Toby Young: I Might Be Back Next Season, Marcel Vigneron Has a Temper, and Stefan Richter Converted a Lesbian

From today's live webchat with The Los Angeles Times:

Finale Previews: It Is *On*! Hootie Love vs. the Red Baron vs. the Stolid Mennonite Farmer from the Far Side Cartoon

Third Mystery Helper Elf Revealed! (We Think)

As you may remember, possums, at the end of last night’s episode, Tom Colicchio promised the remaining three finalists that they would have help for the final challenge, and for a split second we got a shot of three shadowy figures advancing through an archway. And no, it wasn’t a Watchmen promo, but there is a cartoon character involved.

At the far right is Richard Blais, one of last season’s runners-up. In the middle is Casey Thompson, one of Season 3’s runners-up (her presence is confirmed here). The most inscrutable of the shades is at the far left. At first, something about the slightly pigeon-toed walk suggested Sam Talbot, but the figure isn’t tall enough to be That Guy. We briefly considered Ilan, at the risk of our sanity. But then we remembered something we had read a few weeks ago, and it all made sense.

Now, our money’s on Season 2 runner-up Marcel Vigneron. It makes a certain kind of thematic sense for Wolverine to return--runners-up from past seasons, vous voyez? And then the details of the slightly bouffant hairdo seemed to fill themselves in. And this item from the New Orleans Times-Picayune would seem to clinch it:

Turns out some colleagues here at the paper are such big “Top Chef” fans they trekked to Commander's [Palace] on Thursday, Jan. 15, hoping to catch a glimpse of the [finale] action. They snapped [a] picture of Marcel Vigneron, runner-up in the reality show's second season. Vigneron told my friends that past contestants were involved in the episode being filmed at Commander's.

Q.E.D, possums, Q.E.D. Unless, of course, it’s someone else.

The Laws of God, the Laws of Man, or the Laws of Reality-TV Audience Morality: Just Which Laws Did Leah Cohen and Hosea Rosenberg Violate?

The titular question, possums, is one that has long puzzled us.

Indeed, we thought it most peculiar that Hosea’s “apology” to the masses should have begun thus:

First things first: None of us signed any contracts forbidding contact with the other cheftestants. We did not break any rules.

Uh, first things first. Let us state our belief and opinion, based on the text itself, that the Eliot Spitzer-worthy “apology” was overseen by publicists and/or lawyers. Because, of course, when you cheat on your boyfriend or girlfriend, the first concern that comes to mind is whether the cheating was in breach of a legal contract.

Also, notice how no “apology” from Leah was issued under the aegis of Bravo. Ah, those double standards. Of course, as her exit interviews with various publications show, Leah did not take kindly to being portrayed as a clingy Jezebel. But it’s more than that. It’s called damage control and rehabilitation. You will notice, of course, that when the “apology” was issued, on January 23, 2009, Hosea was already guaranteed a spot on the finals, in which he is the best hope of beating Stefan Richter for the title. In this not-so-epic Baldo a Baldo contest, it is Stefan who is supposed to be the villain, not stolid-Mennonite-farmer-from-the-West-cum-skaterboy-led-astray-by-Asian-Jewish-temptress-from-the-big-city-of-New-York Hosea. Indeed, by January 23, the finale had already been filmed in New Orleans, and who knows what, if anything, the “apology” means about who won.

But revenons à nos moutons.

“Hosea” says, “We did not break any rules.”

And yet consider these various bits, possums.

• In August 2007, New York Magazine published a cover story titled, “The Near-Fame Experience of Being a Bravo Reality Star.” The tidbit that grabbed most people’s attention was this: “The contestants on Bravo shows are not allowed money, credit cards, cell phones, newspapers, magazines, televisions, or Internet access….They can’t even have sex with one another to pass the time. (An STD could result in a lawsuit—unlike hookup reality shows, the contestants aren’t tested beforehand for communicable diseases.)”

• The day after publication of the article, Andrew “Raggaydy Andy” Cohen, Bravo Senior VP of Production and Programming, wrote the following on his Bravo blog: “I feel pretty great that under our watch, you ain’t allowed to ‘do it’ with another contestant. We’re not the ‘Real World’ and we’re not checking for STD’s and we’re just not in that game. If Tabs [Shear Design contestant Tabatha] gets herpes from another hairstylist that I helped cast, how am I gonna sleep at night!? Design all the dresses you want, but screw on your own clock. Or sign up to be on ‘Temptation Island’.”

And yet exactly a year later, August 2008, when the New York season of Top Chef is filming, it is no longer against the rules? Is it that, à la Bill Clinton, only penetrative vaginal intercourse is prohibited? (Although remember how coy Wesley Nault and Daniel Feld were on the last season of Project Runway regarding when their romance began and what they did about it while they were on the show?)

Notice, again, the careful wording of the Hosea “apology”: “None of us signed any contracts forbidding contact with the other cheftestants.” Well, “contact” is a little vague, ain’t it? After all, according to The New York Post, Wesley and Daniel “broke show rules by communicating with each other the day after the elimination. Nault passed Feld a note, and Feld gave Nault a silver bracelet.” Ah, well, perhaps swapping spit is better than swapping notes and jewelry.

Possums, it just doesn’t make sense. What continues to irk us, though, is the double standard. To the extent they are guilty of anything, Hosea and Leah are equally guilty. And yet the masses aren't baying for Hosea’s blood. He makes a lame-ass politician’s apology, and goes on his gap-toothed, xenophobic way to the finals, while thousands cheer as the clingy tramp is sent home. ‘T ain’t right, we say. Yes, we know the world was ever so, but come on, this is Bravo, for immorality’s sake.

Perhaps people care so much because this was the first acknowledged romance in the history of Top Chef (although we are intrigued by the rumors we have read of another couple of heterosexual team mates on this season going at it when the camera crews had left for the night; maybe Leah and Hosea were just unlucky in getting caught by the cameras). Even so, Leahosea can’t hold a candle to the seething, roiling, head-shaving, watersporting, self-hating, homoerotic folie à deux that was Marcilan (the Marcel Vigneron-Ilan Hall pairing in Season 2, which was to Jean Genet as Cruel Intentions is to Dangerous Liaisons, or 10 Things I Hate About You is to The Taming of the Shrew).

Amuse-Biatch Guessing Game: The Lee Anne Wong Blind Item

Well, possums, we’re always suckers for a guessing game, and Season 1 contestant and Top Chef culinary producer Lee Anne Wong has a nice and not too taxing one in an interview she did with Zagat (though we must say she looks awfully thin in the accompanying photograph; don’t go overboard now, Lee Anne). Aside from taking the blame for last season’s Scallopgate (just how many people are going to fall on their sword over this?), Lee Anne drops this little bit:

I always tell the smart [cheftestants] to remember that the cameras are always rolling. Top Chef is a stepping-stone and an opportunity to find out the blood and guts of yourself as a cook, and also who you are as a person. The ones who listen to what the judges have to say and move forward usually have a better chance of keeping in the public’s good favor. Every now and then you get a contestant who believes too much in their own hype, and then they self-implode. It’s up to you to figure out who I’m talking about….

So, possums, whom do you think she means? Guess away in the comments section.

“But Officer, It Was Just Beer Foam!”: Marcel Vigneron Arrested on Suspicion of Drunk Driving

Oh dear, possums.

Well, frankly, we're shocked that it took four seasons for anyone from Top Chef to be arrested, and even more shocked that it should have been Marcel Vigneron. We just assumed that it would be Ilan Hall.

Marcel had appeared at a gala for the Pageant of the Masters on Saturday and was arrested after midnight by the Laguna Beach police. Surprisingly, it seems he returned hours later to give a cooking demonstration at the Festival of Arts. It remains to be seen whether Marcel will take the (awkward) rap; we will keep you updated and supplied with bad puns.

Marcel Vigneron Raps, Has Long Eyelashes, Blushes

Did we mention that he raps? Don't say you weren't warned, possums.

News from the Department of “Oh, That Explains a Lot”

From the interview that our pals at YumSugar conducted with Spike Mendelsohn:

YS: So you were pretty familiar with the show [Top Chef]?
SM: I had definitely watched the show. I had a couple friends who were on the show. [Season 2's] Marcel [Vigneron] was a good friend of mine from culinary school, and Harold [Dieterle] from season one I also got to know.

Amuse-Biatch Asks Alanis Morissette a Rhetorical Question

Hey, Alanis, is it just us, or is it a teensy bit ironic that the one show on which Sam "Not That Guy" Talbot serves as a guest judge is the show where a cheftestant expresses a fear of being assaulted? Granted, possums, it's not like rain on your Wedding Wars, but we still wonder.

Lez Is More: Amuse-Biatch Discovers Previously Unknown Fourth Lesbian Cheftestant, or Pink Triangle Becomes a Square

Possums, in the beginning, we knew there were two:












Then, our friend Dorothy (yes, as in "FOD") confirmed that there were three:











And then we heard the rat-tat-tat and the clackety-clack of Louboutins on a travertine floor. 'Twas Miss XaXa, breathlessly delivering the news that, actually, there were four:











"Uh, darling, I know you've seen The L Word, but this isn't the 'Max Factor.' That's actually Richard Blais. He's from Atlanta, he's married, to a woman, and has a child on the way."

"But--"

"Je sais, je sais, darling. He's just trying to wrest the fauxhawked, sexually ambiguous, molecular gastronomy crown from Marcel Vigneron."

"But--"

"And he's such a man. He's been going fauxhawk a fauxhawk with Jen "The Beast" Biesty, and of course, he thinks his is bigger and better. He even accuses her of stuffing a metaPhotoShopical sock down her 'hawk."

"But--"

"Yes, you're right. No wonder he prides himself on being socially awkward."

Update:

Dicky, you’re fauxhawked: Christian Siriano just pronounced your haircut “last season’s ‘hawk,” while praising Jen Biesty’s Lady-‘hawk.

Chicago Sighting: I Saw a Man, He Dined with His Wives

Ah, possums, Chicago, Chicago, that toddlin' town, where the man sighted (LTH Forum via The Chicago Reader) was none other than Marcel Vigneron. The three women with him were not his wives ("Wrong gender, dude!"): Sandee Birdsong, Josie Smith-Malave, and Tiffani Faison. Holy Lesbian Triple Threat!

According to the sighting, Marcel and the Dreamgirls were spotted last Friday at Frontera Grill "with stage makeup on." Furthermore, Marcel "is growing some type of weird Abe Lincoln meets Hobbit-type beard." (There's a joke in there, possums, about Marcel, three lesbians, and beards, but "Marcel is gay" jokes are trop last season for us, and so we desist.) At any rate, what this means, possums, is that it looks as if Season 4 has already begun filming, well before next week's Chicago-based live reveal. If any of you Chicagoan possums catch sight of a stray cheftestant or two, wield those cell-phone cameras and drop us a line.

TedIlan: Reality Without Pity

Great unholy Doppelgängers, possums!

Last season, the great Keckler of Television Without Pity nicknamed Ilan Hall "TedIlan" for his resemblance to, you guessed it, Ted Allen.

However, no one has ever really had any trouble telling the two apart. Or so we thought.

Imagine our surprise when we came across a report about Ted Allen attending the birthday party of Manhattan club impresario Noah Tepperberg. The "article" breathlessly reported that "[e]ven reality TV was in attendance and stopped for the flashbulbs as a handful of America's Next Top Model contestants and Ted Allen from Top Chef paraded by."

Ted Allen a fame-whore who consorts with Tyra's castoffs? Hardly seemed likely.

Imagine our relief, and our repulsion on Ted Allen's behalf, when the photographs revealed that it was Ilan Hall that the "reporter" was talking about. Ilan Hall a fame-whore who consorts with Tyra's castoffs? Totally believable. But oh the indignity of having all the photos captioned "Ted Allen."

So what else is Ilan doing with his time and adjudged Top Chef title? According to one person on Marcel Vigneron's MySpace page:

I was in Whole Foods, on the Lower East Side, in Manhattan where I live and Ilan was there, and he knocked over a whole sample tray, it flew in the air and cause a spectacle! It was really funny!

But surely impressive feats such as attending nightclub impresarios' birthday parties and knocking over sample trays at Whole Foods don't take up all of Ilan's time?

No, indeed. He also celebrates family birthdays, as faithful Amuse-Biatch reader Jessica related to us in what we hope will inaugurate a "Biatch on the Street" feature, where you, possums, our huddled masses yearning to be snarky, send in your sightings of cheftestants and judges alike.

Jessica writes:

My boyfriend Tim and I were in New York City for vacation..., and, being the rabid Top Chef fans that we are, we chose to spend some serious dough on a dinner at Craftsteak in the hopes of, if not catching a glimpse of Tom Colicchio, at least tasting his food...While exiting the restaurant, [Ilan Hall] and his party stopped to speak to some of the restaurant employees who were stationed behind us...We shook hands and Ilan sat down for the photo. He seemed enormously pleased to have been recognized and to be treated like a celebrity. [You don't say!--Ed.] We posed for the camera, he jokingly asked to share some of our table's complimentary paté, and then he had to be off to celebrate his sister's birthday...As for the sides of Ilan's head,...they were shaved into a kind of striped pattern. Horizontal lines - maybe two or three of them on each side....

Marcel Vigneron Has a Beard (and It's Not Elia Aboumrad)

Possums, when faithful Amuse-Biatch reader Melanie sent us this photograph of Marcel Vigneron on an Alaskan fishing trip, our first reaction was, "Ooooh, how butch."

Our second reaction was, "Dear Lord, even Marcel's become a bear. Does that mean the trend's as dead as foam?"

We just wish we'd had this picture to illustrate this post last season. Still, better late than never.

At last, the Wolverine transformation is complete.

Potential Season 4 Judge Gets Some Bad News

Possums, we take a momentary rest from the bitchery and snark to reflect on the evergreen truth that the gods have a twisted sense of humor (and no, we're not referring simply to Lindsay Lohan's arrest this morning).

Rather, our musings are sparked by the sad news that 33-year-old, Chicago-based culinary wunderkind Grant Achatz, of Alinea Restaurant (named best in the nation by Gourmet), and a hero to many a chef and cheftestant (including, natürlich, Marcel Vigneron), has been diagnosed with "an 'advanced stage' of squamous cell carcinoma of the mouth -- a type of head and neck cancer." For a chef to get carcinoma of the mouth seems a cruel joke indeed on the part of the gods. And doctors say that head and neck cancer is quite rare, so even in illness, Chef Achatz is extraordinary.

According to the Chicago Sun-Times, Chef Achatz "will likely begin aggressive treatment within the next few weeks," and we wish him well.

It was Chef Achatz, together with Homaro Cantu, Charlie Trotter and others, who is responsible for Chicago's new-found fame as a culinary hot spot, which in turn led to Bravo's decision to film the fourth season of Top Chef in the City of Big Shoulders and Big Bellies (which we say affectionately, having a soft spot for Chicagoans).

Following its tradition of getting renowned local chefs involved in the show, no doubt Bravo would have tried to get Chef Achatz as a guest judge. We hope Bravo does just that, and that Chef Achatz is well enough to participate.

Lilliputz Takes On the Jowly Green Giant

Possums, as you know, we have yawned and scoffed at attempts by diminutive, eyebrow-plucking, wannabe-Puerto Rican cheftestant Hung Huynh to turn himself into the show's great Gay Villain.

His attempts at cattiness are so rarely successful that we were genuinely thrilled when we read the interview that the intrepid Lesley of Eater LA conducted with Hung, in which the Lilliputz took on the Jowly Green Giant himself, CJ Jacobson:

When we talked to CJ, without naming names he said the most difficult personality to deal with was "the one-dimensional, self-centered person who didn't have a life outside of food."
It's not my hobby, it's my life. That's why he doesn't have a job right now. This is my job. This is what I enjoy doing. He can't hack it in the real world.

Well done, Lilliputz! Meow! Especially considering that the unemployed, 6'8" former volleyball player could easily pick you up and punt you over the net.

In other examples of serviceable cattiness, Lilliputz called guest judge Maria Frumkin "a loser. Who is she, a replacement? A fill in?", dubbed Joey Pickles the real asshole ("You can see in his eyes that it's real negative energy. "), and more or less called Marcel a coward.

Gong Li would be proud, possum. We are just left with one lingering doubt: should it be "Lilliputz" or "Huynhnm"?

First Reaction: Fried or (Half) Baked?

Oh, possums, just when she was doing so well....

Watching Top Chef: 4 Star All Stars (surprisingly, it was not subtitled, “The Grudge”), we were paralyzed for many reasons (about which we will have much more to say later). But it was the 28th Most Beautiful Lady in the World, Padma Lakshmi, who gave us the biggest jolt of botulinum.

Her hair looked good. Her clothes were sexy but tasteful—the black polka dot dress looked good, the pants ensemble looked good, the cinnamon-colored dress looked good. Heck, even her scar looked good. No hot pants, Ugg boots, or shearling vests in sight.

Our unfurrowed brow began to furrow.

And then she corrected Marcel’s pronunciation of “gelée,” just as we were in mid-wince after hearing “jell-EE.”

Aghast, the twin figures of Henry Higgins and Mr. Blackwell, who daily battle for such scraps of our soul as remain, stood mute.

Would there be anything for us to do on Season 3? Would we have to retire? Would we be perennially doomed to sweetness and light?

Fortunately (for us, at least), last night’s premiere of Season 3 revealed that there is, indeed, a reason for us to go on living. You ought to have seen the grin of relief on our basement-dweller faces, possums, as she mispronounced “amuse-bouche” yet again. Ah-MOOZE? That’s nooze to us.

And then, of course, she went on to utter the immortal line of the night, “You could fry my toe, and batter it well, and it would taste good.”

Though Tom Colicchio rolled his eyes, we positively purred. We may well have cackled. Miss XaXa, momentarily lulled into compassion by the booze, pleaded, “Come on, give her a break. She’s still making progress.”

Remembering those hot pants from last season, we had to concur. From camel-toe to fried toe is quite a journey indeed.

Is it any wonder she married the man who wrote The Ground Beneath Her Feet? (We will have much more to say about this as well; here and now we call Top Chef 3, “The Foot Fetishist’s Season.”)

Still, Padma, fried or baked, we’ve missed you, possum. Welcome back. And to you, possums, we say, as our other theme for the season, “Welcome to Meowmi.”

P.S. Regular posting will follow, including a full-fledged, Amuse-Biatch recap.

Amuse-Biatch Remembers Mama (Or, Rather, Mama Remembers Amuse-Biatch)

You know, possums, if blogs were like children, Child Protective Services would already have stepped in and taken Amuse-Biatch and Pink Navy away from us after finding them unfed, untended, and sitting in their own waste for weeks on end. No doubt we would be up on charges of abandonment, child endangerment and criminal neglect, among other things.

A fortunate thing, then, that blogs are not like children, and that we will never reproduce. (One of each of us in the world is quite enough, thank you; we came from the mother of all genetic sample sales. Can you just imagine a passel of mini-Charluses and mini-Xaxas who would make Stewie Griffin look like Baby Jesus? Even we shudder at the thought.)

At any rate, possums, we are back and ready to clasp our neglected children to our ample, empty bosoms. You needn’t be burdened with the tedious details of our absence (we chafe at how inapt and inept it is to call non-blogging, working life “real life,” to which Miss Xaxa says, “Spoken like a true basement-dweller!”). All you need to know is that we are back.

And, it seems, we picked rather a good time to remember our parental responsibilities. The Gals have scored quite a coup by getting Marcel Vigneron himself to participate in a live online chat tomorrow, Monday, May 7, at 7 p.m. Pacific time. We are pleased as punch to be part of it, however undeservedly, and will post further details as soon as they are made available to us.

As for the rest of it, please feel free to suggest topics, send tips, ask questions, etc., for this blog. Otherwise we may be reduced to discussing Giada de Laurentiis’ cleavage. Think of it as skeet shooting (“Are you sure you should attempt a sports metaphor?” asks Miss Xaxa nervously). The guns are loaded; we just need the clay pigeons.

We can’t wait to hear from you, possums. Cold and distant Mummy and Daddy are home and mixing the martinis.

Top Chef and Adjudged "Top Chef" Winner Dish It Out

Alas, possums, if you were hoping this post would be about a quasi-sexual fantasy involving Top Chef Harold Dieterle, adjudged Top Chef winner Ilan Hall, and the rattan chair and whip from Casino Royale, you will be sorely disappointed.

Instead, we wanted to note that the charming and no-nonsense Harold, whose new restaurant, Perilla, is slated to open very, very soon, was featured at the Food and Wine Best New Chefs Showcase. As per Bravo blogger and boy reporter extraordinaire Raggaydy Andy Cohen, other Top Chef alumni in attendance were Ilan Hall, Josie Malave-Smith, Sam Talbot, and Season One's Andrea Beaman and Miguel Morales. Our haughty, lynx-like, Canadian schoolmistress pinup Gail Simmons (when we're feeling a little lezzie, we have fantasies of Gail in a culinary remake of Mädchen in Uniform) also was present.

So what was on the menu? Ilan "Mutton Dressed as Lamb" Hall ("What about 'Wolf in Sheep's Clothing' or 'Shorn Sheep'?" asks Miss XaXa) served "a fantastic lamb medley and Harold made some rock shrimp and mushroom with some Marcelian foam." Alas, no word from Raggaydy Andy as to what "Knock-Off King" Ilan was wearing.

Top Chef Ilan D. Hall Joins the Amuse-Biatch Crusade to Bring Back Sweetness and Light, Gucci Handbags

It is Ash Wednesday, possums, and we were ebullient and uplifted (in that Cross Your Heart, 18-hour way) after early-morning services (we wore our charcoal YSL turtleneck in order to match the ash daubed on our forehead, but our brow was equally touched with sweetness and light).

Taking a gander at the salmon-colored pages (well, Miss XaXa says they're more pink than salmon, but pink sounds so, like, gay) of The New York Observer, and relieved that there was no article by Simon Doonan to test our post-Rainbow Springs sobriety, we were about to turn to the irreproachably heterosexual Andrew Sarris' column, when we came across a tidbit on Top Chef Ilan D. Hall, who, just in time for the paschal season, shows himself appropriately repentant, humble, and full of the new spirit of sweetness and light.

The author describes running into "an expensively but hiply dressed man in a wool-knit beanie cap, with a Louis Vuitton bag the size of a 4-year-old child" who turned out to be none other than "Top Chef conquistador Ilan D. Hall. "

After congratulating our beloved Ilan on winning, the author decided to compliment the indubitably heterosexual Ilan on his sac à main:

"Nice bag, Gucci?"

"Yeah." But it looked very Louis Vuitton.

"Look at you, buying Gucci bags right and left," The Transom gushed.

"No, it's old." But it looked very new.

We got into the elevator, The Transom first. "So what's going on with Cliff? He's not in jail is he?" Cliff is Cliff Crooks, who was ejected from Bravo for getting rough with contestant Marcel Vigneron's gorgeous mane.

"Nah, he's in his restaurant, he's doing really well," Mr. Hall said.

"Yeah!" said The Transom, angling for another high five. "That dude actually probably deserved to get his head shaved."

Then things got hot: Mr. Hall furrowed his epicurean brow. "He deserved more than that." Snap!

Already we feel sweeter and more light.

Amuse-Biatch Sweetness and Light Week, Tuesday Edition: Worshipping the Golden Calf, No Bull

We begin our week of sweetness and light with this sweet photograph of Marcel Vigneron and Top Chef Ilan Hall on the beautiful beach in our nation's newest and most beautiful state, Hawai'i. We were particularly touched by this seaside agape, this brotherly and entirely unambiguous breaking of bread and sea urchin.

We were also struck by how shapely and well-developed Ilan's calf is, how perfectly proportioned, the hint of striated muscle at the knee, and, of course, the well-turned ankle. No fatted calf for a real Top Chef. Ilan's are the limbs of a Greek kouros, and correspond to the Classical notion that beauty is reflective of virtue. Ilan's fitness to be Top Chef is thus manifested in the fitness of his calf.

Lest we fall into the Biblical sin of worshipping the golden calf, we hasten to add that our admiration is completely heterosexual. Ours is a judgment based on objective analysis of undeniable pulchritude. In other words, we're so, like, comfortable with our sexuality that we can say another straight guy has nice legs without being, like, all gay about it. And anyone who thinks ill of it is just a perv, and not going with the spirit of sweetness and light, and that's not the kind of reader we want on this blog.