Top Chef-a-Palooza!

So first, some kind of cool news. 

For Season 4 of Top Chef, I will get to do the interviews with the eliminated chefs the day after the show, and Buddy will post the audio and transcripts of the interviews.  Check me out, yo.

I will also be doing Live Thoughts (BuddyTV has a nearly-real time recap put up of most major competitive reality shows) on the Eastern feed and/or an overall recap of the show.  During the season, I’ll post links to all on this site as well.  I’ve been a little recapped out lately (other than meditation and talking to dull people, it’s like the least ADD-friendly activity I’ve ever undertaken) but for Top Chef I am willing to use up my precious attention stores.

Second, the premiere date for Season 4 has been changed to Wednesday, March 12.  I think Bravo was going to try to stick a little awards show in there between the end of Project Runway (um, aside: WTF?  A Ricky win?!?!) and the start of Top Chef, but one more thing the writers’ strike impacted. 

Third, the cast for Season 4 has been announced.  I have not yet had time to do an in-depth analysis of which chefs I will form crushes on, BUT, I will say this:

I CAN'T TAKE ANOTHER SEASON WITH FAUX HAWKS.

 

(Richard and Jennifer from upcoming Season 4 of Top Chef)

Aggressive cutesy hairstyles only lead to your competitors getting drunk, trying to forcibly shave your head, and getting kicked off the show.  Oh.  Wait.  So maybe having an annoying hairstyle is actually a strategy. 

Lastly, had another Top Chef article due this week, so found an interview with this dude, who is, in fact, a chef I do NOT have a crush on:

Sam Talbot from Season 2 of Top Chef.  I mean a) lord, too obvious, b) bracelets? really? and c) not nearly stoic enough.  I mean, for such a man-sized man, he kind of had a tendency to punk out when cornered in judging. 

Also, I always wondered if it were some kind of envy or humorless feminazism on my part that I find it so distasteful when hot girls talk about all the stuff they get just for being hot girls. But then in one of Sam’s early Top Chef interviews, he talked about how he uses his hunkiness to his advantage as a chef.  While I know enough about reality TV to know he was probably poked with a stick by a producer until he said that in the gross specific way he did, I still found kind of oogy that he could be poked into saying it at all.  AND! I also found it just as distasteful as I find it when women do it.  Equal opportunity disapproval!  So apparently my reaction is just my usual aversion to in-born privilege as opposed to anything gender-specific.

But anyway… 

He recently gave an interview as he heads down to Naples for their Winter Wine Festival, being held January 25 -27.  He will be cooking with the dreamy Harold and Tom Colicchio, who IS another chef upon whom I - and, apparently, possibly, the bear-appreciation community - have a celebrity crush.

Sam says he’s making a course of marinated tuna with gingered apples and I will begrudgingly say that sounds awfully tasty right now. 

(There will be representation among the celebrity chefs from the Seattle area.  Thierry Rautureau from Rover’s will be in attendance as well.)

That is all!