Last week’s double elimination leads us to the first episode I’ve actually been looking forward to: the episode with Anthony Motherfucking Bourdain as a guest judge! Chef Bourdain, for those unfamiliar is the badboy of cuisine. He’s crasser than Gordon Ramsey, more infectious than Rachael Ray, more Italian than Giada DeLourentis and cooler than Alton Brown. He’s written several books as well as cookbooks and has starred in two television shows in addition to having some of his memoirs made into a short-lived Fox sitcom (redundant, I know). Plainly stated: Anthony Bourdain is god.

Quickfire Challenge

So our chefs assemble in the Kenmore Elite by Sears Roebuck & Co kitchen and Padma and Tom are waiting for them. The Quickfire Challenge this week is to assemble something that resembles food from canned goods, stacked on a table behind our hosts. They chose canned goods because it’s Thanksgiving time and everyone on the show should be thankful they’re not on a show with Howie Mandel or Bob Sagat. Chef Tom will be judging the challenge which automagically disappointed Captain Obvious cause… where the fuck is Bourdain?! Anyhow, they scurry like pigs to suckle, snatching up the prerequisite three cans of food and we’re off.

Right off the bat Mia is surprised that people are trying to create hot dishes in only 15 minutes. Perhaps someone should remind her that last week Marisa and Horseteeth served cold and got their pompous asses punted as a result. The chefs worked fast and by the end Cliff had concocted a potato and sauteed anchoy dish, Betty made lemon hummus with artichoke hearts (which sound really good right now) and Sam did a garbanzo and beet salad with anchovies. Marcel did hearts of palm and clams with coconut milk and a touch of orange, Mia did a cold bean salad with mint, Ilan did a spinach and bean salad with sauteed Vienna sausage, Elia did a creamy fruit salad with… meaty hash? Uhm, Carlos did some pasta puttanesca, Frank pulled a fruit and coconut salad with blueberry cream and my dark horse Michael did mashed potatoes and bacon wrapped corn.

Yes, bacon wrapped corn. The Captain loves ya, Mike. Keep up the good work.
Anyhoo, they announce Sam the winner but what ho! Mia is also a winner! And Cliff! And Ilan! And Frank! It’s like motherfucking Oprah was up in this bitch giving away cars. Left out of the winner parade was Betty, Marcel, Elia, Carlos and Mike. Oh. That would make them the losers.

Elimination Challenge

So that brings us to the Hummer H3 Toyota DeLorean PopAssault Elimination challenge. The five losers have to cook an avant garde take on Thanksgiving flavors for the five winners and judges. The winners got the day off to deliver some canned goods to a shelter and to relax. Quoteth Carlos, “I think it’s oxymoronic to make a cutting edge Thanksgiving dinner.” Well Captain Obvious thinks it’s oxymoronic that such straight-up bad cooking can be done by such a gay man. Eat it, Chuckie.

The losers, of which Carlos was one, had one hour to prep that night and then four hours to cook the next day. Planning for the meal was absolute chaos with Betty immediately trying to insert her pushy ass into the leadership role. Unfortunately, Betty’s idea of leadership was shooting down everyone else’s ideas for her own and excluding Michael from even contributing. To hell with Betty, I hope she cuts her damn hand off.

In the end the group decided to just assign courses to individuals with Elia getting soup, Carlos the salad as no one else would do it, Marcel the entree, Michael the appetizers and in-betweens and Betty the desert cause god knows Betty is teh best desert person evarrr. Yeah.

Elia was pissed more than anything. She was disappointed Tom didn’t like her Quickfire creation and was on a crash course to getting herself tossed by revealing she really didn’t care about the challenge or cooking, she was that demotivated. Personally I couldn’t care less so to hell with her too.

They split the group into Marcel/Michael and everyone else. Marcel and Mike take the small kitchen in the loft, the rest of the group the larger kitchen. In addition to being better equipped, the larger kitchen also has the advantage of being clean while the smaller kitchen had personal effects all over the place, detracting from Mike and Marcel’s already shrinking cooking time. Once they had cleared off the stove and counter tops Mike and Marcel got to work on their own dishes while in the larger the kitchen the three stooges were acting like retards.

See Elia goes batshit insane wiping melted chocolate on her face and others. They all share a laugh. Thankfully we don’t have to watch it for too long and instead see the winners dining in luxury at a hotel restaurant.

The four hours go quickly and, with the exception of Frank getting pissed Marcel moved his toothbrush (uhm, maybe leave it in the BATHROOM ya mook) the cooking was uneventful. Finally Bourdain was brought in to meet the chefs and the show got much more bearable. There’s just something about Anthony Bourdain that improves anything he appears in. I’m fairly certain he could’ve saved Gigli, Deck The Halls or even Battlefield Earth, had he the chance to appear in them.

The rest of the show blurred into a slurry of Thanksgiving dishes. The group, with the exception of Marcel completely missed the point of the challenge and what avant garde means. Michael, god bless his retarded soul served a turkey hors d’oeuvre that actually passed for edible. Go Mike! Carlos followed up with the laziest, most horrible tossed green salad with sauteed squash. He had an hour to prepare and four hours to make this thing and it was the most basic, uninspired pile of drek imaginable. The soup Elia spanked out was a nice combination of cream and mushrooms and while simple, apparently made up for its lack of innovation with a very pleasing taste.

Mike uneiled his next combination, a duet of potatoes, one twice baked, one mashed. The table scoffed but Bourdain said it was the tastiest thing he’d had and that somehow, in some twisted way he liked Michael for his no-apologies, take it or leave it approach to cooking. Marcel then brought his entree, a turkey roulade with this frilly cranberry gelee with cranberry foam. Pretentious and probably exactly what the judges wanted to see from the chefs in this challenge. They complained the turkey was dry but at least it was avant garde.
Betty finished things off with a pumpkin creme brulee that amounted to more of a pudding with burnt sugar on top than a brulee. That capped off a disappointing dinner but seriously, what do you expect when you make losers cook?

Judges Table

The judges got together and talked it over. They decided of the five that Marcel and Elia were safe as Marcel at least got the point and Elia made something tasty. Mike, they concluded, was also safe against Chef Tom’s wishes. I think Tom doesn’t like Mike but he’d better get used to him as he’s in this for the long haul. That left Betty’s horrid and misconceived dessert and Carlos’ lazy, inconceived salad. They asked the three bottoms who should go, Betty said she’d rather not say, Mike said Carlos, Carlos said Betty and suddenly Betty had an opinion and decried “Carlos gotta go!”

Well thank you, Betty. After thinking about it the judges agreed and Carlos was sent packing. Fare thee well, Carlosito, you were here but you will not be missed. And then there were nine.