Top Chef: Masters and Margaritaville

Possums, it is with the sanity of bloggers as with Roquefort cheese—it’s a goodly spell in a nice, dark cave that does the trick.

In our case, you have only to imagine the salutary effects of 90-odd (and 90 odd) days with nary a thought about His Bearness or, um, Her Highness. Week upon glorious week neither knowing nor caring about Padma’s apartment, her burger commercial, or her wearing of silk charmeuse without a bra on noticeably cold nights at public events.

Day upon day unfolding without ever having to hear the phrase “throw under the bus,” or ponder the ominous portent of scallops, or come up with ursine metaphors, or decipher the semiotics of fauxhawks and t-shirts obviously chosen to attract attention.

Night upon night of sleep undisturbed by dark dreams of Bravo conspiracies bearing the suffix “-gate.” Rien de rien, possums.

By the end, we had very nearly returned to our customary, half-human state.

And then it occurred.

Suckling at the teat of cable television one afternoon, we landed on an oh-so-alliterative Food Network show titled Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives, hosted by preposterously peroxided putz Guy Fieri. Normally, we are as allergic to him as he is to long trousers and intellectual depth. Indeed, chez Amuse-Biatch the show is referred to as Douchebag, Dipshit, and Dumbass. This time, though, we cocked our head and said aloud to ourselves, “You know, he’s kind of charming.”

The Patsy Stone-like scream from Miss XaXa was blood-curdling. We cannot say whether it was “No, Eddie, nooooo!” or “No, Charlus, nooooo!” we heard before we lost consciousness. It was not sal volatile or booze that brought us round, but, rather, Miss XaXa’s perfectly manicured nails digging into our neck as she dragged us by the scruff to where our laptop lay in desuetude. “That’s it!” she kept saying, “Vacation over! It’s time!”

So, yes, possums, we are back to the venom, vim, and vitriol of the internet, and we will be blogging the bejeezus out of Top Chef: Masters. The show premieres Wednesday, June 10, at 10 p.m.

Last Season’s Top Chef, Stephanie Izard, on Whether Padma Lakshmi Follows the Acapulco Golden Rule

Possums, as much as we like and appreciate last season’s Top Chef winner, Stephanie Izard, we cannot help but concede that she, being a cautious and intelligent sort (drats!), hasn’t always given the most thrilling of interviews (although perhaps in these Caseygate times, that’s not such a bad thing). So it is with great pleasure that we perused one of the liveliest Izard interviews to date, where she discusses her soon-to-open restaurant in Chicago and how she is confident she will beat Hosea Rosenberg during their upcoming cook-off in Aspen. But our favorite exchange was this:

Q. Settle a rumor: Does Padma like to share her weed or no?
A. Does she seem like the type who shares? That would not be very diva would it?

Preview: Padma Lakshmi Extends, Ahem, a “One-Pot” Challenge

Amuse-Biatch Photoessay: Padma Lakshmi Pretends She Doesn’t Know How to Roll Her Own

Amuse-Biatch Photoessay: Savvy Cheftestant Learns That the Best Way to Get Padma Lakshmi's Attention Is to Bang the, Um, Pots

Photographic Evidence Clears Thick-Accented European of Anti-Americanism Charges Made by Thick-Accented Nativist with Mispronounced Foreign Surname

Possums, as even The New York Times has noted, there was a whiff of anti-European sentiment in this first episode the likes of which hasn’t been seen since the days of freedom fries. It’s like Gangs of New York all over again.

Here is our attempt at a phonetic transcription of the charges that brought this controversy to a simmer:

Fawbio and Stefawn, they think Americans are lowah than them, just by theah personality and what they say, I don’t understand the Amereecan tawk, you know. I’m like, Listen, braow, you’re in my backyahd. Fawbio and Stefawn can open theah mouths as much as they want. It’s just going to make them look unprofessional and immachoh.

These charges of anti-Americanism were made by Mayflower descendant John Smith—er, make that one Daniel Gagnon (hard “g,” if you please; wouldn’t want people to think it was a French or furrin last name).

Let us leave aside the fact that when the American talk comes from the mouth of Monsieur Gagnon, we don’t understand it either. Let us also leave aside the fact that “Fawbio” [Fabio Viviani] is married to an American woman, and lives in the Republican bastion of Ventura County, California, where his restaurant is located a skip and a hop from the site of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and the Rodney King verdict.

And we can afford to leave these things aside because we have incontrovertible proof that Monsieur Gagnon’s accusations of anti-Americanism on the part of Signore Viviani are baseless. To wit:



















How could anyone who so clearly enjoys dressing up as Wonder Woman even be suspected of anti-Americanism? What could be more American than Wonder Woman (or tattooing what looks like a dollar sign over one's heart)?

Well, how about Catwoman?
















In light of this overwhelming evidence, we demand that Monsieur Gagnon withdraw these groundless accusations immediately. For shame, Monsieur, for shame! After all, lest you forget, the title of this episode is “Melting Pot,” which we took to be a cultural allusion—unless, of course, it refers to Padma’s favorite, um, dish. So, Monsieur Gagnon, in the immortal words of the similarly Gallic-named En Vogue, freedom-fry your mind, and the rest will follow.

Reunited and It Feels So...Meh

Some of you have asked, possums, and the answer is yes, we did watch the reunion special. And yes, we ought to have written about it yesterday, but frankly, we were still simmering a little from the bait and switch. For a couple of days at least, Bravo had been running promos for the reunion practically on a loop, during which the newly chipmunk-cheeked Dale Talde was seen sternly saying, “That is the one thing I am not going to talk about now,” or words to that effect. So of course, there is nary a sign of that statement, or the circumstances that prompted it, when the reunion actually airs. Not to put too fine a point on it, but WTF?

If we’re a teensy bit cross, it isn’t because we think, though we had hoped, that Dale’s statement (or the question that led to it) would have contained some earth-shattering revelation. Rather, it’s because the bait and switch manifests a lack of respect for the audience and (justifiable) lack of confidence in the show.

We’ve admittedly come a ways from the first season reunion, which included free-flowing alcohol, and the second season, when there was no reunion because of a well-based fear that first- or second-degree homicide might be broadcast on national t.v., but really, to paraphrase original chefbian Gertrude Stein, there was not a lot of there there.

And from the other clips posted on Bravo’s website, it appeared as though there was another reunion show, a more entertaining and revealing one, that, because of editing, we simply didn’t get to see. Mind you, the impression that we got from the reunion show that did air was that there was another more entertaining and revealing Top Chef: Chicago that, because of editing, we simply didn’t get to see. Look, we understand that with so much footage, and only around 40 minutes per show, editing choices have to be made; we’re just puzzled that so many of those choices fell on the less entertaining side of the line.

Perhaps this was the year of the woman, or the year of the chefbian, or perhaps it was decided that rampant if unconscious homoeroticism—er, “bromance”—was so last season, Howie-and-Joey. And yet. This is Bravo, for fag’s sake. How they could have resisted airing, “I’m not gay but I’d probably let him bang me,” is absolutely beyond us. Andrew D’Ambrosi as a power bottom—who knew? (It becomes even more entertaining when paired with another unaired clip from the season where Andrew talks about how Richard always comes in and takes charge, and he, Andrew, loves it.) Or Spike’s unconsciously revealing statement, “We’ll be boys forever”; yes, Spike, that’s exactly the problem, BFF or not.

Still, there were a few things we liked about the reunion special:

There was the moment when Andrew was told that viewers suspected he was smoking something stronger than cigarettes, and those naughty Bravo editors cut to Padma Lakshmi. That was the most lowdown, dirty thing on the show, and it was great. Eisenstein would have been proud, boys!

And how about the implication by Raggaydy Andy that Mark’s was a green card marriage to avoid having to leave the U.S., and Mark’s seeming concurrence? The “man soup” (or should that be “man stew”?) footage certainly won’t help his interview with the immigration authorities, will it? That’s how we think Mark would say it; the reunion made us miss his deadpan delivery all over again.

Having seen a copy of the application that contestants seeking to be on Top Chef have to sign, we understand how onerous the contestants' promotional obligations are; potential contestants sign away their lives. We remember the brouhaha over Harold Dieterle being forced to participate in that shticky, Season 1 vs. Season 2 cook-off thing that aired right before Season 3. He was busy with his restaurant, and did not want to participate, but, according to newspaper reports, his feet were held to the contractual fire and he had to schlep down to Miami anyway. As such, we had to smile when Richard Blais thanked Bravo for allowing him to participate via satellite from Atlanta, instead of having to miss the birth of his first child in order to schlep to New York to participate in the thankless reunion.

Well, Bravo, so much for our culinary boner.