Mondrianyone

We're also pretty accustomed to some kind of send-off when a featured player leaves a show, or at least an acknowledgment that she's gone. Especially with a show like this one, where everybody's all backslappy and real or pretend friends in front of the camera. I'd think the show producers wouldn't want to do anything that calls attention to the elephant in the room, and not saying anything does that much more than just a quick mention that she's left and good wishes to her in the future (sincere or otherwise). When you don't do that, it leaves viewers wondering, "What the hell happened here?" To me that seems like bad business in addition to bad karma, but it could be just me. Maybe they should've brought in another short Mexican woman and called her Marcela, like the producers did with Darren on Bewitched. As far as what's up to the hosts or not, I recently looked at Sunny's Twitter feed, and she's constantly congratulating herself on being brave and righteous and standing up for the correct values. But not this time, apparently. I guess it depends partly on whether you like a particular person or not. I didn't have a problem with Marcela, so I find this doesn't reflect well on her bosses and co-workers. JMO. I'm going to drop this now.

Couldn't agree more. It makes the whole crew, on-air and behind-the-scenes, look so terrible. And gutless, when it comes to her fellow hosts. Apparently some sort of word went down that no one was to mention the empty spot behind the counter, and they all just toed the line. I hope Marcela didn't think of any of those people as real friends, because clearly they aren't.

Yes.

To be honest, nothing in their decor coordinates with anything else in their decor. Their place looks like everything came from a fire sale at a Hobby Lobby. Reza dresses the same way. It doesn't have to look good, just has to have a designer label. He was on WWHL last week, and he looked like an absolute clown--shorts with knee socks, a shiny, plasticky jacket. The socks were Gucci (he listed the labels of everything he had on), and he probably wore the shorts so as not to hide the Gucci G's on the socks. It's too bad Ringling Brothers shut down.

The other two: One was about a college degree with honors (or distinction--can't remember) , so "magna cum laude," since it couldn't be "summa cum laude." And the other was to name a member of the Police. It had to be Stewart Copeland, because the other two members have "sum" in their names--Gordon Sumner (Sting) and Andy Summers. That one was so clever it made me laugh out loud.

Supposedly you can increase the life span of bananas dramatically by wrapping the stem end of a bunch tightly in plastic or aluminum foil. Haven't tried it yet, because we're a house divided when it comes to bananas. My husband likes them just barely past green, and I won't eat them till they start showing brown freckles. So I get his discards. Matt should try that if he's going to be so reliant on banana-based desserts. Or he could learn a few new recipes.

Totally agree. So much so that for me it practically goes without saying: What Nico does to betray his relationship is on him. If you're the outside party and you set your sights on someone in a committed relationship with the belief that everyone is fair game, you may not be a nice person, but at least you're honest. However, if your mantra is a constant "I would never go after a guy with a girlfriend" and we see you doing exactly the opposite of what you swear you wouldn't do, then you're the worst kind of hypocrite. And you're a little shit to other women. She wants the halo while she's swinging the forked tail. Can't do both.

Absolutely. Genuflect, genuflect, genuflect!

IMO Manny's been kind of a yutz since the beginning. I think the uniform covers a multitude of sins. But this was really Cliff Clavin-worthy. Did Joanna not get the memo that you have to make a stupid face in the intro shots? That's why I was rooting for her from the get-go. Good girl. ETA: Thanks for the link, Driad. Love Tom Lehrer. I'm gonna go poison some pigeons in the park now.

So that tailgate picnic . . . am I mistaken or did Matt serve premade burgers sent over covered in plastic wrap? I hope I'm wrong about that. Don't they usually send a grill with the food and cook things in place on the beach? I can't imagine anybody being happy with soggy hamburgers. Leigh Anne strikes me as a bit of a bitch. Her husband needs to eat less, but I bet she'd be pretty pissed if Kate mentioned that on camera. Who thinks it's okay to snot off about other people's weight, especially on TV and as the very first comment you make about a person? Some people fall in love with the smell of their own perfume and think anything they say is adorable and witty, even when it's mean. Jen can jump overboard anytime now. And Brianna can join her, with her bullshit about not going after a guy with a girlfriend. That's all she's been doing since day one. We see you.

I kept wondering if she set her own house on fire for the insurance money. Nothing she said inclined me to believe otherwise.

And a cop and a construction worker and a cowboy . . . Every game would look like a Village People concert! I work from home, so I'd have to wear my usual outfit of pajamas or a T-shirt and underwear. I think I'd make my profession very proud. No signal tonight--thanks, Dish. It seems to love to drop out just for Jeopardy! Sounds like I missed a pretty good game.

Thanks for the corrections about Ryan/Jefferson, whoever the decorator was. I was folding laundry and glanced up to see what I thought was the same guy. I think you're thinking of Bobby Trendy. Someone I truly don't miss seeing on TV anymore.

Isn't MJ her own landlord? I was under the impression that she owned the building. Or at least she owns that condo. Did I hear right--Ryan (the guy who played the waiter in Reza's "play") did the decorating for MJ's place? It's a lot like Reza's style: stand outside a HomeGoods store, wait for it to explode, then catch all the flying debris and arrange it in a room. Yikes. I wonder if that's what he does for a living. Another white person here who's on board for a buffet. And that looked like a very good one.

I saw Gretchen in that final group picture of mostly women. So she did make it on camera. Didn't spot Slade, though. As long as we're doing bulleted lists: Why does it make me laugh that Mike's uber-Persian mother is named Sue? I know that Reza thinks everyone's business is his business, but how delusional is he giving relationship advice as if all his ducks (or are those chickens?) are in a row? Adam may be dumb, but I don't think he's so sweet. Like tends to attract like. I wrote a play about as sophisticated as that one when I was about seven. All my friends from the block were in it, and our parents watched from folding chairs in our yard. I think we had a bigger crowd, and even the preschoolers in the cast didn't kid themselves into thinking we'd take it on the road. Please don't let this show be renewed. I can't help watching, if only to see how much worse these people get every year. So save me from myself, Bravo. I'm tired of this crap.

She posted on Instagram that she felt it was time for her to concentrate on her West Coast life and "share with you the stories and recipes that I truly [bolding mine] share with my family and friends." It sounds like one of those things politicians say when they quit because of a scandal, that they want to spend more time with family. But it's so oddly worded--implies that while on The Kitchen she was somehow not sharing her true stories and recipes. Maybe some subtle shade about the more disgusting things they had her make. Dunno. It feels like there's a story behind the story, especially with no acknowledgment that she's gone. I made that gnocchi/pesto salad of Katie's from a couple of weeks ago. It was very good.

Yeah, I was really surprised they didn't edit out the fall. Also, she has a history of being easy prey for stunts like that, so the fact that they keep pulling stuff on her suggests somebody enjoys her reaction more than they care about her upset. I wonder if the reason Marcela claimed to be leaving was the real reason she left. The fact that not a single word's been said about it--and how insulting is that, when you've been on a show as long as she's been on this one?--leads me to suspect that something else was going on.

Then you go to the top of the Archaic Word Tower of Power. You just don't hear "slattern" anymore. But okay, so let's try a non-gender-specific term, like "gutter puddle." I think we could put some serious mileage on that one.

My vote for a word we need to revive is "slattern." Although I think we should use it sparingly at first, because there's a very real chance of its getting worn out very quickly, considering the JJ demographic. Practically a slattern a minute some days.

Finally, someone with a heart as black as mine. ;o) Nobody is ever that ecstatically happy to have lost. Way over-the-top reaction. But if it gets him off my TV . . .

Kameron doesn't have to turn her nose up. Her surgeon did it for her. ;o) I agree with everything in your post. And I think they don't go to plastic because it's less dramatic when hurled. LeeAnne has to have at least one glassware-related psycho episode every season, and we're about to get this year's.

I tried that egg-peeling thing with the water and the mason jar a few months ago. Mine didn't turn into the mess they ended up with--the eggs stayed whole, they just weren't peeled very effectively. I find I get the best results by putting a teaspoonful or so of baking soda into the boiling water. The eggs almost always peel perfectly. I was watching Marcela's expression while Sunny was waving around that giant chef's knife inches from Marcela's face, and I felt I could read her thoughts. I wondered whether she'd step away, say something, or take the knife. She made the bravest of the three choices. But Sunny was back to using the knife as a gesturing tool when the guest cook came on. Marcela might be increasing her life expectancy by leaving this show. Anybody who's spent more than a minute in a kitchen shows more respect for knives than that.

I haven't had a chance to watch this episode yet, but what you say reminds me of something they did/still do on ATK and CC--going over all the steps of the recipe after they've just spent ten minutes actually creating the dish. "So we made our Midwestern Potato and Corn Casserole starting by . . ." I always ff through those recaps and grumble about how we don't all have short-term memory loss--we just watched them do it, for cripes sake. So anything that's less repetitious and salvages time that can be filled with useful new information is A-OK by me.

Kameron and her lip thing--so weird. She's obviously been working them overtime since she first showed up, but this latest episode I took the opportunity to really look at her when she's not trout-pouting. It's pretty clear she hasn't had any significant fillers or surgery on them, since in repose they're really thin. So it's not that she has giant fish lips, it's just that she uses what she does have in some bizarre cross between a teenage Valley Girl and Donald Trump, which she thinks is cute/smart/high-class. She's a pretty strange creature. Whenever I see her, I think of the alien in female disguise from Mars Attacks! No actual resemblance, just the non-human factor.

Apparently it was her car. I just checked the story in several different news sources, and they confirmed that it wasn't till a second inspection that the forensics people found the bloodstains. So many things overlooked in this case, so many obvious leads not followed. And all that time her family was allowed to suffer so terribly at the hands of this lunatic. Thanks, UsernameFatigue. My husband says there's nothing I like as much as being right. (He's clearly forgetting about chocolate.)