HappyDancex2

The incarceration specialist was awesome. When he yelled he was going to call 5 hookers he knew I was going to spit my water out. Less talking, more sex!! Thank god the Cary incarceration story is done. It was full of holes anyway, other than allowing Matt to unleash some acting chops. Wrapped up oddly but I'll take it...let's move on. Every scene with Bishop makes my toes curl with tension. Did anyone else kind of jump when he reappeared in the kitchen?? He kind of did a weird counterclockwise loop. That dude makes my skin crawl.

The people on reality shows tend to be ok with drama for dramas sake because they know the camera doesn't want to watch them on the couch eating Cheetos. So then they take part in a storyline...and then try to outdo each other with the name calling. Brandi loves to say things just for effect then play the victim. She's a train wreck and is well casted for this show for drama. Have never seen the Atlanta housewives but I guess they are even worse, which is scary. I've never see Kate plus 8 but I guess her being on here just keeps extending her 15 minutes of fame. She was on DWTS a too. She needs her roots done. Vivica looks like a firecracker too. Ivanka looks lovely as always. She's just so darn pretty! Is there a singer this year?

I missed the intros and caught this late but I was amused at a newer level of incompetence than in the past. If they are faking or even play faking they sure come up with some new things to suck at!! Thought it was interesting that Anne was harping on sanitation but it's good for these guys to learn theoretically what to do/not do....plus good cleanliness handling poultry etc. That being said, all pro chefs on these cooking shows (including her) have tasted something and dumped what is left on the spoon back into the pot. Top Chef is the worst offender, which lets you know what's going on in real kitchens. There has been a trend in the last few years about using tasting spoons for TV though, on the Food Network. And they really have stopped people from tasting food off their fingers on TV, even though that's the old school way things were/are done.

What first struck me was all the plastic facial surgery. I fear that we view these celeb faces with such regularity that Mr. Potato Cat Face is no longer even snarkworthy. Second, wow what a cast of catty famewhores. If backstabbing, name calling, yelling and lack of sheer logic is not your cuppa, then you might want to exit now. The RH women alone are going to pull the pin on the grenade and jump in, not walk away. Brandi was the reason I had to stop watching RHBH....literally there was shrill screaming on every episode. I'm scared. Lorenzo Lamas? Every time I see him, I think of my spirit animal. Not all of the challenges are fund raiser dominant so it allows other non cash cows to lead. If Keisha had seen the show, she would have known this. Fund raiser with 30K? Never. I like the fight she put up at the end though. I actually thought for 3 seconds that Trump might keep her and fire the quiet girl because the show normally needs drama but this season? No extra drama necessary. Fur will fly.

The guy stuffing the pork loin with pork sausage for the "pork on pork action" complete with requisite porn musi?.....icky and hilarious at the same time. Symon putting that champagne bottle in the clam pan was awesome. Normally the guest master classes can be a bit slow but since Mike is such a seasoned vet in both quick TV cooking, explaining and hosting it was fun to watch. Nigella couldn't teach her how to make a sabayon in that amount of time? Baffling. And the look when Nigella's last cook got the boot? " oh well I'm used to it...." Sheesh not a ringing endorsement there. How about a sub of a female chef who is not a home cook? Send Nigella off to Top Chef so she can judge food and languidly spell herself on a couch. Why does Nigella invade your personal space while cooking? Cooking on a show is stressful enough but to have someone on top of you, smothering you with negatives and constant comments of how much pressure there is? Yikes. Please go away. How is that mentoring??? Was that the dish that Symon described as "some kind of sabayon sauce I think....??" V neck tshirt with sweaty chest hair? Ugh.

I do agree that Bobby was a good addition to this show but how many shows is he on??? I'm watching the rebroad of last season with Nails and Flight Attendant and in the episode where they cook for their loved ones they use a gazillion pans. Watching Nails use 3 different skillets for each of her chicken breasts...when they are all done plating it looks like a kitchen pan/utensil nightmare!! If you can't cook 3 portions of chicken parm without decimating a kitchen the clean up each time will ruin your will to cook. Let's get real...these guys aren't going to go home and really get food on the plate with any regularity but maybe cutting down on take out once a quarter is the reality LOL!!! I agree with the above poster that last season was the height of stereotype casting....seems like the trend with most shows nowadays. It's like they don't trust that we the viewing audience will be entertained enough from the premise of the story and gasp, actual cooking....we need sob stories and over the top personalities.

Padma being past her prime for the ladies of Gronk is not snark on Padma, it's snark on Gronk. Padma is fine...she's a tall, supermodelesque Indian lady...it's only been on recent seasons where she has just seemed to be more haughty in her judgements. I think the perception is that she may not be well liked but I can only speak for myself that she is the constant. Each season there are comments on cheftestants physical appearances or quirks, voice, sweating, bugaboos...whatever. Plus Padma. x16 seasons. Or whatever. So it seems like it's a pile on for Padma...but it's not. She's just in every episode and top chef is getting a little stale so it just seems like there are a lot of comments about her. It's really the same comments, each season. There isn't a lot of stuff going on in these final seasons of Top Chef so we are starting to pick on the minutiae of this series. Padma isn't any more off limits than snarking about greasy haired dude's greasy ass hair, Mei's resting bitchface, Melissa's hair, the blonde girl's legs....let's face it, Top chef isn't quite as compelling as it once was. Every time I think it's the last season, I get sucked back in by some decent episodes! But Gail isn't really evolving where she's that snark worthy....and Tom is pretty steady too. The guy is barely aging and he's not even losing his hair. Ha. Padma wearing striped pants or skin tight overalls is all that goes on sometimes. Boring quick fire, Katsuji's babbles, greasy haired chefs, people stealing clams...I mean there isn't much to work with!! Thank goodness Padma gives us something to comment about other than the ridiculous product placement sponsor challenges of meh.

I would have picked Stephen king and done "IT." Put a clown face on a plate and rammed a knife onto a wooden board? Nailed it! Padma doesn't realize she's far past her prime for the ladies of Gronk. That was awkward. Comments are one thing but let's do away with the skits please.

Just watched it and all I can say is Dear Editors of TAR, please don't show the racers talking heads after the race spliced into the actual race. If you want the "what were they thinking" narrative then please use them as voiceovers. It was pretty easy to tell from the editing who had won just by the facial expressions. And then the obvious editing of the wrestlers being asses in the airport and the teeth kind of being snarky pile ons....I was actually hoping that was a misdirect but it turned out to be more than true.

George sliding in this late in the game really is a disservice to everyone else who competed through all of the challenges. I thought I was ok with it but he clearly feels like his being booted and missing out is some type of emotional equivalence. For as hard as Padma and others were commenting on Gregory's lack of obvious plating, Melissa's was equally as nondescript. Difference was hers tasted better and she crafted a better story. Padma. Such Awkward Guacamole. I love that she's always up for putting it up there and playing the role.

I think Adam just had a crappy attitude about it starting when Blaise said "Hope you like the vitamin aisle!" Doug had the same constraints and won. It's not like they were required to use liquid nitrogen or powdered binding agents. And god forbid if you look at bonito flakes as something so outside of your comfort zone? Puleeze. Upon replay Adam squarely says "ultimately i wanted to focus on the peppadew more than anything else." He DID say that right? Those are those little red peppers sitting in a jar in my fridge? Why would that be the focus of anything? He also said something that sounded similar to peppadew as the name of his dish...like it was a dish of some sort that I'm not familiar with. Peparade? Can someone who DVRed it see what they named his dish? I know he defended that it was a flashed marinade on the shrimp. I can imagine that people who ate that basically raw shrimp had some GI issues that night. Most raw shrimp is not suitable as a crudo preparation. And a flash of hot oil is not cooking it. Portion size was about half of one though so...ate least not too much portion. Ugh. Super Fans is a much better description than Foodies. Nice that Padma had enough chiles to "kill a village." She did manage to render useless a bunch of fish who needless died so she could be flighty.

Adam weeping at the end was heartbreaking. He looked like he went somewhere when he got PYKAGed. Poor dude. He had way too many snarky talking heads this episode though. Interesting Dougie in the bottom for the QF but then won the challenge. Adam was in the top of the QF and went home. I thought Melissa was going to be eliminated. Shrimp and Salad? Meh. or Mei. Speaking of Mei, she had an off day. Gregory - This is Top Chef! This is not Top Coconut Milk.

More concerning is does Bethany own a bra with some support? I was impressed the wrestlers banged out that fishy dirty water challenge. Those buckets looked heavy and unwieldy and then the next challenge was slogging thru deep mud steering an ox. Long day! I don't care for them but am impressed at the endurance. Shocked that the dentists are in their 30s. I thought they were in their 50s talking about their grandkids! Misti's hair and cake up screams aging.

Well keriann must have this Reheated Crepes thing in her reportoire because she didn't seem concerned. I had no idea nor wanting notion that it would work. If I have to reheat crepes then I'm picking something else. She also could have just said I don't have any Asian dessert but I can do something Asian for an app so someone else take dessert. She magellaned her ass out of there in those ridiculous heels! On rewatch it actually seemed like the edit pointed to Gregory being the first one to say to reheat KeriAnns mess.

That was a brutal 2 hours that should have been edited down to one hour. Fake conflict, needless resolution....Complete with the graphic "5 hours later." I kept waiting for the tiff to mean something but it never did. And at the end? Two nauseating "I love yous" from 2 really vapid people.

Did the producers craft her glowering and saying "Beverrrrlllllly.." In that condescending voice?? Went to Sheldon's Migrant and he was there cooking. The sunset views are incredible and you start with chicharones and some kind of vinegar dipping sauce. Really quite tasty. His food was very good and I'd go back again just for the KFC a...Korean Fried Chicken which I think he did on the show. What his restaurant lacks is even service. The one woman who greeted us was warm welcoming, professional and told us what was going on that night. However there was this other frizzy curly blond haired girl who was working the check in stand and she was rough around the edges to be kind. Her manner was abrupt which is not a good first impression. Same with the servers. The chicharones, water, food runners etc were all done by great servers...our night they were all male. We witnessed 2 actual female table servers who we assumed were put in the position to interact with the guests. Ours was a ditzy train wreck who had a flighty kumbaya vibe to her. If you told me she was under the influence It would have answered a lot of questions! She didn't know the menu very well, clueless on preparation, just was mailing it in. im sure they are pooling tips and she's not helping the cause. She should be running food and filling water. The table next to us got a local girl who was on top of it...made suggestions, gave opinions, described the dishes, suggested beer...totally did a smooth upsell yet provided great service. Ours was in the corner with the blonde greeter yapping. Couldn't be more night and day. So go for the food and pray you get good service! Our hotel said that's the main complaint there...crummy service.

Gregory has lost his mojo. How quickly they cower. Katie's voice was very Teaching Kindergarten. If there is a problem spell it out and solve it...stop trying to smile and pacify through it. Ugh. It was nice to see a team work so well through RW. Refreshing. Nice tip on the nitro butter too. Glad to see Doug do well. I know its Katsuji's brand of humor with the short jokes but since he's no tall guy himself, it makes sense that he's so condescending. He's as ass. He buried himself with the whole "I could make the crepes to order but I do volunteer? Nooooooo". Whatever. Padma so entitled. " it's been a long time since I had to fight for a table." Eye roll. I know it's shocking Padma but the fake servers cast for this episode are actors and might not know who you are. The judges always love a cardamom splashed dessert. And not too sweet. The ocd helped the team win but the fact that he did that 2 finger lick and smooth down eyebrow gesture....twice this episode was downright....strange. But he had otherwise great energy and real attention to detail. I guess when you watch/work with the best with his pedigree it helps out. Adam has a lot of experience and it showed tonight. He ran circles around KeriAnns non training and Katie's pop up restaurant kumbaya style.

Sadie did seem tense or low energy for the finals last day...maybe she was just exhausted but her smile was a bit forced and something seemed a bit off. It's a lot for a young lady. I remember when she was on the bottom the the first time and was freaking out and the guys had to give her tons of reassurance. I didn't think she was going to be able to handle the stress and see the show for what it was. I didn't mean to imply Disney as a group of young ringers as a whole...not literally anyway. I was mentioning it as a sweeping notion since Abc/Disney using Disney as an obvious applicant pool to grab future dancers. No different than using ABC shows as potential places to grab young but relatively obscure actors. But hey, as long as it's a big popularity contest and they need fodder, they can hire up any kids they want. I don't care about watching their arcs. Give me an out of shape dude with a tap background any day! I missed the first 10 seconds I think of the show...did it start with Lolo? Or did we just get that ever brief look at her in the skybox?

Alfonso is a dancetastic ringer compared the Randy Couture, Antonio Sabato, Michael Waltrips etc. of the world. I'm ok with him winning because at least he's past his prime of that component...he was a child dancer and eventually life took over and he got heavier and out of shape. That's a middle aged redemption arc that many people can relate to. One can argue Lea had the same dance background but a little bit older and less out of shape weight wise....but for whatever reason did not manage to connect with the audience. To me her facial expressions were trying too hard to be sexy cougarish and I never felt compelled to see her finish her personal arc. I think when you bring on the younger Disney kids like Zendaya or Corbin it's that they have a dance background and they are young. There isn't much to root for there...it's much like just rooting for someone else's kids which is fine and polite and a nice thing to do but this show is barely an amateur contest of pure non dancers anymore....do we have to add insult to injury by bringing on kids who dance?? And in the end it hurts the show more because I think less adults or big name stars/athletes are going to want to come on if pitted against kids. I can easily see someone saying "Oh I can take Alfonso Ribeiro. He's old and out of shape...I'll out dance him!" A bigger named star will have a bigger ego. Heck if they cast underage you can't even trash talk them...it would be like taunting a kid. I hope the anniversary season casts well and picks an identity. If they are casting youth and twitter and all of that then so be it. But don't bemoan well known stars (as CAI said she was disappointed when she saw the list and didn't know who most of the people were...). Get an A lister and they will attract other A listers.

My DVR cut off the end of Alfonso's dance. Grrrrrrr. I did manage to find it on youtube including the elimination part since I was unspoiled. Shocked to see Golden Boy get the boot! I think Val really only had one route to go with his freestyle. With Janel missing 3 days there was no way to do a heavy production number with too many variable. So he stripped it down and added a few cool moves and went with their strength in connection. She's totally into him so play the cards you are dealt so to speak. She really doesn't have a story or redemption arc or anything real interesting about her for fake reality TV LOL. I thought the Super Mario dance was cute and appropriate for Sadie. She isn't the best dancer left, she's young so there is no "connection/stripping down" possibilities for a spotlight dance. So he went with a gimmick and he likes choreo gimmicks anyway. I loved that his denim had sparkle thread running through it...played well on TV. Sadie is young and doesn't have much developed muscle tone and it showed at the end but she still has a nice story arc. I'm glad Alfonso and Wit didn't tap into the Carleton at all...it's played out so leave it in the past....and a zillion views on youtube!! But he gave us Apache so that was a nice shout out to the Fresh Prince show as well. His freestyle was the most typical or expected by the fans and he and Witney seem like fun and delightful partners. I hope he wins.

Carried over from the off topic gluten thread....LOL....I can answer a few questions on gluten free or celiac cooking/some baking. The question was bread and Udis and if you like that flavor then buying it is probably easier and cheaper. IMO if you aren't well versed in GF cooking and baking then bread is never a good place to start. It's very finicky and has a propensity to get dense. There are a lot of udi level breads on the market....canyon bake house is good and Rudis is also decent. Banana breads on the other hand need no gluten so it's very easy to get results that are as good if not better. You may notice that banana, zucchini breads...brownies etc. are pretty mainstream. Namaste brand makes nice cheater mixes. GF Jules is good for tapioca mixes. If you can eat dairy then Cup for Cup or King Arthur has a good cup for cup substitute. You can also find flour mixes and remade GF bread, including Udis at Costco. To the poster wondering if gluten breaks down at the Thai restaurant my answer would be they have to substitute soy sauce with gluten free Tamari and use a clean pan. Soy sauce is always a no. And not soften the rice noodles in the same boiling water as the wheat noodles. And a few Thai places use a fish sauce that contains wheat. However many thai dishes are inherently GF...green curries are usually a good bet with white rice. If you are celiac I would pass unless you are comfy with the kitchen. 2 dishes easy to reproduce at home are Singapore chow fun (Chinese curried noodles with shrimp, ham and veg) and Thai curries using paste from the grocery store or world market.

I was hopeful but then disappointed at Melissa's veg attempt. Unless it was edited oddly the same size cuts was not a showcase in technique at this level....I'm always looking for a fantastic veggie dish win! Or at least when I think it was that chick who won Sheldon's season who made the perfectly roasted mushroom side dish at Canalis in Seattle, they were impressed in execution of technique. Shrooms get cold, soggy and shrively pretty fast after they reached that magic carmelized stage. Mmmmm hungry. The cranberry borscht sounded interesting. Wish I could have tasted that. Tartare made from skirt steak? Yeah um no. And Padma doesn't like rare meat. And I want to go to Mei's and have that big fat duck stuffed with sticky rice. Dang. Stacy definitely seemed like she was pressing. She was even hard on herself for showing emotion and breaking down during her phone call to her cute boyfriend. She called herself a little bitch in her talking head!! Odd. Her hair color was also distractingly unfortunate. katsuji was pretty funny this episode. When Stacy came out from her phone call and hugged the shorter guy, he remarked for him not to touch her since he brings bad luck to people. Snark and whoops.

We should have a gluten free thread! We've been celiac for 18 years...well before fads and calling ahead is just the first step. Regardless of whether Emily is gf or celiac though I really enjoyed her as a judge. She was pleasant, smart and articulate. If she has sprue then I would imagine that the chefs got the off camera smack down of cross contamination. No fun poisoning the guest judge. I will say restaurants want the gf revenue though. The person answering the phone says they can handle gluten free, does not hear or understand the words celiac sprue and just books the order. We just experienced this yesterday at Sheldon's Migrant. Tons of GF options but not sprue ready. He was nice enough to accommodate a fish dish with new pan and utensils, simply prepared and modified sauce and veggies. But we never want to put the kitchen in that position. If it wasn't Sheldon himself on property we probably would have left and we called ahead. I like Blais. I really do. Puréed frozen peas...mmmm baby food! This episode did feel oddly edited for the quick fire but the menus were interesting to watch. Who knew people liked scallops so much? I for one, never order them! Now I think I'm going to go out of my way to order radicchio. /hellasnark The zucchini pasta was a nice alternative and very on trend with paleo being so popular. Our hotel is doing cucumber noodles prepared similarly and they taste like pasta.

Shura, that self cleaning comment made me spit my Mai tai out. You owe me a drink.

I guess Todd English is not even noteworthy unless he appears in a hot tub. Snicker.