Fuck the Rules, I Live on the Edge!

My sheer joy and ecstasy at seeing that raging freak Andrew pack his knives and go this week was completely tampered by the fact that now I know Spike will make it to the end. Since Jordan Baker decided to gift me with spoilers and tell me that the girl with curly hair and boy with a beard make it far in the game, she convinced me that it would be Steph and Andrew at the end. Since Andrew went home last night, that means I have to stomach another five or so episodes of that douche Spike. To be honest, “douche” isn’t a strong enough word, and cunt has a misogynistic tone to it. What can I use to easily convey how much I hate every fiber of Spike? Even “fucktard” doesn’t truly get across how much I can’t stand to see him or hear his voice. I guess we’ll have to work on that.

As always, Casa de Chef opens the episode, and this time we have five chefs commenting on life and the game. Guess we’ll know who to expect at the Judges Table. Steph is talking about Nikki going home and the competition getting harder and Blaise basically reiterates the same notion. Spike immediately whines about Dale being a bitch, when, in reality, it is Spike who owns that crown whole-heartedly. Not to steal from Jordan, but there are only so many ways to say “Pot, meet kettle. Guess what color you share?” Dale then interviews about how everyone is bitching about him and he couldn’t care less. Finally, Andrew is his usual attention whore self and discusses the freaking out of all of the chefs. He then gifts us with the wonderful information of the fact that he’ll either stab someone or make some food. Great to know! Glad to know those are your only options, bud.

Quickfire Challenge has Sam from Season 2 as the guest judge. Did they run out of talent? Seriously, the point of this show is creating competition between talenting chefs and spreading haute cuisine to America, especially by introducing different judges from several culinary backgrounds. So you had to mine the depths of your own show to get a judge? Half-assed. I’m calling you out on your bullshit, Top Chef. Make it better next week. And I know a lot of girls get wet when Sam walks on screen, but he’s really not that attractive. His face is busted, and he’s pretty much a douche, he’s just not as obvious about as Spike, Andrew, Marcel, Ilan, et cetera. Moving on from my rampant bitterness, the Quickfire in this episode is to bring the sexy back to salad. Padma, while the chefs spend forty five minutes making a salad, I want you to spend that time desperately searching for more up to date catch phrases and cultural references.

What Sam sees when he looks in the mirror. Right next to what we see, douchey hair and all.

The only thing of note from the challenge is that Lisa whines in an interview about how there are certain people left in the competition who don’t deserve to be there and have personalities that suck. Seriously. What the fuck, you stupid fuck. You are easily one of the least likable contestants in the history of the show, which you’ll prove later in the episode, and you’ve been in the bottom heap several times this season. Get back to your disgusting salad of bananas and lobsters and leave the real commenting to the professionals.

The final dishes that everyone produces as their version of a sexy salad are as follows -

Andrew - A fruit salad of strawberries, raspberries, mangoes and Sriracha. Sounds nauseating.
Spike - Calling it a “Sensual Beef Salad,” Spike douchily mixes skirt steak with cucumbers, radishes, and pineapple.
Lisa - Just because you call it sexy doesn’t mean it’s not disgusting. Grilled squid, bananas, lobster, and a yuzu vinaigrette made me want to vomit from my couch without so much as smelling the dish.
Steph - Fall Duet of artichokes and poached pears with a pear vinaigrette, but couldn’t get her artichoke chips on the plate in time.
Antonia - Poached eggs with wild mushrooms over squash blossoms and a bacon vinaigrette. That actually sounds really good, to be honest.
Blaise - Makes an Outkast shout out with his Fresh and Clean seviche of fruits and vegetables.
Dale - Sticking to his Asian roots as always, Dale goes with a Poached Chicken salad with sake, nori paste, mirin, and a rice wine vinaigrette. Wouldn’t one think that using a rice wine vinaigrette with sake be a tad redundant?

Sam, for some ungodly reason, gets to pick the winners and losers. Being the salad expert that he is, he chooses Blaise, Steph, and Lisa for the bottom three, and Dale, Antonia, and Spike for the top three. Because Jesus hates me, Spike is declared the winner for the first time, and since he doesn’t get immunity, Padma informs him he’ll get an advantage in the Elimination Challenge. He gloats like the douchebucket he is and Sam loses all credibility to the world of haute cuisine.

Padma explains that the Challenge will be to make a box lunch for the cadets at the Chicago Police Academy and that the dishes have to be nutritious for the cops. Every dish has to have a whole grain, a lean protein, a fruit, and a vegetable. Spike’s advantage gives him 10 extra minutes to shop before everyone else. In addition, the four ingredients he chooses from the list will be barred from everyone else’s dishes. Because Spike is Spike and sucks at life, he chooses this as an opportunity not to help himself, but to fuck everyone else over. The other chefs expect this and react accordingly - choosing better ingredients and commenting on how low brow Spike and his ingredients are. Seriously, if you think people can’t make lunch without chicken, lettuce, tomato, or bread, then you’re fucking retarded. Next time you head to Whole Foods, try to buy some imagination or creativity. Or at least a new personality.

The chefs get back to the kitchen and have two hours to cook, pack, and move out to the academy. Turns out that their dish will be microwaved by the fuzz. So there’s that. Cooking ensues, and Antonia calls Dale out on going Asian for 57th time. Yet again, she wins major points; she’s sharp and hilarious, and I feel a crush developing. Lisa complains that her shrimp are high in cholesterol so she might technically be breaking the rules. I don’t think it’s the rules she needs to worry about - her food fucking sucks. At this point, Lisa goes apeshit and screams “FUCKING SABOTAGE!!!” The burner on the stove where her rice was cooking has been turned to high, so some of her rice is burned and some of it is undercooked. Steph notes that it was probably just a simple mistake and Dale agrees that Lisa is most likely just covering her own ass.

Moving to the academy, the editors want to highlight how hardcore the Popo are by showing push ups and playing hardcore music. Antonia cracks another joke about not being intimidated because they’re normal people and she has no outstanding parking tickets, thus solidifying herself in third place of my favorites and giving Blaise some tough competition for the number two spot. The chefs start to take out their boxes, and while Blaise markets his meal, Spike whines about how he thinks Rich is a bitch. Odd how Spike can whine about someone doing something and make it into a defect, but when he does the same thing, it’s genius. He then goes on to only put two plates on his table to make his dish seem more popular than it really was, but doesn’t really go to any effort to hide the dozens he has behind him.

Final dishes for the Thin the Bacon Challenge -

Steph made a mushroom and meatball soup with barley, vegetable puree, and yogurt. The meat is a mystery, but the soup is wildly popular and the judges comment on how well seasoned it is.
Spike makes a chicken salad with grapes and olives, and on the side is a pita and raw vegetables. Ted and Tom bitch about how bland and lacking the dish is, and Sam points out that he “used,” and I utilize that word loosely, the ingredients just to block the other chefs. Padma calls the food “pedestrian,” which I will now be exploiting to insult and harass those I deem unworthy.
Dale makes a lemongrass bison lettuce wrap with brown rice and herb salad. The judges love it and say the texture and flavor are great. They think it could use some heat, and I don’t know if that means it could use another minute in the microwave, or that they would prefer a spicier bison. Either way, I would love this dish, and can’t get over how much I enjoy bison.
Antonia turns filet mignon into a curry beef with jasmine rice and a side of berries and figs with grape syrup. The judges love the beef.
Andrew makes a salmon sushi roll with parsnip slash pine nut “rice” and pickled ginger wasabi. Ted is clearly uncomfortable at Andrew’s table and obviously can’t stand talking to him. I love Ted more as a result of this. Nameless cop says “This is good, just messy.” The judges find it strange.
Blaise created a grilled tuna burrito with lentils and quinoa in a rice paper burrito. Apparently it tastes better than it looks.
Finally, that scaly sea hag Lisa offers up a shrimp stir-fry with brown rice, berries, and Greek yogurt. She’s nervous about the rice, and sure enough, Padma brings her to Front Street with the shitty rice. The judges say it’s spicy, but okay. Per my notes, there is no mention of badly cooked shrimp.

Mmmm…lettuce wraps…

Right before we head to Judges Table, Andrew realizes that he broke the rules by not using a grain. Shock of shocks, guess who ends up in the bottom? Dale and Steph are top two, and Dale wins for his bison lettuce wrap, which I would most likely inhale if given the chance. The bottom three are Dale, Lisa, and Spike, which makes my heart explode with euphoria. My dreams have come true and the three worst contestants are in the bottom. Can’t go wrong with these choices. Andrew’s sushi dish wasn’t hearty enough for a Donut Whore’s lunch. They verbally bitchsmack him over the fact that his food just wasn’t filling. Spike gets slammed for taking the sabotage route with his advantage ingredients and Spike douchily whines that his food is meant for the common people and can’t be appreciated by the more educated palates of the judges. So….basically you just called yourself out on consistently making shitty food that only an ignorant and untrained person would find to be adequate. Great play, Shakespeare. Tom tells him it sucks, Spike responds with the ever classy, “In your opinion,” and Tom obliterates him with “Unfortunately for you, my opinion’s what matters.” Best. Top. Chef. Moment. Ever.

Lisa is pissy before they even start to grill her and refuses to offer a reason why she would be in the bottom three. She pulls the sabotage card out about the rice, and Tom sympathizes, but points out that her shrimp still sucked, which they never commented on at the tasting. Not that I mind, though, because she could use a few bitch smacks herself. At this point, just before the bottom three leave for deliberation, the shit hits the fan. Lisa throws Andrew under the bus and notes that he didn’t even follow the rules about the Core Four since he didn’t use a whole grain. Understandably, Andrew doesn’t respond too well to this.

Sam bitches some more about how he hates Spike, which redeems him a tad in my mind. The judges talk about how they hated Lisa’s food, but Andrew did technically break the rules. This entire time, the editors have interspersed an argument in the pantry between Andrew and Lisa. I hate to admit it, but Andrew is right - own up to your own fucking dish and leave everyone else out of it. Don’t throw other people under the bus and don’t make excuses for shitty food. A real chef would take responsibility for their mistakes.

Andrew is finally told to pack his knives and go, which should have happened weeks ago, and I actually yelled out of glee. Andrew interviews that he represented himself well on the show and that he won’t talk to anyone ever again…”except for Spike, Spike’s mad cool.” At this point, I wrote “Do the world a favor and kill yourself before you get a chance to breed. You are the definition of a tool, and if I ever met you in person, I’d punch you in the face.”

Next week - THE HOLE! Nameless and ethnically ambiguous woman tells the chefs they’re in the hole, which is presumably a restaurant’s line. Line cook = shitty job. Then Padma tells them that Restaurant Wars are back on, which is technically cheating. Screaming ensues, and I’m guessing from the preview that it’s Dale/Spike/Lisa versus Antonia/Steph/Blaise. Basically, shit versus perfection.

Because I’m Better

I’ve seen far too many mediocre movies in my life. I’m not exactly complaining, especially since I have been known to actively seek out what I like to call “awesomely bad” films. However, after the recent string of movies I’ve gone to see, including but not limited to Baby Mama, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, The Forbidden Kingdom, Smart People, and Made of Honor, I can’t help but feel like something is missing in the landscape of Hollywood. You can be a douchebag if you want and judge me for it, but I paid money to see those movies, and I barely enjoyed most of them. All five of them were forgettable, most had major flaws, but entertained me, for the most part, for the 90 minutes I sat in the theater. So I got to thinking. As a person who’s easily read a thousand books and seen two thousand movies, why shouldn’t I give it a shot? Lord knows I can construct a story and appreciate the in’s and out’s of building a plot. My film repertoire and my academic prowess of the novel should assure me a modicum of ability to one-up so many of these forgettable films Hollywood churns out year after year.

So I bought a book today on screenplays. I’m going to write a screenplay this summer. I’ve been throwing the idea around in my head for the past two years, and I’d love to try it out. I’m not dead set on finishing it this summer, but since I have no real commitments in life short of surviving until August so that I can start grad school, I can’t think of a better time. I’ll write when I can, and it might take a toll on my blog, but we’ll see what happens when it happens. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the fact that the sun is finally back in the District.

“Why Are You Still Here?” = Top Chef Gold

In one of the best episodes I’ve ever seen of anything from reality TV, Top Chef totally delivered a classic episode last night with the glory that was Wedding Wars. Instead of repeating the disaster of Restaurant Wars again, they pulled a page from Season One’s play book and opted for Wedding Wars. And thank God they did. I’ve never seen better character development, fights, bullshit drama, or enjoyed the one-liners as much. Here’s our weekly recap of the shenanigans in Chicago (Chi-nanigans?).

Like it always does, Casa de Chef began the episode, and we had to deal with the Top Chef formula of putting four people in front of you. If you actually pay attention every week, one of the four they present ends up going home. This week, Andrew and Spike started douching out over the fact that Mark had left, and Antonia noted the fact that there are eight people left, and for the first time ever, four of them are women. Unfortunately, Lisa and Nikki are the shitty female contestants, and sure enough, Nikki interviews next about how you have to be a fighter to stay in the game. Ironic, considering later events. This was the first part of the show where I was convinced that she was going home.

The cheftestants walk into the Top Chef kitchen and immediately notice that there isn’t a guest judge for Quickfire Challenge. Tom is with Padma, and the latter quickly tells the chefs that they’ve reached the halfway point, so winning the Quickfire doesn’t grant immunity to the contestant. The eight are split into two teams (Spoon and Fork) and they consist of Blaise/Steph/Antonia/Andrew versus Dale/Spike/Lisa/Nikki. From now on, they’ll be referred to as Team Awesome and Team Douche, respectively. To be honest, I’d switch out Andrew for Dale and have a team of my favorites of the season versus the people I’ve hated the most. Regardless, Padma explains that the Quickfire will be a relay race involving mostly knife skills, as the teams make their way through oranges, artichokes, monkfish, and making mayonnaise from scratch. Nikki freaks out about making mayonnaise since she hasn’t done it by hand since culinary school, and Dale is already pissed. I love Dale more and more with every episode, but he sealed the deal this time. When Nikki whines about the mayo, he asked the camera, “Why are you still here?” We were all wondering the same thing, bud. Team Douche has an early lead but Spike loses it entirely on the artichokes, and by the end, Team Awesome is declared the winner. They get an advantage in the Elimination Challenge, which turns out to be not that big of a bonus (I thought they’d get extra money at the store or something). Dale throws a mini-temper tantrum, as he screams “FUCK!” and punches a dent into a locker. The rest of the chefs judge him for his outburst, but to be perfectly honest, I can’t imagine holding in my anger if I had Spike, Lisa, and Nikki as my teammates.

Padma and Tom explain the Challenge once two people join them in the kitchen. Corey and JP walk in, and it’s revealed that they’re getting married the next day. Rather than do Restaurant Wars this season, the judges slash producers decided that they should do Wedding Wars instead. The chefs freak out, especially since a lot of them have no real catering experience to speak of and they have less than a day to prepare. Padma announces that each team will have $5,000 to create dishes for 125 people each, as one team will create a spread for the bride and the other for the groom. Since Team Awesome won the Quickfire, they get to choose which they would like, and Blaise picks the bride. Strangely enough, he doesn’t really seem to consult with his team, but he gets praised for the decision later on. Andrew decides to seriously disturb the viewers by declaring he has a culinary boner and can’t wait to cook for fourteen hours straight. Steph redeems Team Awesome by saying that no one likes to do wedding cakes since they’re a “big ol’ pain in the ass.” I’m not sure if the show noted or I noted that everyone on Awesome has won an Elimination Challenge at least once, but it’s definitely something worth acknowledging. To solidify my love of Awesome and the classic one-liners of this episode, Antonia rips on Andrew, who suggests a chicken nugget for their menu. She knows that you can’t use a crunchy chicken in a catering job since it never comes out perfect, but blows him off for the most part.

The teams shop at Restaurant Depot and Whole Foods and split into pairs for each task. The only two things of merit that come out of this are that Nikki’s team, which she will be “leading,” knows she gets flustered and can’t handle collaborative thought. On Blaise’s team, however, he says, “I watch a little Martha Stewart, I wear pink shoes, I can pick out our flowers.” Perfect.

So they show up to the Top Chef kitchen with 14 hours to cook for 125 people. Team Awesome is working excellently together and communicating well. Team Douche is falling apart because Nikki is refusing to lead, and Dale is taking on far too many tasks because his team is slacking off. Lisa is watching Dale and waiting for him to fuck something up because she’s obnoxious and bitter. This team is actually pretty difficult to watch because it brings the term “dysfunctional” to a whole new level. Spike decides to steal the sea bass from Dale so he can claim a dish at the end of the day, and Nikki prefers to talk shit about her teammates and whine instead of actually controlling the team.

Near the end, Colicchio visits the judges, and the best part of it is that he calls Lisa cake out on being hideous. To be honest, when I saw it, I instantly thought of Mussolini’s Typewriter. Does anyone else remember that and slash or think of it as soon as they see that monstrosity of a groom’s cake? Every time they showed her cake, I wanted to weep for the couple that was about to eat the food Team Douche had prepared.

At the commercial break, this week’s text message poll is introduced, and it asks the audience which chef is most annoying - Lisa, Dale, or Spike? I would say Spike should win hands down, with Lisa, Nikki, and Andrew rounding out the top four. Dale shouldn’t even be a contender. Unfortunately, he wins FORTY SIX percent of the vote and Spike only lands fifteen. Fifteen fucking points. Who did all the voting, Spike?!

Meanwhile, the show is back and they’re up to the wedding. My notes say, “JP’s mom looks like a drag queen. How embarrassing for her.” The judges for this round are introduced - Tom, Padma, Gail Simmons from Food + Wine, and Gale Gand, the owner of Tru in Chicago and most likely the best pastry chef in the entire city. She seems quite nice, and lacks the brutal honesty and disdain that a lot of guest judges usually hold in excessive quantities. More shots of the wedding, and now my notes say, “In other news, clapping at weddings is tacky. Discuss.”

Both teams send out their appetizers first, and Team Awesome has short ribs in bleu (I was raised the French way and refuse to write blue) cheese and almonds that are wrapped in phyllo bread, pulled pork sandwich with a handmade pickle, and pizza with prosciutto, goat cheese, herbs, and parmesan. They go over quite well. Team Douche serves sausage pizza with flatbread and bruschetta. The guests and judges hate the crostinis Douche used because they’re too crunchy.

Everyone heads into the full reception for the dinner food, and the bride has changed into a new dress. What bride has two wedding gowns? Seriously, woman, what the fuck were you thinking? I could understand a different dress that allowed for more movement on the dance floor and was less formal, but not a second gown. Corey and JP are really starting to bother me.

Antonia tells us that “Andrew is not allowed to talk to the guests. Seriously!” Team Awesome is not only talented and hilarious, but they’re smart. Good call on keeping the culinary boner in the back of the house. On the other team, Dale is in the kitchen and cooking everything for his team, which basically puts him in the weeds for the entire wedding.

Team Awesome is serving the following dishes for the Bride’s Spread:
- creamed spinach with star anise
- filet mignon with horseradish sauce and red wine syrup. Sounds incredible.
- braised beef brisket.
- potato gratin.
- almond and basil crusted chicken breast.

The judges love the brisket and the filet, but hate Andrew’s chicken. They call him out on using the same dish in the Kids Can Cook challenge, and he made it better then. They also complain about how crispy chicken can’t be catered because you can’t keep it crispy. Sounds familiar.

Team Douche is serving the following dishes for the Groom’s Spread:
- mixed vegetables with cheeses.
- butternut squash tortellini with brown butter and sage.
- Chilean sea bass with artichokes, capers, olives, and tomatoes.
- pork and beef ragù with orecchiette. I am immediately impressed that Padma actually pronounced it right, which just goes to show how low I set her bar.
- filet mignon with horseradish cream and herb roasted fingerling potatoes.

The judges hate Nikki’s tortellini but love the ragù that Dale made for his orecchiette. The mixed vegetables are a nadir for the table and the spread itself is dismissed as uninspired and unoriginal. As for the cakes, Steph made the Bridal Cake as five layers of dark chocolate and lemon with white fondant and fresh flowers. Lisa, of course, made a German chocolate cake with hazelnut. Or transformed Mussolini’s Typewriter into an edible, poop-colored edifice. My notes still think Nikki is going home.

The Bride’s Team is called to the Judges Table and they are almost universally praised. The only problem the judges had were the spinach and Andrew’s chicken. Blaise is given the win, but he wants to give it to Steph for her amazing job on the cake. They decide to split the $2,000 prize at Crate and Barrel. For a second, I wanted to write Cracker Barrel, which would basically assure them free breakfast for life on any road trip. Mmmm….spiced apples….

Gale Gand does her best “possessed Ina Garter” impression.

I can’t tell at this point if I’m happier that Team Awesome won or Team Douche lost. Nikki starts off great by throwing the team under the bus and saying she was never the leader. She just happened to know the most about Italian cuisine, so she gave advice, but she definitely did not lead. Which, to be honest, I can attest to - she was a total trainwreck and had no right whatsoever to claim she led much of anything. Tom calls Lisa out on having such an ugly cake, but admits it tasted pretty good in the end. Dale has a meltdown over doing so much work for such shitty people, and Spike goes into new douche territory by calling him a bitch in front of the judges. Nikki is chastised for not stepping up when she was the expert in this food genre, Spike is criticized for not executing his dishes well, and Dale is yelled at for doing so many things and spreading himself so thin that he couldn’t create great dishes. However, it’s quite apparent that the judges realize Dale was being shit on by his teammates and just tried to make it through the challenge.

FINALLY, after weeks of agonizing clichés, whining, and that obnoxious nasal voice, Nikki gets sent packing. I am ecstatic at this news, and simply can’t wait for Lisa and Spike to follow suit.

In next week’s episode, we get to look forward to Antonia ripping Spike apart, Lisa being an insanely bitter and cynical bitch who goes apeshit once she convinces herself that someone “sabotaged” her. Spike screams at Colicchio about how his opinion doesn’t really matter, and Andrew generally creeps everyone out.

So, basically, it’s just like every other episode up to this point.

Best. Birthday. Ever.

So my birthday is today.  I always get a little uncomfortable on my birthday because I feel like it’s supposed to be a huge day, but every year it pretty much turns into a reenactment of Sixteen Candles.  For some reason, I’ll get the occasional text or Facebook wall post, but no one really wants to go out or do anything.  It didn’t help that my birthday fell in the middle of finals every year in college, so no one could really make it out to bars to celebrate.  Try having your 21st when everyone is pulling all nighters and writing papers.  I’ve never had a birthday party or been surprised by much of anything.  That is, except for last year.

Not to dwell or anything, but I was randomly visiting school.  It was some sort of super weekend, with my birthday on Saturday, the last day of classes on Friday, and an internationally renowned figure in the area.  Basically, the stars had aligned for massive amounts of drinking to occur.  Naturally, I was hanging out with my best friend and my brothers for three or four days.  To be honest, it was one of the best weekends ever.  The Saturday after classes ended was most likely the best time ever to hold Cinco de Mayo, as it was usually during finals, and the entire campus was celebrating.

A group of us went out to a Mexican restaurant (cliché, I know), and I had a few 32 ounce margaritas.  My little brother and his girlfriend brought me to the grocery store to grab a few cases for that night.  I was used to doing beer runs after taking care of this kid for a few years, so it wasn’t any big deal to me.  He and I bought a few cases for that night’s festivities and took the beer out to the car, but she was lagging behind a bit.  I asked him what was up, and he said she just needed to pick up some food for her apartment off campus.  I didn’t think anything of it and took it as an excuse to drink another beer while we waited for her.

We got back to the house and I was milling about, making the rounds through several brothers and friends who were out drinking on the perfect Saturday.  It was a pretty full house and we were all coasting into intoxicated territory, so spirits were pretty high.  Eventually, I made it up to my little brother’s room, and was drinking with friends out in the hall.  He threw on some Amy Winehouse, since I was the one who introduced her to the frat, and I ran inside to show my excitement.  My little bro being awesome, he knew that playing the song would get me into his room, and he and his girlfriend had a cake waiting for me.  “Happy 38th Birthday! We Love You!” was scrawled across the top in dark green frosting.* It was literally the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me on my birthday.  They had even amassed my favorite brothers in the room to surprise me.  I had never really felt so appreciated until that moment.

Call me lame, but I often look back on that moment with fondness.  I only hope that today can come close to that moment.  Here’s to another great year, and a year of huge change.  I can’t wait to get started.**

*There’s a long running joke that I’m the oldest person in our fraternity because of the extreme difference in age between myself and my little brother (three years), and it continues to this day, with a Facebook post this morning congratulating me on reaching 47 years safely.
**Happy Cinco de Mayo everyone!

Last Week, The Earth Stood Still

I apologize profusely that it’s Monday morning and I’m posting this. I’ve been working literally since Thursday. When I have been home, I’ve been too exhausted to write.

It’s no secret around these parts, especially to all six of you or so who regularly read this, that I invest too much of myself into reality television shows. I watch a handful obsessively, attach myself to contestants, and instantaneously dissect every episode to figure out developing story arcs and decode the foreshadowing of future performances. This year, on Top Chef, I have fallen for Steph, and I’ve fallen hard. And last week, I thought there was a possibility she could go home. My heart stopped beating and I had trouble imagining a world where she was no longer in the running to be Top Chef. For a second there, I thought that I might be a little too invested. Then I realized that, no, Steph really was that important.

Let’s rewind a little bit to the beginning of the episode. The morning starts at Casa de Chef with Lisa smoking her way through life and Steph freaking out about being in the bottom and so close to going home. Meanwhile, Antonia is fired up about her chances and done doubting herself. Mark comments on how every time someone goes home, he feels like he’s one notch closer to winning the show. Most obvious life commentary of the episode apparently goes to Mark. And I think it’s become blatantly obvious that one of these four people is going home tonight.

We head to the kitchen for the Quickfire Challenge, and it’s been turned into an Uncle Ben’s commercial. This week’s guest chef is Art Smith - Oprah’s personal chef and owner of Table 52. He’s basically a giant gay who appreciates simple, healthy, and, we’ll learn later, “one pot wonders.” Apparently he also has no problem whoring himself out for Uncle Ben’s rice; clearly, he’s a class act. In order to draw attention to Uncle Ben’s 90 second rice, the chefs’ challenge is to make an entrée in fifteen minutes. I don’t know how much you know about cooking, but I’d assume since you’re reading my blog, you’re not a moron. Fifteen minutes is jack shit in a kitchen. Despite what that whore Rachael Ray wants you to think, you can’t even cook beef medium well in fifteen minutes, let alone make a cohesive and impressive entrée off the cuff in the same amount of time.

The chefs scramble to make their dishes, and a few are intelligent about it by keeping things simple and making flavor the focus. Spike, as usual, is not. He shoves his Greek heritage down our throats again by making stuffed vegetables and reminding us that he is, in fact Greek. Greek-Americans might want to get together and collectively ban him from representing them for eternity. The only other things of note is that when they are testing the food, Padma mistakes turkey for chicken. That, and Gay Chef tells someone “It’s all about the acid.” I wrote in my notes, “Fitting, since today was the death of the man who invented LSD.”

Bottom three are Steph, Mark, and Lisa, mostly because all three dishes didn’t really come together too well. That, and Lisa’s dish was unoriginal. The three who placed in the top, though, are Dale, Antonia, and Richard. Dale’s was a complete meal and quite delicious, Blaise’s meal was well balanced, and Antonia mixed hot and cold together with her rice salad topped with skirt steak, with a side of arugula, red onion, and cherry tomatoes. Gay Chef falls for Antonia’s juxtaposition of hot and cold, and she wins immunity for the Elimination Challenge.

This week’s Elimination Challenge has to do with Common Threads, which is basically an organization that tries to get families to eat meals together. It’s sad that there needs to be an organization to get families to actually share meals, but it is what it is. The chefs have to make a simple, nutritious, and affordable meal for a family of four. The catch? They get ten dollars. What the fuck? At Whole Foods, almost everyone is picking chicken or turkey, which makes sense because they’re dirt cheap proteins and are simple to cook. Steph is literally coming up with her dish in Whole Foods, which barely bodes well for the chef. Everyone scramble to get in under ten bucks, and most of them can’t even get it right the first time. When they get home, Antonia discusses being a single mom and how this challenge was invented for her; if she can’t win this, she doesn’t deserve to be here. In other news, her daughter is adorable and her poop joke was hilarious.

When the chefs get to kitchen the next day, they find out that their dishes will have to be simple, since they all get a child as a sous chef. After eight episodes, Lisa the Greasa (lame, I know) finally outs herself as lesbionic. We have a new lez around, but since she’s entirely unlikable, as opposed to Queen Elezabeth, we’ll call her Lezzie Borden. In more unsurprising news, Spike is an asshole and gets his kid cut within two seconds of starting the dish. Sorry, but if I have a seven year old in the kitchen with me, I would either not let him peel, or teach him how to hold the vegetable and to peel away from his body. To further highlight the waste of space that is Spike, the editors make it obvious that even after the kid has cut himself, he peels the carrots the same way.

Here are the final dishes the chefs presented and the judges’ commentary.

Blaise brought out beets, jicama, and beans over arugula. Simple, but a little bland and not enough protein. Strangely enough, everyone loves it, even the kids. Lisa uses chicken and edamame over black beans with peanut butter, and apples on toast for dessert. Sounds gross, and the judges hate the chicken for being bland and gross. Dale uses a turkey bratwurst with potatoes, onions, apples, and cabbage. One of the judges complains that the taste is too specific and wouldn’t fly with a lot of kids. Spike calls his dish pasta puttanesca, but really he’s just sucking up to the kids by making spaghetti. He gets by on it. Funnily enough, I used to live in Italy, and I didn’t recognize the name, so I looked it up. Pasta alla puttanesca, which didn’t even really exist until the 60’s, is based on using whatever is available at the market, as opposed to a strict recipe of the same ingredients. Translated, it means “Pasta the way a whore would make it.” I find this quite fitting for Spike, it’s just a shame he had to make this for kids.

Speaking of whores, Nikki made a roasted chicken with mixed veggies and a tomato slash cucumber salad. Gay Chef is bowled over by her one pot wonder. Mark makes a vegetable curry with cinnamon rice and cucumber salad. Padma and the judges freak out over the sugar content and note that there isn’t enough protein in the dish. Antonia makes a chicken and vegetable stir fry over whole wheat noodles. The judges are in love with the flavor, the simplicity, the price, and the concept. Andrew makes a chicken paillard with a fennel, apple, and orange salad. The judges love this almost as much as the stir fry, especially since it gets kids to like fennel. Steph brings a couscous dish with eggplant, zucchini, chicken, peanut butter, and tomato. Needless to say, it’s a trainwreck, and the judges hate it.

The top chefs are called quickly - Andrew, Nikki, and Antonia. Nikki balanced out her dish well and Gay Chef fawned over how accessible her one pot wonder was. Andrew got his fruit to interact with the savory part of his dish and expanded the repertoire of his kids. Antonia made a delicate and flavorful dish and didn’t have to dumb it down. She wins in what seems like a landslide.

Now we get to the part where my heart stopped beating in my chest. Steph as in the bottom three. Joined by Mark and Lisa, Miss Perfection made a dish that was overly complicated, made a bizarre combination of peanut butter and tomato, and was served in a portion size that was too large. In Mark’s dish, the nutrition wasn’t there, with too high of a sugar content and no protein involved. He makes a colossal error at this point, whining in front of the judges that he doesn’t think that Tom likes him. This isn’t something one would say in front of the judges. To be honest, one shouldn’t say it in front of the other chefs, either; it’s a bit of a bitch move. As for Lezzie Borden’s dish, it was bland and overcooked, and missing way too much flavor.

For about a minute or two, I legitimately thought that Steph had a good chance of being cut. My world started to crumble around me, and I couldn’t imagine having a reason to wake up in the morning. While I felt that Mark would go home and Lisa should go home, there was still a demon gnawing at my heart at the thought of Steph leaving. Literally, at the end of my notes for last week, I wrote, “If Steph has gone home, I would most likely kill myself.” Fortunately for everyone involved, the socially retarded Mark is sent packing instead, and I felt my extremities rushing back to life as blood was once again circulating.

Next week - it seems as though they’re cooking for 14 hours straight.   Sounds pretty fucking horrific to me.  Then the chefs try to one up each other one the drama scale - NIkki is tired, dehydrated, dizzy, but Lisa is so tired, she’ll need therapy.  Unfortunately, Andrew felt the need to tell us that he has a culinary boner.  Was that really necessary?  And the best thing ever - WEDDING WARS. This will clearly lead to the Best. Dishes. Ever.

Fuck Paxil

Seems to me that of late I’ve been a bit of a hermit. I don’t really get out much since I work at a restaurant literally hundreds of feet from my front door, and that job doesn’t really include a legitimate social outlet, unless you include old gay men, white trash tourists, and stoner college dropouts with whom you wait tables. Save for my alcohol-induced coma of the past weekend, my social life lately has been…how do you say? Non-existent. I’m not trying to sound like I’ve developed social anxiety disorder, but my life has shifted significantly in the past two years. I went from one of the social elite of a school with a population of almost 6,000 to something of a social pariah. I used to be a staple at parties, bars, events, philanthropies. Now I pretty much stay in on my days off, as can be evidenced now as I blog at quarter to three in the afternoon, still in my sweatpants and eating chips and dip while watching Arrested Development DVD’s.

But tomorrow I’m making a change. I have a birthday happy hour to attend where I’ll meet some new people and hang out with old friends. I’m looking for a new job that will give me nights and weekends off. I’m planning road trips to see best friends, and putting together plans over the next few months with people who will spend the summer in DC. I’ve even started to get excited about the move to Nashville and the requisite drive down through three states, stopping along the way to see awesome people. What it comes down to is I only have three months left in this city. And as great and shitty as these past few years have been, it’s time to embrace what I have. To fully understand what it is to live in DC and savor the blessings you have at the moment. I’m tired of holing myself up in my apartment for days at a time and seeing movies by myself. May starts tomorrow and so do the last three full months of District living. Here’s to enjoying life, enjoying friends, enjoying the city. Break out the pastels, kids, it’s almost time for summer.

Passing Moment Gone

Not to be confused with Tom Wolfe, Thomas Wolfe wrote the hugely successful American novel Look Homeward, Angel. It dealt heavily with his own upbringing in Asheville and what he thought of the people around him when growing up there. The title alone I have a problem with, considering my trek home this past weekend for the first time in six months; I quickly realized there are a shit ton of emotions involved with going home. I never really thought of myself as someone who would look homeward, but I quickly realized that I’ve been dwelling in the past for far too long.

I watch the stars from my window sill,
The whole world is moving and I’m standing still.

To clarify, going home for me is going back down to school to see fraternity brothers and good friends who are still in the area. My parents currently live in the midwest in a house I’ve never seen. I don’t want to make myself out to be a self-induced orphan, and wouldn’t want to portray my family as dysfunctional or tumultuous. At the same time, claiming we’re a close-knit, loving group simply wouldn’t be the truth. It’s not that we actively dislike each other, we just don’t enjoy spending time together. So when my friends mock me for being in a frat and talking about my college friends so much, I let it slide off my back. Most people don’t understand that my friends are my family, and my brothers are, in fact, brothers to me. They always have been and always will be, but explaining to people generally tends to not go over well. I’ve pretty much stopped trying to explain that my fraternity brothers are family to me, that my two best friends will always be closer to me than my siblings, that there, as a good friend once told me, is a significant difference between “family” and “relatives.”

Falling out of touch with all my
Friends are somewhere getting wasted,
Hope they’re staying glued together,
I have arms for them.

My trip started on Friday morning as I left Union Station at 7.30. Soon enough I was in the snack car with my twenty ounce Coke bottle filled with Stoli and another bottle of Sierra Mist to make the drinking more believable. If this sounds a bit like, well, the behavior of an alcoholic, I assure you it’s not. Friday was the last day of classes and our entire student body would be plastered by noon, so I was merely cementing my relative level of intoxication would mirror that of everyone else. Turns out, I was so rushed in the morning that I barely ate. A slice of pizza and two hard boiled eggs isn’t much of a meal. Add to that the fact that I had to get up at like five to get all of my laundry done, folded, packed, and then shower and get my ass over to Union. So after the equivalent of twenty five shots (I had a flask of Makers, too) and a few beers at the house with the brothers, I was gone. The black out had started and remained in full effect for most of the day. Little will ever be remembered of that day, short of a massive amount of hugs, a fight at a bar, another fight later that night outside the football stadium, and a 4.00 AM food run.

I just got lost and slept right through the dawn,
And the world spins madly on.

Here’s the thing - I can’t sleep in. After passing out (sober, I’ll have you know) in our basement at around five in the morning, I woke up at around nine or so, and finally got up and started getting my shit together around ten once I realized I couldn’t fall back asleep. I put on my iPod, took my bookbag to the campus bookstore, grabbed some soup and tea, and tried to make sense of the world. Since I knew no one would be awake in the house until noon at the earliest, I took some time to myself and thought about life after college. As I finished up at the bookstore, I started on my way back to the house. Four songs randomly came on in a row on the fifteen minute walk, and they all perfectly encapsulated my feelings right then and there.

“World Spins Madly On” - The Weepies
“Green Gloves” - The National
“In the Sun” - Joseph Arthur
“Chicago x 12″ - Rogue Wave

And being caught in between all you wish for and all you seen,
And trying to find anything you can feel that you can believe in.

As I strolled back through campus, on a perfect, warm, crisp Spring morning, I felt odd. The campus that I had spent the best and worst four years of my life on hadn’t changed. Sure, there were some new buildings and a hell of a lot of new people, but it hadn’t really changed. Yet, it seemed simultaneously a familiar and a foreign place to me. I had thousands of memories of every building, every tree, every sidewalk. On the other hand, I didn’t recognize this place that I was navigating. I could walk by the B Complex or the Stadium or through the paths in the woods and it was as if I had never been here, but I knew every part of the school. It was as if déjà vu was fighting the feeling you get when you’re somewhere completely new, and there was a back and forth between nostalgia and bewilderment.

And you can’t go back now, just a passing moment gone…
Cause I couldn’t let go of a passing moment gone.

Even more surprisingly, it was as if a calm moved through me, and I felt as if I had finally moved on. My school is notoriously hard to escape, be it through people or physical visits, and the emotional concept of moving on from undergrad is something with which I have definitely struggled. It wasn’t like anything else I’ve ever dealt with, because I’ve never been closer to a physical space or to such a huge group of people before. For four years the tight-knit school is all you have, and some of the best people you’ll ever meet live a five minute walk from you, if not across the hall. The extreme well-being and sense of serenity that I usually feel there is something I can’t fully describe. On this walk, though, I felt like I had finally cemented myself in the real world; I knew my place was, for the time being, in DC.

Gone are the good old days of painting young courtney pine,
Listened to the taunts and the shouts of celebration wine.

I headed back to our house and assembled the troops for a day of mocking Foxfield and drinking on the back porch. We bought eight cases of Keystone, a box of Franzia for the classier folk, and a ton of disgusting, bargain-priced burgers. What followed was some of the most fun I’ve had in a long time. And I think that’s what the charm of going home is. In DC, there’s a certain amount of pressure to impress and be impressive. There’s such a sense of entitlement, of arrogance, of self-consciousness that seems to drive most people’s actions. Back home, it’s just about having a good time with the people you’ve known for years. These people know the real you and love you anyway. They’ve been there when you were on top of the world and when you were puking in the bushes. There’s no intimidation to be in control, to present yourself in a certain light, to compete with anyone.

Now I hardly know them and I’ll take my time,
I’ll carry them over, and I’ll make them mine.

So after I had experienced this epiphany, the nostalgia of home returned with a vengeance. I lied to my boss when I called him, and said that I had injured myself and wouldn’t be able to work on Sunday. I made up some bullshit about my knee and how it was swollen from wrestling with my brother. He said it was cool and just to call Monday afternoon if I could work. I bought myself another day to fully come to terms with what I was feeling and, obviously, to get plastered with my best friends. We finished off all of the beer and the wine, and the partying went on for about fourteen straight hours. The next day was capped off mostly with recovery, as they prepared for their final exams and I prepared for my trip home to DC. The thing is, I knew that I was moving to Vanderbilt in August, and I assumed that I would never be coming back to see these guys.

Please slow it down.
There’s a secret magic past world that
You only notice when you’re looking back at it.
All I wanna do is turn around.

– “White Daisy Passing,” Rocky Votolato.

But then one last song on the train home hit me, and I knew I’d have to visit my last boys’ graduation. I know that to some it seems pathetic, but I have an incredibly strong tie to these people and that place, and I’m sure that once my last class graduates, I can finish this. As it turns out, even Thomas Wolfe had problems with what I was and still am going through. After he wrote Look Homeward, Angel, his hometown was none too happy with him. He had used some very real people as the basis for certain characters, and some of them weren’t exactly portrayed in a flattering manner. The fallout from this eventually led to an estrangement between himself and his beloved Asheville. Most people consider this to be the reason that he eventually wrote the material that would become You Can’t Go Home Again. In my case, I thought that leaving the area would change my affection and lessen the burden. And to be honest, it very well may. But I’m pretty sure that I’ll be on at least two more flights from Nashville to see these kids. Meeting new friends is a wonderful thing; keeping old ones is even better.

So I dedicate this last line to my school. To my alma mater. To the place that birthed me as a full person who understands that I will never be completely realized, and that the rest of my life will be a constant struggle, a constant education, a constant quest forward. Thank you all for making me the person that I am today. Thank you even more for being there with me as I grow to be the man I will become.

[ 'Cause when you showed me myself, I became someone else ]

Seafoam Ennui Jicama

Time for Top Chef episode 7, and this one promised to be a doozy and was kind of a let down. The drama and entertainment of this show always has the potential to be more than it is, but at the same time, I can’t turn away. Maybe I have faith that it will eventually reach its full potential, or maybe I just love relishing my snob slash asshole personality and running with it. This show definitely indulges that part of anyone’s personality. Anyway, the title of this post represents the Elimination Challenge and the complete lack of concern I felt for the contestants.

And one more thing before we start. While I love Jordan Baker and tend to consider her one of the funniest people in the world I have yet to meet, that triflin’ ass ho straight up jacked my words. She claims she’ll start to judge the dishes based on VOM and NOM, which I totes invented a few weeks ago when I started regularly blogging about the show. Has she been blogging about this forever? Yes. But has she been as awesome as I? Debatable. What’s not in question is the fact that I was cool enough to mix vom and nom in the same phrase (see my reaction to Aisha Tyler in the same room as Richard Roeper). I expect a round of drinks for when we go out. Or else… I’ll challenge her to an all out blog war.

We wake up with the contestants in Casa de Chef. Andrew is still as obnoxious and clingy as ever, whereas Antonia is freaking out about being in the bottom a few times. She starts the blatantly obvious theme of tonight’s episode - “No Room For Error.” Which is odd, because you’d think someone would go home for a technicality or misinterpreting the rules since they hit you over the head with this theme so many times. But no, the judges just didn’t like someone so they sent them home. In other news, Optimus Lez is still missing Zoi and wants to win the entire thing for her. Her desperate attempt at a story line is starting to grate on me, and I had a tiny inkling she was in trouble. Let’s stay tuned to see if I’m right.

The chefs head to the Top Chef kitchen and see a mountainous table of desserts. Nikki, in typical fat ass Nikki fashion, talks about how whenever she goes out, she has to order dessert, and sometimes orders several. Way to make yourself look hot on national television there, Niks. Great call. Our guest chef slash judge this time is Johnny Iuzzi, and he seems like kind of a tool, but in the toolish way that gay guys and girls would still totally want to do him. He hasn’t slid in to Rocco DiSpirito territory yet. But he’s teetering…he’s standing right on the line. The Quickfire is to make a dessert - no twist, no extra layer. The thing is, most chefs have no dessert training whatsoever, since most fine dining restaurants have pastry chefs, so there’s no need to train the head chef in that regard. So the challenge of creating a dessert out of nowhere is challenging enough in its own right. Lisa bitches on and on about how when one is cooking a pastry, if one measurement is off or one ingredient is wrong, the entire thing is crap and tastes disgusting. I hate that she has to whine about everything, but she’s totally right - pastries are more about math and science and less about merging flavors. Then Spike goes on and on about how awesome he is - he memorized a recipe for molten chocolate cake but is totally chucking it to do a pineapple slash rum slash raisin slash shit flavored soufflé dessert. The thing is, who can’t make a molten chocolate cake? And do you really want to memorize that particular recipe when previous contestants have been called out on it for being boring? It’s one of the most clichéd desserts you can make in 2008. Would we expect anything different from Spike, though? Richard goes toward actual talent and makes a banana scallops dessert with banana guacamole and chocolate ice cream. Holy shit, that sounds good. Jenn and Andrew seem like solid choices with a chocolate cake and frozen chocolate banana bits and a banana and chocolate ravioli with coffee and nutella pudding, respectively. Dale makes his own twist of a traditional Filipino dessert named halo-halo - he used shaved ice and mixed it with avocado, mango, kiwi, and nuts. The rest are forgettable or just plain gross, so the bottom three are Antonia, Spike, and Mark. Antonia’s didn’t come together, Mark’s had no composition, and while Spike is commended for trying a soufflé, he’s still in the bottom three. In typical selective listening Spike mode, he talks about how Johnny complimented his balls, when really Johnny wanted nothing to do with his balls or his desserts.

The top three are Dale, Lisa, and Richard. Dale’s halo-halo was praised for bring so many flavors together, Lisa’s shitty yogurt/fruit puree and fried wontons (which she totes stole from Steph in the Block Party episode), and Richard for his kick ass scallops and guac mixture. Richard wins the contest and immunity, and is bestowed with the honor of being the only Season 4 chef in the official Top Chef cook book. His immunity should come in handy in the next challenge, which Padma refuses to announce, but strangely tells the chefs about attending Second City Improv that night. Just like Jeff Sebelia said on Project Runway, it’s never a party, it’s always a trap. And the only part weirder than Padma telling them about it and them not figuring it out immediately is Mark, the foreigner, reading off of cue cards a list of famous SC alums to show its significance. Sorry, but claiming Steve Carrell at this point is like saying that Michael Vicks played football for your high school - he might be talented, but his career is practically shit.

The morons that are this season go into this date super jazzed about what’s in store in a night of hilarity. After some clearly out of context jokes that, most likely, would not be funny in context, the performers ask the audience for suggestions. First up is colors. Then emotions. All of a sudden, they want people to list ingredients. What’s that you say, Nikki? You’re a super genius and you figured out this week’s Elimination Challenge? You don’t say! Well aren’t you the smartest girl ever? My notes literally say, “I can’t believe the mental power that is Nikki; she blows me away.” I love that my notes have semi-colons. It makes me feel better about myself when I sleep at night.

Five courses are put together, and people choose their pairs, and then pull a number out of a hat for their course. Spike and Andrew team up and name themselves “Team Douchey McFucktard Attention Whore,” or the easier to digest “Team My Worst Nightmare.” The only other pairs to be noted, since they are the only other ones to comment on their teams, are Dale and Richard, and Steph and Jenn. So basically, my favorites team up in two pairs, and my least favorites pair up in one team. And they’ll get a lot of screen time. Fantastic. Here are the courses and pairs -

Yellow Love Vanilla - Team My Worst Nightmare
Magenta Drunk Polish Sausage - Lisa and Antonia
Orange Turned-On Asparagus - Steph and Jenn
Purple Depressed Bacon - Mark and Nikki
Green Perplexed Tofu - Dale and Richard

Essentially, the crowd at this showing was excessively homosexual and inebriated. Doesn’t turn out with a great mix of words or range of colors, but we’ll deal. The pairs have a budget of $150 and 30 minutes at Whole Paycheck to figure out what they’re going to do. Jenn’s personality starts to emerge more when she discusses the ménage à trois that she’s planned with orange, asparagus, and goat cheese. It’s nice to see her become her own person. I’ve even started calling her Jenn and not Richard’s Lesbian Twin or Queen Elezabeth. That’s proof that she’s cementing herself. In other news, Richard is taking the perplexing tofu to full tilt and rendering beef fat to marinate his tofu in. Tofu that tastes like meat? Sounds perfect.

Lisa continues to be her usual cunty self by refusing to dumb her dish down and use Polish sausage. The thing is, they only have three parameters here to use. Color. Emotion. Ingredient. When you throw one out, you’re kind of fucked from the beginning. When your dish is supposed to be Magenta Drunken Polish Sausage and you throw out a Chilean Sea Bass and Purple Potato Puree with a Tequila Chorizo, you have obviously not paid attention. Way to go, Lisa and Antonia. Meanwhile, Spike and Andrew are literally making it up as they go at the cashier, and Spike is insisting on a squash soup. Antonia says she’d vomit in her mouth if he won for that dish since he threw Zoi under the bus over the same dish earlier in the game. I think we’d all like to vomit every time we heard Spike speak, but that’s not really going to help anyone.

The chefs all have three hours to cook in three hours, and quickly learn that there are no electric machines in the kitchen. The improv theme is going a little far, especially considering the next concept they come up with. Some more time is filled until my superstar comes on screen, and Jenn and Steph discuss how their dish will have sexual connotations and phallic symbolism. I love them. F’reals.

At around ninety minutes into the three hours cooking time, Colicchio walks in and tells them that they have twenty minutes to pack everything up and finish their dishes at Casa de Chef. They’ll be given one last hour to finish everything at the house, which throws most people into a bit of a frenzy. Most people does not include Lisa, since her greasy sixth sense figured out the trick light years before everyone else. It’s so weird - I thought we were watching a reality show on chefs competing for bragging rights, but we’re actually watching several species of White Trash contend for America’s Smartest Retard. Who knew?

The best part of my notes for this episode is next - “Ew. Rich is wearing pink clogs.” I think that about sums it up.

Nikki then goes on and on about how we can’t make a mistake at this level. Then Spike discusses his Second Coming some more. Eventually, the teams finish their dishes and start to present them to the judges. I’ll list them since I’m lazy as shit.

Yellow Love Vanilla - Team My Worst Nightmare comes up with a squash soup with vanilla crème fraîche. I hate them with every fiber of my being, but I can tell they did an incredible job with this soup, and the judges agree. Padma even volunteers to lick everyone’s bowls. Because she’s a dirty, filthy, pot-smoking slut.

Orange Turned-On Asparagus - Team Adorable brings out a ménage à trois of orange, asparagus, and goat cheese. Their presentation is phenomenal, but the problem is, it’s not a ménage à trois. It’s an orgy, as Ted puts it, since it includes a salad olive tapenade, almonds, and a huge chunk of bread. The judges hate how difficult it is to eat and access - too many flavors and overly complicated. The three main ingredients they focused on are three of my all-time favorites, and I didn’t want anything to do with this dish. I think that says something. I love these girls and these flavors, but this dish was a trainwreck.

Green Perplexed Tofu - This team not only worked well together, they complimented each other when it came to presenting their dish. Not to get all technical or anything, but they also made an amazing dish - grilled beef tofu with green curry. Tofu that tastes like meat in a mean green curry sauce is genius. The judges are head over heels.

Magenta Drunk Polish Sausage - Their ingredient may have been Polish sausage, but they presented a final dish of Chilean sea bass with purple potato puree and tequila chorizo.  The girls not only missed the boat completely, but they took tequila shots in front of the judges and then awkwardly refused to share the Mexican wealth. When you already broke the rules of the challenge, don’t refuse booze to the people who decide your fate. One of the diners claimed that these girls saw the dish’s title as more of a burden than
an assignment or inspiration.

Purple Depressed Bacon - Mark explains that the bacon is depressed because it has to share the plate with brussels sprouts. Okay, two things - this is kinda cute, but it’s also a throwaway comment that is a little too ethereal to justify their usage and it demeans their dish. What the fuck? Nevertheless, their mix of pork tenderloin with sweet potatoes, grape sauce, jus, brussels sprouts, and bacon ends up saving their asses. Seems pretty boring and bland, but the judges find it comforting and claim it would cheer them up if they were depressed. Lame.

My notes call the bottom two as Steph/Jenn and Antonia/Lisa with the top two being Douche/Asshat and Dale/Richard. Then Jenn notes that, as she’s cleaning up the kitchen, she’s packing up her knives and that’s a bad sign. Then the editors play that irritating thump that’s come to mean foreshadowing, and I’m convinced Optimus Lez is going home. Shit. It’s blatantly obvious that I’m right with the placings, though. As the two top teams get called in, Spike is almost unbearable as he talks about how amazing he is for coming up with the soup concept and how his mother told him that only real chefs can make soup, when really it was Ming Tsai who told them when they had the Four Elements challenge. At the last second, he throws Andrew a bone and mentions that he helped. Dale and Richard compliment each other perfectly and the judges rave over their dish. They are the winners (FUCK YES - not only did two faves win, but Douchey McFucktard lost) and they go home with $2500 worth of Calphalon cooking products. Also, how did Dale shift so quickly from hated piece of shit to one of these season’s faves? I guess we’ll never know…

The bottom two are called in, and while I would be most happy with seeing Lisa slash Sunshine go home, it’s clear that Colicchio isn’t happy with either team. Team Magenta didn’t follow the assignment and kind of went their own way, whereas Team Orange added too many flavors and overpowered their simplistic dish. The judges go back and forth on which is the bigger flaw - completely ignoring the rules of the challenge or simply making a bad dish. In the end, the bad dish and not the blatant rule-breaking is what matters, and Queen Elezabeth goes home. Jenn, we were just getting to know (and love) you, and now we have to say goodbye. Tis a shame, tis a shame, indeed.

Next week, we see kids working in the kitchen and Spikes tries to murder one. Anyone who doesn’t already hate him should quickly follow in suit.

Sorority Girls Fucking LOVE Me

As many of you may recall, I was invited by my brother’s girlfriend to a sorority date party a few weeks ago. Despite my age, I decided to go and actually had a great time. In fact, I had so much fun that my date called me the next day to thank me for being the best date she had ever had. She proceeded to ask if I would like to be her formal date. Not to beat a dead horse or anything, but here is what some of you may think would never happen - Date Party: The Sequel - Formal Night in Annapolis.

The night started a little too early, as we were dressed and chugging cheap beer and SoCo in College Park by five thirty. Since we arrived late to the party, we shut ourselves in a room with two of Princess’s closest sisters and drank straight liquor almost nonstop for twenty minutes in an attempt to catch up with the people who had been drinking for two hours. We made our ways to the buses and ended up on one without any air conditioning. How charming. On a night when we get dressed up to look our best and take pictures for the seniors’ last formal, we get stuck on a bus with no AC for a 40 minute drive on a day that topped 75 degrees. The Princess and I took it with stride, talked shit for the entire ride, and drank Makers from a flask.

The real drama this time, however, was exclusively at the formal. We pulled into Annapolis around seven or so, and waited patiently in line to get our magic drinking bracelets. After some of the drunker sisters took the majority of the crab dip, Princess and I sat down to enjoy the most food we could horde before the masses took over. I learned from the first outing and ate before I even headed to Maryland. But with a full spread this time, I took advantage and grabbed a heaping plate of cheese, crackers, fruit, yogurt dip, broccoli and ranch, penne with chicken, and a massive separate plate of just crap dip. After we had stuffed ourselves to ensure controlled inebriation, we wandered around the hotel a little before the real party began. I headed to the bar downstairs with two of the seniors, and we tried to get drunk on the water with random people our age who weren’t white trash. To be sure, this feat was infinitely more difficult than it sounds since the bar itself was swarmed with cougars, douches, sluts, and Midshipmen. After we finally found some acceptable drinking buddies, our ever charming friend Buzz spilled a beer all over them. Apologies followed, and we got our asses back upstairs before she embarrassed us again.

By the time we got back to the blow out, the party had started to pick up, and my date rushed to me so that we could start everything off on the wrong foot. Clearly what needed to happen was an interpretive dance to “Bleeding Love.” We both approach parties in the sense that we’re there to get wasted and entertain everyone. We aren’t there to be wallflowers and slow dance our way through obscene rap songs. The Princess and I fully realize that our responsibility at these things is to make complete asses out of ourselves by pulling off the most ridiculous dance moves ever seen. “Bleeding Love” was soon followed by bleeding foot after I rubbed several inches of skin off of my foot during a knee slide to “Since U Been Gone.” But was it worth it? Obviously.

The Princess slices me as I highlight my uncanny ability to, in fact, bleed love.

Our shenanigans continued and even escalated. At one point, a table of five girls and their dates simply sat down next to the dance floor just to watch us. Having an audience just goaded us even more as we flew all over the place. We treated the carpeted floor of the hotel ballroom (classy, I know) as if it were the stage of the Met, scurrying back and forth as we became more and more over the top in our attempts to entertain those around us. To be honest, our focus was just getting people to have a good time, so we made a conscious effort to get the wallflowers to dance, and I danced with a girl who had mentioned earlier that her date had stood her up. At the same time, we were drunk and having a good time, and the spotlight certainly didn’t hurt our egos.

The night started to wind down and Princess started to tucker out. A senior’s boyfriend and date commended me on a job well done, and another senior asked me to take her boyfriend on to the dance floor just to teach him a few things. We ended on a high note, with an inspired and impromptu interpretive dance to “Piano Man.” As everyone headed towards the buses, a few scuffles broke out, some people lost their dates, and the hotel staff was pissed that we were loud. As if booking a sorority formal for your hotel on a Friday night would ensure the best quality sleep for your guests.

This in no way captures how outrageous we actually were.

So as we hopped on the bus back towards the District, the Princess and I rested a little while we planned our next excursion. We briefly flirted with the idea of going out to CP bars, but nixed it once we realized we didn’t especially want to fuck anyone from CP, since she has a boyfriend and I have taste. The night ended with us eating cheap Chinese food, watching Fatal Attraction, and having a few night caps as we laughed about what we had pulled off. All in all, what we pulled off was a damn good time.

I Served a Porn Star Last Night

Before I write anything else, I’d like to clarify that the title of this post is “served” a porn star last night and not “serviced.” As in, I brought him a salad and a sandwich and did not, in fact, perform fellatio on him.

Now that we have that out of the way, let’s get to the story. It was a rainy Monday at the good ol’ restaurant, and business was pretty slow. We had a lot of two tops, and no one was really making that much money off of their tables.  As the night continued to drag on, the most exciting thing that had happened was the fact that a waiter had received digits from a man the staff had considered straight up to that point.  Then the host sat a porn star at my table.

Please, let me elaborate.  I, for one, had no idea he was a porn star.  To me, he was just a short man eating alone on a rainy Monday; to me, he was a creature to be pitied.  He sat down, I brought over his bread, and greeted him to the restaurant.  He was incredibly humble and downright nice, so I went out of my way to make him happy.  To be honest, when someone is sitting alone, I feel some overwhelming sense of sympathy for them since I can’t fathom the concept.  Eating is such a social experience to me, so I tend to look out for my one tops.  As I was grabbing his salad from the back, one of my coworkers ran up and told me there was a porn star at our restaurant.

I’m not sure if this is a trend in DC in general, but a significant amount of our staff is gay.  This particular server has been known to be a slut on occasion, and has seen a disturbing amount of porn in his 32 years on this earth.  When he claims someone has done porn, we tend to believe him.  It’s as if he’s the walking, talking, porn version of IMDB.  He was absolutely convinced that my one top had been in porn.  As a result of his outrageous claim, more and more of the staff performed walk-by’s to check out the situation, which doesn’t really make sense to me.  It’s not as if porn stars have some sort of secret tag, like one or their ear lobes is marked or there’s a tattoo on their wrist.  Little Mr. Porn Star started to sense something was up, and while I was still as professional and courteous as usual, it tends to undermine your efforts when your coworkers are collecting in the corner and staring.  By the time it got to his check, he only asked if he could take the receipt and then threw cash at me.  I felt so bad to scare off a nice porn star, especially considering that he was by far the most considerate customer I had the entire night.

So if you’re out there, Mr. Porn Star, who ordered the salad at half size and the sandwich with no cheese, I’m sorry.  You were a wonderfully kind man and I apologize for my coworkers’ behavior.  I couldn’t care less how many cocks you’ve had in your mouth…..or ass.