I Have a Culinary Boner

The Top Chef reunion show featured a shirt that Des will have to start wearing in the kitchen, courtesy of her fan favorite chef, Andrew the Spazz.

It was funny when Lisa mentioned that people were giving her dirty looks on the street. Probably nothing new, just the first she noticed it.

So there's going to be a teen top chef next. Not sure if I'll bother watching what happens for that. There's enough mac n' cheese and hot dogs in the grown-up version.

Says Des: "What are we going to do Wednesday nights now?"

Also, rumor has it that Top Chef 5 will be in New York. Hopefully rumor is wrong and Phila has a chance!

Off topic: Our tomatoes, by request.




Next time: I'll review Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls, also by request.

The last one

The Top Chef season finale was really kind of low key compared to previous seasons. No live cut in for the results. No reunion. Really not much hype throughout the episode, and the challenge itself just kind of slid by without much real drama. Maybe this had to do with the relatively minor personalities left standing, or maybe as I've hypothesized before, the show just isn't what it once was. (Kind of like this blog.)

Nowhere near the euphoria of Hung's great victory of last season.

Richard was putting on a clinic in mad-scientist cooking for the celebrity guest chefs, including Eric Ripert, who is opening a new restaurant, 10 Arts, in Center City Philadelphia.

But, he said it himself, he choked. No where near his best showing. I'm a little disappointed, but on the other hand, it could have went way worse.

"My menu is really going to reflect my personality." - Lisa. You would think that meant her menu would feature dogshit, armpit hair, and grease, but it really looked like she was going to win for a minute. I'm sure 96% of Top Chef viewers were ready to puke.

So Stephanie wins (Jess Sum's favorite) and at least saves the show from the indignity of having Lisa represent the pinnacle of Top Chef. Unfortunately, since they always bring back finalists in later season episodes, we probably haven't seen the last of her.

Letter to Tom at Top Chef

Dear Tom Colicchio,

Thanks a lot.

I was considering buying one of your cookbooks. But you obviously like your food greasy, so I'm not so sure that your recipes would be any good.

S & D

--

Despite our disdain toward Tom and the rest of the judges, at least they realize that Lisa sucks. From Tom's blog: "I think Lisa, along with a few chefs from past seasons (Dave Martin and Mike Midgley are two that come to mind,) benefited from a phenomenon I call the "lucky-dog-who-keeps-skating-by-effect," in which a chef of decent, but not stellar, skills gets lucky and doesn’t screw up at precisely the moment that one of their more gifted opponents does."

Foodie Night and Top Chef

We had our first foodie book club meeting at Jess's place last night, and I was the only guy. I probably should have seen that coming. I got to enjoy some fine company with some lovely ladies and dine on African cuisine from The Soul of a New Cuisine: A Discovery of the Foods and Flavors of Africa by Marcus Samuelsson.

Our spread consisted of the following:

Vegetable samosas, spicy okra, spicy tilapia stew, callaloo (a creamed spinach-like soup from Trinidad and Tobago).
Des and I brought yellow rice and red lamb curry (to which we forgot to add yogurt, but it still turned out well).
Finally, we had yummy fried banana fritters for dessert.

Everything turned out really well, the only problem was that we all kind of went in the same spicy direction, so there was little to balance the spiciness from dish to dish.

-S

The foodie book club meeting was a success, I think! It was fun to be able to try 7 or 8 different things from one cookbook, when usually it would take a long time to get through that many recipes on your own. And I liked the cookbook - there are 10-15 pages of different rubs and seasonings that I want to try out - berbere, ras-al-hanout, etc.


As for Top Chef: I cannot believe Lisa didn't go home again!! Spike was sent home instead of her. This has happened two or three weeks in a row, where Lisa and someone else are up on the chopping block, and Lisa stays. And she's been staying not for the food, but because of some technicality that the other person supposedly messed up (last week, not enough leadership; this week, didn't send back the scallops when they didn't look so great - but how could Spike have known that he COULD send back the scallops? If he would have tried, they probably would have faulted him for that, too!). Ridiculousness.

Anyway, left are "Greasa"-Lisa, Stephanie, Richard, and Antonia. Of course no one is rooting for Greasa, but I'm rooting for Antonia, and Steve is for Richard. If Lisa makes it to the Top 3 and one of the others is sent home, I may have to stop watching or send some sort of nasty email to Tom Colicchio.

-D

Restaurant Wars

We missed last week's episode of Top Chef, so here is my reaction: I CANNOT BELIEVE ANDREW WAS SENT HOME! He was my favorite from the beginning - well, him and Mark. And now they're both gone!

Onto this week.

I CANNOT BELIEVE THAT DALE WENT HOME INSTEAD OF LISA! I REALLY REALLY REALLY THOUGHT LISA WAS GOING HOME.. She just sucks. Her sticky rice and laksa probably sucked so much because grease from her hair dripped into it. Ew. Dale wasn't my favorite person, but I thought his food seemed really good, he was a great chef, and I don't buy this sending people home because of leadership skills. Maybe that can be a factor when looking at two very comparable chefs who performed similarly. But when someone's food is sooo bad, you cannot send someone home because of leadership skills in a COOKING SHOW!

It was nice for Bourdain to be on. Maybe they're auditioning him to take over as judge for someone. I really like his show, No Reservations, but I don't get the chance to watch it too much.

The commercials. First, if you were an actor/ress, even if you couldn't find any other work, would you really be on an Arbor Mist commercial? Second, I am really sick of hearing about the Grand Pumbaa of Pasta. Enough. Glad - you get enough air time just on the show, can't you nix Erica?

It kind of seemed like Restaurant Wars was a bigger deal in other seasons than this one. Warehouse Kitchen seemed to have no difficulties or even criticisms from the judges, which is amazing. But I would really enjoy eating there - everything looked good! I may have to check out the recipes on bravo.com. And Stephanie got an amazing prize. A few episodes ago, Richard gave his pretty amazing prize to Stephanie (for no reason - it turns out that even though he admired her cake-baking skills, the judges thought the other team's cake tasted better). I think it would be only considerate for her to take him on her prize trip to Spain.

Til next week (unless I can muster something up to blog about before then),

D

I hear its not good...

Thanks to Jess Sum, our guest-blogger this week! Steve and I missed Top Chef last night, as we were at a party celebrating the end of my 1L year at law school! I'm sure we'll catch the ep at some point during the week - I'm pretty sure Bravo only has about three shows, and they just constantly re-run them to fill the schedule. So here is Jess' take on last night's Top Chef:

We all should have known it wasn't going to end well when one of the first shots included Richard climbing out of bed with the perfect faux-hawk and purple clogs in full display.

So the quick fire was hosted by "Tall, Dark, and Boring as Corrugated Cardboard" Sam from Season Two, AKA the season Steve, Desiree, and I all fell in love...with Top Chef. Salad? Salad! Padma, fighting a love-hate relationship with all things Botox, fights the power and informs the remaining seven contestants the challenge is the nebulous vegetable/fruit/???? presentation. Forty-five minutes is a ridonculous chunk of time, yet underdog Stephanie still fails to plate her artichoke chips. To sum up? Blais is a looooser and Spike is a weeeeiner. We've officially entered bizarro foodieville. Dead face, er, Padma informs the chefs that the challenge is a health one, where they must incorporate a whole wheat, lean protein, one fruit, and one veggie. The prize (Spike) consists of a 10 minute shopping advantage and the "I saw it first so it's MINE" rule: Anything he picks, no one else can have. Of course, our be-hatted Lame-poleon is in it to F--- it...so he elects BREAD, TOMATO, LETTUCE, and CHICKEN. If there were only some way to rearrange those letters to "Yeah, you're right, I'm the world's supreme d-bag. It's cool. Bartender?"

So, we're off. Our audience? The Chicago police force, a group of hard-working, well-deserving citizens. As a member of Kill-a-delphia, we love our boys in blue!! False Maki by Andrew (the allegeded nutrition expert), "DO YOU LIKE BURRITOS??" by Richard, grease-follicle rice with Lisa, and I-bought-every-standard-ingredient-I-could-think-of-to-f----over-my-competitors Spike and his "Pedestrian" lunch. With supremely subtle editing and pedamtic teasers, we often can call the ending twenty minutes into an episode. And thing would be an example.

I do not agree with the eliminaton. Rules certainly do exist, but garbage is what it is. Restaraunt Wars awaits us all.

Wedding Wars

Top Chef started with a little bit of mourning for our fallen hero, Mark the Kiwi. Then mean ol' Tom surprised the chefs at the quickfire...the dreaded relay prep race. I love monkfish, aka poor man's lobster, but man is that one ugly looking fish. So ugly that it's kind of pretty, actually. Dale's outburst at the end of the challenge reminded me of a time or two that I punched my locker in high school because I was pissed off about getting detention or something. Or the time a few months ago when I punched a door because Des was needling me.
Padma also disappointed by proclaiming a moratorium on Restaurant Wars for the season, in favor of Wedding Wars. Pretty bold move on the part of the bride and groom I guess, but a pretty lousy reward for winning the quickfire...the winning team got to choose whether to cater to the bride or the groom. Big deal. Were they given any clue as to which one had more challenging tastes or who would be most difficult to deal with? It didn't appear so. I don't see how that was such an 'important advantage' for the winners considering immunity was kaput.
The coolest part about Wedding Wars was the all-nighter the chefs were forced to endure, kind of like a spiritual journey inward, only less miles traversed. But a heck of a lot more food prepared. I'd like to try a brisket that was cooking for 24 hours, I bet it would fall apart when you tapped it with a fork.
Around 10:55 I remembered that this was an extra long episode, and the glass of wine I had with dinner had me feeling like I pulled an all-nighter...OK, maybe not really. But I'm ready for the judge's table.
So how about my main man Richard deferring the big win to Stephanie for her wedding cake heroics? Pretty classy move...maybe a little too classy. As it turned out, the judges liked the other team's cake better (not so much its look, but its flavor).
Dale and Spike got into a little spat at the judge's table, and I can't wait to read David Dust's description.
I personally didn't hate Nikki as much as everyone else seemed to, but I can definitely see why she deserved to go home. She didn't display the kind of leadership that a top chef needs to show. Yeah, pretty heavy stuff.

Top Chef plus kids

Quickfire: 15 minutes with Uncle Ben...yeah, OK, it was a decent challenge, designed to showcase the Uncle Ben's product more than anything else.
Everybody went 'back to their roots' and 'stayed true to who they are,' which I guess is a good thing. Ouch, my man Mark (who apparently has a lady, sorry girls, and plays a mean dirigidoo) hasn't been on a good run lately. Padma couldn't tell his turkey from chicken, and needed some sauce.
As usual, Richard and Dale are on top, but Antonia emerged as another consistent contender with her mother's rice and salad. That doesn't sound to me so bizarre that Oprah's personal chef needed to be 'made a believer.'
The elimination challenge involved creating a dish for four on a $10 budget. Considering that the chefs shop at Whole Foods, I expected that they'd each be able to buy a bag of peanuts...trust me, with Des on her juice-mania cleanse, we've done a little shopping there.
Then the little kids came into the picture, and when they got to pick which chef they would help out petshop-style, Mark was the first chosen. So I guess you don't have to be the best chef in the judge's eyes to be the coolest. Too bad the big Hell's Angel dude (Papa Souffle) wasn't still around for this, he would have either scared the kids away, or they would have loved him.


-S

Oh no, our New Zealander is gone! When does Flight of the Conchords start again?! Do they realize that Lisa is gross?

And speaking of kids, have I written yet about how they should NOT be allowed in restaurants? I apologize in advance to those readers who have kids.

Who wants to either go out for a nice dinner or go out for dinner or even happy hour at a bar restaurant, only to turn around and see kids at a table with their crayons? In the nice restaurant situation, you are paying money to enjoy the food AND the atmosphere. When you have to deal with kids running around, popping up under tables, crying, etc. you are not getting what you paid for. At the Indian restaurant down the street, a family allowed their kids to bounce up and down on seats - and not even their own seats, but seats at an empty table near us. And when you go out to a bar, who wants to have to worry about having a kid around while you are drinking a beer?

From the parents' point of view, I guess they may want to go out to eat and have to bring the kids. But stick to Pizza Hut - I remember going there every week when I was a kid to use my Book-it coupon for a personal pan pizza. My parents were happy too, because they got a pitcher of beer.

There are a few exceptions to this general rule of no kids. First, bring them to any mid-range exotic-ish place - sushi, Indian, Moroccan, etc. (unless of course they are bouncing, cryers, or brats). Teach a kid to like good food instead of just hot dogs and mac and cheese (hmm... previous Top Chef episodes?) early - it works to "expand their culinary language", as judge Gail says. Second, if you must go somewhere nice, go during the week. My birthday was on a Wednesday this year, and Steve and I went to Patou in Philly that night. There was a very well-behaved 7-10 year old, and I didn't have any problem with her being there.

Finally, if the kids do come along, make sure they are dressed appropriately. Appropriate dress for a nice BYO does not include tight pink sweatpants with words like 'juicy' on the butt. I hope you are listening family-from-Narberth-who-took-the-kids-to-Margot-on-Saturday-night!

-D

Michael Skarn shoots first and asks questions later

The Quickfire Challenge featured lots of yummy looking desserts, like a pineapple and rum souffle, fresh young coconut, and something called a walla seed from Australia. Richard became immune and immortal, with his recipe for scallop bananas with guacamole ending up in the Top Chef cook book. You may recall that I called him for my pick for winner starting on day 1. Maybe that's not a big accomplishment, considering some of the competition.
Take Lisa, for example. Her grease collection with a few strands of hair in it is beginning to burn into my retinas in a way that does not flatter. But if she was in any way attractive, she would make up for it completely with her flat tire personality.
When the chefs went to the improv house, we were waiting for an appearance of Michael Skarn. It's always funny how surprised the chefs are when their 'leisure' activities turn out to actually be precursors to the elimination challenge.
The self-selection process allowed the hip hoppers, Spike and Andrew, to work together. They were forced to improvise while fulfilling Spike's missed opportunity to make a squash soup, due to the electrical equipment disappearing. Mark and Nikki formed the 70's shades team, which I must admit, I have an awesome pair of as well.
Judge Tom dropped the bomb by sending them packing from the kitchen to the chef's house in the middle of prep. OK, we get it, improv is the theme.
Anyway, Richard and Dale won with their purple perplexed tofu, which came as a surprise to no one.
I was routing for Lisa to get kicked off, if you couldn't have already guessed that. But instead, Jenn, who was doing it for Zoi, joined her. I guess the lesbian angle didn't inspire Bravo to keep her anymore now that her girlfriend was gone.
There was a neverending stream of innuendo during this episode, that I'm sure David Dust will quote ad nauseum.
Anyway, I have to say that this blogging thing has gotten a little cumbersome ever since the Nazis at Adsense kicked us off. I wonder how long we'll keep this up...I'm sure that the world would lament losing a great contribution to humanity if we gave this up.

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

I got my birthday wish!

Rewatching the end of last week's Top Chef, I'm again impressed with the class and dignity that Manuel departed with. A lot of time those humble speeches sound fake and full of rhetoric, but his show of humility and accountability was admirable.

This week's quickfire challenge examined once again the concept of the The Pepsi Challenge. Even trained palettes cannot always identify the best ingredients from a mere taste, since the quality of many products are based on reasonable consumption, not small doses.

Zoi got rightfully sent home, fulfilling my birthday wish...and yet she and Jenn never faced the truth that she was only on the show because of the television value of featuring a lesbian couple. I agree that it is a nice twist, but I'm sure there are plenty of better ones out there in the talent pool.

The post-elimination outburst may have been the classic moment of Top Chef. Here's the play-by-play: Spike tore into immune Antonia because she talked their team out of making a soup, leading to their loss. Jenn then tore into Spike because her lover Zoi got the axe, as if it wasn't well deserved and long overdue. Dale threw in his two cents on Spike's behalf, Lisa yapped like a little dog, and Dale lit her up. Can't wait to watch it again next week!

Top Chef Archives

Now, onto more important things...the kittens got me a blue polo shirt for my birthday. Des got two little cakes for us, and she got me with the old trick candle! First time for that, and it was kind of cool. We split an Avery Pale Ale and a Dock Street Amber we've been saving from Total Wine in Delaware. Both were excellent. I'm a lucky guy! Thanks to everybody, friends and family, who sent birthday wishes!

-S

Oompa Loompa

Pre-show text message that pretty much sums up my sentiments of this season:
Jess: Here's to Nikki getting voted off tonight!
Des: And to Lisa washing her hair!

The bad news is that a nice guy left, and neither of those two did...nor did my least favorite, drama queen Zoi. It's going to be so much fun to watch the whining when the couple gets broken up.

The good news:

We finally got a chance to see some actual culinary technique, after a few weeks of mac n' cheese and corn-dogs. During the quickfire, the chefs had to use 3 classical culinary techniques on vegetables...have the producers been listening to us about too much lowbrow cooking? Dale's nifty knife techniques got him immunity for the round. (By the way, i gotta get one of those cool scallion crowners!)

Lots of love was thrown around for my boy Richard...looks like I'm not the only one who thinks he's the guy to beat.

The movie themed dishes from the elimination challenge looked good overall. I think a few of the movie references were stretching it a bit, but the interesting techniques from Andrew's winning team were worth the price of admission. I was surprised not to see Mark in the finalists for that round, I thought his team did a nice job of combining Asian cuisine and Christmas flavors to get to A Christmas Story.

I'm feeling pretty good about my prediction. Richard all the way.

-S


The Ardmorons Top Chef Archive

Sexy Drinks and Home Invasions

This week's Top Chef episode wasn't any good.

It started out with a good idea - invading homes to find what you can. Steve and I actually already had this idea for a show, but Top Chef really messed it up. In our version, each chef would pick a house and cook some sort of gourmet entree based on what was there, be it a foodie kitchen or not. Of course I'm sure the judges would make sure that something could be made in each kitchen, but in this episode I got the impression that Top Chef gave each house money to stock up before the raid. What fun is that? You need to work with what the people really have on hand.

While we're on the subject, my other cooking show idea: me, Steve, Jess Sum, and Danny-Boy try to recreate cooking show meals using a regular kitchen and without having much, if any, training. I think it would be interesting to see if real people in a real, non-studio, kitchen could pull off the recipes. So Bravo or Food Network, if you are reading this, let me know and we'll talk.

So besides the botched idea, the block party concept was also no good. I don't watch this to see pasta salad and mini-hamburgers. I know they have to vary the episodes so we're not seeing the same things every time, but I don't see how picnic food is relevant to winning $100,000 from the Glad family of products toward opening your own restaurant and the title of Top Chef (by the way, that prize sucks! $100,000?!).

Two final points. First, for Jess Mac - Mark wore Hyde glasses! Second, Nikki needs to go. I am sick of her stupid hats and excuses for her ruined dishes (mac & cheese dried out and turd-like mushrooms).

-D

My early prediction looked good again as Richard won immunity during quickfire for his jicama taco, but I was disappointed not to see much of the kiwi this week.

The show was kind of boring until the end when the very confident red team found out they lost the elimination challenge. The tensions and bravado flared up like the match in the old hemorhoid commercials. Sadly, I think we all saw Erik's departure coming from a mile a way. All his food looked like crap, even if I am a little nervous that he'll seek me out and kill me for saying so. Zoe would have left, I'm sure, if Bravo didn't have the disclaimer at the end of the show that allows elimination decisions to be governed by the network-breaking up the lesbian couple so soon wouldn't be good for the ratings.

The funny thing about Stephanie picking up her second win was that when she described her contribution to the team, it sounded like she was an appendix.

I think the show needs some work right now. Part of the problem is that there are no awards for winning the elimination challenges as there had been in the past. The quick fire provides more of an incentive because the winner gets immunity. In the elimination challenge, all you have to do is not come in last place.

-S

The Ardmorons Top Chef Archive

Top Chef goes to the Zoo!

Edits: For spelling and grammar because JSum is a nag.

Much jubilation in this camp as our kiwi favorite Mark won immunity during the quick-fire despite leaving his lettuce at the market. Maybe it was his sideburns. The quick fire challenge itself seemed a little uninspired this week. A visit to the farmers market had a lot of potential, but the rules limited each dish to five ingredients without any other guidelines to shape the outcome.
The chefs next faced a zoologically themed elimination challenge, which combined two of my favorite things, zoos and food. Teams of three were each given an unlikely animal totem (vultures, penguins) to emulate the diet as they catered hor doeuvres for the Chicago Zoo staff. I think Chef Collicio came up with the challenge concept considering his beaming inquiry of how the chefs enjoyed it.
Desiree's favorite spaz Andrew won the elimination challenge with a penguin-themed squid dish (although he got caught cheating during the quickfire). Somehow, an anchovy dish almost gave Mark his second victory of the episode, making converts of everyone's favorite judges, Padma and Gayle. (Well, they're my favorite judges.)
Valeri, who we didn't see or hear enough of to care much about, took the long hike after making blinis 24 hours ahead of service, but it looked like there were others just as worthy to go with her. It looks like tensions are beginning to build with some teams close to implosion by service time.
My early pick, Richard, had a lackluster performance (I had high hopes for the eucalyptus) even with a fellow student of molecular gastronomy as a guest judge. I still stand by my prognostication.

The Ardmorons Top Chef Archive

S

Top Chef Chicago

The cable is working again (at least for now) and not a moment too soon...Top Chef Chicago debuted tonight.

Let's see what Des has to say about it:

First of all, I liked the commercials. Finally, an ad for boxed wine! It was Fish Eye, though, which I have never had and don't think I'd ever buy. But boxed wine is great - if you get something other than White Zinfindel or Franzia, it will be good. Try Pinot Evil, a good boxed pinot noir, or the Black Box Shiraz or Cab. Last season some of the commercial products were featured on the show - who knows, maybe they'll use boxed wine!

I don't have too much to say about the episode. I don't like Lisa - I don't like the way she looks or how she reacted to being told that she poached her egg better than the other guy - she acted like she was so superior just for poaching an egg better. Now, poaching an egg well can be hard - too short of a cook time and the white part is slimy, too long of a cook time and the yolk isn't runny (Steve sometimes has problems with poaching eggs; my dad is good at it if I remember correctly). But still.

The two people I do like are Mark and Andrew.

Mark is from New Zealand, so I'm getting my New Zealand fix until Flight of the Concords is back and I can listen to Bret and Jemaine. And Andrew seems like a tool, but I like him anyway. ("Yo, casa motherf***s, like fatness." - he's like the celebrities from the Geico commercials.) He reminds me of Adam Goldberg in his intense, spastic, and hyped up on cocaine way. Although it seems like he may be a jerk and co-contenstants will not like him, he will be entertaining.

I'm glad Nimma went home.

Now lets see what Steve has to say:

It seemed like the judges (Tom, Padma, and guests Rocco DiSpirito and Anthony Bourdain) were really impressed with the four finalists from the elimination challenge. Stephanie ultimately won with her duck a l'orange. On the other side of the challenge, Des and I held our breath as our favorite, New Zealander Mark, faced elimination for his own duck a l'orange, but ultimately Nimma's oversalted shrimp scampi flan-kenstein sent her home.

Two things I noticed with Bravo's positioning strategy: It seems that they made a point to bring in more corrosive personalities than before...I think it took at least a few weeks for people to start hating Howie last season, but I think I already see a few smacked-asses. Also, the product placement and brand plugs appear to be saturated into the programming more than ever before, following the general trend of the industry.

One last point. I have a feeling the lesbian couple situation won't end well, but we'll all enjoy watching the train wreck.

All in all, it looks like the Top Chef formula is still working, it will be interesting to see what they do to keep things fresh. My early pick for this season's winner: Richard, whose smoked crab cake wowed Chef Colicchio.

Reminder

Top Chef starts tomorrow at 10 on Bravo!

By the way - cable still not working. But we did have a record 3-day run during which it did work!