Seeing How the Sausage Is Made

And there’s a lot of gristle in that sausage, possums, if the above is any indication. We came upon that on Television Without Pity, where poster SisterOfSylar said the tidbits came from a friend with access to inside information.

We have, of course, no way of knowing whether any of these tidbits are true, but if they are, they help to make sense of other events.

For example, during many of his post-win interviews, Hosea Rosenberg oddly discusses how demoralized he was after his make-out session with Leah Cohen, which doesn’t make a lot of sense. Earlier, we theorized that remorse on the part of Leah and Hosea was not necessarily the result of their consciences needling them, but, rather, “a product of discovery, a realization that their encounter would be televised, and would have consequences.” And if Il Colicchio did indeed have to do a finger-wagging chat with the two lovebirds, it makes this theory of ours all the more plausible. And it’s easy the stress from a fruitless attempt to convince editors not to show the make-out footage.

In any case, very interesting, possums, very.

(Click on the picture to enlarge it and read the details of Scott Conant-Fabio-Colicchio Italian-offs, Colicchio-sick-making food, and avuncular ursine scoldings.)

Page Six: Leah & Hosea at It Again

Even Tom Colicchio Wants to Know If Leah and Hosea “Hooked Up”; He’s Betting on Fabio for Fan Favorite, and Liked “Slumdog Millionaire”

Hosea Rosenberg’s “Tasty Treats,” “Hugs, Kisses, and Spoon-Feeding” at South Beach

For details, read this account of the party hosted at the Pelican Hotel by Jeff McInnis, and featuring the work of Jamie Lauren, Melissa Harrison, and—surprise!—Leah Cohen.

Money Shot! $100,000 Shot

Hey, possums, ain't nothin' wrong with that passionate kiss; they're both single now.

Mamma Mia! Fabio Viviani Says His Mother Is “Smoking Hot”

On the video (which, until Bravo reintroduces embeddable viewing, you’ll have to watch here), Fabio says Hosea and Leah were more than friends and less than lovers, that males kissing is “a European thing,” and that he would vote for himself as fan favorite. He also asks Bravo to provide him the DVD of the season because (ahem) Bravo doesn’t sell DVDs of Top Chef.

Amuse-Biatch Tries, and Fails, to Parse the Shadings of Regret: Leah Cohen in Her Own Words

People Magazine:

Everybody is wondering, what’s your relationship with Hosea like now?
We’re really good friends. He’s my boy. I love him like a friend. Just straight off the bat we just gravitated together, and it was one night where we kissed. We were drunk and we kissed. It just happened. Of course, I wouldn’t have cheated on my boyfriend on national television, which was probably the most f—-d up thing I did on the show. I can’t take that back. I’ll take full responsibility for my actions.

Do you regret what happened at all?
I definitely regret cheating on [my boyfriend] on national television. He’s not my boyfriend anymore because of what happened on the show and other things. Do I regret kissing Hosea? Um, yes — but no at the same time. I don’t know. It’s weird. Whatever it is, I did [it]. So, there’s nothing I can do to change it.

E! Online:

Well, what did happen between you and Hosea?
We were really good friends and we kissed one night, that was pretty much it. What they showed on TV was really the extent of our relationship beyond the friendship that happened. And that was it. We hung out all the time. But I also hung out with Stefan all the time, and they didn't put that in at all. I was predominately with Hosea, Stefan and Fabio for the entire time. I didn't hang out with the girls that much.

Did you tell your boyfriend what happened?
When I got home, I told my boyfriend what happened, and then it was three months later when it came on the show. It wasn't forgotten, but it was, like, it happened, whatever.

…

Let's go back to Toby Young. What did you think of him as Gail's replacement?
Toby Young is a douchebag. He was just, like, whatever. He didn't bring much to the show. He didn't bring much to me as a judge like Gail. You valued her opinion. I thought his witty banter didn't do much for constructive criticism. My friends are like, "Who is this f--king douchebag?"


Grub Street:

What about your interaction with Hosea?
Everyone paired off and gravitated towards whoever they got along with the best. With Jamie, it was Ariane and Carla. With Danny, it was Gene. And for me it was Hosea. Did they portray it accurately? No. But we did have a connection and a strong friendship.

Did that get out of hand?
Yeah. That episode where we kissed should have never happened.

Do you regret that?
Yeah, absolutely I regret that happening. It was silly and it was a mistake.

TV Guide

TVguide.com: Did you know that the cameras caught you and Hosea kissing?
Leah: Actually, I didn't. They usually leave when everyone is going to sleep.

TVguide.com: How did your boyfriend take the news?
Leah: I went home and told him right away. He was fine with it, and then he saw the actual footage and wasn't fine with it. I guess the way I said it was kind of like, "Oh, I kind of kissed a guy on TV." Then he saw it and was like, "No, you were flirting with this guy the entire show, and then on top of that, you made out with him." Needless to say, he was not cool about it, and we are not together anymore.

Endless Simmer

OK, enough with the softball questions. Let’s talk about Hosea. What happened?
Not much. Whatever you saw on TV was pretty much the extent of what went down. We hung out all the time, we’re really good friends, and then we kissed — on TV. Nothing else happened. We’re really just friends and it went a little too far. We’re just good friends, we’re not romantically involved, and I wouldn’t say that we were on the show. I see him as a friend.

Are you still with your bf?
No. Unfortunately not.

….

What about the judges?
Gail is awesome. She was really nice and spot-on, but really critiqued us in a postivie and constructive way. Padma, well Padma is Padma. There’s really nothing else to say. I don’t have anything nice to say about Padma, so I’m not goig to say anything. Toby, I didn’t get. He was just brought in to give his English wit and I just didn’t get it at all. Tom, I have a lot of respect for.

What did you think of Bravo’s portrayal of you?
I kind of stopped watching halfway through the season. I didn’t really like it. They made me seem like this clingy girl who was just throwing herself at Hosea, and that wasn’t how it went down at all. But that was a storyline that I guess was interesting, so whatever.

The Laws of God, the Laws of Man, or the Laws of Reality-TV Audience Morality: Just Which Laws Did Leah Cohen and Hosea Rosenberg Violate?

The titular question, possums, is one that has long puzzled us.

Indeed, we thought it most peculiar that Hosea’s “apology” to the masses should have begun thus:

First things first: None of us signed any contracts forbidding contact with the other cheftestants. We did not break any rules.

Uh, first things first. Let us state our belief and opinion, based on the text itself, that the Eliot Spitzer-worthy “apology” was overseen by publicists and/or lawyers. Because, of course, when you cheat on your boyfriend or girlfriend, the first concern that comes to mind is whether the cheating was in breach of a legal contract.

Also, notice how no “apology” from Leah was issued under the aegis of Bravo. Ah, those double standards. Of course, as her exit interviews with various publications show, Leah did not take kindly to being portrayed as a clingy Jezebel. But it’s more than that. It’s called damage control and rehabilitation. You will notice, of course, that when the “apology” was issued, on January 23, 2009, Hosea was already guaranteed a spot on the finals, in which he is the best hope of beating Stefan Richter for the title. In this not-so-epic Baldo a Baldo contest, it is Stefan who is supposed to be the villain, not stolid-Mennonite-farmer-from-the-West-cum-skaterboy-led-astray-by-Asian-Jewish-temptress-from-the-big-city-of-New-York Hosea. Indeed, by January 23, the finale had already been filmed in New Orleans, and who knows what, if anything, the “apology” means about who won.

But revenons à nos moutons.

“Hosea” says, “We did not break any rules.”

And yet consider these various bits, possums.

• In August 2007, New York Magazine published a cover story titled, “The Near-Fame Experience of Being a Bravo Reality Star.” The tidbit that grabbed most people’s attention was this: “The contestants on Bravo shows are not allowed money, credit cards, cell phones, newspapers, magazines, televisions, or Internet access….They can’t even have sex with one another to pass the time. (An STD could result in a lawsuit—unlike hookup reality shows, the contestants aren’t tested beforehand for communicable diseases.)”

• The day after publication of the article, Andrew “Raggaydy Andy” Cohen, Bravo Senior VP of Production and Programming, wrote the following on his Bravo blog: “I feel pretty great that under our watch, you ain’t allowed to ‘do it’ with another contestant. We’re not the ‘Real World’ and we’re not checking for STD’s and we’re just not in that game. If Tabs [Shear Design contestant Tabatha] gets herpes from another hairstylist that I helped cast, how am I gonna sleep at night!? Design all the dresses you want, but screw on your own clock. Or sign up to be on ‘Temptation Island’.”

And yet exactly a year later, August 2008, when the New York season of Top Chef is filming, it is no longer against the rules? Is it that, à la Bill Clinton, only penetrative vaginal intercourse is prohibited? (Although remember how coy Wesley Nault and Daniel Feld were on the last season of Project Runway regarding when their romance began and what they did about it while they were on the show?)

Notice, again, the careful wording of the Hosea “apology”: “None of us signed any contracts forbidding contact with the other cheftestants.” Well, “contact” is a little vague, ain’t it? After all, according to The New York Post, Wesley and Daniel “broke show rules by communicating with each other the day after the elimination. Nault passed Feld a note, and Feld gave Nault a silver bracelet.” Ah, well, perhaps swapping spit is better than swapping notes and jewelry.

Possums, it just doesn’t make sense. What continues to irk us, though, is the double standard. To the extent they are guilty of anything, Hosea and Leah are equally guilty. And yet the masses aren't baying for Hosea’s blood. He makes a lame-ass politician’s apology, and goes on his gap-toothed, xenophobic way to the finals, while thousands cheer as the clingy tramp is sent home. ‘T ain’t right, we say. Yes, we know the world was ever so, but come on, this is Bravo, for immorality’s sake.

Perhaps people care so much because this was the first acknowledged romance in the history of Top Chef (although we are intrigued by the rumors we have read of another couple of heterosexual team mates on this season going at it when the camera crews had left for the night; maybe Leah and Hosea were just unlucky in getting caught by the cameras). Even so, Leahosea can’t hold a candle to the seething, roiling, head-shaving, watersporting, self-hating, homoerotic folie à deux that was Marcilan (the Marcel Vigneron-Ilan Hall pairing in Season 2, which was to Jean Genet as Cruel Intentions is to Dangerous Liaisons, or 10 Things I Hate About You is to The Taming of the Shrew).

Wayward & Biatchstein Investigate: The Red Shirt Diaries, a Softcore Epic

Possums, as part of our analysis of Leah Cohen’s tenure on Top Chef, we were particularly intrigued by a statement she made during an interview with our pals at The Feedbag:

I didn’t want to be on the show anymore. Especially after the night before Restaurant Wars. They told me they had footage of Hosea and I [sic]. That had happened before that. Why would they tell me that right before restaurant wars? At that point I just felt like Bravo’s little puppet.

But…but…but on the show it looked like the marathon make-out session took place the night before Restaurant Wars. And here Leah is saying that it happened before that. Surely the Bravo editors wouldn’t deceive us or fiddle with the timeline of events? No, impossible!

This was definitely a job for Wayward & Biatchstein.

To the tape, possums.

Take a good look at the photo below. According to the chronology of the episode as aired, it depicts the night before Restaurant Wars. As you can see, Leah is wearing a short-sleeved white t-shirt and Hosea is wearing a red t-shirt. An unkempt, tired-looking and -sounding Leah says to Hosea that she is going to sleep.

Now take a look at a photo from the make-out session, which, if you believe the chronology of the episode as aired, took place shortly after this exchange.

What’s this? Leah’s hair is no longer Medusa-like, and she is now sporting a white tanktop, and Hosea is fully dressed and sporting a white t-shirt. So, if you are to believe the chronology of the episode as aired, Hosea changed his clothes, and the half-asleep Leah changed her clothes and combed her hair, just for the purpose of making out secretly on the couch.

But hark! Here is the red t-shirt again, and what is Hosea saying in his interview while he sports said shirt? “Last night, Leah and I are sitting on the couch for probably two hours, and we ended up kissing” (emphasis added).

Say what?

Again, if you are to believe the chronology of the episode as aired, you have to believe that Hosea started out the night in the red t-shirt, then changed into jeans and a white t-shirt just to make out with Leah, and then changed back into the red t-shirt the next day to say they kissed “last night.” Uh-huh, yeah.

As Miss XaXa put it, “Not hardly likely.”

In our opinion, it looks like Leah was telling the truth, and that the make-out session did not take place the night before Restaurant Wars.

In our theoretical “red shirt” timeline, the make-out session likely took place the night that Ariane Duarte was ousted for butchering the lamb on the “Down on the Farm” episode. Indeed, if you pay attention to what Hosea says during the interview bits where he wears the red shirt, he refers only to events that took place during the “Down on the Farm” episode and during the first day of the “Restaurant Wars,” e.g., the Quickfire Challenge judged by Stephen Starr. This supports the theory that Hosea’s interview took place the evening of the first Restaurant Wars day, after the Starr challenge.

Thus, our “red shirt” timeline goes something like this:

Day A: The cheftestants travel to Stone Barns and prepare lunch for the farmers. They return to New York in the afternoon, and during Judges’ Table Ariane is pykagged. As Leah told TVGuide.com, the camera people “usually leave when everyone is going to sleep.” And that night, after Ariane’s ouster, thinking the cameras had gone, she and Hosea had their make-out session on the couch (without, of course, taking their body mikes off).

Day B: No apparent remorse following the make-out session. Stephen Starr Quickfire Challenge; Leah selected as head of one of Restaurant Wars teams, hugs Hosea following positive verdict from Starr; go shopping at Pier One; return to apartment; production staff inform them of make-out footage from previous night; Hosea, wearing red shirt, talks about their kissing “last night”; Hosea and distraught Leah go over menu for next day’s Restaurant Wars.

Day C: Restaurant Wars; demoralized Leah.

Well, you may say, possums, so what? So you spent hours reviewing the episode footage and trying to figure this out, but what difference does it make?

Leah, it seems to us, casts this as a dark plot to demoralize and manipulate her (and possibly the outcome of Restaurant Wars): “Why would they tell me that right before restaurant wars? At that point I just felt like Bravo’s little puppet.”

We wouldn’t go that far. We think, though, that the real sequence of events casts a different light on Leah and Hosea’s behavior. The episode is edited to suggest, if not outright state, that Leah and Hosea were, to quote Fabio, “een a sheetee mood” on the day of Restaurant Wars itself because of morning-after remorse and regret on account of their make-out session, and that such remorse affected their performance during Restaurant Wars. It’s a much more moralistic gloss, immoral cheaters undermined by the realization of their own immorality (and, we have argued and will argue elsewhere, plays into a storyline about Leah as some sort of temptress leading stolid Hosea astray).

But look at this image from the Quickfire Challenge, which took place the morning after the make-out session (or even earlier, if the make-out session occurred before Ariane’s ouster).

Does it look like these are two people in the throes of remorse for having, in Leah’s words, “cheated” on their significant others? Again, not hardly likely.

However, if Leah’s version of events is correct, then her bad mood during Restaurant Wars was due not to natural morning-after regret, but to the fact of having been told by producers, “Gotcha!” The “love birds,” as Ariane described them, thought no one had seen their encounter, and they were wrong. Her remorse, and Hosea’s remorse, and the attendant “sheetee mood,” were a product of discovery, a realization that their encounter would be televised, and would have consequences.

We were rooting for Radhika Desai’s team, and we’ll certainly never know, but perhaps Leah’s team would have performed better had this not come into play.

Amuse-Biatch Photoessay: cLEAHvage

Exhibit 37 for the case that Leah Cohen is a victim of editorial sexism. Exhibits for the opposite case to be presented soon.

A Scarlet Letter from Amuse-Biatch

Possums,

We won’t get into the reasons for our absence of the past week, mostly because in spite of all recent, firsthand evidence to the contrary, we refuse to accept that we inhabit a world in which illness and mortality have any more purchase than they do in a Pedro Almodóvar film. Into the bubble of the blogger’s basement no shafts of reality must be allowed to make their way, nor shall they.

Instead, let us agree to a version in which our silence was that of the well of loneliness, the soundless scream of the daughters of Bilitis, at the pykagging of our Sapphic mini-Fergie, Miz Jamie Lauren. Fortunately for us, though, our Uranian grief was assuaged by the sweet, sweet balm of the Christian Bale freakout remix on constant replay.

After all, which of the world’s ills can’t be cured by a good house beat? As a straight (that’s what he said) friend told us many years ago, being a good gay is about “dancing through the pain.” Mind you, this was in the context of the Hex Hector remix of Toni Braxton’s “Unbreak My Heart,” but the principle is the same.

And so, yes, the loss of Jamie was rather difficult, all the more so because it seemed so unavoidable and so very just under the circumstances. In the wake of Jamie’s exit, we wondered whether it was possible to feel simultaneous boredom and despair—despair at her departure, and boredom at the prospect of a final that doesn’t include her—as one feeling would seem to negate the other.

Oh, fickle, fickle gays!

We could not possibly have anticipated just how good and entertaining last night’s episode would be, and we had to laugh at the pleasure of watching the show cheerfully violate its own stated principles about it being a one-challenge-at-a-time, what-have-you-done-for-me-lately competition.

Had that principle been followed, Stefan Richter would and should have been sent packing for the undistinguished (and undistinguishable) spinach and the salmon that was unanimously deemed to be overcooked, an unpardonable sin on a season that has been so much about “respecting the protein,” and on an episode that was preceded by the hazelnut-and-butter-accented presence of the St. John the Baptist of fish cookery, Le Bernardin’s Eric Ripert (come to think of it, his accent is more the equivalent of Nutella eaten out of the jar with one’s finger, but we digress). What is a thinned hollandaise sauce in comparison to that?

Surely on the scales of PYKAG justice, Leah’s sin of a thin hollandaise sauce was outweighed by the greater, audience-perceived sins of weakness, whininess and immorality (about which more later). We declared ourselves fans of Stefan from the outset, so we would have been grieved to see him go, but it also would have made a satisfying kind of narrative sense for him to have gone out now—hubris, Icarus, the Finland vs. Sweden thing, etc. Instead, the show opted for a more timeless kind of American narrative—Hester Prynne is pilloried to satisfy public morality while the bald, stolid, chin-merkin’d Dimmesdale (and how dim indeed) is allowed to continue in a halo of xenophobic, phallocentric (tiny shrimp!, eel!) anxiety and insecurity to battle the European savant Chillingworth (we haven’t quite worked out all the details, but give us time). How will it all turn out?

Leah & Hosea to Cook Together Again

And under the auspices of Jeff McInnis, who is throwing a recession-buster of a party in South Beach. Tickets (only 150 are available!) are “$175+taxes+fees” and give you, possums, “access to both penthouses on the top floor of the Pelican [Hotel], culinary entertainment [ahem] by Top Chefs, open bar and ocean views.” The sweet stylings of Nero on the lyre are complimentary. Buy your tickets now! And if you do go, possums, be sure to send us a report.

Previews: Denial, Gimmicks, Creative Monkeys (Borrowed from Hung?), Leah Sows Her Wild Quaker Oats, and How the Hell Is Nikki Cascone an “All-Star”?

Because We Care: Amuse-Biatch Programming Note for Hosea Rosenberg

Cherchez la Femme: The Likely-Not-to-Be Mrs. Hosea Rosenberg After Watching the Last Few Episodes?

Amuse-Biatch Photoessay: Tonight, on a Special Episode of “Cheaters,” Hosea Rosenberg “Happy” to See Leah Cohen

“Top Chef” or the First Ad in JDate’s National Television Campaign?

Of course, there’s a third possibility to explain the actions of Leah Cohen and Hosea Rosenberg in the interstitial, but we’ll get to that in a sec.

But first, possums, we call “bullshit.” The interstitial was broadcast after the obligatory Stew Room scenes and right before Alex Eusebio was euthani-pykagged by Padma. The strong implication, since the “tribal marking” session clearly took place in the Stew Room, was that it was happening the same night that bridegroom Alex was to be put out of his Miss-ery and launched into Mrs-ery.

This, however, doesn’t appear to be the case. As shown below, during the breakfast Quickfire Challenge, little hearts drawn by Hosea could be seen on Leah’s hand. This means that the love graffiti was inscribed the night before, i.e., the night that Richard was pykagged.

Why the deceit, and what was the point of this whole interstitial in the first place?

Certainly it could be part of the Leah-and-Hosea-sittin’-in-a-tree storyline, but we already had that in a previous episode, so this seems unnecessary. It’s apparent from the reaction of those around them that their antics have caused some amount of eye-rolling (except for the always understanding Carla, who chalks it up to sexual chemistry). We find something unsettling in this setting up of Leah as a needy, clingy Jezebel twining herself around a gap-toothed Rocky Mountain patriarch (and it isn’t just the name Hosea that makes us think this; his very features cry out for a Mennonite hat and a barn-raising, and Harrison Ford hiding out from the bad guys).

Indeed, when Alex went into the sequester house with the other misfit toys, he re-enacted that twining and referred to Leah as a “Ho fo’ Sho’” (leaving aside for just a second how sexist this is, wouldn’t it be more accurate to call her, in light of the object of her affection, “Ho for Ho”?). Would any self-respecting chef, especially someone who cooked under Anne Burrell, want to be portrayed on television as a cat in heat and called a “ho”? (Furthermore, given how proud a number of Asian-themed blogs and media outlets are of Leah (her mother is Filipina), it seems an added injury for the editors to trot out these suggestions of the old, sexualized, “me love you long time” image of Asian women in this portrayal of Leah.)

But what if the whole thing was about nothing more than product placement? It cannot have escaped anyone’s notice that Hosea was using a Sharpie to write on himself and on Leah. So wasn’t the entire Leahosea episode just an insidious Sharpie commercial? Can it be just a coincidence that Sharpie’s commercial tagline, “Write Out Loud,” is practically the same as “Live Out Loud,” the tagline for the Oxygen Network, which—wouldn’t you know it—is run by Bravo’s president, Lauren Zalaznick (indeed, as detailed in a New York Times story, she was instrumental in choosing the tagline)? And yet, we find no record in the end credits of Newell Rubbermaid paying any promotional consideration. We nonetheless find it hard to believe that Bravo would feature a product for nothing; it’s simply not in their corporate genes. On verra.

You know, possums, this rant originally had a point, though we’d be hard-pressed to find it now, so while we’re ranting, let us call “bullshit” on two more things:

* Padma saying in the previews for last week’s episode, very somberly and dramatically, “We have a situation,” of which nary a mention appeared once the episode aired. We say, “Bullshit” (and narrative cockteasery).

* Hoda Kotb making Kathie Lee Gifford faces while sampling Jeff McInnis’ malfouf roll, as if the flavors (including sumac) were so very exotic or unknown. Um, (C)Hoda Kotb is Egyptian-American, spent summers in Egypt while growing up, and worked extensively as a reporter in Egypt and Iraq. We say, “Bullshit.”

OK, possums, rant over. We’ll go lie down for a second to ponder how a harmless little post on cheftestant puppy love turned into a rant, and we will think of Gail Simmons to cool our fevered brow.

Amuse-Biatch Night Vision, or Is It Nightmares? We Spy with Our Little Jaundiced, Giggling, Insinuating Eye

Met to Premiere New Verismo Opera, “Cavalleria Topcheftiana,” Starring Leah Cohen as Tracolla Reggiseno, Who Drives Men Wild with Her Bra Strap

Amuse-Biatch Photoessay: That Off-White Couch Is Sure Getting a Lot of Action

“I see lot of talking, cawddling, butah I theenk they just getting a leetle beet clozer coz of the frensheep. I don’t theenk there ees notheeng going on, and eef there ees, goood for them.”