Top Chef, S9E11.

A recap of this week’s edition of Top Chef: Beverly…

* We lead in with residual bitterness from last week, when Beverly won on her dish, leading Lindsay and Sara to cry wee wee wee all the way back to San Antonio. Paul clearly thinks it’s funny that Beverly won. I think Paul is awesome for thinking that.

* Speaking of Paul and awesome, he’s waffling things for breakfast at the house. The Waffleizer would be proud.

* Quickfire: Grab ingredients off a fairly quick-moving conveyor belt and craft a dish using at least three of them. The belt has a weird mix of processed foods (I saw some Oreos on there; I’m offended that no one took them and sincerely hope they did not go to waste) and the occasional high-end item, like lobster, which provided perhaps the best comic relief of the season when Chris J. made like a cat chasing a laser pointer (except that eventually he caught one). But wasn’t there a general lack of proteins on the belt?

* I actually had no idea what whole bitter melon looked like, but I have eaten it … and it’s bitter. I have made that face that Eric Ripert made after tasting Paul’s deesh.

* Ed’s sauerkraut soup just sounded awful, as did Sara’s cottage cheese sauce (which Eric called “surprising,” but never said it was good). I like cottage cheese anyway, but it’s kind of grainy and lumpy, and I don’t know how you would get that smooth enough for a sauce.

* Ed’s comment that Bev should have cheated was funny, prescient, and wildly ignorant of the Defcon 5-level bitching that would have ensued had she done it. Although watching Sara’s head explode may have been worth it.

* Is it just me, or do they love to say that a chef DQ’d in a Quickfire would have won had s/he finished the dish? Bev just forgets one element, gets disqualified, and her Moriarty wins. But even Lindsay acknowledges in confessional that she came in second. Can she and Sarah finally shut it after Bev won an elimination challenge and had the best dish in the subsequent Quickfire?

* Did Padma get dressed in the dark for the Quickfire? My wife wondered if Padma was going to drive the train back to San Antonio after the show.

* I enjoyed the in-show commercial for this upcoming Snow White movie. Note: I may not actually have enjoyed this at all.

* Charlize Theron is lovely. But Seth Rogen and I still prefer Kate Beckinsale.

* I really don’t need to see the chefs’ phone calls home, although now that we know Chris J. is married, I have to say I can’t believe his wife hasn’t cut off his unicorn-ponytail in the middle of the night.

* Elimination challenge: Make a wickedly beautiful dish. How seven chefs took those instructions to Whole Foods without a single one of them even suggesting squid ink is beyond me.

* Beverly picked halibut as an FU to Lindsay. I don’t care what anyone says. And I fully respect this. Speaking of which, Bev using a ten-inch chef’s knife that looked longer than her forearm made me laugh.

* I had never heard of black chicken, but credit to Grayson for cooking something she apparently hadn’t tried before. The New York Times ran an article on these birds, properly called Silkie chickens, referring to their “deep, gamy flavor,” which says to me that they are probably easy to dry out if cooked incorrectly. Grayson seems more attractive now that I know she has a macabre sense of humor.

* Her table-side explanation was over the top, but Ed … come on already, the food’s getting cold.

* Charlize loves to eat, but weighs 90 pounds. Either she’s lying about how much she eats or she used her mirror-on-the-wall to steal the metabolism of a 15-year-old boy.

* Other elimination thoughts: Paul’s handprint was a brilliant touch, as was the off-to-one-side presentation, too gimmicky for a restaurant dish but perfect for this particular challenge … Chris’ apple-pie twist looked like it was rotting, which was a good thing for once; Tom was visibly giddy which he hasn’t been for anything all season … Sara’s risotto with amarone (a dry, Italian red wine – yes, I had to look it up) didn’t translate to TV; it looked mealy and clumpy like a thick sauce, but the judges loved the lamb heart and the presentation of the risotto, so it was probably just the difference between reality and TV … Beverly’s dish was the only one that didn’t seem “wicked” enough, with the dark element, forbidden rice, hidden under the halibut … Lindsay putting the spices from the stew on the dragon beans didn’t seem so revolutionary, but Tom thought it was, and his opinion matters more than mine does … After three dishes Parma looked worried because all three were too good. I don’t remember ever seeing that before.

* Very fun to see an episode where every chef nailed it. The judging snark is usually pretty entertaining, but to then see judges who can, at times, be quite vicious (especially Tom at several points this year) falling all over themselves to praise even the bottom three chefs made for one of the best episodes I’ve seen.

* Winner: Paul, proving once again he’s the guy to beat, since he can lose two elements and still win. This seems to me like Chris’s last stand; if he can’t win this challenge, perfectly suited to his mad-scientist-with-bad-hair approach, I don’t see him winning anything else.

* Judges’ table: I think the editing really did us a disservice here; the judges must have asked the three chefs to defend themselves, but we didn’t see that, only the defenses grafted awkwardly on to the end of the back-and-forth between the judges and chefs about the dishes. Beverly’s dish may have thickened as it cooled, a challenge of the competition but also not the greatest reason to go home. Is this really a coincidence that she barely missed immunity, and was then sent home? I suppose it is – Colicchio has always been adamant in defending the integrity of the show’s judging, which separates Top Chef from most reality competition shows – but that was the kind of drama a show like this wants to get word of mouth up. Also interesting to note that the male chefs clearly respected Beverly more than the female chefs did (including Grayson, who sideswiped Beverly at judging).

* Last Chance Kitchen: Just watch it. A photo finish. That’s real (TV) drama.

* Final three: Paul, Edward, (big gap), Lindsay. I still say Sara’s lack of range is her downfall.

* I don’t see a Hugh Acheson blog post this week, but reader Toby S. passes along this eatocracy piece by Hugh in which he puts down Paula Deen in a devastatingly polite manner.