A close call

We had a special guest with us as we watched Padma and the crew shamelessly sporting Bears jersies at the tailgate outside of Soldier Field (I didn't realize that there was such a lag between filming and airing of these shows). Yes, we welcomed our favorite third wheel foodie, Ms. Jessica Sum, who delivered me some bangin' goodies from DiBruno Brothers: Some Calamata olives, mole sausage (made by Mario Battali's father!), and a block of chocolate tinged cheese. Forgive me, Jess, for the bad description and the third wheel comment, I was just joking!

So, the chefs were back in lowbrow cooking mode with the tailgate theme for the elimination challenge. The quickfire was more interesting again, because the challenge was to pair a dish with a beer. There a lot of discussion taking place at casa de Steve'nDes, so we missed a lot, and consequently we don't have as much to say about this episode.

But here are a few excepts from our conversation:

Des: "Either Nikki is always raising her eyebrows, or she plucked them wierdly."
Steve: "Why would they have 'touch yourself'' as an option on the poll question, but not 'touch Gail?'"
Jess: "Well at least Steve warned me that his boring ass was going to be on the computer blogging the whole time."
Tom Colicchio: "Sausage is a religion."

Some of those were paraphrased.

It was a real knuckle clencher wit my man Mark on the chopping block, but he made it, as did Jess and Des's favorite person to bash, Nikki. David Dust will have a little more on the show.

The Ardmorons Top Chef Archives

Happy Tax Day

Some of blog followers might have seen this picture last year on Los's site, but it's very appropriate for today. I took this picture in DC about two years ago, and it is not a faux-to.

Here's a more recent picture from last Saturday:



The big guy almost stepped on Des and I as he used the seat backs as a staircase. Never noticed how big the Phanatic's shoes were until then.

You'll not see nothing like the mighty Bru

Bruno saved the day (actually the night) last night.


Around midnight he started darting into the bedroom making his guttural meow, then darting back out. He did this for about a half hour or so. Steve and I both admitted later that we knew something was up, but we didn't want to get up so we decided that Bruno and Charlotte were just chasing each other. Eventually Bruno gave up on us. But a little while later I heard another meow and decided to see what was going on. I went into the guest bedroom to find that the window screen was pushed out and that Charlotte was missing! I yelled to Steve, who looked out our bedroom window to see Charlotte looking in at him. She had been on the roof for a half hour! She is such a brat! And without Bruno alerting us to the situation and then sitting calmly at the wide-open window to keep Charlotte company, we wouldn't have discovered her disappearance until the morning. Now this is a big deal, because the cats don't have their front claws so it's not really a good idea for them to get out.

Bruno has displayed this same heroic before - Charlotte was stuck in a coat closet for a few hours one day, and when Steve and I got home Bruno meowed and ran to the closet to let us know that Charlotte was in there. But has Charlotte ever helped Bruno? No way! Bruno was stuck upstairs for a few hours one day, and we never knew it until we went up on our own. Charlotte just stayed downstairs with us and purred, got pets, etc! She is such a brat and Bru is such a hero! But they're both cute.

-D