And Then We Woke Up, and Realized It Was Only a Beautiful Flamer's Dream

Spike Mendelsohn Needs a Hand Job from Someone "Willing to Get Down and Dirty"

In what sounded to us at first like an ad from Craiglist's M4M section, Spike "Asshat" Mendelsohn is soliciting someone to help him during the Burger Bash at the 2009 Food Network South Beach Wine & Food Festival, an event hosted by none other than Rachael Ray. Just imagine it, possums: Rachael Ray, Spike, and his fedora and scruff, in the same room, at the same time. Wasn't there a plot point in Lost about preventing this exact confluence of events from taking place, lest the earth rotate off its axis and implode from such concentrated annoyance? (Of course, it should be no surprise that Spike got the date wrong; it's actually taking place tomorrow, February 19, and not March 19. But perhaps that is the earth's way of saving itself; if Spike shows up in March rather than tomorrow, maybe the apocalypse will be averted.)

Tom Colicchio Is Sick of Team Challenges, Blames Jon Stewart for the Profanity on “Top Chef” and Among the Youth of America

Well, possums, we have to hand it to the Ursus Major himself. In the above clip, which was shot in Puerto Rico during the finale, Tom Colicchio fillets this season of Top Chef as if it were a monkfish, and stops just short of throwing the remains in the trash.

Granted, he does it very politely—this season “is a hard one to read,” “a hard season to sort of get your hands around,” “a funny season,” “lots of ups and downs”—but the import is the same: this season has been rather meh.

We couldn’t agree more.

At Judges’ Table, and elsewhere, Tom is rather fond of saying, “This is Top Chef, not Top [Fill in the Blank].” And yet, with a few exceptions, this season has been exactly that: Top Caterer, Top Block-partyer, Top Tailgater, Top Home Cook, and Top Single Mother.

Indeed, we found it particularly revealing when, during that ghastly kids’ challenge,** Gail Simmons said of Stephanie’s dish that it was typical of a restaurant chef who doesn’t cook much at home. Oh wait, that’s a problem? Because, you know, we thought this show was called Top Chef.

But that statement, we think, lays bare the ethos (and the problem) of this season. When it was first announced that Chicago would play host to this season of Top Chef, there was much excitement. In a way, it seemed additional confirmation, if any were needed, that, as the culinary world had been proclaiming for some time, Chicago had really and truly arrived as a food town and foodie destination.

But instead of cashing in on that promise, this season of Top Chef, it seems to us, has engaged in condescension and pandering. The city is home to Grant Achatz, Charlie Trotter, and Homaro Cantu, and instead we get block parties, kid’s meals, tailgate parties, police academy lunches, and cocktail parties at the zoo. They might as well have filmed the show in Any Suburb of Small City, U.S.A., that houses a Whole Foods. Surely Chicagoites don’t cling to sausages and tailgate parties instead of to guns and religion. Surely Chicago is not as bland, as insipid, as the show would have us believe; the daily reports we get from Miss XaXa would suggest otherwise.

And yet we have ended up with “a hard season to sort of get your hands around,” just a hair’s-breadth away from 30-minute meals. Indeed, with the boxed lunches and kiddie meals, the spirit of Rachael Ray seems to hover over the show like a balloon in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade depicting existential dread and gloom. We have no doubt that, if she hadn’t sold what remains of her coin-purse soul to Food Network, she would have been a guest judge by now.

As Tom suggests, another problem with this season is the surfeit of team challenges. “I’m more of a fan of the individual challenges,” he says, and though we love drama as much as anyone (well, actually, more than anyone), we might just have to agree this time. Out of the season’s 10 episodes, eight have been team challenges (and yes, we did consider having to cook with an adorably disadvantaged child of color a team challenge).

Still, our favorite bit in the interview is when Tom gets on to the subject of profanity and lays the blame squarely on the menschy, Ralph Lauren-clad shoulders of Jon Stewart:

I think this is more generational than anything else. I think this is a product of cable tv, where you’ve seen some people like Jon Stewart cursing on his show.

Wait, Tom, do you mean to say that you think Jon Stewart is hurting America?

___________________

**As you may have noticed, possums, we had little to say about the “Common Threads” episode. For starters, children are just not our thing. (We have previously pointed out that, as far as we’re concerned, Children of the Corn and Village of the Damned are documentaries, and our favorite children’s book is Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal. Miss XaXa, as an aunt, disagrees, and helpfully points out that if people didn’t reproduce, where would we get hairdressers and shoe salesmen? She does have a point.) Also, what with the show being overseen by the twin spirits of Uncle Stereotype (i.e., Uncle Ben; where are the Quickfire Challenges sponsored by Aunt Jemima and Sambo’s?) and Uncle Paradox (i.e., Art Smith, a chunko who was Oprah’s personal chef, for heaven’s sake, trying to set the example for healthy eating), we simply had to cry uncle. (And for the record, the now-departed Mark Simmons did not, as some have said, butcher the name of his child sous-chef, Jesusita. His pronunciation was more or less on the mark, as it were, far more so than Padma “I’m fluent in Spanish” Lakshmi’s “JESS-oo-see-tah.” Oh no she didn’t; oh jess she did.)

Amuse-Biatch Be-‘wiched, Extremely Bothered, and Definitely Bewildered as Tom Colicchio Shares Wicked ‘Wichcraft with the Antichrist

Possums, we know just how much Tom Colicchio enjoys making sandwiches with the high-profile women of the food world, but we had no idea things had dEVOOlved to this point. This definitely takes the muffaletta. And is it as a tribute to Tom's New Jersey roots that Rachael Ray decided to dress as a Mafia wife from The Sopranos? And is it us, or is Tom looking a little thinner? Oh what a diet of "sandwiches" will do! Just ask Jared.

The Little Dog Laughed: Amuse-Biatch Officially Denies Being the Rabid Dog That Bit Rachael Ray

Possums, we were shocked--shocked!--when we saw this report on Page Six today:

RACHAEL Ray was attacked by a dog in Union Square Park Saturday while bravely defending her pit-bull mix, Isaboo. According to the TV host's rep, "This dog came up - there was no owner in sight - and became aggressive. Rachael and some others shooed it away, but it came back and attacked Isaboo. Other dogs were involved, and Rachael jumped in and was bit by one of the dogs on the leg. A nurse was in the park and checked her out. She's fine."

We swear we had nothing to do with it. We would never have bitten her; we don't know what we might catch from her. It should come as no surprise to you, possums, that in the grand scheme of things, we are more "cat people" than "dog people," but we feel our stainless-steel hearts warming with a little doggie love after this.

And when even dogs spontaneously attack you, you know that your branding efforts have been successful. Well done, Rachael!

And Just Like That, Amuse-Biatch's Head Exploded

Clydesdale Horse of the Apocalypse Clip-Clops Down the Runway, Creates Novel Legal Defense for Demented Astronaughty Lisa Marie Nowak

Call it a hunch, possums, but we get the feeling that whoever did Rachael Ray's hair and make-up to go with the unwisely chosen Donna Karan dress for the Heart Truth fashion show held last week doesn't much care for our oft-petted Clydesdale Horse of the Apocalypse. Ray, a television "hostess," cookbook "author," and, by the looks of it, a former linebacker, doesn't seem particularly comfortable as she does her little turn on the catwalk, you know what we mean?

Still, those stylist bitches backstage really did a number on her. Guerrilla bitches, we salute you for making her look embalmed, indeed, almost like a taxidermist's lemur. Talk about fashion roadkill. And to think we might have lived an entire lifetime without being subjected to the nipples of Rachael Ray's Reader-Proven Small Bazooms™.

Still, her whole Six Feet Under look has given us a brilliant idea.

As you may be aware, astronaut Lisa Marie Nowak (alas, doomed ab initio by her parents' choice of Christian names; as the only other famous Lisa Marie is surnamed Presley, need we say more?) has been charged with attempted murder in a James M. Cain-worthy plot in which she, according to The New York Times, equipped her car with "a compressed air pistol, a steel mallet, a knife, pepper spray, four feet of rubber tubing, latex gloves and garbage bags," and drove from Houston to Orlando while wearing a diaper, a trench coat, and a wig to confront her romantic rival at the airport.

Now, a U.S. Naval Academy woman with a master's degree can't simply content herself with ripping the weave off the bitch who is trying to take the affections of another astronaut whose gestures of common courtesy have been magnified into obsessive, stringy-haired amour fou. No, such a woman must needs douse her rival with pepper spray, and plot to kidnap and possibly kill her.

So what does Rachael Ray have to do with all of this? Well, we're getting to that, but it has nothing to do with adultery, or spitting, or lesbian prostitutes (at any rate, as far as we know).

Remember the mocked "Twinkie defense" (yes, we know it never really happened, and has been debunked, but bear with us), which was associated with Dan White, who gunned down San Francisco mayor George Moscone and gay martyr Harvey Milk? Well, it's just possible that space-high Lisa Marie might be able to use something of that concept here, and all thanks to Rachael Ray.

As we reported in December, "NASA asked [Rachael Ray] to create meals for the space shuttle. Thai chicken was the favorite." Captain Nowak is a NASA astronaut, and in fact flew on the space shuttle last year, and was scheduled to work on an upcoming mission. Presumably she's been exposed to Rachael Ray's food as a result. So, we ask you, might she not legitimately assert a Thai Chicken Defense? Might not a Rachael Ray product have driven her over the edge? Might not the chicken dish, created by a woman who may well know what it's like to have her man's affections toyed with, have driven her mad so that she didn't know right from wrong? It's the M'Naughton rule in a delicate coconut-milk curry. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, when faced with this case, we ask you to spit. You must acquit.

This Post Is Not About Rachael Ray. We Think. No, We Hope.

From the New York Daily News comes this blind item:

Which domestic diva got rather merry during a holiday drinks party and hit on the hostess after her fourth cocktail with a bawdy, "Hey, baby"?

Any ideas?

Apropos of absolutely nothing at all again, did we mention that the best title ever for a film at the Cannes Film Festival is Space Sluts in the Slammer? As reported by Vincent Canby in the May 14, 1987, edition of the New York Times, that was the same festival promoting yet another masterpiece, Surf Nazis Must Die.

Amuse-Biatch Investigates: Just How Big a Boob Is Rachael Ray?

Every time we swear that we are not writing about Rachael Ray again for a while, and are going to go back to discussing all things Top Chef, something comes up.

But this time we mean it. Seriously, this is the last Rachael Ray post for a while.

Still, attentive and responsive as we are to our readers, we couldn't ignore the charges that we are mistaken about Rachael Ray having "large bazooms."

In our defense, we should say that, given our, er, proclivities, we have no "hands-on" experience with bazooms, large or otherwise (except for that brief postnatal interlude when they were merely a pair of nourishing spigots). We're also terrible at parallel parking, so perhaps our depth perception isn't all it could be. (And you may not know this, but gay men's retinas are stamped with a warning similar to that on sideview mirrors: "Objects are smaller than they appear on the Internet." So perhaps we didn't pay heed.)

And yet, judging by the floating montage of Rachael Ray adipose chest-growths above--it's sure to give us nightmares, though it's more like a Fellini wetdream by way of Magritte--they look large enough to us.

Nonetheless, we will defer to the more practiced eye of our readers (not that we would want to chance a closer inspection of the bazooms in question), and have corrected our post accordingly. In a way, getting rid of the adjective makes our point all the better.

However, this does raise the worrying (and Top Chef-related!) possibility that we've been mistaken all along about Betty Fraser, and that she doesn't deserve the moniker "Spice Rack." What say ye? Do our homophilic eyes deceive us?

Amuse-Biatch Answers Rachael Ray Christmas Hate Mail

We weren’t going to write any more about Rachael Ray for a while. Really, possums, we weren’t.

But then, when we and Miss XaXa checked in (from Gstaad and St. Bart’s, respectively), we found that one of Rachael Ray’s anonymous elves had been by in the night and left us some reindeer droppings in our mailbag.

Committed as we are to answering reader mail, and energized by raclette and conch fritters, respectively, (“Watch the pronunciation,” Miss XaXa admonished, “there is an ‘n’ in ‘conch.’”), we are delighted to turn to the task at hand.

Responding to a post that consisted only of a Rachael Ray wedding photograph and the headline, “Rachael Ray Wedding Album: Is That a Spitcurl Over His Eye?” a Gentle Reader calling herself “Anonymous” wrote us this:

You snide losers.
You wish you had the energy and success that she has. Didn't you learn in Psych 101 or from Dear Abby, at least, that you're tearing her down so you can forget about your own failure and self-hate?

Dear Anonymous, thank you for your charming note. It warmed the stainless-steel cockles of our pea-sized hearts.

Your forbearance in not putting an exclamation point after “You snide losers” gave us the chills. It’s so much nastier, and delicious, in that twin-set-and-pearls, secret-drinking, ethnic-surname-concealing, compulsive-ironing-of-linen-at-two-in-the-morning way. Really, it’s always the repressed snarl that thrills us to our hollow core.

Your excellent grammar and impeccable use of commas not only were as catnip to us (a well-placed comma can be the equivalent of a kiss behind the ear), but also suggested that you are an educated woman, and thus, clearly, not Rachael Ray’s target audience.

We understand why she appeals to men. She’s non-threatening and has [...]* bazooms. She appeals to men for the usual reason that women with big mouths appeal to men. And we mean big mouths in the literal, rather than metaphorical, sense. Not wishing to be vulgar, that is all we will say on the subject; consult an anthropologist or Maxim if you need to.

But why you should come to her defense puzzles us.

We know that in some quarters Rachael Ray is held up as some kind of example of American populism, but this is pure poppycock. Since when did populism have to be equated with idiocy?

The woman talks as if every member of the audience were a thalidomide chimpanzee, as if we might not be able to figure out breathing if she didn’t break it down into cheery, manageable steps for us. (“Now, open up those alveoli. Can you feel that Oh-Two entering your lungs? Yum-o! Now get rid of that See-Oh-Two into the garbage bowl of the atmosphere!”)

But, to quote Edwina Margaret Rose Monsoon, “We’re not all blithering idiots. We don’t all need nursemaiding.”

We find it loathsome that she should be used as prima facie evidence of the truth of H.L. Mencken’s statement that no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence (or taste, as some versions have it) of the American public. What can it mean about us as a country when a woman with the intellectual heft of plankton is talking down to us? Verily, it offends our patriotic sensibilities. That’s right; you heard us—liking Rachael Ray is un-American. Rachael Ray is hurting America! Get Bill O’Reilly on the case. Surely he would object to television hosts dumbing down discourse and patronizing the American people.

Now for the substance of your note, Gentle Reader. We appreciate your keeping your references (Psych 101, Dear Abby) simple and Yum-o! for us. Given, as we are, to mentioning Anaïs Nin and Søren Kierkegaard in the context of Ms. Ray, your throwing out references to Jungian shadow selves or the letters of Lord Chesterfield might have reduced us to mouth-breathing stupefaction. (That “at least” after “Dear Abby” was an especially piquant flick of the cat-o'-nine-tails; hurt us good, Bad Connecticut Mommy!)

Just one little thing. Darling—and here we hesitate to be logical and what-not—but mightn’t one say that by calling us “snide losers,” and intimating that we are listless and unsuccessful, you are, um, “tearing [us] down so that you can forget about your own failure and self-hate?” And wouldn't that then make you into a “snide loser”? Mind you, we don’t say that; we are listless losers, after all, so what do we know? (Though Miss XaXa disagrees, saying, “We’re failures, but at self-hatred.”)

At any rate, thank you for writing, luv. And if you ever feel like calling us “snide losers” while wearing a leather bustier and Lucite heels, your comma and our period joining together to make sweet, sweet semicolons, well, just drop us another line. We promise you a good time (or, as Miss XaXa defines it, a vodka stinger, a cheese log, and a cheap motel).

* The adjective "large" was removed as per reader observations.

Rachael Ray Reveals Origins of Her Fan Club: Is That a Gun in Your Pocket or Are You Just Super Unhappy to See Me?

Just in time for Christmas, Rachael Ray is speaking to TV Guide Magazine(the existence of which is yet another sign straight out of the Book of Revelations) about The Ordeal That Shaped Me, or How My First Number-One Fan Made Me the Clydesdale Horse of the Apocalypse.

The ordeal began in her apartment building in Queens, New York, when Rachael Ray was but a mere apocalyptic filly of 23.

The year was 1991 and Ray…was returning to her…apartment after a long day at Agata & Valentina, the Manhattan gourmet food store where she worked as a buyer and manager. While fumbling for her keys, two teenagers approached from behind.

“I’m such a moron, I'm thinking they live in the building and want to come in,” Ray says. “I'm standing there apologizing to them for taking so long.” Without warning, one of the boys flashed a pistol. In similar circumstances, most people hand over their wallets. Or beg for life. Or cry. Or . . . something. Not Rachael Ray. She grabbed her Mace, spun around and sprayed one of the assailants. They both sprinted off. “It was a very, very scary moment,” Ray says. “And I probably should have left the city right then and there.”

In a reaction that would become typical of her fans, and seeing that she hadn’t gotten the message, the assailant returned a week later to finish the job.

As Ray again began to enter her complex, he emerged from nowhere, jabbed the weapon into her gut and ordered her to walk toward a passageway that ran beneath the building. “That's when he started pistol-whipping me,” Ray recalls. “I think he was embarrassed from the last time and he wanted to get even.”

In the true-to-form pattern of the dreck-and-drivel genre, our plucky little end-of-days filly didn’t let The Ordeal get her down. As TV Guide Magazine relates,

In the mind of Rachael Ray, the genesis [of her Evil Empire] goes like this: Without the mugging, she might have remained in New York City, content in her role at Agata & Valentina. “It would have been a nice life for me. A happy life,” she says. “I’m sure I’d still be working there to this day, and it would have been great.”

Oh great. Now you tell us.

Now, now, before you think that in our glee we are advocating violence against Rachael Ray, let us assure you, we're not. Oh, alright, maybe a little light pistol-whipping, or a couple of thwacks with a bottle of EVOO, but that's it, really. It is, after all, the season of good will towards men, women, and My Little Apocalyptic Pony.

Still, what really gets us is how clear it is that the mugging was a foiled 12 Monkeys/Terminator operation from the future, when, not content with her television, book, and mass-market crackers empire, she becomes President of the United States or Empress Palpating. A plucky band of rebels send a borg back in time to prevent it all, and he simply mucks it up. Nicely done, plucky band of rebels! Couldn't you have sprung for a better-quality borg?

Well, God and Miss Bette Davis bless us, every one.

Rachael Ray Wedding Album: Is That a Spitcurl Over His Eye?

Rachael Ray Goes Crackers

This will not come as a surprise to you, but we do not subscribe to People Magazine.

However, one of the benefits of Miss XaXa's recently diagnosed magazine kleptomania is that we occasionally get a glimpse of what our fellow citizens are--well, we won't say reading, so let us say, perusing.

(Miss XaXa strenuously denies the kleptomania diagnosis. She says, rather, that she is on a mission of mercy, redistributing magazines to where they will do the most good, e.g., taking the salon's copy of Vogue and leaving it at the JiffyLube for the hunky mechanic who looked more intently at her Louboutins than he did at her breasts, exchanging it for Popular Mechanics and Playboy, which she left for the two cat adoption ladies at PetSmart, and leaving Cat Fancy and a copy of the International Male catalogue for the pastor of the megachurch down the street.)

At any rate, after growing tired of Confessions of a Justified Sinner and our extremely expensive eBay copy of If I Did It, we turned to the year-end issue of People that Miss XaXa had brought home. The double issue of the magazine kept opening up to a special advertising insert featuring the Clydesdale Horse of the Apocalypse herself, Rachael Ray, ear seemingly pressed to a closed door and inviting us conspiratorially to enter with her, like an equine Anaïs Nin in A Spy in the House of Love (yes, that is the first and last time you will ever see Rachael Ray and Anais Nin in the same sentence).

When we opened the insert, it turned out to be an invitation from Nabisco to discover Rachael Ray's holiday recipes. Oh, we said to Miss XaXa, we have an idea of what her holiday recipes are like. We imagined, in the words of AbFab's Edina Monsoon, Rachael Ray "in a wood in a hood," a freshly killed chicken, a mandrake screaming as it is doused in EVOO and baptized "Yum-o," and a whore-you-hear-me-a-whore!-who-is-paid-$500-a-session-to-spit-on-decent-women's-good-for-nothing-husbands-for-kicks being trussed up and delivered to Old Nick in exchange for a magazine and a daytime talkshow.

"Rachael Ray's hawking Wheat Thins!" we chortled to Miss XaXa.

"Wheat Thins?" asked Miss XaXa. "What are these Wheat Thins?"

Once we explained that Wheat Thins are thin little biscuits made from hoo-eet flour, she said, "If Rachael Ray's endorsing them, shouldn't they be called Wheat Huskies?"

We think she has a point. Nabisco Marketing Department, are you listening?

Rachael Ray Singlehandedly to Destroy US Space Program

To the moon, Alice! Er, Rachael.

Yes, mes enfants, as if exploding shuttles, falling tiles and inadequate budgets weren't enough, there's yet more trouble afoot for our troubled space agency.

As the Clydesdale Horse of the Apocalypse herself told People Magazine, "NASA asked me to create meals for the space shuttle. Thai chicken was the favorite. I flew in a fake space shuttle, but I have no desire to go into space after seeing the toilet."

So if we were ever to encounter intelligent life in the universe, this is the best we can do? When we were beaming things out there, you know, to tell the aliens how cool and civilized we were, we used to send recordings of Mozart symphonies and Shakespeare monologues. And now this is what we're countering with? Rachael Ray is our manifestation of intelligent life? Thai chicken by bloody Rachael Ray (a native and booster of Phuket if ever we saw one) is our nation's idea of "the right stuff"?

If that's the case, we might as well give up. Remember that black slab from 2001: A Space Odyssey, the one that transformed apes into sentient human beings? Well, we're afraid that once the aliens get wind of Rachael Ray's chimp-like antics, they'll think we never bothered using the black slab, or that it didn't work, and they're gonna want it back. And when they do, Will Smith may not be around to save us, and what'll we do then, huh? What'll we do?

Mia Gaines-Alt: And I Am Telling You I AM Going

Ah, Christmas in July.

Or August, actually, since that is when, according to Lee Anne Wong's Bravo blog, the episode was filmed. But we'll get to that in a second.

Having read so much about the episode before we sank into the Louis XV settee last night, we were expecting A Very Special Episode of Top Chef, something like a cross between an ABC afterschool special and Survivor: Race War or whatever the latest installment was called.

We were also prepared to write a couple of sober little essays on Diversity in the Kitchen and Diversity on Reality TV, quoting Anthony Bourdain to leaven them a bit (and goodness knows you may still see them, as we have a couple of weeks' worth of posting to fill before the next new episode).

But, really, not so much. To the extent race was involved in the episode, it was in a Terry McMillan, Fitty vs. Oprah sort of context.

Of course, we have more than a passing interest in Mia Gaines-Alt, since Miss XaXa visited her Oakdale restaurant, Feed the People!, earlier this month. We had seen hints of her temper on previous episodes (we have never quite forgotten that I'm-gonna-git-ya look she gave Ilan on their first day), but even we were unprepared for when she went all Angela Bassett-in-Waiting to Exhale on Cliff's ass, and we think some of it was justified.

At that point, we were priming ourselves for a martial-arts type of thing, something like Bride with the White Hair, where Mia used her dreads to decapitate Cliff for his effrontery in showing disrespect to a strong Black woman. When, after Mia recounted how she had to sell crack as a child to survive, Cliff rolled his eyes and asked, "Are you done being a martyr yet?" (what an asshole!) we gripped the edge of the Louis XV settee, waiting for the Spirit of Oprah to appear, strike him dumb and accuse him of dating white women (oh wait, isn't Oprah the one being pelted with metaphorical Oreos by 50 Cent and Ludacris?)

Alas, it was not to be. And anyway, it's not as if Mia couldn't have taken care of him single-handedly; she is one fierce woman. And when she fell on her sword and did her version of "And I Am Telling You I Am Going" and left the show, we half-expected, half-wanted her to do the Angela Bassett thing, throwing a lit match behind her and strutting fiercely toward the camera. Alas, that was not to be, either.














Perhaps we should back up a moment, for the benefit of those who, like us yesterday, have not seen the episode. The Quickfire Challenge, to make a drink using Bailey's, won immunity for Cliff. For the Elimination Challenge, the eight cheftestants were divided into two teams and then had to cater a "red carpet" event, a "holiday party" for Los Angeles Magazine. In August.

(Yes, and it was just as phony and bogus as it sounds. We didn't see a single person on the episode even remotely worthy of a red carpet. Not so much as a reality show castoff, 80s sitcom has-been or Hollywood starlet in terms of celebrity. Well, there was a funny chap in an eye-scarring orange shirt who looked awfully like a fat Lance Bass, but since there was no Reichen Lemkuhl, even though there were cameras around, we doubt it was the real Lance.

And we were particularly put off by the fakery of Betty "Spice Rack" Fraser wishing a guest a "Merry Christmas!" No, Bill O'Reilly, don't get worked up; it's not the war on Christmas, it's the war on Christmas in August. Or Mia telling another guest that the strawberries were wonderful, and it's great how California is the only place you can grow strawberries in the winter. Yes, we grow strawberries in the winter, but the ones you were purveying were wonderful precisely because it was the middle of summer. But we digress.)

The guest judge was Chef Lee Hefter of Spago Beverly Hills. The Orange Team--Spice Rack, Ilan, Marcel, and Sam--won the challenge, and as leader, Sam was the individual winner. The Black Team--Cliff, Mike, Elia, and Mia--was on the chopping block (well, not Cliff, since he had immunity), and Elia as the leader was about to be kicked off, but at the last minute, as Padma was opening her mouth to deliver the fateful, affectless words, Mia took herself out of the competition in order to save Elia.

We had actually been impressed with Miss Elia Aboumrad's maturity in accepting responsibility for her team's failure and the consequent dismissal from the competition. But we were even more impressed with Mia's decision In retrospect it makes sense on some level, as the groundwork was laid in the beach episode, when it was the three women who made the top dishes, and had discussions about what it was like to be a woman in professional kitchens, and how they hoped a woman would make it to the finals.














As Tom Colicchio pointed out to her, she didn't seem like a quitter. So just why did Mia quit?

We suspect it was a debilitating bout of homesickness, pangs of self-doubt, a moment of lucid self-awareness, a large dose of altruism, a spoonful of sisters-are-doing-it-for-themselves. That's quite a cocktail, even without the Bailey's.

Of course, the biggest question of all is why this debate had to take place at all. Of the three people up for elimination, Michael "Beer Bong" Midgley is clearly the least talented (and we're being charitable). We were especially delighted when he informed the judges that his task during the catering challenge was to run back and forth between the mobile kitchen and the food station, because not once did we see him run. At most, he shuffled.

At any rate, shouldn't he have been the one to go? Everyone, himself included, recognizes that he is not chef material, much less Top Chef material. (Although, a perverse sentiment would suggest he might do well on a channel like Spike, or Food Network for NASCAR viewers, where he could cook without intimidating the viewers. After all, isn't that the secret to Rachael Ray's success? Well, that, and the perkiness pact she entered into with Satan; they spat in their hands and shook on the deal. Oh wait, that was her loogie-loving lawyer-cum-consort.)

So how has Beer Bong done it? How has he escaped the Padma-wielded guillotine so many times? It may be that, as one reader suggested, it's not Sam, but Beer Bong, who is the real Keyser Söze. After what happened Wednesday night, and the way he has managed to hold on all this time, we are more than willing to believe it.

Amuse-Biatch's Counseling Session with Spago Chef Lee Hefter

You poor, poor man.

You really got shafted, didn't ya?

Really, to be a big boy and to be stuck with a name like Hefter. It's awful when you think about it. Sort of like Rachael Ray plugging Heifer International. Worthy but...unfortunate.

And then to get stuck as guest judge on the episode where the tears and f-bombs flew. We feel for you. You got barely a passing mention. No acknowledgment that you're the genius behind the renaissance of Spago while Wolfgang Puck is off gallivanting around, cultivating his Austrian accent, tending to his Oscar catering, and getting his face on frozen food packaging.

Your tasting menus are legendary, and as Jonathan Gold noted last week in the LA Weekly, your influence is all over Puck's latest, the haute steakhouse Cut. And still that mixologist lady in the Quickfire Challenge, the one with the bazooms, got a bigger build-up (if not a bigger build) than you.

And then to be fodder for all sorts of Tom Colicchio MaxiMe/ MiniMe/ Replicant/ Doppelganger jokes. It's terrible.

All we can offer in the way of advice is this: Think about a two-button jacket; the deeper V is infinitely more slimming. (We confess that we are grateful for, and relieved by, your example, and that of Tom Colicchio and Domenico Dolce; we now know that when we turn 40 we must shave our head and start wearing jeans with a black two-button jacket; it's so comforting to know one's future.) Oh, and another way to look slimmer. Don't stand next to a scrawny bitch in a mustard-colored dress.

Rachael Ray Stumps for Heifer Organization; Loogie-Loving Hubby Tells Her to Put on Some Clothes

We swear we don't subscribe to OK! Magazine.

It just so happens that Miss XaXa nicked one from the hair salon, and we were delighted to find in its glossy, large-format pages an interview with the Clydesdale Horse of the Apocalypse, none other than our beloved multimillionaire-woman-done-wrong-by-hubby-who-loves-paying-women-to-spit-on-him, Ms. Rachael Ray.

As part of the holiday spirit, as our gift to you, Amuse-Biatch hereby presents the choicest bits from the OK! interview. It's our way of giving you all the liquor-filled chocolates in the Whitman's Sampler box. That's how much we like you, Gentle Readers. Our comments are in brackets, in bold, and in red.

Q: Do you have a dream gift?
A: I don't want anything. I love it when my dog, Isaboo, gets a new chew toy. My family always gives me animals through the Heifer [International] organization. It's a charity where you buy tractors or animals like geese, ducks, goats or cows for villages around the world. I'll get some more barnyard animals I'm sure.

After Rachael admits that she was a cheerleader in high school, OK! comes back with the hard-hitting questions:

Q: Did you keep your pom-poms?
A: No, I didn't keep any of it.

[We beg to differ. Her pompoms look, per Lindsay Lohan, quite "adequite."]

Q: Your husband must be disappointed!
A: Actually, John doesn't groove on any of that stuff. [Apparently he just grooves on being spit on by possible lesbians.] On our honeymoon, I put on a
Cosabella nightie and he said, "What the hell are you wearing? Go put on your pajamas."

[We just don't have the heart to make a joke; it's Christmas, people, give us a break.]

Spitting Image

Normally, we try not to think of Rachael Ray.

We regard her in the same category of tragic unmentionables as Olestra and PCBs, pollutants and substances liable to cause what Frito-Lay, in a public relations coup, termed "anal leakage." We're annoyed by everything about the woman, from the extra "a" in her first name (a bugbear of ours) to the fact that she looks like she's walking around on stumps (Miss XaXa's pet peeve). But really, who isn't?

We always have to be careful around Iphigénie, our white Paraguayan parrot. The television alcove at Withering Depths is upholstered in hand-tooled aubergine morocco, and whenever Iphigénie hears that distinctive taxicab-horn voice as we're flipping around the channels, she flies into a rage and starts ripping out chunks of morocco. Such is the effect of Ms. Rachael Ray on the animal kingdom.

In moments of charity, we like to endow her with substance and self-awareness. We conceive of a previously unsuspected Rachael Ray, a sort of existential chipmunk (look at those eyes!) on a treadmill, performing a noble service to humanity by giving us 30-minute glimpses into the abyss of curdled perkiness and Kierkegaardian despair. Rachael Ray as memento mori, if you will.

Of course, such moments of charity are as fleeting as macaroons from Ladurée, and arise only after we have hit the bottle of (perfectly legal!) Swiss absinthe once too often. Nonetheless, we had one such moment last week, when we heard about the incipient Rachael Ray Sex Scandal. According to those unimpeachable bastions of accuracy and reliability, The National Enquirer and The New York Daily News, Rachael Ray's husband had a kinky, five-year affair with a woman he met outside a lesbian bar (!) and whom he paid to spit on him.

When we mentioned it to Miss XaXa, she quipped, "With her food, he must have plenty of practice spitting up." When we cleared up that he wasn't the one doing the spitting, she said, breaking into fluent headlinese, "Yucko!!! Rachael Ray Spitting Mad: Spittoon Hubby Loves Loogies, Lesbians."

Sure, we cackled. Sure, we guffawed when we read the woman's claims that Rachael Ray's husband paid her up to $500 per session, and that she virtually supported herself by spitting on him. But then we felt a completely unknown tingling in the general thorax area. Could it be...pity? We think it may well have been. We found ourselves saying, "Sure, she may be the Clydesdale horse of the Apocalypse, but that's still kinda rough."

And then yesterday, during an all-too brief respite from a particularly vexing weekend (Lady Chatterley didn't know the half of it when it came to stablehands, or, for that matter, stable hands), we chanced on an episode of "Iron Chef America" pitting Rachael Ray against Giada de Laurentiis. Well, that did it. We began frothing at the mouth, and when the Chairman intoned, "Today's secret ingredient is..." we hissed, "Boobs!" Then Miss XaXa began yelling at the television, "I speet on you, Rrachel Rray," and we decided it was time to mix another batch of sidecars.

Opening Discredits

As promised, we have rested, we have pondered, we have polished our lingual Laguioles, and now here we are, lobster fork in hand, to extract all we can from this season's inaugural episode of "Top Chef." We'll begin by reviewing the opening credits, which we think of as the tasting menu, the parade of personalities working last year's motif of confrontational stripteasing to the synthesizer-poached strains of the opening theme. Since we'll be seeing it all season, we might as well get it out of the way.

First up is Josie, who looks like an anime goddess-imp. Josie does her best impression of an old-fashioned Times Square perv, opening her chef’s whites to flash us coyly, then crossing her arms in a manly fashion, the very embodiment of the butch/femme dykotomy. As honorary lesbians (we’ll happily produce our membership certificate and lapel pin upon request), we salute you. You shall henceforth be known as Empress Josiefine (and, luv, the French would do cartwheels over you, since in France they consider a gap in the front teeth to be a sign that you are highly sexed).


Next up is Chancellor Otto Von Bismarck, gray-haired, bristle-coiffed, skull-and-bones-adorned, patriotically-neckerchiefed, and giving us his best military salute. Jawohl, mein Herr. Or is it, Aye, aye, Captain Jack Sparrow? We truly love the red-white-and-blue ‘round your neck, and the pairing with the Pirate Collar. It's so South of Market; we just wish we knew what pocket you wore your hanky in. You shiver our timbers and make us wonder whether you're going to prescribe a round of "The Star Spangled Banner" or rum, sodomy, and the lash. You shall henceforth be known as the NeckerChef.

Then comes Sam, giving us his best Blue Steel and fiercely doffing his chef’s whites (à la Tom Cruise on that Vanity Fair cover circa Mission Impossible 2) to reveal a black t-shirt reading “Don’t Give Up the Ship.” O captain, my captain, fear not. We can see that you’re calling for seamen who’ll go down with the ship. You shall henceforth be known as Captain Nemo.


Then there’s our compatriot Elia, unadorned except for a halo of curls, fierce, hands on hips, confronting the camera directly. No stripping for her. She’s like Jesusita en Chihuahua meets Salma Hayek as Frida Kahlo. You shall henceforth be known as Frida Bandida. Mija, tu sí que tienes huevos, pero no rancheros ni revueltos, and we admire you for it, and love it cuando te pones como agua para chocolate.


And then there’s Frank. At first glance, we sense a Sicilian teddy bear, and think of nicknaming him the Bambino Bear. But then the combination of his Bravo bio, his official “Frankie the Bull” nickname, the lighting and cinematography (so reminiscent of “Gladiator”), and his threat to Marcel to beat him so badly that his mother won’t recognize him, made us realize that our noses did not deceive us, and that the whiff of unrepentant stereotype and Eau de Goombah signaled the arrival of none other than Joe Pesci. Hey, Joe, if you wanna go by Frankie the Bull on this show, tha’s ok by us.

Next up is Emily, her lips drawn tight, having trouble unbuttoning her chef’s whites, more librarian than chef. According to the Bravo bio, “she describes herself as foul-mouthed and ill-tempered” and “likes to think she is one of the guys and can't stand prissy girls.” Ooh aah, we say, ain’t she butch? We get your code, Mary Cheney. But perhaps she’s just a reluctant voluptuary. Honey, would it kill you to wear a little concealer from time to time? The whole turnip-with-bags-under-her eyes thing just doesn’t work for you. Until further notice or makeover, you shall be known as Butch Cassidy.

And here’s one of our sunshine kids, solid, humpy Cliff, our very own Valrhona Bear who reduces us to a mere fondue. We’re too distracted to think of anything else to say.

Then we see that Joe Pesci is not the only celebrity contestant this time around. Can it be? Yes, that’s Suzanne Somers! Oh wait, why does it say Betty? Alright, Chrissy, have it your way. Hellzapoppin, saucy blond Betty is popping out of her chef’s whites, doing the Sherman Oaks shimmy. Our retinas are immobilized. Henceforth, you shall be known as Spice Rack.

And wait, who’s that, doing the sexy reverse strip tease, his hair teased too, and just this side of marcelled? Why, it’s Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius. Wait, no, it’s Marcel, his head a veritable meringue, the "hair apparent" to last season’s Stephen Asprinio, who now relinquishes to Marcel the “There’s Something About Mary” Award for Overuse of Hair Products. Well, there’s definitely something about Mary, er, Marcel, whose bio says that “he tends to be bossy in the kitchen.” The bossy bottom raises his meringued head once again.

And there’s Stockton’s finest, Michael, looking hempy, not humpy, and throwing in the towel (or is it his chef’s whites?). Honey, we would do the same. Henceforth, you shall be known as Beer Bong.





Then it’s Mia, fierce in her José Eber cowboy hat. It’s clear that the woman knows her way around a weave, a branding iron and a Patsy Cline record, and is probably pretty handy with a wet belt and a rolling pin, too. We can see she’s a woman unafraid of lard and buttermilk and bacon. We decide on the spot to worship and submit to her.


Now comes improbably emaciated pastry chef Marisa, the brittle queen of pâte brisée, trying desperately to imitate E!’s Giuliana DePandi and throwing her jacket over her shoulder in her best Sear’s Catalogue pose. She doesn’t appear to have the requisite attributes, but given the way she presents herself, the only fitting nickname for her is Tart Titass.


And there’s Carlos, Miss XaXa’s idea of a hot, oozing medianoche (made with pulled pork, just the way she likes it, and garnished with a big pickle). Miss XaXa points out that Carlos has seized the lapels of his jacket, and is pulling back and forth, the jacket straining over his back like a chamois buffing a car under the sun of Hialeah. We remind Miss XaXa that Carlos is married, and gay, but she doesn’t seem to care.

And there’s Ilan, this year’s model of cute Jewish boy from Long Island, with his adorably passé fauxhawk, which Hedi Slimane and Maddox Jolie have long ago abandoned, and the little milk teeth all in a row and the adorable mini-cleft in his chin, like a crimp at the edge of a piecrust. A line cook at Casa Mono, él sí es muy mono, and our casa at Snarkshire Moors is his casa.


Finally, tellingly, there’s Suyai, the blowsy, blond, bulimic Brit, unable to button her chef’s whites. Nicely played, Bravo, depicting the girl with body issues as too fat to fit into her clothes. Even worse for the improbably-named Suyai, she bears an unfortunate resemblance to our very own Medusa, Rachael Ray, though if it came right down to it, we can see Suyai beating down Rachael Ray with a rope-soled wedgie (which we and millions of others would pay good money to see).

And that’s our cast of characters. Let the games begin.