Rhubarb Bellini, She's Our Baby, Rhubarb Bellini We Don't Mean Maybe

Never let it be said, possums, that we don't listen to what you say. Ask and ye shall receive (well, within reason, of course).

You asked for the recipe for Stephanie Izard's rhubarb bellini, and we set out to get it. Miss XaXa wrote to Stephanie, asking how to make the rhubarb puree to be added to the champagne or prosecco, and this is the reply from Stephanie herself:

thanks for your interest in the rhubarb bellini. umm... i don't have the exact measurements but here's a quick guesstimate, 4 cups of chopped rhubarb 1 cup of sliced strawberries, 1/4 cup of white balsamic vinegar and half a cup of sugar and cook in a pot until tender then puree!

In addition, Stephanie confirmed that she will be participating in the Chicago Green City Market Chefs' Summer BBQ Festival on July 17 from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at Lincoln Park. Proceeds go to support the non-profit Green City Market, which, as you may remember, played host to one of this season's Quickfire Challenges. Other participating chefs who also appeared as guest judges this season are Rick Bayless, Paul Kahan and Koren Grieveson. So if you want to meet Stephanie, be sure to get your tickets.

Amuse-Biatch Photoessay: It Seems Like Only Last Week Padma Lakshmi Was Standing Next to a Boyish Guest Judge in Jeans, T-Shirt and Chain-Wallet

Tom Colicchio Threatens to Quit “Top Chef” If Producers Ever Tell Him Whom to Pick as Winner, Challenges Naysayers to “Google” Him

This, possums, is what we learnt from a typically feisty interview with the Ursus Major himself:

There are a lot of great chefs that want to be guest judges on the show, and they are great chefs, but for one reason or another they're not right for TV. I don't really know why. I don't know why I'm on the show, I just know they picked me because they thought I was telegenic for some reason. I don't know why. So that's why I'm always kind of cynical about it. But that being said, I love what we do on the show, I think we choose the best contestant every year, and there is no pressure from the producers or anyone else to pick a certain someone despite what everybody believes. The day they tell us we have to pick someone for any reason other than our judgement is the day I do my last show.

Well, that's that.

What's particularly interesting to us about his comment is the revelation that there are chefs who want a guest spot on Top Chef but are not picked because "they're not right for TV." For one thing, we'd love to know who was rejected for not being telegenic enough (and by telegenic we don't mean just appearance, but also demeanor and personality; after all, it's not as if Bravo would ever pick people who were attractive but robotic or wooden).

But we'd also love to know just how Koren Grieveson squeaked through. By all acounts, she is a fantastic chef, and we don't dispute that, but her affectless demeanor is more suited to Gus Van Sant movies about inscrutable teenage boys than it is to a show promoting itself with the tagline, "Let the flames begin."

Finally, we loved the Colicchy One's response to the vexed and eternal Hollywood question, "But don't they know who I am?":

When we opened in L.A. I had a woman come up to me and say "You're really a chef?" Yeah! Or when you send a person off the show, eliminate someone people really like, they say, "Who is this guy? Who is this guy we've never heard of before?" What can you say, you know? Go home and google me.

Aw snap!

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.

Amuse-Biatch Photoessay: Does Little Miss Not-So-Much Sunshine Promise There Will Be Blood?

On the left, Koren Grieveson, of Avec Restaurant in Chicago; on the right, Paul Dano, of Little Miss Sunshine and There Will Be Blood.