agent.”

But really, possums. We wondered if our rather broad brow would suddenly act like the news crawl at the bottom of the screen on CNN, broadcasting our thoughts. Did she know? Could she know? Would she know she was in the presence of half an Amuse-Biatch?

Our eyes locked but for an instant. As a creature of flesh and blood, she was more beautiful than as a pattern of pixels on a screen. Would the eyes betray us, tell her all, confess our biatchy, blogging sins? Was that the slightly resinous scent of guilt trapped in our nostrils?

“Jesus Christ!” said Miss XaXa, “Catholic much?”

But, fortunately, the only look we detected on her face was that of someone who has been recognized. Such is the price of fame. She walked past us and toward the elevator, and we were once again safe—safe to biatch, safe to blog, safe to be.

And so, possums, hey, hey, the Biatch is back.

Amuse-Biatch Crawls Out of Its Hole, Fails to See Shadow; Six More Weeks of Bitchery Predicted

Mind you, possums, if we failed to see our shadow, it's because we have none. Not that any of you who have a smattering of occult lore wouldn't have figured as much: no soul, no shadow.

And so we're back from outer space--

"Damn!" interrupted Miss XaXa. "Does it have to be so gay right off the bat?"

But you know us, possums: always a song in our desiccated little hearts.

We sure hate to walk in and find you here with that sad look upon your faces, and we wouldn't blame you if you'd changed your snarky, overeducated locks, but we swear we had a very good reason for being away for so long, about which we'll say more in the coming days.

And yes, March 12, 2008: the 70th anniversary of the Anschluß that drove Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer out of Austria, and the premiere of Top Chef: Chicago. We'll be there with edelweiss and bells on.

Pinking Shears in Pink Navy's Future

You might as well know the truth, possums--we're throwing our pink sailor hat into the ring.

A combination of overweening ego on our part and the pleas of a few hardy masochist possums has led to our decision to cover Project Rip Van Winkle, er, Runway, when and if it ever does premiere.

Give us a few days to get our bearings, dust off our Jean-Paul Gaultier sailor uniforms, and plug the leaks that HMS Pink Navy sprang when hitting the Top Design iceberg, and then we'll be glad to welcome you aboard.

As for Possum Central, it will remain open, though we won't post daily. Rather, we'll post as the biatchy spirit moves us, and whenever there is news (so send us stuff), or when we worry about the haunted, Kierkegaardian look in Rachael Ray's over-raccooned eyes.

Thank you, army of possums, for a great season, and for being a bunch of literate, over-educated, snarky, dirty-minded, obsessive, pun-hungry, delightful souls.

Amuse-Biatch Finally Makes It in Chow Business, Hears His Mistress's Voice

Possums, we have a tale to tell.

In a show of extreme generosity--not to say sheer folly--Meredith Arthur, who has conducted most of the Chow.com interviews with the pykagg'd cheftestants, kindly and flatteringly asked the Amuse-Biatch team to the grown-ups' table to hash out what everyone made of this season of Top Chef.

Once the table extension had been added, and our ambrosia salad taken by our hostess Meredith to the kitchen with only a slightly horrified look, we joined our pals Josh Ozersky of New York Magazine's Grub Street, and the Great Keckler of Television Without Pity at the table.

We had a nice, rollicking little chat, and we think we managed not to spill cranberry sauce on anyone. Fortunately, the editors snipped away the bits where we went on drunken rants, made football predictions, and tried to shave Miss XaXa's head. So if you're curious to hear what we sound like, head on over.

And our special thanks again to Meredith of Chow.com for the invitation. The thank-you card is in the mail, together with a check for the little Dresden shepherdess we knocked over on our way out.

Amuse-Biatch Gets Its Tongue Back from the Cat

Possums, aside from the general blah-ness of this week's episode, and our desire to make a one-off joke at Howie Kleinberg's expense, our silence has been the result of rushing to meet a deadline in our non-blog life. We should be back in full logorrhea by tomorrow.

Thank you for your patience, possums.

[A special thanks to The Big Shamu, one of The Gals (and hey, aren't we all?), for her fine millinery work with Amuse-Biatch mascot Albertine.]

Amuse-Biatch Omnisexual Friday: Weekend Sign-Off

Have a good weekend, possums, and watch out for salmonella poisoning if you try to reproduce this scene from touchstone film Tampopo at home.