Top Chef Recap: Christmas is a season for forgiveness. And judgement.

So on my way home from work today, I heard an NPR story about something wicked in South Africa. Like, remember how AIDS is a big problem in Africa and all? Well, part of the drug therapy treatment they prescribe regularly to victims is a drug called Sustiva, also known as Efavirenz. This drug has been known to cause night terrors in a portion of its users, because Sustiva is a hallucinogenic drug. So now there's a problem, a catastrophe if you will, because so many people are dealing this as a recreational drug. They grind it up and use it with weed (though I'ma little vague on how? snort, shoot, smoke?). Also, people buy it to have unprotected sex, because they think it protects them from HIV. The AIDS activists and doctors in the area are crazy up in arms about this, because if the government decides to schedule this drug due to its epidemic misuse? Then it severely limits what kind of effect they can have on AIDS in Africa. It sets back their efforts by a decade. I totally just made up a decade cause it sounds good. But its REALLY bad anyway.

I was telling C. about this, and also the beauties of the downtown Cleveland Public Library (which she's never been in and I haven't for years...)* while last week's Top Chef played in the background. And you might ask what this has to do with Top Chef?

Well, it's the holidays. Or as Padma calls it, "Happy Christmas!"**
So it's time for thinking about others; people with diseases, people starving, people laboring under the delusion that they have any culinary talent at all. Also catastrophes.

Tonight's episode starts with several soul searching revelations from contestants, as they putter about their natural habitat. Old Goil realizes she should "keep it simple", because obviously cooking meat is like the hardest thing ever. Gene feels he "dodged a bullet." S. states it is because he is a gutterpunk, and therefore familiar with bullets and their avoidance. Stefan aka White Balls carves angry faces into helpless watermelons (which is horribly cute), while Hosea learns the benefits of product placement. Cancer and Sidekicks in the same frame? Priceless.

Then they go to the Quickfire and look who comes in? The new Queen of the Recession, Martha Stewart. She strolls in with a copy of her new book under her arm, the miniature cover Martha smiling like an evil tiny twin growing from her torso. Snoop Dogg's favorite boo challenges the cooks (yes, I used that term on purpose) to create "one pot wonders". Cause, you know, home cooks are used to cooking with their arsenal of twenty, thirty calphalon. I'm not sure I've ever used more than one pot in a meal. I am dishes-phobic. It's a limitation, I understand that. But tonight, it makes me a "One Pot Wonder".

As the cooks begin their challenges, I contemplate the unspoken massacre of scallops that has occurred in the last ten years due to the growth of "foodies". Eck. I will never get to be a foodie. Old Jersey Goil made a cauliflower puree which she advises are great for kids cause they are like mashed potatoes but instead the kiddies get veggies, and my Irish/Polish ass is all like, aren't potatoes veggies? See, a foodie would know better.

So Martha loves White Balls: The Revenge, and his "chanterelles". She loves Hosannah and his Paella. I wonder if Hosannah has ever spent late nights in the kitchen, making paella, and contemplating the Inquisition? He-Man's blond locks are powerless against Martha's one note condemnation, "pungent". Old Jersey Motherfucking Goil decides to work the Snoop Dogg angle and wear her BASEBALL HATE BACKWARDS in a blatant attempt to appeal to Martha's jungle fever. Martha's genius criticism to Gene? "I thought it could be much more delicious.". Old Jersey Motherfucking Beyotch Goil wins, because she can cook meat.

C. mention that she has seen S. and M. get completely trashed all day, and manage to grill perfect pieces of lamb while shooting roman candles at each other. So how hard can it be?

Hr bloody swath through the next generation's nightmares complete, Martha departs, and a revolution against her erupts in the room I'm in. While the Last of the Gays stands on screen, quietly and bravely trying not to cry because she's lost to Ms. Meat four times now, S. jumps up from the couch and screams "I'll cut off my penis, deep fry it, and eat it if she wins!" Our group hatred against Old Jersey Motherfuckin Beyotch Botox Goil is swelling to an intensity that must, at the very least, cause her psychosomatic boils.

S. picked up some sausages from Chef's Choice Meats in Berea for tonight, and the owner gave him a Great Lakes Christmas Ale Sausage that he just created. So we sample that at this time in the evening, halfway through a bottle of Shiraz and a giant box of Milwaukee's Best. The sausage is good, overly seasoned like the beer, but spicy sweet. It's a very fruity sausage. The bratwurst is great too. I guess Great Lakes will have it on their menu, and the Beer Engine already sells his meats. Also he carries those awesome local glass bottles of chocolate milk? And gives refills.

Show's back on, so on to the main course. Tonight's challenge is "The Twelve Days of Christmas", and I like it. I secretly want to do 5 Golden rings, with pineapple, but Gene beats me to it. Also, he's on the show, and I'm not. Immediately, everyone starts spouting bullshit justifying their particular dishes. "Piper's piping? Let's smoke everything!" Which is exactly what Hosannah does, smoking out the whole kitchen. Fabio the Quietly Storming European writes some story about his dish (he's a poet, a seeker). But the real climax is coming....

In the middle of the night, the evil Grinch Colicchio sneaks into the kitchen where all the little boys and girls have stacked and prepped their dishes, and OPENS A FRIDGE. Actually, one of the morons left it open overnight, but surprisingly, no one blames anyone. You'd expect some sort of guilty confession, but it seems that everyone is feeling so guilty about their general loserness, they forget to be divas. Anyway, Hosannah and Sally get screwed by the fridge mishap. Which allows the producers to create an absolutely sickening moment, where they play Christmas music in the background while all the cooks step in and help their friends save Christmas!

Oh, but really they're saving the AIDS Benefit! See how this all comes full circle? Is it bad that during that NPR story, I was really thinking about how available Sustiva was?
Natasha Richardson, looking like a rich man's Jennifer Coolidge, announces that the guests will pin their AIDS ribbons to the chef's board whose dish they adored. S. thinks this is perverse, and also that Kenneth Cole looks like Steve Gutenberg.

This whole episode is like a Sweet Valley high book. I could try to explain all the ins and outs, but really who gives a fuck? I didn't give a fuck while I was reading the book. There's some shit about Hosannah making Leah jealous with a vacuous socialite (let's all notice that HE doesn't live with HIS girlfriend). Leah has some hearts on her hand, which I'm guessing Hosannah drew on her at some point. Michelle Bernstein holds no truck with the empty nonsense issuing from Richardson, and Colicchio can't stop staring at her breasts.

"You put the lime in the coconut, you drink it all up", and it looks like Gene's a goner. The coconut and lime completely covered the fish huh? who could have guess that? Hosannah wins, in a Holiday Miracle. Then the producers decide not to send anyone home, because they all showed such Christmas Cheer by helping out their comrades after the Great Fridge Disaster of 2008. BUT

Tom Colicchio comes into the waiting room, after giving the cooks sufficient time to get drunk on cheap wine, and he's like "we're looking for amazing food here guys" "you don't win with deviled eggs" and "we wish we could just butcher you all and make some nice curries, at least then your existence wouldn't be a total waste."

So next week's challenge? Cook whatever you want, no limitations, we just need to see if you actually know how to cook or if Tom is going to commit seppuku.


*Also mentioned is how it really annoys me that people are always describing mushrooms as "earthy". I mean, it's time for a new adjective already. And as I say this, c. exclaims that she was just thinking the exact same thing. Seriously. Earthy.
** Zombie! Only zombies say "happy christmas".