Ain't it Offal, Mabel?
Updated 2006-11-19 16:00:00
To make up for last week's anemic episode that resulted in zero eliminations, this week gives us a bloodbath of two knifings. The cheflebrity guest judge of the week is Michelle Bernstein of Michy's in Miami and Social in Miami and LA. She looks eerily like Sandra Bernhard. Oh, and speaking of eerie judges, what vol-au-vent crawled up Colicchio's ass this week? Dude was crazy mad at the Elimination!
Backtracking, the Quickfire, which was to make delicious delectables out of offal, gave Son of Sam the win and immunity. He did whip up some tasty looking, and sounding, Asian-themed fried sweetbreads. The theme of the night was leftovers (although considering the last five minutes, you'd think it was all about CHOICES!), which was the reason for the offal -- they are the leftover parts of an animal. The theme is further driven into the ground -- oops, I mean, "carried out" -- as the Elimination Challenge tasks the cheftestants with whipping up a lunch using whatever is left over in Social's ample pantry and walk-in from the night before. Although she's not a judge, the lunch is for Jennifer Coolidge's sixty closest friends, and Michael is just so geeked out (or toked up) to be cooking for Stifler's Mom. Yes, that is how he referred to her. Are you really that surprised?
Speaking of Michael, someone clearly lit a flambé under his ass this week, because gone are the messy and overcooked steak sandwiches and Cheeto penises stuffed in candy bar balls. They're replaced by a beautiful and refined tongue and tail soup (sounds sort of kinky when you think about it) and a well-executed paella. Sure, he worked with Ted Ilan on the paella -- just as all the cheftestants had to pair up for the challenge -- but Ted Ilan kept insisting throughout the episode how good Michael was, and I sort of, like, got to believing it and *****. Ted Ilan and Michael's Team Paella end up winning the whole bang shoot, but Ted Ilan is the one Michelle Bernstein picks to help out at the South Beach Food and Wine Festival.
Meanwhile, there are a lot of losers and a lot of yelling at those losers. Colicchio gets all worked up over the choices they made, Michelle is "angered" by the food they selected from the leftovers, and Gail announces (erroneously, see: sautéed pineapple) that Marisa and Josie didn't actually cook anything. Speaking of Marisa and Josie, they get kicked off. Their "uncooked" intermezzo didn't fly well with the judges, and they had to make up for last week's big zero, so they're both knife'd. I was so surprised, I nearly drooled on my pillow. I think there was a lot of reaching and drumming up in this episode and it actually sort of left me cold. Far too often this season the judges come up with contradictory reasons to critique and complain, but you'll have to read my full recap to find out those screaming details.