Previews: Amuse-Biatch on the Reunion Show, Padma Lakshmi on the Bear Vote, and the Birthday PYKAG Curse

New York Chef to Stefan Richter: My Dishes Are Dirtier Than Yours!

Well, possums, it looks as though Stefan Richter has finally found an Italian chef who isn’t happy to join him on Team Euro.

As our pals at Grub Street relate, Pino Luongo—who, according to The New York Post, “was synonymous with the high-powered New York dining scene of the '80s and '90s,” and who a couple of months ago released a memoir titled Dirty Dishes—is “flabbergasted” that Stefan’s own book, scheduled for release in May, is also titled Dirty Dishes. Luongo calls him out for being unoriginal and destined always to be second, and “strongly suggests” that Stefan change the title of his book.

Possums, it is on. Herr Richter, your move.

Amuse-Biatch Photoessay: Who Says That Chivalry Is Dead?

Just imagine it, possums. For once, a man who’ll free you from crabs rather than give them to you in the first place.

Toby Young: I Might Be Back Next Season, Marcel Vigneron Has a Temper, and Stefan Richter Converted a Lesbian

From today's live webchat with The Los Angeles Times:

She Shills by the Sea Shore: Padma Lakshmi Makes Her Bid at Paris Hilton-dom

Let’s see, possums. The same week that Tom Colicchio was revealed as a shill for Diet Coke, and the same night that Padma Lakshmi referred to Stefan Richter’s dessert as “pedestrian at best” (at which point we half expected a lightning bolt of irony to drop casually from Zeus’ hand and smite her), good ole Pads was herself revealed as the newest shill for Carl’s Jr., following in the stiletto-wearing footsteps of Paris Hilton.



According to People Magazine, Padma claims the television ad, directed by the same cinematic “genius” who did the Paris Hilton carwash ad, is “a beautiful love song to food….I think eating in itself is the act of great sensuality, so all you have to do is point the camera in the right direction.”

Pedestrian indeed. And what could possibly make Padma so hungry all the time?

Richard Blais’ Speaking-from-Experience Reaction: “Sometimes, the Best Team Doesn’t Win the Game”

From his Bravo blog:

"Padma says it best when describing Stefan’s food. He exhibits an elegant classicism. The guy's very talented. The pigeon was the best thing I tasted that night. Sometimes, the best team doesn’t win the game."

Finale Previews: It Is *On*! Hootie Love vs. the Red Baron vs. the Stolid Mennonite Farmer from the Far Side Cartoon

Amuse-Biatch Photoessay: Stefan’s Shaving Accident! Also, Beads by the Dozen?!?

Fabio Viviani: Danny Gagnon Is So Messy That I'd Rather Live with a Pig

Well, possums, we can't say we're surprised by Fabio's statement to the L.A. Times. Not a bit surprised, in fact. We shudder just to think of it.

Fabio also announces that his restaurant is "doing 40% more business than it did in 2007" (which seems better than when he told Bravo last week that "[i]n the last 6 months of 2008 [his] restaurant did over a 38% more in profit respect to the last 6 months of 2007").

Our favorite exchange includes a bit of nationalism and a declaration that signorino Viviani is in the pink:

Right. [Stefan Richter is] also not the only cocky one.
Amore, you have to understand that chefs are like rock stars. I’m like that too! The difference is that I’m Italian. I’m personable because I'm Italian. If I was American, it’d be different. You'd think the same way about me. Look, when I left Italy to move here, I had to sell my three restaurants to do it. If I was not confident I couldn’t have done that. You have to be confident in this business.

Why’d you get a Mohawk?
I change my hair cut every other day. I’m very extravagant in certain things. I never have matching socks. Chefs are like rock stars. They have to do something to wow and create buzz. It’s not good hair to have in the U.S. but quite frankly I don’t care. I got my pink scarf, pink socks, pink shoes...

Finally, he offered further confirmation that the boob tube will not be long without him: "I'm going be everywhere. For sure a little more TV. We have something in the making."

Restaurant Critic, Bravo Call Stefan Richter “Fat”

Well, if we’re going to be precise about it, possums, what New York Magazine’s restaurant critic, Adam Platt, said about Stefan was this:

Am I wrong, or has he gained fifteen pounds since we saw him in NYC? He looked sort of pig-eyed. And he was drinking more than usual.

We can’t say Platt is entirely to blame for this perception, since the show’s editors did their best to foster it. The literal cheap shot you see above is how Stefan was introduced on last night’s episode, with a close-up of his belly.

Hosea, Fabio and Carla got the introductory shots you see below. Not exactly the same, eh?

First Reaction: Aw Shucks Oysters

Gail, Gail, Gail.

Even if nothing else during the episode had worked, the return of Gail Simmons would have been enough. In Hootie’s words, “Love ya, girl!”

But that was actually quite a tasty episode. We got: Carla winning the challenge (and a car, and bemoaning the unreliable character of men’s promises in a "Bessie Smith does Much Ado About Nothing" soliloquy); the return of Leah Cohen (who apparently learnt how to use make-up in the interim); Fabio's pink scarf and mohawk; Carla's new hair; our little longer-haired scallop Jamie Lauren (though she went a tad overboard on the Miss Clairol or the lemon juice); Jeff’s chance at redemption (sadly, no more treasure-trail shots by cameramen intent on objectifying him); “a butt-rubbing contest”; Stefabio forcibly separated; Carla's beautiful table manners; more phallocentric taunting of Hosea (just what does Stefan know? Did he see Hosea naked in the bathroom?); Padma looking like a mail-order whore in a Sergio Leone western; Fabio revealing that he’s watched masked porn; Jeff McInnis mispronouncing “chipotle”; Stefan as Mr. Grits; a patient, inoffensive, and understanding Emeril Lagasse; and Gail, Gail, Gail.

Oh, and as you can see from the picture above, Stefan actually did help Carla shuck her oysters. So much for the soulless villain.

Gesticulating with Stefan: Hitting Shrimpy Where It Hurts, as Worst Brat Hints at Bratwurst

Uptown Girl Jamie Lauren on Lasses' Mustaches and Just How Much Tequila It Would Take to Make Her Sleep with Stefan Richter

Possums, there’s kitchen-sink drama and kitchen-table comedy, and given how much looking back in anger we’ve done over the past few days, the latter seems infinitely more palatable. Add our late, lamented Top Scallop Jamie Lauren to the mix, and you’ve definitely got something.

As part of their kitchen-table comedy show, Liz Feldman, of The Ellen DeGeneres Show, and her “sidegeek” Raimy Rosenduft traveled up to Sodom by the Sea and, in addition to making our favorite lipstick lesbian cook, interviewed her about Stefan, tequila, make-up, and the hairiness of San Francisco lesbians. Enjoy, possums.

Lesbian video from AfterEllen.com

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?

Stefan Richter Wins the Super Bowl of Trash Talk: “Latin Chick” Camille Becerra Is “So Fucking Bitter”

Well, possums, we can’t say we blame the Season 5 contestants (and Tom Colicchio) for questioning the “All-Star” bona fides of the past seasons’ representatives who showed up for the asinine Super Bowl-themed episode.

After all, the only thing the “challengers” have in common was residence in New York, where the show was filming. (Spike Mendelsohn, who has opened a burger joint in D.C., splits his time between the capital and New York, and the ACELA ride surely posed no problem to a man who would crawl on his hands and knees over broken glass to attend the opening of an envelope if there were a camera within 10 feet.)

And yet, we had no idea Herr Richter was quite so adept at smack talk (as demonstrated in this video). Of Miguel Morales: “He is a banquet assistant chef. And he warms up 85 plates at one time in the oven.” Ooh, burn.

But the whole Camille thing has us puzzled. Bitter? How came he to this conclusion?

Ok, so her restaurant was gutted by fire, and she’s sporting East L.A. homegirl bangs, but is that enough evidence from which to deduce that she’s bitter?

“My Zen Is Zonked”: Get That Woman Her Own T-Shirt

Carla lays down the law (and the mop), Jeff goes half-naked and dripping wet, Stefan’s accent adds piquancy to his views on democracy, a lesbian predictably “dialogues,” Stefan channels Gertrude Stein on the parfait and the imparfait, and Hosea resents that Stefan is hiding his candy.

“Top Chef” Shocker: Stefan Richter Baits Right-Wing Bloggers Anew with T-Shirt Symbol of Another Evil (Admittedly Faded) Empire

Amuse-Biatch Photoessay: Talk About Marching in Lockstep

We think, possums, that Eadweard Muybridge would be very happy with these two.

To the Finland Station: Right-Wing Website Goes After Pinko Commie Stefan Richter for Fashion Choice, Tobacco Use

NewsBusters, a website dedicated to, um, “documenting, exposing and neutralizing liberal media bias,” is seeing red after last night’s episode, in which Stefan Richter, the Hannibal Lecter de nos reality-tv jours,

"could be seen wearing a red T-shirt with a gold hammer & sickle -- the emblem of Soviet totalitarianism which oppressed hundreds of millions and murdered tens of millions -- inside a gold-outlined Red Army star, matching the colors and symbols on the Soviet flag. In the scene on the NBC-owned Bravo cable channel, Richter, owner of Stefan’s European Catering in Santa Monica, California, was lighting up a cigarette as he argued with some other chefs in his contestant group over the elements of a meal menu."

What say ye, Stefan, what say ye?

But hark, what's this?

Yes, indeed. As a garnish to the outrage, right next to the article is an ad for “I’d Rather Be Waterboarding” t-shirts. Stay classy and consistent, NewsBusters.

Amuse-Biatch “Ahem” Photoessay: “Cock. I love that!”