Wylie Dufresne, molecular gastronomist extraordinaire and sporter of the deconstructed fauxhawk (one step ahead of you, Richard), shows up to judge the Quickfire, which pits the cheftestants against ten ingredients: salt, pepper, sugar, olive oil and canola oil, and five more that they must choose at the local Green City farmer"s market. You"d think they"d be taken somewhere good, but judging by how disappointed everyone seems, it"s more like the tented version of a crappy corner shop. After accidentally tossing his salad, Mark wisely decides to resort to butter, which makes everything better.
Spike"s disappointing meat (as in what he bought at the market), Erik"s underwhelming lamb, and Richard"s oily chicken make it to Wylie"s bottom, while Andrew -- oh, Andrew -- gets disqualified for not listening. Mark pulls it out at the end, winning immunity for his buttery steak with turnips, mushrooms and peaches.
Elimination knife-drawing separates the group into five teams of three -- each named for an animal: vulture, bear, lion, penguin, and gorilla. Sadly, these aren"t the meats to be cooked -- the challenge is to cater a staff party at the Lincoln Park Zoo with finger foods inspired by what each animals eats. That, Padma, is truly high concept.
After $500 at Whole Foods, the teams spend three hours in the kitchen before they have to take their animal tasting menu to the zoo and set up catering stations and sell their dishes to 200 guests -- and four judges. Gail"s back this week, along with Padma, Colicchio and Dufresne.
Both birds fare well -- Andrew takes ultimate honors as leader of the Penguins. The Bears and the Gorillas end up in the losing half -- the former for a collaborative mushroom experiment gone wrong, and the latter for a watery crab salad (so, gorillas eat crabs?) and some badly-done blinis. Ultimately, Valerie goes packing, but not before getting upset at Antonia for throwing her under the bus, even though it ?s clear Antonia had nothing to do with the fact that Valerie"s blinis sucked.
There"s nothing more than innocent croc-swapping from the lesbian couple, but boy is there a whole lot of gay.