Last Night on Top Chef

Besty and I watch Top Chef because we both like to cook. Anyway, here are some thoughts on last night's show.

As you may recall, no chefs were eliminated last time because it was Christmas. So we open with Fabio (whom I like) making breakfast: "spam and pork and bean issa breakfas' of champion."

The special guest judge for the Quickfire Challenge is French pastry chef Jean-Christophe Novelli who Padma tells us is getting his own show on Bravo, Chef Academy. I haven't heard of this show before, but from the looks of Mr. Novelli, there are going to be a lot of open-collar shirt challenges, and disdainful glower because I am French eliminations.

For this challenge, the chefs have to prepare a dessert without any sugar. Padma and Chef Novelli actually push the sugar out of the kitchen on a cart. Actually, Padma and Chef Novelli push the sugar out of the camera frame on a cart, and then promptly hand the cart over to a production assistant to put back in the pantry for later, because let's be honest about stuff.

Then Padma describes it as the Diet Dr. Pepper challenge because there was a commercial for Diet Dr. Pepper right before the break. Although it's never really explained what Diet Dr. Pepper has to do with delicious gourmet sugar-free desserts beyond the fact that the show has always used product placement in order to lower production costs.

Chef Novelli hates everything. He describes every dish as "very interesting" or "[supercilious eyebrow raise]". Fabio thinks that Novelli's being tough on him because of the World Cup, because that's something European that American viewers will have heard of.

Similarly, Stefan keeps making "jokes" that he's French. Do you get it? Because he's not French. That's the joke. Europe!

Carla, Ariane, and Jamie are Novelli's least favorites. That's the problem with being a caricature of a snooty French food snob: there's no sense of proportion or scale. If everything is terrible then nothing is terrible. Radhika, Leah, and Jeff's desserts were Novelli's favorites, but in the end it's Radhika's bread pudding that wins.

This week's elimination challenge is in honor of the new permanent judge, Toby Young, author of How to Lose Friends and Alienate People. It's a family style meal with blind judging, so everyone's dish will be served anonymously. The chefs split up into two teams, and the twist is that the family for whom this family style meal will be prepared consists of the judges and the other team of contestants.

When Eugene thinks of family style he thinks of whole fish. The only cuisine Eugene seems to have grown up around, based on past performance, looks like it belongs at a garbage dump getting pawed over by a stray cat.

Jamie, the lesbo dwarf, wants to make scallops because last time the judges "totally dogged" her for serving raw scallops. She'll show them. This leads to the great Fabio moment .

Toby Young is like Simon Cowell. Here are some of his choice one-liners:

"The UN weapons inspectors were looking in the wrong place in the run-up to the Iraq war because I have found the weapons of mass destruction and they are in this bowl."

"It was the bland leading the bland."

"The avocado sorbet was like Tom Cruise's cameo in Tropic Thunder: an unexpected treat."

In the end, Stefan's duck, Ariane's skate, and Jamie's scallops are the judges favorites, and it's Jamie for the win, so maybe Fabio was wrong. Maybe it is Top Scallops.

The bottom three are Carla with her scallop risotto and bug eyes, Eugene's family style fish and Melissa's ahi tuna tacos.

Carla explains that with her, as a chef, she's going for flavor but admittedly she missed the boat on flavor. Bad argument.

Eugene, meanwhile, took a chance by cooking a dish he's cooked before. He and Carla should get together after the season and set up a think tank.

Melissa gets eliminated on general principles because of her bangs.

Chefs to watch: Fabio, Ariane, Stefan, Jamie.