This is not a Butt Rubbing Contest!

A day late, but if you still care I have a few things to say about Wednesday’s Top Chef:

eh hem:

IT ROCKED!

Now, saying that something “rocked” is NOT something I would do normally, but I was so impressed by this weeks TC, that I gotta pull out what is arguably the most embarrassing phrase of all time to explain how much I liked it. I watched it TWICE it was so good!  DAMN! Ok, lets get started.

First – a set change: New Orleans. Top Chef + New Orleans = BRILLIANCE, why did we never think of this before? Is there a more culinarily exciting city in the U.S.? NO! Anyone who has ever eaten a shrimp po-boy from Brother’s, a restaurant so old school it has no website, will agree. DAMN! I looooooooooooooooooooooooooove me some Cajun soul food. New York, you’ve got some amazing restaurants, but I’ll take Jambalaya over $15 Pork Bun any day.

Plus: New Orleans has so much life, It was practically jumping off the screen at me. I love any challenge where catering and large groups of local people are involved. You can always tell the most successful chefs by the opinion of the real people eating their food, particularly when local cuisine is on the menu. But I’m getting ahead of myself, back to the beginning.

The show started off with a great Quickfire, guest-judged by none other than Mr. Nawlins himself, Emeril Lagasse:

BLAM! I mean, BAM!

What a fun dude. I’ve never been much for his show on the Food Network, but he really won me over on this Top Chef episode. He was comfortable, kind and fun to watch. GREAT guest judge, and the first Food Network star, I might mention, to grace our little Bravo show. Martha Stewart and Emeril Lagasse in one season? That’s huge! Who’s next, Paula Dean? Rachael Ray? 30 minute meal quickfire? The possibilities are endless!

OK: so we all should have seen it coming that the last 3 eliminated contestants would be back, but I did not, and I was excited to see only one of them: Jeff, the winking cutiepie:

I felt so bad when he got kicked off and he was like, “I’ll probably be sad about this for at least 10 years,” so it was nice to see him come back and redeem himself. He deserved it too, unlike Jamie and Leah, at who I would have been annoyed if they’d made it back into the running.

So the 5 new finalists go to a fancy dinner and then they get their challenge: catering! I LOVE catering, and so do Stefan and Carla who had an obvious advantage seeing as they’re both PROFESSIONAL CATERERS. Not to be outdone, I must say that I was pleasantly surprised by Hosea, who really seemed to have done his homework before coming to New Orleans. Dude studied up on Cajun/Creole cuisine, which was SMART. As much as I hate to say it, I gott have respect….damnit.

I was underwhelmed last night by Fabio and the magic fauxhawk who made Pasta, AGAIN. I know you’re italian, but come on:

Oh, AMAZING bit of info from Fabio’s exit interview on endlesssimmer.com:

What are you up to now?
I’m getting a lot of offers, being asked to do TV shows, license my image on a line of cooking products, so all kinds of things. I hope you liked my face, because unfortunately, you’re going to be seeing a lot of it.

Another TV show! Tell us more.
Aaah, I can’t say yet, but let me just say – Watch What Happens.

WAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!! FABIO’S COMING TO BRAVO, FULL TIME! Damn, if you didn’t see that coming, you are dumb as hell, or you seriously don’t watch enough TV. But, YAY!! Can’t wait for that shit. You can read the rest of his silly interview here.

Moving on:

All the food the chef’s made last night looked AMAZING: gumbo, corn cakes, cheesy grits and cocktails? Sign me up! But I must say that, as much as I would have liked for Jeff to stay on, Carla’s meal really took the cake.

I mean, girl made deep friend sausage-shrimp balls. What could really be better (and less kosher) than that? NOTHING! Could she really take it all next week?? I dunno!

OH FORGOT TO MENTION: GAIL WAS BACK! yay! Love her! The judges were so much more together with Gail there. Without her, Tom was the only regular judge with any really legitimate things to say about the food. Now we have the Gail and Tom dynamic, which I happen to love, and which seems to shut up Padma (who all the contestants seem to hate, btw) and that’s a good thing.

All in all: I’m happy. I’m exciting. I can’t wait. The finale, the reunion, its gonna be good shit. I’m glad this season is ending with a bang. God now’s my broke ass needs it.

BAM!

OOPS!

I had an insane night of running around like a crazy person yesterday. After work I hauled my ass to Whole Foods in Chelsea in search of Turkey Stock for my Cornbread Stuffing, which, of course, they don’t carry. So, I settled for three boxes of Chicken Stock that can be described in two ways: not cheap and not light. I know becuase I PAID for them and because I had to shlep them with me to the salon while I got my last minute, “I-haven’t-had-my-hair-cut-since-March-and-I-want-to-look-nice-for-my-boyfriend’s-family” Thanksgiving haircut. Small note to all the ladies out there: I know that the idea of bangs is a romantic one, but try and resist. They’re a pain in the ass. I was reminded of this fact this morning, aka: why my new bangs are clipped up on the top of my head right now. Anway…

After my haircut I ran to the subway in the cold, stopping alone the way at Rainbow Falafel, a delicious little take out hut that I happened upon on my, like, 3rd day in New York last fall and JUST found again yesterday, to get a chicken hummus sandwich (half of which I ate on the train like a heathen) and, once I got home, I took 15 minutes to chop up my new bangs into some kind of something before tackling steps 2 and 3 of my cornbread stuffing!!

Needless to say, at this point, I was frazzled enough that I forgot to take pictures of my cooking. Lets just say that, after I chopped two large onions and 4 cups of celery, cooked them in butter, crumbled up my cornbread, 14 dried up pieces of white bread and two sleeves of saltines, added all that together, took a sip of diet coke, added 10 cups of chicken stock, mixed, added sage, salt and poutry seasoning, beat 8 eggs, added those eggs to my stuffing, baked it all in a greased up casserole dish, watched some Fringe, and took the stuffing out of the oven, it basically looked like this:

Except, you know, less beautiful and perfect-y. BUT IT TASTED GREAT!!! I’m so happy with all the work and how it came out. If you’re lucky enough to be coming to my apartment on Friday, you’ll get a chance to partake, and then you can comment and tell everyone how it was. If not, have a GREAT Thanksgiving and we’ll be in touch RE: Top Chef next week.

LOVE, Allie