Nicely defaced, stoned hippies of New Paltz.

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Figuratively, not literally. Suffice it to say that the salmon and endive did not get picked up after work, the court boullion was not made, no fish was poached, no endive was braised in orange juice and my good friends at Italian takeout joint Buon Appetito saved the day.

In place of any actual cooking, why not peruse a year’s worth of smacking the hell on down? I’ll see you over the weekend for some Thanksgiving dessert testing.

You’ve Won the Battle, But Not the War

I Want Some Taquitos

Once there was a nerdy boy and a nerdy girl…

I’m the Richest Poor Woman, or the Poorest Rich Woman

Thomas-Fucking Keller (from guest posters Peter and Christey of FotoCuisine)

A Benefit of Having Big Feet is That It is Literally Impossible to Put One in Your Mouth

That Takes Me Back

The Friday Night Smackdown That Couldn’t: Aspic

The Slowest Hurry Ever

Begrudgingly Fantastic

The Quail’s the Thing

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Watch out.

LAST WEEK: Nigella Lawson in bed. British people extending metaphors further than they should really be extended. Robin got the axe, despite my really wanting her to out last Eli. Which desire was totally out of spite, because I am spiteful.

10:01: Kevin is a good Catholic boy. Why am I not surprised? Eli is the youngest left, and a friend of Richard Blais, for whom he wants to win it, calling it an “Inigo Montoya” moment. No, the only “Inigo Montoya” moment is if you are ACTUALLY killing the man who killed your father. Winning a reality television competition on which a friend of yours previously choked? Not so much.

10:03: QUICKFIRE: Judge Gavin Kaysen. Make something that’s a protein inside a protein inside a protein, which is what he did to win the Bocuse d’Or, the Super Nobel Olympiad of Cooking.

Or, as it’s known to the rest of us, a turducken.

10:05: Michael: “This isn’t about making a ballotine, this is about three proteins inside each other.” YES, BECAUSE IT’S ABOUT MAKING A BALLOTINE, AND THAT IS THE DEFINITION.

I could be utterly butchering the spelling of that, I’m not even sure it starts with a “B.”

10:07: My boy Kevin, not in the top? It’s like a day without sunshine.

10:09: Shiv takes it! I think she really needed this.

Michael has quickly taken up the dickweed crown. “Oh, he wanted a BALLOTINE? He should have said so. I could have given him something as good as his prize-winning dish.” Go suck an egg, you d-bag. HE TOLD YOU WHAT HE FUCKING WELL WANTED.

ELIMINATION: The Top Chef Bocuse d’Or, a presentation platter with an entree and two garnishes. Your judge? Thomas Keller. TREMBLE IN FEAR, CHEFS. Oh, some other important people will be there, too. But they’re not Thomas Keller, so their names don’t matter.

10:12: The criteria here are taste, creativity and presentation. Novel!

10:16: Kevin has no plans. The editors have succeeded in making me scared for him despite the fact that I don’t trust the editors farther than I can throw them. But why try something totally new to you at this point?

The chefs get home and Michael goes right to bed in his chef’s coat so he can jump up and be better than you at a moment’s notice.

10:18: Bryan kindly gives Kevin instructions on sous viding lamb. He’s into sharing information. “My brother might not have done that.” Read: “I know my brother is an asshole.” And then HOLY SHIT Thomas Keller is there in the kitchen.

Is he really tall, or is Colicchio really short? Because Keller looks like he could step on him.

10:19: Michael is making salmon, because that takes more finesse. Kevin is making something with sunchoke cream. I loves me some Kevin, but ever since Dieterle, I’m a little done with the sunchoke cream.

10:20: Michael: “The food that Kevin cooks is the food that I cook on my day off.” One, you lie. Two, do you act like Kevin on your day off as well? If so, could you please act like that all the time?

Shiv is cooking something “unilaterally,” which is a term I normally associate with legislatures, not fish or lamb.

10:22: Colicchio does his rounds of the kitchen and astutely observes that Shiv seems a little nervous. You can’t sneak anything past him, that Colicchio.

10:25: Commercials. Why does Tresemme insist on trying to sell me hair products with women who I want to smack. Lady, your hair is actually kinda flat. Sorry.

10:26: Every time Thomas Keller comes on screen, Brian says “Oh, shit, yo!” Every time.

Every time someone says something like “They told me to do one thing, but I’m going to do something else,” I get a funny feeling. When it’s Michael, it’s a funny happy feeling. When it’s Kevin, it’s a funny nervous feeling.

10:28: The most intimidating chefs in the entire world are around this table, but I think I may be more intimidated by the giant mirror platters. You can’t hide anything on those bad boys. Mine would totally be the platter with the fingerprints all over it. Also? The food on it would not be so great. I’m assuming you can’t send out a bunch of tiny bowls of cereal.

10:30: Shocking! Michael, less than perfect? IMperfect, even? Michael, Daniel Boulud finds your flavors inharmonious. Of course, he probably has a questionable palate.

Meanwhile, Keller himself is impressed with Bryan’s technique, if not with all the flavors. Or the textures. Or the execution. So okay, it was just the one compliment.

10:33: Not Jonah Hill has ten thousand million ingredients on his plate, one of which is a carrot puree with ras al hanout, stolen directly from Blais. When the mostly highly praised element on your dish is the foam, you have a problem.

Son of Bocuse is horrified by the lamb. That can’t be good. But the looks of pure French dissatisfaction on his face are beautiful to behold.

10:35: Shiv comes out and manages not to spill anything on anyone out of fear or shit herself, so let’s hear it for small victories.

10:36: Surprise! The winner will get to represent the U.S. in the next Bocuse.

10:38: Okay, I’m still worried about Kevin. I’m hoping for a SHOCKING ELIMINATION of Michael for his bland tzaziki.

10:42: Pointless Interlude: Kevin would be proud to lose to any of the remaining chefs. Everyone loves everyone else. Why even compete?

Brian: “After this, let’s all go back to Eli’s mom’s house for creamsicles!”

10:46: Judges’ table. Son of Bocuse is there, and he is pre-not-amused.

Somehow Michael’s missing a bone in his fish is not made more of. At the real Bocuse, they hunt down and kill your family members for that.

Kevin is accused of being too simple. I note that he is not accused of making food that tasted really good and prepared correctly. THE PEOPLE DEMAND TECHNIQUE.

10:48: Is Son of Bocuse botoxed, or does he really just manage to speak with so little facial movement? I think either could feasibly be the case.

10:50: Brian: “That Bocuse guy sounds like a French Andre the Giant… I want to hear him say ‘Anybody want a peanut?’”

And thus, the episode has come full circle vis-a-vis Princess Bride references.

10:53: I’m coming to accept that I will not get my shocking Michael elimination, so I’m hoping for the second best: non-shocking Eli elimination.

Take anyone, anyone but Kevin.

10:54: WINNER: KEVIN!! Damn you, Editors! You’ve done it again! Suck it, Voltaggio! At least, Michael! Bryan, you seem nice enough!

I am like a harpsichord that the editing monkeys so deftly play.

10:57: LOSER: Eli. I cannot be disappointed with the result. I guess I should have been able to call it from that “Inigo Montoya” thing.

He looks like an 11-year-old with his glasses off. Don’t want to kick a man while he’s down; just saying. But look, I’ll refrain from making a joke about his mom.

So Shiv, both brothers and Kevin head into the finals. Is there anyone who didn’t call it within the first week? We could really have saved a lot of our precious time here.

NEXT WEEK: The chefs are playing to win…a choo-choo train? Padma with bangs is a travesty.

I spelled Brian with a “y” the whole time, and I don’t think I was supposed to. Oh well, worse things have happened.

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Is there anyone who doesn’t love a dumpling? I defy you to find me that person.

Because it really makes no sense: “No, I don’t want this delicious thing stuffed inside something else so I can eat it with my fingers.” Do you know what that is? The ramblings of a madperson. There’s a reason every culture has dumplings, and it’s because they effing rule. Dumplings, gnocchi, dim sum, potstickers, pierogi – all dumplings, all delicious.

If we would all just realize that love of dumplings transcends boundaries of belief and nationality, the world might be a really different place. A happy place. A peaceful place. A place with more dumplings. They should teach this shit in schools.

Tonight, the pierogi! was the dumpling of choice.* Pierogi! are like little hand-held comfort pies: dumplings filled with mashed potatoes and cheese, smothered with caramelized onions. It’s like ten thousand Golden Retriever puppies sitting down at once and farting. Okay, the farting maybe does not sound so comforting, but tell me you don’t find it adorable when dogs sit down and accidentally let out a little poot, especially puppies. “Thbbbt.” Picture kittens if you’re a cat person.** Point is, it’s fucking heartwarming, as long as it’s not one of those dog death farts. But I don’t think puppies learn how to emit those until they hit about 6 months.

Ahem. I’ve probably just revealed more about myself in that paragraph than anything else. Anyway.

There’s no law that potato and cheese pierogi! should have cheddar, so I used some emmenthal that had been lingering in the cheese drawer just on the right side of “too long.” I peeled some teeny-tiny potatoes that really, judging from the number I did on my knuckles with the peeler, were never meant to be peeled. It was arduous, and I was not at all chagrined when Brian came home and found a big ole bag of full-sized potatoes in the other veg drawer of the fridge.

Once they were cooked, I could have riced them to get a perfectly smooth filling, but I could also have just mashed the hell out of them by hand and beaten the cheese in with a wooden spoon. I’ll let you guess which one I did.

*It feels like it should have an exclamation point.

**Or, the better option: become a dog person.

While I was doing that and caramelizing a pan of onions, Brian was putting the dough together in my not-so-secret boyfriend, the KitchenAid Professional 600 standing mixer. In looking at dough recipes, there was a clear division: pasta-esque doughs made with egg only, or dairy-rich doughs made with milk and/or sour cream and/or butter. Me not being Eastern European and Brian not knowing how to make pierogi! from scratch I didn’t know which was the more traditional, although since it’s Eastern Europe we’re talking about I figured the heavier version was probably the way to go. At the very least, the heavier version seemed more Midwestern.

The dough had to rest and chill for a while after kneading, so I did the same thing. I hope the dough didn’t mind having to listen to “Bamboleo” or not having a crossword puzzle to do while waiting like I did.

Brian, sadly, had to leave before the pierogi! were formed and cooked. Apparently, for some tiny percentage of people, going out to a club to hang out with other humans, drink beer and listen to bands play is more fun than staying home to make pierogi! from scratch while listening to the Gipsy Kings and perhaps doing a little solo cha cha while rolling the dough which is NOT AT ALL embarrassing.

I pity those people.

I rolled the chilled dough out, cut out the pierogi! and placed a little ball of cooled potato and cheese in the center of each (I won’t lie, it took a few tries to find the optimum potato-ball size for the diameter of dough circle). Fold and crimp, fold and crimp, and voila: pierogi! They got a quick bath in boiling water before being fried up in butter, as is proper. I also took a few minutes to warm up my onions and wilt up some of my old “this plate needs some green on it” standby, spinach. I realized a moment before venturing totally into the magical land of hypocrisy that the virtuosity of my vegetarian dinner was laughably false because I was eating potato and cheese-filled dough balls fried in butter. In these cases, spinach is usually called in to try to carry the day by saving some pretense of health.

It tried valiantly; I recognize that I ask a great deal of the humble green.

But hey, no red meat, right?

So I must have done something right, because these tasted like they were supposed to. I know that doesn’t sound like very high praise, but when making such an iconic and classic food, I think it’s the height of success to have it taste just like it’s supposed too. The dough was tender and crisped up nicely on the outside. The filling was warm and creamy, and the emmenthal cheese added a nutty undertone that played very well with the earthy potato. Caramelized onions make everything they touch delicious, and the whole unhealthily wonderful mess was offset by the bitter edge of the spinach.

Four pierogi! and a pile of spinach made for a very filling dinner indeed. That’s not to say that I couldn’t have eaten another, but I thought I’d leave well enough alone. Plus, by leaving the rest for Brian’s post-bar midnight snack, I become the BEST SPOUSE EVER. Who comes home drunk at 1 in the morning on a Tuesday to homemade pierogi!? Yeah, you know you want me.

Pierogi! Dough
makes 8-10 4-inch diameter pierogi!
1 c. + 2-4 tbsp. AP Flour
1/2 a beaten egg (I know, I know, but I was cooking for two. So double this, and freeze the leftovers instead of being all irritated)
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 c. sour cream
1/4 c. unsalted butter, softened.

Chuck everything into a mixer fitted with a dough hook; start with 1 cup of flour, saving the rest in case your dough is too sticky. Let the ingredients come together and let the mixer knead the dough for 5 minutes or so. If your dough is sticky or tacky to the touch, add more flour by the spoonful until you get a smooth, firm dough. (You could also combine the ingredients in a FoPro and knead by hand, or mix all the wet and pour it into a well in the flour to do everything by hand.)

Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and chill it for at least 40 minutes.

Turn the dough out onto a floured board and roll it out to 1/8 inch thick. Fill with whatever the hell you want – potatoes and cheese, sauteed spinach, mushrooms, leftover braised beef, fruit and nuts for a dessert version, anything really.

Cook in boiling water for about 3 minutes, until they float up to the top, then fry ’til crisp in a pan with a few tablespoons of butter. Eat while listening to the Gipsy Kings for maximum cognitive dissonance.

Leave any extras uncooked and freeze them in a single layer; when they’re good and froze, you can throw ‘em in a ziploc.

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Or, Awesome Shit That You Get Monday. Prepare for the first of the discounts!

(BTW. Round One is still active – check out the giveaway! And all current sales and giveaways will be listed in the sidebar, so you can always find them)

The Spoon Sisters: 15% off, now through December 15th using discount code “thursdayspoon.” They’ve got great stuff for every room in your house/apartment/mom’s basement/cave dwelling/etc, but here are some of my personal faves for the kitchen. Visit The Spoon Sisters to shop their whole catalog, or click a pic that strikes your fancy.

Thanks, Spoon Sisters!

NOTE: I’m not getting anything out of these giveaways and discounts – they’re just for you, because you’re special.

They're measuring cups! They're nesting dolls! They measure odd quantities! They will look great on your kitchen counter (while saving space - oh, the practicality); you need them, I want them.

I can't help it, I love measuring devices. These could hang unobtrusively on your wall over your new Nesting Doll measuring cups. Spoon Sisters also has some great odd-capacity measuring spoons.

Everyone and their brother has a tiffin; you want to be different. Be square and be proud! a destruco-proof exterior and microwavable containers make this lunchbox the choice of cool kids everywhere.

Does it have "lazy" in the name? Chances are I'll like it. Meet the lazy spoon, and lose the spoon rest on your counter to make room for some other crap. Lazy ladle also available. (BTW, Lazy Ladle is also the name of my new Acid Jazz String Quartet.)

Never forget where your cream comes from. And admit it, it's fucking cute.

I admit that I would probably never un-nest them, but if you did you'd have a great set of serving bowls. I think the yellow ones are my favorite, but I'd already uploaded a picture of the orange so there you go.

Because you want everyone to know how classy you are.

An awesome tote for trips to the green markets, or for a picnic where you need to bring a LOT of wine. Which is pretty much any picnic, if you ask me.

Know what you're eating.

Okay, this isn't strictly for the kitchen. Can we not branch out? Because a couple of these sitting around the patio on a spring evening? Loverly.

Enjoy!

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It’s Friday and I’m punchy.

Let’s share! I’ll tell you the best search strings that brought people to TNS this week; you tell me yours.

• Is Michael Chiarello really an asshole?
• Lolllipop head syndrome*
• Fuck Derrida**
• Meth recipes no one wants us to have***
• Boob cooking
• I’m grown I do what I want
• Rick Bayless is creepy and has fake hair.****

Now you!

*SO the name of my new barbershop quartet madrigal-Brit pop band.

**I have highly educated searchers.

***As opposed to the ones they always print in Redbook and US Weekly.

****Lies! All lies!

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I love Rick Bayless. It’s out there now.

I’ve always loved his cookbooks; his words practically vibrate with passion for Mexican cuisine. I loved him even more after I saw him on Top Chef Masters and learned that (1) he seems to be exceptionally nice and (2) under his clean-cut, shirt neatly tucked in, giving you a 45 minute loving lecture on varieties of guacamole, he’s really just a stoner hippie nerd who loves a good taco at heart. And that is something I can get behind.

For dinner tonight, we pulled out the classic Mexican Kitchen, skipped to the “Fiesta Foods” section and stared it right in the eye: mole. Quail with smoky peanut mole, to be specific, with a side Caesar salad, Topolobampo style.

To put it simply, mole is a simmered sauce, often made with chocolate and usually with nuts, that contains seven to ten million different ingredients that you cannot get at your run-of-the-mill grocer, unless you live in Mexico City. Several of the moles in the book – I’m looking at you, Oaxacan black mole – called for chiles I’d never heard of, and I routinely keep 4-5 different kinds of dried chile around the house. So I feel no shame in telling you that this dish was selected in part because I’ve never prepared quail before, and in part because I could source all the mole ingredients from convenient places and the whole thing would take less than a thousand hours.

Please know that I am not being at all hyperbolic.

The side dish I picked because can you really just eat quail? I mean, quail alone is not really a well-balanced meal as it is, and quail are also teeny tiny. I’m always on the lookout for a good Caesar dressing – I’ve never really made one that I LIKE liked – so I thought we’d give Rick’s lime and chile-spiked version a try. I mean, it’s Rick Bayless. If there is a more polite chef who is less likely to lead you astray, kindly point me toward him or her.

That’s what I thought.

The core mole ingredients were dried ancho chiles, chipotles in adobo, tomatoes and peanuts along with standards like onions and garlic, additional spices and bread as a thickener. After being toasted, broiled, sauteed or manipulated in some other way, all the ingredients eventually wind up in my old friend the blender along with some chicken stock to keep the blender from just giving up.

Then, because the ingredients have not yet been mauled enough, they are thrust into a hot, oiled pan to fry; it concentrates the flavors, deepens the color AND gives you hundreds of wicked spatter burns from teeny splashes of mole base shooting out of the sizzling pan and onto your hands and forearms. Since the droplets are so little, the resulting blisters look remarkably like warts. Cute! (I would expect more of a warning from Rick; this is the one way in which he’s let me down.)

The toasted, broiled, sauteed, blended, fried mole base then gets hit with some more stock, red wine, cider vinegar and bay before being left to simmer for 45 minutes to really meld all the flavors. As a side note, I offer a word of caution: Perhaps you keep unfiltered cider vinegar around, and perhaps you are nearly at the bottom of the bottle. Perhaps when you check to see how much vinegar is left, you think what you are seeing is merely vinegar clouded by sediment, and not vinegar hiding a viscous sinew of coagulated proteins formed from all the lonely days and nights the amino acids in the vinegar have been bumping up against each other in the bottle. IF this were the case, you might go to add a tablespoon of vinegar to your mole and watch in horror as a gelatinous mass slides out of the bottle and into your sauce.

If this does happen to you – and I hope you’ll take more precaution with your unfiltered cider vinegar from now on – know that (1) your mole will still taste damn fine and (2) the mass will never entirely denature itself, so you’ll be able to pick out the stringier bits later on. Try not to be too disturbed by #2.

Just in case.

While the mole simmered, I took a load off while Brian made the salad dressing. It’s an unorthodox take on Caesar that ends up tasting remarkably like a really good classic dressing with a mild pop of chile. Plus, we got to use the new (free, thanks BlogHer!) 4-cup Cuisinart food processor, hereby officially dubbed the FoProMin (pronounced FO-pro-min, as though it were an over-the-counter generic  brand pain reliever).

There’s no lemon juice at all, the citrus instead coming from the zest of a coupla limes. Sherry vinegar brings the acid, a chile pepper adds heat, and raw egg helps it thicken. Rick has you start off in the FoProMin and then finish whisking the oil in by hand so you don’t just make mayo. Which, I’m glad of that, but I bet that would be some damn fine mayo.

While Brian worked the dressing, I made some croutons with stale bread coated with roasted garlic oil and then concentrated on trying not to eat them all as snacks once they were out of the oven.

Then all was ready, and it was time for the quail.

Quail are really pathetic looking little creatures, and it’s hard not to snap their featherlight bones just by staring at them too intently. They don’t really look like food. They’ve always had a fancy-pants connotation for me, but when I saw them in real life I just thought, “My god, this is what people had to do before we had chicken.” It was hard not to laugh at them, yet it was also challenging not to be saddened. Oh, and a little squicked, because it does kind of seem like you’re eating a pigeon, Latin name “Sky Rat.”

I was a little scared to even introduce them to heat. So I made Brian do it.

Salt, pepper a little olive oil and a cast-iron pan on the stove taking the place of the grill, and the quail were on the move. And I gotta tell you, they don’t get any more attractive as they cook. If anything, they try to shrink into themselves, almost like some kind of defense mechanism. Helpful hint, quails who may be reading: by the time you’re in the hot pan, it’s TOO LATE. Still, they colored up nicely, the finished mole tasted bananas, and I was excited to sit down to dinner.

I also really, REALLY wanted to eat those fricking croutons. I fucking love croutons. When I was a kid, playing at friends’ houses, I’d always filch croutons as a snack. We never had them at my house and no, I was not a normal child. The crouton addiction was the least of my problems.

I threw together the salad and plated up the quail:

And here’s the thing about it. The mole was incredible. Such an amazingly deep and complex flavors, so perfectly melded; you really have to focus to pick out individual ingredients because they come together so harmoniously and blossom in waves of flavor on the tongue. Nutty, smoky, just a tad spicy, with some sweetness and acid to balance, it was the closest thing I’ve had to a food revelation in a while.

The salad was similarly excellent. It’s not often that you hear me say, “Damn, that was an effing good salad,” but this was truly a most effingly good salad. Creamy, just enough acid, a spicy tingle from the chile, the wonderful crispness of the lettuce and the homemade croutons; oh, the croutons. I’d have been perfectly happy throwing a chicken breast on it and calling it a day. Because the quail..

…how can I put it? I know, with brutal candor: I think quail is fucking disgusting. I have nothing against gaminess – I love a piece of lamb that really tastes like lamb – but this is something else altogether. Some kind of earthy funk, and not in the good, truffle kinda way. In the bad, “I wish I hadn’t wasted this amazing mole on this pathetic little bird” kinda way. I really, really couldn’t stomach it. Even more shocking? Neither could Brian, and he will eat ANYTHING, including things he doesn’t actually like. And he? Could not bring himself to finish the quail, teensy though they were.

Thankfully we have about a full cup of leftover mole and a squeezy bottle full of salad dressing, both of which Rick promises will keep for several days, so I sense some high quality, quail-less meals in my future. And I don’t blame Rick at all for the ultimate failure of dinner. He did everything he could; it came down to a showdown between quail and me. I’m guessing the quail won, since it left uneaten and I left hungry.

I am still alive, though. So SUCK ON THAT, quail.

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I didn’t bother to watch last week’s “No, we haven’t selected these past contestants for their ‘high volatility when mixed’-factor” reunion show; its only saving grace was the lack of Andy Cohen (at least I hope, for the sake of those of you who did watch).

We’re back this week, and it’s the British invasion of judges Toby Young and Nigella.

LAST WEEK: Ultimate dickweed Mike finally got the knife. Natalie Portman is a vegetarian. Robin lives to talk another day. And talk. And talk. And talk.

10:02: Bryan misses his young son and they’re shown talking on the phone, so he’s either winning or going home. Shiv really looks like she’s going to lose her shit.

10:03: QUICKFIRE CHALLENGE: Room services, with the challenge delivered by Padma, in a robe, in bed…with Nigella.

Not Jonah Hill may just have had an accident in his pants, and I’m not going to tell you what kind. He decides to make a modified Reuben. Because when I think of what I want when I’m snuggling in bed at a luxury hotel, it’s a big ole Reuben.

10:06: Mike V. inherits Robin’s messy station. He spends 5 minutes of his 30 cleaning so he only had “like, 20 minutes to cook.” Not to do math, because he clearly would need a little more time for that.

10:07: Kevin is making steak and eggs, because it’s a hearty breakfast and he likes it. And I like him. Not liking so much: Robin, who barges into the kitchen while others are cooking and gets mad when they want her out of their space.

Ungrateful bastards.

10:08: Nigella: “Is this beef, here?” with an unimaginably impish grin on her face.

Brian would like for me not to tell you that he would let Kevin serve him breakfast in bed. I cannot disagree. I mean that I would let Kevin make me breakfast in bed, not that I should hide that fact about Brian. We have no shame.

10:09: Shiv is making Shit on a Shingle and that? IS AWESOME. DON’T FUCK IT UP.

Nigella will just shove anything into her mouth in large, large bites, won’t she?

10:11: Padma’s bed hair and purposefully low-pitched voice is getting to me, although I kind of wish they were judging them from the bed. “You are so unworthy that we will not rise from our repose, even to judge you.”

Bottom two: Robin and Bryan.

Top two: Beardie and NJH

10:12: WINNER: NJH. Because the British like greasy meats for breakfast.

10:13: ELIMINATION: Inspiration from the Vegas strip, everyone gets a different hotel. Catering for 175 people. Don’t take your inspiration from the dried-out carving station and powdered scrambled eggs at the Flamingo, that’s my advice.

10:15: HOLY SHIT A WIZARD. And, commercial.

10:17: Commercials. No, Virginia, there is no Santa Claus. The Easter Bunny killed him in a bar brawl over who got to take the Tooth Fairy home.

10:18: Michael’s got the New York New York hotel, and is inspired by an enormous American flag to cook for firefighters. Shiv has the Excalibur, which looks not unlike the Medieval Times in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

10:20: Bryan has Mandalay Bay, which appears to be made entirely of gold. But wait, it’s not a Trump property, is it? I thought he had the lock on that. While he’s there he picks up a stuffed shark which he may or may not be bringing home to his son tonight.

Robin’s at the Bellagio and says a lot of stuff about the (admittedly) beautiful Chihuly art that I don’t listen to.

10:21: Kevin’s at the Mirage and gets to pet a dolphin, because he is the cutest chef ever. NJH has Circus Circus, which has to be the most likely to have a nasty-ass buffet.

10:23: Michael and Eli are fighting about Circus Circus, about which Eli is upset because there was no actual circus. Were the midway games insufficiently inspirational? Kevin: “When he describes it, it’s like listening to him describe a sad velvet painting.” BWAH.

Maybe NJH should call his mom for advice. Or maybe it’s really all her fault, because she didn’t take him to the circus enough as a child and he has no frame of reference.

10:26: They really squeezed ‘em into the bedrooms like sardines, didn’t they?

10:27: Okay, I love Kevin. We all know how much. Why must he make compressed vegetables? Why did anyone decide we had to compress produce in the first place?

Robin is making panna cotta (1) which has never, ever worked on this show before and (2) which she hasn’t really made before, which has never worked for her. I’m going to hold my breath and see how this works out.

10:30: You know, now that we’re down to 6, I’m able to tell the brothers apart about 85% of the time. Mike really IS way douchier.

Did NJH just say that keeping Robin around has been an issue of “the lesser of two equals”? Which, what the hell? Really? Sadly, he did not disappear into a puff of illogic.

10:32: Shiv has Excalibur and took her inspiration from The Sword and the Stone. A fine idea. I once made an excellent barrel of ale inspired by Disney’s Robin Hood.

10:34: Sentence only a foodie would say: “The tomato water is just stunning.”

Nigella just sucked down that chicken wing like…I don’t know what. But that shit was gone in a flash.

Robin’s panna cotta is, wait for it, too firm. Isn’t this the show where a pastry chef once fucked up panna cotta?

10:37: Nigella, on NJH’s dish: “I’m going to wait for someone else to go in.”

10:40: Now that Kelly Ripa has her Electrolux Washer and Steam Dryer, she can do an even better job at pretending to actually do her own chores, thus shaming all other women who cannot be the supermom she pretends to be!

10:42: Pointless Interlude: Champagne for everyone! Everyone momentarily stops hating Robin, at least outwardly, so they can focus on self-congratulations at being close to, but not actually, winning a competition.

Back to commercials. Bravo, if you succeed in making “glambition” a word, I will never watch you again.

This movie about the renegade radio station on a boat makes me want to end all my sentences with…”on a BOAT.”  “Do you need me to empty the dishwasher on a BOAT.” “I can’t find my other sock on a BOAT.”

10:45: Top Three: Beardie and both brothers. Shiv looks ready to send herself home, which she just might if she can’t pull it together in front of the judges.

The compressed vegetables get love. Toby Young calls Michael’s food “effeminate,” and I’m not sure what that means.

10:46: WINNER: Michael, for his chicken wings. I told you Nigella sucked that shit down.

NJH, Shiv and Robin are up for the knifing.

10:48: Granted, Shiv’s dish was not great, but can you really ping her for “inadequate knowledge of medieval cookery”?

10:50: Nigella, you’re adorable, but your tortured panna cotta/17th century courtesan inner thigh analogy is more than I can take.

The bottom line: the three of them sucked it hard.

10:52: Nigella found Shiv’s dish “almost hostile” and would rather “eat sawdust” than NJH’s dish. When she turns on you? She turns on you. But she does it behind your back, like a good Brit.

10:54: Commercials. Why don’t we have nice dinners out at the Red Lobster more often?

Who will win fan favorite from this Top Chef season? I bet Preeti.

10:58: KNIFING: Robin.

Even though it was deserved and she was annoying, is there not a little part of you that wanted NJH to go before Robin? Admit it.

10:59: Everyone stops hating her now that they don’t have to live with her anymore.

NEXT WEEK: Thomas Keller! And Michael is a douche who slams on Kevin for no reason other than the fact that he’s competition.

Fantasy Top Chef players, head over to Blog Well Done!

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Because sometimes, “Powering Through” means “Ordering a Pizza.”

Yes, this is a quart-sized Chinese food container filled with (a shit-ton of) ice and soda. The pizza by itself is so cheap that it doesn’t meet the pizzeria’s minimum for delivery, so I had to get a drink to bump it over the edge. And I likes my ice.

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So show me your filth!

A few weeks ago, I copped to have disgusting potholders, which I still do because I haven’t purchased new ones yet. I know that many of you, being the avid cooks you are, are also in possession of some grotesque potholders and/or oven mitts.

I want to see them. We ALL want to see them.

So: Show me your fucked-up potholders and oven mitts. They can be filthy, as mine are, or they can merely be extremely ugly; I don’t care. Post them on your own blog or, if you don’t have one (or don’t want to post them), send a photo to michelle AT thursdaynightsmackdown DOT com, subject line “My Ugly Mitt.” On 11/30, I’ll post the 5 most heinous, and y’all will have a week to vote on the butt-fugliest. The most horrific will get a set of Marimekko Unikko oven mitts in their choice of colorway.

Bring the ugly!

Props to Design*Sponge’s “Ugliest Pillow” Contest for the inspiration!

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