“Top Chef” Shocker! Nikki Cascone Refuses to Serve a Hungry Raggaydy Andy!

So it's Monday night, possums, and Raggaydy Andy Cohen, Bravo's Senior VP of Production and Programming, and, as it happens, one of the producers of Top Chef, has just seen a "gut wrenching" play about the Iraq war. His gut having been wrenched, it was also in need of a little sustenance, and that's when disaster struck:

After the show, we wandered around Soho looking for a spot to eat. I guided us towards Prince Street and Elizabeth to the restaurant where Nikki Cascone from "Top Chef" is executive chef. It was only 10:25 and we were told the kitchen was closed. WTF? Do we live in DES MOINES or whaaaaayt?

Possums, we sympathize. What's the point of producing "the #1 food show on cable" if you can't even get a meal? And Nikki, Nikki, Nikki--we picture the Staten Island bouffant deflating atop her head as she realizes the magnitude of her faux pas.

And while we're on the subject of darling Nikki, a faithful and inquisitive Amuse-Biatch reader, N., wrote in with an intriguing possum query:

"I heard...that Nikki posed in playboy way back when she was very young.
Have you heard this or seen the pics? I'd love to find them but so far, no luck."

First of all, N., possum, it's understandable that, given our rather large collection of racy Padma pics, you would assume we'd be intimately familiar with Monsieur Hefner's work. Alas, we have not seen an issue of Playboy apart from the one our clearly misguided Secret Santa gave us during our freshman dorm gift exchange. And so we turn to the possums (especially those of you—you know who you are—with extensive collections under your beds). What say ye? For the record, we think it highly unlikely that a nice girl from Staten Island would do that sort of thing. On the other hand, Playboy is looking for Olive Garden "servers" to pose for a pictorial, so one never knows.

Just in Time for Tonight's Premiere, the Flaming Finally Begins

As you may know, possums, we rather took issue with Bravo’s tagline for Top Chef, “Let the flames begin,” and not just because it was insensitive to Mrs. O’Leary’s cow and the victims of the Great Chicago Fire, but because, with nary a Gay on the show, the tagline was patently engaging in false advertising.

We told Raggaydy Andy in no uncertain terms that he’d better work, and exhorted him to “flambé, chantez.” And giving credit where credit is due, he sho’ and at long last came through.

Pressing Project Runway winner Christian Siriano into service, Andy Cohen unpacked his (rather large, perhaps overcompensatory) knife and went gay.

Click to watch the video in its entirety, but we’ll give those of you with little patience, slow computers, or scant intestinal fortitude a précis of the oh-so-precious pensées:

Siriano tells a complex story about the workings of the oil industry and politics in the Middle East, and a fat George Clooney. Sorry, possums, just a little typo there.

Having dropped “fierce” as a catchphrase, Christian tried out another worn-out old gayitude from decades past: “for days.”

Faux-lesbian Richard Blais’ fauxhawk is “last season’s ‘hawk,” but he does love Jen Biesty’s Lady-‘hawk.

Padma Lakshmi has the skin of an Italian chain restaurant much beloved by Middle Amérique for soup, salad and breadsticks for days.

The lesbian couple? “There’s gonna be, like, hot sauce everywhere.”

Uh, no disrespect to our Sapphic sistahs, but, ewwww.

Our Favorite Food-Related Exchange of the Day

From the first season of the Showtime series Weeds. Kevin Nealon (KN) and Mary Louise Parker (MLP) are meeting at an Indian restaurant for lunch.

KN: Why aren't you eating?

MLP: I told you I ate already.

KN: Where?

MLP: The Olive Garden.

KN: I wouldn't take a dump in the Olive Garden.

MLP: I like the hot artichoke-spinach dip.

KN: I can't even look at you.