Sacré Bleu Cheese!: Bravo Washes Mouth Out with Soap

Well, possums, what a difference a week and a little soap make! It appears that Bravo’s editors have tempered the show’s sheer cussedness. This week’s episode was entirely devoid of maternal copulators, and overall profanity use was down 38.8%.

The biggest surprise of all was Andrew D’Ambrosi, whose profanity use was down a whopping 83.3%. Indeed—whether as a result of better medication (Miss Xaxa’s theory is that big-bad-biker-pussy(cat)-cum-“soul chef” Erik Hopfinger either is or should be sharing his meds with Andrew) or editorial “soap”—it was rather a nice touch to have Andrew turn aside after his disqualification during the Quickfire Challenge to utter the simple yet telling, “Poo.” And last week’s number-two curser, Dale Talde, had a mouth that was 33.3% cleaner. Come on, Bravo, it’s time to bring on Orbit gum as a sponsor.

The biggest surprise of the week was the rise of the dirty girls’ club. Last week, the women made up only 22% of the cursers, but this week, 71% of the cursers had two X chromosomes. Defying the overall downward trend, Stephanie Izard was the week’s biggest curser, with a 40% increase in the use of profanity. Well done, possum!

“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.

Sacré Bleu Cheese!: The Cooks and the Raw (Language)

Anthony Bourdain, Bill Buford and others write of chefs and kitchen workers as outcasts, toiling daily in a fiery furnace of profanity and ego. Though Michael Ruhlman mourns the loss of this atmosphere as the professionalization of cookery advances, to our maiden-aunt ears it nonetheless seemed very much alive during the premiere of Top Chef. 'Twas a veritable symphony of beeps.

But we clutched our smelling salts and set to work tallying and analyzing the week's profanity for your benefit, possums. We will keep a weekly count, and name an overall winner at the end of the season.

To start, it should come as no surprise that this week's winner, by a veritable Tourette torrent, is Andrew D'Ambrosi. Oy, just what is this red-nosed "kid," "cat," and "competitor" on? Then, when Padma said, "We asked you to pack up to $200 of ingredients that you cannot live without," Miss XaXa said, "Aha! Maybe he packed a little Bolivian ras el hanout?"

We know very little about these matters, but just how much could $200 possibly buy you? And what happens when it runs out?

Tune in next week to find out.