JeanneH

I'm in southern Indiana, some say that's part of the south, but I think it's more of a manners thing. It's sad that not everyone gets that though. Not too long ago I was pulled over by a cop, who of course wanted my usual documents and asked the usual questions. I was answering him "yes sir"/"no sir" as appropriate. He said he didn't appreciate my attitude. I told him I was raised to say "sir" and "ma'am" to people doing their jobs, like police officers. He stomped back to his car. A few minutes later he came back, gave me a warning (thank sir - I wasn't speeding all that much) and let me go, and he had this embarrassed smile on his face the entire time. He was being silly and figured it out in the car. It probably didn't hurt that I was probably 25-30 years older than him. ByaNose wrote: I think you are right, that it is mainly a southern thing. I've heard it used around here, but not too often. When I have heard it, it's usually by someone referring to someone else's kids ("Where are your babies?"), not by someone referring to their own kids ("My babies are in the house."). I think it's weird that the older boy (what is he, 12?) would be included in "babies" but I don't have too much trouble with the youngest child being referred to that way.

Was Stefan the guy from the Seattle season who was Kristin's "boyfriend"?

The Houston Chronicle has run a piece (dated Feb 22) about where the Gaines family would move if they left Texas. (sorry, they're not really serious about doing so) Fixer Upper's Chip and Joanna Gaines reveal where they would go if they would leave Texas

Created as a place to discuss news stories, media releases, interviews and the like related to Fixer Upper, and hopefully make it easier to find these things instead of looking through the other threads.

Thanks. Dijon mustard?

Quick aside, is mayo difficult to make?

I thought she was gone, although they did like her salsa (at least Padma did). Maybe John's food was worse, or they just wanted him gone.

I'm sure that by now we've all heard about the rules and requirements of a particular challenge being explained in detail to the cheftestants before filming begins. In so many challenges the guests do vote/comment (off the top of my head I'm having trouble recalling one where they did not do one or the other). Playing devil's advocate, I wonder if the cheftestants were specifically told that the guests (Patron employees) would not be voting/commenting this time, and if they were not told this, then I wonder if John assumed that they would be because they had before. Yet something else we'll never know.

The way Brooke and Casey were acting about tequila, I'm almost willing to bet they killed it that night during the judging. Except SSJ didn't appear to have been drinking too much when they came back out to learn their fates.

Editing monkeys have a sense of humor - Shirley says the city is beautiful and they cut to a highway ramp. Brooke setting John up with Katsuji - a wonderful attempt at sabotage. Loved the one bit where Shirley's cooking, Sheldon's cooking, John's cooking, and Brooke and Casey are in the corner giggling about drinking tequila (this is before Brooke says she'd make a drink for her with a lot more tequila than the ones they're making for the competition). So I wonder how long it took her (and Casey?) to kill that prize bottle of Patron? (did it last through Judge's Table?) RUDE judges @ Sheldon's station! I wonder just how close Shirley was to getting chopped (so to speak). Tom didn't like her stuff at all. Of course, Tom didn't like John making "every day food" (my quotes) either, and then John argued about it. Perhaps it was more important to just be done with John, regardless what anyone else did.

Perhaps I'm late to the game, but this is not the final episode, and possibly may not even be the next-to-last episode. My channel guide lists a new episode for Feb 23, and the description mentions "the remaining chefs" and "the two chefs with the best dishes will compete in the finale."

Beverly Kim, TC Texas

This is sort of like Casey's situation. 1st time around, Casey was a finalist. So she came back - and was 5th person out. I assume this third time on TC is to try to erase the bad taste from the 2nd time?

Picked up on this on their twitter feeds. The Resort at Paws Up (in Greenough, Montana) is hosting Wildflavor ("Where flora, fauna and flavor collide"), April 20-23. Featured at the event: Kristen Kish, Sam Talbot, Casey Thompson and Brooke Williamson. It sounds as if they will having cook-out challenges. Link

I thought she'd made that pretty clear - she lost, and wasn't happy about that; she lost to someone from LCK, and wasn't happy about that; and she lost in an Iron Chef final disguised as Top Chef, and she wasn't happy about that either. Brooke wants to prove she's the best, and won't be happy until she does so (IMO that's why she's been so driven this season). I wonder if she'll only be happy if she could beat Kristen in a one-on-one cook-off.

Daniel did another combo that Anne had done previously. He even commented about doing it. What I don't know is whether they were supposed to be original or not. It's always seemed to me that Anne gets on him for taking shortcuts/the easy way out/copying what he's seen before, and she's gotten on him before for copying her combinations when he's supposed to be doing something original.

Interesting about her husband. I knew they are (or maybe were?) but I did not know he was a chef.

Not "going anywhere" with that. A question was asked if Sheldon was on the end, then something was said about Brooke and Shirley being in the middle. Since I was re-watching at that moment, I just noted who was where and where the dividers were (as noise was also being discussed in various posts). No agenda.

My dad was like that! He could hear most people when they spoke to him, but he had trouble hearing my mom. The doctor even did tests to prove to Mom he wasn't making it up - the frequency(?) her normal speaking voice was at was right in the middle of a range he was almost deaf to. We kept trying to get her to pitch her voice a little higher or lower, but she would always say she wasn't going to yell (which isn't what we were trying to get her to do) Just re-watched. Sheldon said "let's take 4 mushrooms on top" and his wife said "I don't have mushrooms" then knelt to look under the table. When she said that, he kind of froze, looking straight ahead. Then she stood up and said "I've got the mushrooms" and he immediately said "hi hon" and she got this big smile on her face. Then he TH about how he knows who his partner is, and they go back to the QF, which has him calling her JLo. Then he TH about since it's his wife, he's going to keep things "super simple". Something really amusing (I thought) was when they revealed John's partner and he's going all "oh my gosh!" (his reveal was first) Brooke looked at Shirley and half-whispers "who is it?" and Shirley replies with "I don't know". Brooke is the one at the beginning of the QF who said she'd seen something like that on TC Masters. And you didn't have a good idea who your partner would would probably be? (well, maybe not your sister, but that they'd be trying to get spouses?) Sheldon is on the left end, then his wife, then Brooke's sister, then Brooke, then Shirley, then Shirley's husband, then John's wife, then John. There are only dividers between the chefs and their "mystery partners" (as Padma called them). So there were no dividers between chef and chef, no dividers between partners from different teams. About Shirley being loud and Brooke shushing her during the QF, I came across an interview with Brooke about this episode. During the interview they asked Brooke about things that go on behind the scenes that viewers didn't get to see. So she mentions several things, and then says I guess it's not strategy with Shirley, it really is just Shirley being Shirley. Link - SPOILER - Top Chef's Brooke Williamson Spills the Beans on Shirley Chung's Sleeping Habits

Because it was mostly noisy with sound absorbing baffles keeping people apart (someone asked if their loved one could hear them), and if the loved one isn't speaking up or speaking during a lull it's hard to hear what they're saying, let alone identifying the person by the tone and tenor of their voice.

If you're talking about the comment in the article, the writer was just trying to be funny Now, I'm not sure if it's a typo or another attempt at humor when he writes about the Quickfire partners: Shirley's wife?

And it's "tomorrow" and the fan favorite voting page worked perfectly for me. They have cut from 16 chefs to the 8 you can vote on.

Last night Brooke said she wasn't any good at being creative (paraphrasing). Perhaps that's part of the problem - a self-perception that she's not good at something they're being told to do, along with being in her own head about having to win? (within the last 2-3 weeks one of the other cheftestants said that (paraphrasing again) it's really hard when the direction is specifically to "be creative", implying you can't just turn that on and off.

Just realized multiple cheftestants said this was their last time on Top Chef. So did at least one of the LCK chefs in episodes released tonight. I wonder if that was part of the agreement to be on this season, or if they're saying that because they just don't know. Also, 3 of the 4 semi-finalists are James Beard nominees, and it's Brooke who is the odd man out? Do you have to be at some super-successful restaurant just to be considered? Going to have to go find the rewuirements. The list of chefs in the room when Mary Sue Milliken won her first was amazing. Shirley talks about her family all the time, Sheldon talks about Hawaii all the time (I find that he does make a deal about it too, obviously YMMV), Brooke goes on about doing better this time (winning) all the time. Everyone does something that someone's going to find annoying. It's just them.

When, please