MamaPop™

Top Chef Vegas Episode 3 Obsevations: Thunderbirds Recap

I'm still loving Top Chef Season 6. The competition this year is intense and the dead weight is being weeded out quickly.

Observations during the Quickfire:

1) Mike - You don't have to be a douche. Even if you want to educate the audience on risotto there are considerably more charming ways to do so. Instead you just come off like an asshole.

2) Ashley is really sweaty, but she made her own cheese, so that is something.

3) If I were Ashley I would have beaten the crap out of Preeti for being and idiot and stealing my water.

4) Poor Jesse. She isn't going to last long. I actually almost feel sorry for her. She always knows what she did wrong, but she always does something wrong.

5) Mark Peel seems know that he is a badass.

6) The Essence of the Potato - I changed my mind about what I am going to name my band.

Observations during the Elimination Challenge:

Top Chef Vegas Episode 2 Recap: The Bachelor/ette Party

It all began with the high stakes quick fire. The contestants walked into the kitchen and were greeted by Todd English and a big ass craps table.

They had to roll the dice to see how many ingredients they could use in their dish (salt, pepper and oil were freebies) which they had to make out of things they found in the pantry. Nobody wanted to roll a two and nobody wanted to roll a 12 but everybody wanted to win the $15,000.

Poor Laurine got a three, so she made a soup out of asparagus, leeks and lemon.

(spoilers after the break)

Giada de Laurentiis' Cleavage is Out To Get Us

What do you think of Giada de Laurentiis' cleavage? When you see the Food Network chef's bosoms, does it make you reach for a nice Chianti, or do you find it disturbing and start to feel funny down there? At least one person watching doesn't appreciate Giada tossing her big, ripe tomatoes in with the pasta, and they've started a petition to stop her from corrupting the planet.

Called the 'Cover Giada De Laurentiis's Cleavage on Food Network' campaign, it aims to keep the Everyday Italian star from using her boobies to destroy unsuspecting minds. Here's the compelling argument:

The Technicolor Yawn in Technicolor: The Top 6 Instances Of Puking On Film

How did you sleep last night? I ask because I didn't — in large part because I spent most of it awake with a 4-year old who was apparently trying to turn herself inside-out. The good news is that while I was enjoying this extended dance remix tour of my daughter's digestive system, my thoughts wandered to the many and splendored ways that this particular facet of existence has been illuminated on film over the years. In some contexts, it has been treated as comedy. In others, it's an element of high drama or great horror. But no matter how it is presented, these scenes create a portrayal of humanity at its most vulnerable — and, in the process, may even teach us a little something about ourselves.

(cue: a very special episode music...)

• Team America
I can only presume that you're already familiar with Team America, the Academy Award-winning geopolitical documentary featuring hardcore puppet sex. Lovingly crafted by the sensitive minds behind South Park, Team America features an entire galaxy of stars (my personal favorite: Matt Damon), the Eiffel Tower getting blown to smithereens, and a scene in which our hero Gary - having descended into alcoholism - hits bottom and proceeds to engage in a bout of epic vomiting that must been seen to be believed. 56. Full. Seconds. Of. Puppet. Vomiting. So staggering is this mannequinamation expurgation of effluvia that its status as the ne plus ultra of onscreen hurling is challenged by only a single precedent...

Quit Trying to Make Pop Songs Out of Jingles

Remember in Mean Girls, how Gretchen Wieners, Toaster Strudel Heiress, kept trying to make, "fetch" happen? As in, "That is SO fetch!" Until finally Regina George told her, "Stop trying to make 'fetch' happen! It's not going to happen!"

That's how I'm starting to feel about commercials that try to make their jingles into pop culture institutions.

Adios, Gidget

Gidget, the chihuahua who became a star in those ubiquitous Taco Bell commercials, has died from a stroke at the age of 16. I've never written a tribute to a dog, but I felt like this one had to be written. After all, with all the Carne Asada Chalupas and Burrito Supremes I've scarfed down over the years, Gidget's death feels like a major passing (no pun intended.) Sort of like how some of you KFC eaters might have felt when Colonel Sanders kicked the bucket (again, no pun intended.)

Ice Skater Brian Boitano to Host Cooking Show, Thus Making the Lord's Creation Complete

Many years ago, some hopeful young lads from the town of South Park asked themselves, "What would Brian Boitano do?" Based on his experiences in the 1988 Winter Olympics, fighting grizzly bears with his fire breath, fighting the evil robot kings of the future, and building the Great Pyramids of Egypt and defeating Kublai Khan in the process, Brian Boitano rose to prominence as a wise sage and prophet, just like Jesus and those other dudes.
Now he turns his powers to the insurmountable challenge of....PAELLA! AUUGGHHHH!!!!!

Turns Out Gordon Ramsay Really IS an Asshole

Warning: The following contains numerous gratuitous, sometimes annoying food references.

Ever since Matlock went off the air I'd been looking for a new TV show to occupy my time. That changed a few years ago when Hell's Kitchen came on the scene and I'd tune in every week to see Gordon Ramsay berate, belittle and bully his lowly contestants until they cried salty tears into their béarnaise sauce and became hallowed-out chicken carcasses of their former selves.  It was so fun! And the part at the end where the loser's picture catches on fire? That was awesome and stuff.

But I always thought the whole angriest-man-in-the-world thing was just an act.  I figured that after the cameras stopped rolling Ramsay would get everyone in a group hug, dry their tears with the edge of his apron and they'd all pile into his Prius and go get some fro yo.

Apparently I was wrong.

Top Chef Masters? Bravo Has Been Reading My Diary Again.

I think I actually squealed a little bit when I saw the first commercial for Top Chef Masters. I'm not sure when exactly I became such a food reality tv junkie, but Top Chef is my favorite show, and I am a sucker for celebrity chefs (did I ever tell you about the time I saw Wylie Dufrense on the train from DC to New York?) so this show was made for me.

According to Bravo's website "Top Chef Masters will pit 24 world-renowned chefs against each other and see how well they fare in the tried and true format of Top Chef. In each episode, money will be at stake for the chefs, with the winners of eliminations being awarded cash donations for their charities."

And a shitload of publicity for their restaurants. It is a win/win/win situation. Top Chef and Bravo get the viewers, the chefs get the free advertising and patronage and I get a bonus season of Top Chef.

So who did they get to participate?

Factory Farming Partially to Blame for Swine Flu?

I am already so sick of hearing about swine flu. On the off-chance that this really is the pandemic that wipes us all out, I will gladly accept many I-told-you-sos. For now, I'm leaning toward believing that it's a "glamorous" story that the media can beat to death.

It is a serious issue, though, particularly for people living and working in Mexico, who have been the hardest hit by the illness. As of today, 152 deaths and 1,600 illnesses are believed to be swine flu.

Residents and workers near a Smithfield Foods plant in Perote, Mexico, think that the factory-farming giant may be at least partially to blame for the outbreak.

Because We Think You're Stupid: Cherry 7Up Antioxidant

You know, for those of us who want a little Vitamin E with our high fructose corn syrup and red dye #40. Or our aspartame, if we're talking about the diet version.

100% Natural Flavors, people!

God, 7Up thinks we sure are dumb as stumps, huh?

Padma Lakshmi Should Be Better than Hardee's

I will admit it right here and now. I have a girl crush on Padma Lakshmi. She is beautiful, she is well-spoken, she knows a lot about food, she is on my favorite TV show - Top Chef.

I would have thought that she was above peddling a Hardee's Western Bacon Thickburger.

I would have been wrong.

(food porn video after the jump)

The End Is Officially Nigh: Bacon Logs Beget Book Deal

Don't get me wrong. I love bacon. I am a bacon fan. A bacon connoisseur. A champion for the right to consume smoked pork products.

However, I am also a firm believer that bacon is a sometimes food. Sausage, too.  While bacon and sausage are always — ALWAYS — welcome components to a savory dish, they are invariably poor choices for main ingredients. Both are greasy,  shrink to half their uncooked masses, possess overpowering flavors and, of course, contain enough cholesterol to render them literally heart-stopping in large enough doses, over time.

However, the bacon fandom on the internet has quickly risen to the state of lunacy, as bacon afficianados strive for new ways to make bacon just capital W Wrong. Ladies and gentleman, I present Bacon Explosion, a sausage and bacon LOG:

Stir it Up. Praise Jah Coffee!

I and I like a good cup of coffee come the morning.

Fortunately for me, ahem I, Rohan Marley (son of Bob Marley, former linebacker at The University of Miami, Lauryn Hill's baby daddy times five and brother of Ziggy) has been up in the Blue Mountains of Jamaica growing organic coffee and figuring out a way to turn a profit off of his late father's fame.

But wait! There's more!

PETA Stands for Privileged Ecru Turd A-holes

"Ecru" because there's no W in PETA to stand for "white" but you get my drift.

My fellow MamaPop writers have already expressed their disdain for PETA and their "tactics," but allow me to add my voice to the choir.

Pizza Hut Punks Italians

Another day, another fast food chain making me roll my eyes with their advertising campaign...