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Top Chef 7th Course: Scrambled tasty waves

Today the nine chefs were asked to create a mouthwatering entree, but as Padma said, "you can't cook anything." They were taken to a fresh air market where there was an abundance of fresh, good ingredients.
El Wolfman created a plate that he said included a "watermelon steak" and it won the challenge. Ilan was not elated and said "The reason he won was because he called it a steak and it was really just a stack of watermelon."
Wolfman proceeded to do the "immunity dance," shuffling while he sing-songed "I'm not going to get e-lim-in-ated."
For the elimination challenge, the chefs were told to prepare a breakfast for athletes but they were not told where they would be cooking or what facilities for cooking or utensils, pots & pans, etc. would be there.
Turns out the athletes were surfer dudes and dudettes and the chefs were cooking sandside @ Malibu Beach. They had a bonfire encased by cement blocks, some skillets, blankets for them to present their buffets and hovering, hungry seagulls. These were not the ideal conditions for making a quiche as Frank found out. He was in the bottom three with Cliff who made a scary looking scrambled-something served in a bowl (!) and Sam the Hot Diabetic's green eggs and a toad in the hole (avec oddly stuck strawberry). Elia (who every week looks more and more like a frontrunner) won with a sweet/salty pancakey rollup thingey.
I almost couldn't watch the judges' decision. Both Cliff and Sam THD are dear to my culinary heart. So a major Phew! when Frank was booted for committing the mortal sin of serving burned eggs.
top chef

Top Chef 6th Course: Can the turkey day

Quickfire: Our remaining 10 chefs had 15 minutes to whip up haute cuisine using food pantry-style canned foods. It was something Mia could identify with, she said, because she'd been homeless once and "I'm not scared to cook out of a can."
Her fearlessness earned her a spot on the winning immunity side with Sam, Frank, Ilan and Cliff.That left Mike, Betty, Elia, Marcel and Carlos to cook a cutting edge Thanksgiving dinner.The rub was they had to cook within their living quarters. Marcel and Mike went into one side where Marcel cleared the cooking surface by dumping Frank "the crazy wildebeest's" tooth brush on the floor. (He in turn threatened Marcel, in-yo-face Sopranos-style.)
They cooked their feast for their opponents and the judges table, which tonight included haute-hot-haute Anthony Bourdain. Mike charmed Anthony in such a way that he said "Betty Crocker & Charles Manson had a love child and he's cooking for me." Bourdain added, "I love you like a son." Yes, he was amused by Mike's bouche but also by his cojones to make a twice-baked potato and plate-o-random cheese cuts. In closing Bourdain said to Mike, "Focus, dude." Awww, trés Yoda-esque!
Elia won points for her tasty creamy mushroom soup. (Whoa, girl! Don't get too cutting edge there.) Marcel let the good turkey roulade with a side o' cranberry gel with foam on top. That was the cuttingest of edges, this episode. Betty the Brulee Bitch was snarky when they said her dessert was little more than pumpkin pie filling in a dish. "I do comfort food!" she doth protested ... too much.
And then there's Carlos who went way out there... he put roasted butternut squash on bagged mesclun. That salad was a turkey, indeed! Guess who was told to pack up his salad spinner and leave?
Most quizzical Colicchio quote: "I find when you work with clams and coconut they have to be iced." Sounds like Sopranos code for a hit.
top chef anthony bourdain

Mirror, mirror on the ball, who's the best...

Dancer of 'em all? Well tonight, props to Emmitt Smith and his partner Cheryl Burke for winning the Dancing With the Stars title. Wonder if Burke will go for a trifecta next year?
Emmitt's remarks were classy, as always, toward Mario Lopez, who I really thought would win. I think it came down to the fact that not only should the dancing be by the book, it should be fun. After all, dance was created as a form of socialization. And Emmitt always looked like he was having a blast on the dance floor.
Congrats again to the victors and to all the dancers for making this the most competitive season yet.
*******
In regard to my predictions this year, I was wrong with Michael winning Project Runway, then wrong with Mario winning this. So I'll say Marcel will win Top Chef and be wrong. (That's fine with me cause I want Sam the "hot diabetic" to win.)
emmitt smith dancing with the stars

Top Chef 5th Course: Beef cheeks & pigs feet... yum-o!

Parts is parts they say. And boy were the leftover parts on display for tonight's Quickfire challenge. Wolfman Marcel dove first for the pig's blood (and yes Betty, we think he's more Wolfman than vampire — six of one, half a dozen of the other).
Sam "the hot diabetic" knows his parts and won the QF challenge easily.
Next, their elimination challenge was to cook a multicourse meal for actress Jennifer Coolidge and 60 of her closest friends at the restaurant Social.
The chefs paired up into teams. Wolfman Marcel and his "prom date" Frank took some salmon and made a "gnarly tartare" (two words that make you cringe when spoken together). Mike, he late of the Snickers/cheetos turd amuse bouche, and Ilan made a good looking paella topped with a soft-shelled crab. It made you think, whoa. Mike's been such a playah, making you think he was just a slob pub-grubber cook and here he was making an elegant dish. Hmmm.
Pigtailed Marissa and sharp, pointy Josie (who has such a low self-esteem... NOT!) were bounced out by a frowny Colicchio. Maybe he was just snarky because he had to play watchdog in the kitchen after last week's run-in with the truth.
top chef

Trophy "wives"

Well, there's one thing certain about the Dancing With the Stars finale. Emmitt and Mario wouldn't be there if it weren't for their fab dancing partners, trophy-getting "wives."
Cheryl Burke is the reigning queen, after she and Drew Lachey roped the trophy in last year's finale. But make no mistake, Karina (no one can say her name the way Mario does, sigh) Smirnoff isn't part of the desperate trophy wives club. She's a footworking force on her own!
So here's how I score tonight's finale rounds:
Round One: Same music challenge (to Stevie Wonder's Sir Duke). Both danced the samba.
Emmitt and Cheryl looked a bit halting out of the gate. Emmitt was charming as always, despite his Gatorade-colored shoes. Mario & Karina were much smoother, although Len said he missed his running promenade steps. I would have called this even or with a slight advantage to M&K.
Round Two: Fave dance challenge
Emmitt and Cheryl brought back their hot and saucy mambo. It smoked! Ever as hot as the original performance. I grinned with glee when I heard Mario and Karina would reprise their "Mariachi" pasa doble. Ay-yi-yi-yi, indeed! Tie.
Round Three: Freestyle
Emmitt and Cheryl put on their MC Hammer-genie ware in their final dance. When they did the sidestepping funky footwork it was so fab, but I cringed everytime he lifted Cheryl. It was a bit painful to watch.
With this round, I think Mario and Karina won the title. Their street-style dance featured breakdancing and splits, moves only a younger body than retired NFL champ Smith's could achieve. Will Mario's superior skill outweigh Emmitt's devastating charm? Or will it be the performances of the trophy "wives" that brings home the title?
dancing with the stars mario lopez emmitt smith

Desperate Designing Women

On Sunday's Desperate Housewives I was straining to figure out who the actress was playing Orson's (Mr. Bree's) mother. Was that a very gray Veronica Cartwright? Nooo. I wracked my brain. It wasn't until I was watching Naomi & Wynona Judd sing their duet today at the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial dedication that the answer was triggered in my pea-brain. Why of course, it was a very gray Dixie Carter. Ooh, no wonder why she was so good. On Designing Woman she played the Helen Gurley Brown version of a latter-day Bree. Trivia buffs will get a kick out of learning that Carter's personal assistant on DW was none other than Marc Cherry, creator and head writer of DH! What goes around...

Boy, DH has suddenly really picked up the pace. Last week's Shootout at the OK Grocery episode will be considered one of those where-were-you-when-X-happened episodes. This episode was one of those plot moveralongers.

I'm annoyed by a couple story lines. I can't warm up to Susan's new Michael Schiavo-esque squeeze. I want Susan and Mike to have, oh what the heck, three minutes of bliss for an episode. What surprises me is the lighter side of Orson, sometimes his tete a tetes with Bree are delightful. But then his creepy face comes on. Speaking of creepy, I knew that guy who hit Annie Oakley in the OK Grocery with a can of chickpeas had a Mark Foley side.

Stay tuned. Can't wait to see what dark secrets Miss Dixie wants to share.

desperate housewives

Their pal Joey

Mario Lopez and Emmitt Smith bade farewell to dancing pal Joey Lawrence on the semifinal results show for Dancing With the Stars. It was very touching how all the dancers rallied 'round Joey and Edyta for their emotional farewell dance.
The pair really danced their hearts out and performed some clever routines during the season.
For next week's finale Mario and Emmitt will have to dance three different dances, but ala American Idol, they will dance one to the same music. (I think Carrie Ann Inaba is going to need a pair of Depends.)
I'm sure the show will be great. Emmitt oozes funky fun and charisma and absolutely deserves a spot in the Top 2. But after that razor-sharp precision tango by Mario and Karina, I think they already won the title of best dancers.
dancing with the stars mario lopez

Top Chef 4th course: Not-so-amuse bouche

The kitchen quippery of Chef Mike provided an assortment of not-so-amuse bouche soundbites. He was not happy about the Quickfire Challenge in which they had to creat an amuse bouche, a little mouthful to amuse the palate, using ingredients from a vending machine. His ingredients — crunchy Cheetos and a Snickers — inspired these outbursts:

"Screw this! Screw the Quickfire today! ... Now I have to do this Cracker Jack challenge!"

When guest judge Chef Suzanne Goin took at look at his ... uh ... Snickers turd with a Cheeto feather she snapped at him "I get this vibe... nobody kidnapped you..."
My fave Wolfman Marcel Quickfire du jour quote: "No oysters in the vending machine." Thank God!!! (Unless they sold them only in months ending in -er...)
The episode was called Rabbit Food and for this reason. Their Elimination Challenge was to create a meal of less than 500 calories (as pre-counted by team-assigned nutritionists) for kids at Camp Glucose. (I assume you won't find s'mores on the menu there!)
Bada-Bing Betty bloated her meringue cookies by using Splenda instead of sugar (although if you need a special effect, it makes authentic looking pools of cat vomit). So the next day, she used sugar instead. This of course led to a moral crisis during the judging because she was on the winning team. Sam "the hot diabetic" (as the girls at Camp Glucose dubbed him observantly) let the cat vomit out of the bag when he alluded to the fact that rules weren't being followed, that people were squirting extra olive oil on their dishes. Flava-flaving it up, so to speak.
The show ended with Tom Colicchio putting every chef in that "animal cookhouse" on double secret probation.
top chef amuse bouche tom colicchio