befabulo.us

Offense Taken. (Top Chef 6, Ep. 1)

"No offense, but a girl just shouldn't be on the level where I'm at," says Michael, chef at DC restaurant Zaytinia.  "No offense," he says, which is what everyone says when they can already taste the sole of their shoe on the tip of their tounge, when they know that what they are about to say is incredibly offensive.

I know that the producers were being savvy when they edited in that nasty nugget of a soundbite.  I know all too well that they are trying to rile me up, make me angry, give me someone to hate.  I know it, and yet I can't help it.  It worked.  It infuriated me.  And what a delight that the "girl" he insulted, Jennifer, wound up winning the Quickfire round, netting a neat $15,000 jackpot.  I would have suspected a touch of producer manipulation in Jennifer's win, but I don't think Michael's sexist interview was filmed until after the Quickfire was over.

[Sigh.] It had to be the guy from DC who takes the asshole role.  This makes me extra-annoyed.  I've eaten at Zaytinia, been to parties there.  This is not how I want my hometown to be represented!  Last season's DC girl, Carla Hall, was charming, sweet and goofy.  Michael from Zaytinia... well, his bio says he's from Jersey.  JERSEY. 

I'm sorry, Jersey.  Go slap your boy upside the head for me, ok?

The first episode of a competition show like this always seems to be rather chaotic.  Too many characters all introduced at once, making it hard to tell one from another.  There were multiple heavily-inked girls, multiple girls who looked like boys, multiple Michaels, even a set of similar looking brothers.  (Helpful hint: the sunburned one is the one who lives in LA.)  Despite the chaos, I though the show did a good job of letting us see each of the final dishes, even if we only got to hear the judges questioning the four top and four bottom chefs.

I think you can make some good guesses on who is going to go home early based on how much screen time they got.  Looking at the list of chefs on Bravo's website, some of them were almost invisible in last night's episode.  I don't think we'll be seeing Laurine, Eve or Ash around for very long.  ("Who?" you're saying.  Exactly.) I predict that there will be a little bit of drama milked out of Robin's cancer, and then she'll go home in the first half of the series.  I don't forsee much of a future for Preeti, either.  If she hadn't bungled the job of opening clams so badly, I don't think she would have been a notable character in this episode.  (That aforementioned bungling was not her fault.  She TOLD her teammates she'd never opened a clam, and no one volunteered to trade off with her.)  The chefs I think have a chance of making it until the second half of the series, at least: Michael the jackhole, the Volt brothers, big red Kevin, Jennifer "the girl," and "I spent 27 days on a boat, I'm Haitian don't MESS with me" Ron.

Also: I am completely delighted that Rick Bayless won Top Chef Masters. 

Best. Week. Ever.

My son has fallen victim to a contagious disease rampant among schoolboys.  It's called Pokemon, and one of the symptoms is that the sufferer CAN NOT STOP talking about Pokemon.

I decided yesterday to attempt a radical therapy, one that has no chance of curing the Pokemon obsession but that would, I hoped, mitigate the verbal onslaught.  We were in the car, driving home from camp, and from the backseat my son kept up a steady monologue about Pokemon.

"...so you could have a fire type, or a psychic fire type!  Which one would you want?"

"Actually, I don't want either.  You know what?  I'm really not that interested in Pokemon. [deep breath]  You know what I am interested in?  PROJECT RUNWAY.  A new season is starting on TV this week and I'm so excited because it's been forever like MORE THAN A YEAR since the last season was on TV because the producers wanted to switch to a new channel and there were all these lawsuits but they're finally resolved and they filmed the new season a long time ago but they couldn't show it and the new season is starting on Thursday and it's gonna be awesome and on Thursday before the premiere there's going to be a special Project Runway All-Stars episode with a bunch of my favorite people from past seasons of Project Runway and I just CAN'T WAIT."  [runs out of steam]

From the backseat, a moment of stunned silence.

"Hey, guy?  Did you notice what just happened there?  How I wouldn't stop talking about something you're not interested in, and it was really boring?  That's how I feel, sometimes, when you talk about Pokemon."

Then for the rest of the evening and into this morning, we had conversations about subjects OTHER than Pokemon (or Project Runway), about matters such as the importance of frequently saving the files you're working on and whether putting too much jam on a sandwich qualifies as a mistake.

It's been pleasant, but I'm not going to delude myself into thinking that the Pokemon obsession is fading.  For that matter, I know that my cable TV compulsion is only going to grow stronger in the weeks to come.  You see, this week just might be the best week of cable reality programming EVER.  On Wednesday, Bravo will air the finale of Top Chef Masters AND the season premiere of Top Chef.  Then on Thursday, Lifetime will broadcast the aforementioned Project Runway premiere and the Project Runway All-Stars Special.

I have been working extra-hard on my ass in Pilates class, just to prepare it for all the gleeful couch-sitting to come.

The difference between being a child sufferer of Pokemon Obsession and being an adult stricken with Cablephelia is that as an adult, I can chose when and where to discuss my chosen subject matter.  I am choosing to discuss it here, on my blog (though you'll likely also see my comments if you are a reader of Endless Simmer or Tom&Lorenzo.)  So consider this fair warning: I intend to blog every episode of both Top Chef AND Project Runway.   

If you're not interested in those shows, could I tempt you with a guest post about Chimchar and Pikachu?