I'm a fan of -- gasp! -- a reality show

Nair in the wrong person's shampoo?

 

Or she shaves her head in solidarity with Marcel.

She has been his protector to this point.

I thought Ilan's italian dressing foam was going to be a high point of the show, but that shit fizzled.

 

Holy crap, I just saw tonight's episode.

I reiterate: Holy crap!

 

It's a little disingenuous for the judges to complain about the contestants' behavior when they're put in a situation that makes a normal life almost impossible to lead. They're living with people they don't know, no contact with friends or family and limited access to the internet for the purposes of researching food. At some point, wouldn't you expect someone to snap? And isn't that pretty much the point of any Real World/Road Rules-style reality show? The judges are either deluded, liars or total 'tards to not have seen this coming.

So basically Cliff is David from Real World: Los Angeles, and Marcel is whoever the chick was from that episode.

I'm glad they let all four remaining contestants stick around, though I don't think Elia has the emotional strength to make it to the end. My Sam vs. Ilan finale prediction is looking pretty good, though I was starting to wonder after last week if Ilan had peaked and was letting his personality issues with Marcel get in his head (aborted Italian dressing foam).

 

Wow....That was just strange!!!

Was surprised Marcel accepted Cliff's apology (Not sure I could if I had been him).

But glad to see a "Final 4" that included Elia & Marcel.

Referring to same network, different upcoming show: Has anybody seen the promos for the new show they are having called "Top Design"? Those folks (a few of them) just seem plain nuts -- period! I think I will stay with "Top Chef".

 

I need to put in a vote for the female host, Padma, here. Talk about YUM!!!

 

I wasn't impressed, but her weird teeth and voice throw me off too much. You can have one or the other (Jewel) but not both. She's definitely cuter without the glasses, though.

New York has a couple of Top Chef items on their website involving the three I thought were hands-down the best from the moment I started watching (fifth episode, I think) -- Sam, Ilan and Cliff.

First up: they all hate Marcel. http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2007/01/top_chef8217s_marcel_doesnt_lo.html#more

And apparently, they don't think too much about Mrs. Salman Rushdie, though perhaps they were worried that the bounty on his head would extend to those checking out his wife's rack. http://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/26577/index.html

 

Judging by that, I think you can infer something.

Both Ilan and Cliff are mentioned with their current jobs. Sam is said as a "former executive chef."

Think that means he wins and is off to start his own kitchen??

 

It was an extremely strange episode. I'm not a big reality show follower other than this, but it's hard to imagine a contestant in any of them screwing up worse than Cliff did. Fortunately, it really seemed like the judges didn't like his entree, anyway, and so he might have been gone regardless.

 

Interesting point. The BravoTV.com profile of his lists him as an executive chef living in New York City, and if he were somewhere else, you'd think the magazine would mention it instead of leaving it at "former executive chef at Punch."

In any event, he seems to have come a long way from this: http://daily.nysun.com/Repository/getFiles.asp?Style=OliveXLib:ArticleToMail&Type=text/html&Path=NYS/2003/10/01&ID=Ar01901

EDIT TO ADD: This may not be the same Sam Talbot, but if it's not, it's a heck of a coincidence.

 

Looks enough like him in the pic, and there's no way some other guy has worked at restaurants like that, offers food like that, and isn't Our Boy Talbot.

 

That's what I thought at first, but on his video intro on Bravo's website, he talks about growing up in Charlotte and getting his first taste of restauranting in Charleston, S.C., which is a far cry from the Iron Chef Chinese-inspired Boston native that sells kim chi hot dogs and Korean barbeque on the street.

Of course, one or both of his backstories could be total b.s. For all we know, he could have gotten his start at a Greyhound cafeteria in North Platte, Neb. when he fell asleep in the back of a bus he thought was being fixed but was instead headed to New York City. Once there, with no money to get back home, he found an abandoned pushcart, fixed it up, used the last of his credit card space to buy chicken wings, hot dogs and safety goggles and became Gotham's "it" street vendor, sleeping with random hot chicks every night because he's a good-looking guy and a homeless one to boot. Tom Colicchio buys a couple of dogs with sesame spinach and pickled daikon radish, invites him to try out for Top Chef 2 and the rest is culinary-reality history.