Let's see if any hack columnists from the Sun-Times take shots at White House chef Sam Kass for appearing on TV and talking about the First Lady's food initiatives. Oh, that's right, she only goes after the really big fish--and gets it wrong, then apologizes diffidently.

Hey, anyway, it's another week of Top Chef. Are you having as hard a time as I am telling Ed and Stephen apart? Is there more confusion this season because there are five chefs with A names, four with T names, and three with K names? It's messing me up, I can tell you that.

The Quickfire pairs our chefs up for the Bipartisandwich Challenge. Design a sandwich with your partner...with only one hand per chef. It's a sack race, essentially. Immunity is at stake as the chefs pair off via knife draw. Arnold and Kelly appear to be the cutest team, sashaying around the kitchen with a chummy aplomb. Angelo and Kenny don't really take note of their toadies teammates (Ed: "HeyheyheyKenny! I'm left-handed! Isn't that great?" Tracey: "I totally have a crush on Angelo even though I'm gay."), instead focusing on each other with laserbeam intensity. They both end up producing an Asian-inflected dish.

And in fact it is those two teams at the top of the challenge. A commercial break stretches out the suspense before Angelo wins his third of three challenges, gaining immunity for him and Wormtail. (Yeah, I went all Harry Potter on that diss.) At the bottom: Stephen and Jacqueline's onion, avocado and chicken on toasted white (really, guys?) and Lynne and Tiffany's unwieldy flatbread saltimbocca sandwich.

The First Lady's initiative to end childhood obesity takes center stage for the Elimination Challenge. The chefs must prepare a lunch for kids on a public school budget: $2.68 per kid, or $130 for each team of four to serve 50 kids. And unlike actual school lunches, these will have to be healthy.

Angelo and Tracey get to pick first of the other teams for their associates, and in a crafty move Angelo chooses Kenny and Ed. They are embracing the healthy versions of junky things, like burgers and PB with celery. Andrea, Kevin, Tim, and Alex group up to tackle mac and cheese, and Kevin volunteers for dessert. Arnold, Kelly, Lynne, and Tiffany are immediately under the thumb of Kelly's sassy hairdo, and her bizarre desire to serve feta and pickled onions on their team's tacos. But that's nowhere near the crazy of Stephen, Jacqueline, Tamesha, and Amanda's team, who has to deal with Amanda's intent to braise chicken thighs in sherry...for middle schoolers. Plus, Amanda is developing a serious Leah (Season 5) vibe.

We see major budget compromises at the food wholesaler (Jacqueline gives up most of her ingredients for the dessert grenade she chose to jump onto). Ed has apparently decided that what middle schoolers really want is to be treated like infants; he's whipping up a stunning sweet potato puree that looks as much like baby poop as it does baby food. Kelly demonstrates some serious local newsgirl Spanish pronunciation, as well as a strong need to be recognized and applauded. Arnold has clearly tired of The Cutest Team; he takes Kelly to task for her rampaging ego when the chefs return home that night.

So the chefs arrive at Alice Deal Middle School, with an hour to prep before the Cheeto-popping little brats come barging in. Angelo breaks his mousse gun, Jacqueline has no ingredients and instead breaks out the industrial-sized bag of sugar, Angelo works around his broken nozzle and downplays the significance: "I turned a rock into a wheel." As the judges arrive, we see that Sam has replaced Eric Ripert this week--sad, but not unexpected.

Team Andrea, Kevin, Tim, Alex: First, the biggest shock. Kevin's melon/orange kebab with yogurt cream nails it with both the kids ("It was yogurt, wasn't it?") and the judges. Alex's apple cider BBQ chicken is tasty and not-too-sweet. Andrea's mostly-yogurt cole slaw is great. Only Tim's mac and cheese with whole wheat crust gets dinged by the judges.

[Author's note: I've been told by a well-placed source that TImothy Dean is a less-than-savory character. Bad news, in fact. The Baltimore Sun reported in January about a $1.3 million judgment of defaulted debt against Dean, but by June (and his debut on Top Chef) the story had been retooled into a tale of obstacles overcome. Indeed, the story appears to have been scrubbed from the Sun's website. There is a cached copy here. And remember his comment about his wife dying? True. But it doesn't address the violent streak in the previous link, and in claims I've heard that he has accusations of domestic abuse in his past. Temper any enthusiasm you might have for him with this info, and keep your eyes on him as the competition gets more stressful.]

Team Angelo, Tracey, Kenny, Ed: Ed's puree is very peppery and of course ugly as sin. Kenny's bread pudding is fine, cooked properly, if maybe less than amazing. The chicken burger is pretty good, but it's a chicken burger. Angelo's celery with peanut butter mousse and tuile is nominally a vegetable and very sweet. Indeed, the entire meal has almost no vegetable content. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Spike v.2.0.

Team Arnold, Kelly, Lynne, Tiffany: It's a very colorful plate. Lynne's black bean cake has a tangle of crispy sweet potato strings perched jauntily atop. Arnold's salad is bright and fresh. And yes, Kelly, your carnitas are quite good and the kids seem to like them a lot. Tiffany's sweet potato and sherbet dessert devoid of any dessert-ish ingredient is surprisingly satisfying as a dessert.

Team Amanda, Tamesha, Stephen, Jacqueline: At last, the booze round. These kids have been waiting ALL DAY for this. The chicken thigh in sherry jus looks disgusting and is yet treated remarkably charitably by the judges at the table considering IT'S GOT BOOZE IN IT. Sam Kass tries to maintain a calm demeanor as Amanda describes the dish.

Stephen misspeaks and tells the judges that his sweet onion rice has 165 grams of fat; of course, he meant calories. It's still mushy. Jacqueline's banana pudding is grainy and tastes like there's about two pounds of sugar in it. (About that...) Tamesha's bean and tomato salad is the sole bright spot in a dismal meal.

The judges call out Angelo's team and Amanda's team. The remainders all assume that they're the top two because that's how it always goes (it is?); they're wrong. These two are the bottom two performers, and they're in for a rough Judges' Table.

Stephen wanted to put a lot of veggies in his rice, but they were too expensive. Jacqueline wanted to put chocolate in her banana pudding, but it was too expensive; she ended up putting about two pounds of sugar into the recipe. But Amanda, you had enough money in the budget for sherry? A completely inappropriate ingredient given the challenge? Unsurprisingly, there's no rebuttal.

Ed gets a scolding from Mama Gail for making his puree so spicy. As Sam tells the whole team that sugary, starchy meals with no real vegetables are what's wrong with school lunches, Kenny chimes in to defend their reasoning. Oh, thank god, you think, right? He announces that he wanted to do green leafies and other veggies, but in the interest of budget, he made sure there was tomato on the chicken burger. Before any of us could say it, Sam reminds Kenny that tomatoes are fruits.

You could have fit a tomato into Kenny's gaping face when met with that Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?-level bon mot. Now that's disappointing. Stephen shakes his head from the team next door, but everyone's even more shocked when Angelo is asked whether he kind of scuttled his effort knowing that he had immunity. His answer? "I can't answer that right now." Listen, bro, I know this is Washington, D.C., but just because the original Constitution is in town doesn't mean you can plead the 5th on this one.

So where was the team leadership, guys? The judges wonder why no one stood up and said, "We need vegetables!" And then head-shaking Stephen jumps in to add his criticisms to the conversation, and the whole thing goes off. Kenny, you dropped the ball. Oh yeah, well at least my dessert didn't have two pounds of sugar! Do you know how much sugar is in processed peanut butter? It's terrible for you. Well, let it not be said that there's only one team who served sherry to middle schoolers here.

At this point, I figured the judges would either let the venting burn off, or step in and prohibit further back-and-forth (you guys like the alcohol references there?). But no. Gail jumps into the fray, asking what was the deal with that sherry anyway? Amanda says that she loves the taste of sherry with chicken thighs. Gail says there are a lot of things she likes that aren't appropriate here, and then busts out the line of the night, saying "I love vodka--not cookin' with it!"

In the stew room, Angelo is actually whistling while people talk about his immunity and whether he ambushed his teammates. Dude. Are you joking?

Lynne, Tiffany, Kelly and Arnold are called out to the table as the winning team, and for the best mix of color, taste, and nutrition, Kelly gets the recognition she's been struggling to ensure all night. GOOD JOB KELLY HEAD PAT.

Kenny, Ed, Amanda and Jacqueline all get called out for the ax to fall, and because the judges clearly saw nefarious gamesmanship on Angelo's team, Jacqueline's two pounds of sugar are the most unforgivable sin of the challenge. She gone, and that's fine. She didn't seem to bring much to the competition. We're still in harsh truth territory this season; I can say that.

Next week: picnic foods and more piling on Amanda. Fun!

I'm watching Ocean's 11 right now, because I've been thinking lately about the scene where everybody learns about the casino heist. In the movie's fictional universe, the casino is required to have enough cash on hand to cover every chip, every slot, every bet on the floor.

A lot of Madison has been talking about Porky Pine Pete's SmokeHouse BBQ in recent weeks. It's a new transplant to the city, and folks are getting their hats blown off by the quality of the meat. But they're also talking about something less enjoyable: how often Pete's runs out of ribs.

Katiebot5000 writes on Twitter:

how can a fucking BBQ place be out of RIBS? #porkypinepetesSUCKS also out of a few other things, arghhh!

Stebben84 writes on The Daily Page Forum:

I will try and go back some day, but I'll want assurance that I can actually get served and that they'll not run out out of their signature food.

Those that loved the place can slam me for being impatient or whatever, but even if I would have stayed, I couldn't have what I went there for.

Yes, that's right, it's Top Chef Season 7, and within the opening minutes, host Padma Lakshmi got the "hail to the chef" groaner out of the way once and for all. That's great, you say, but who are the chefs?

There's Tamesha, Ed and Kenny, and Kevin who has been friends with Kenny for years. There's Tiffany, a Texan, and Arnold, the only Tennessean to buy orchids at Whole Foods. Amanda and Stephen and Andrea and Jacqueline, who is from Brooklyn. Kelly from Colorado; Lynne, who is 51 and works for the other CIA; Tracey from Atlanta.

Alex has the same "Upper Vest Side" accent as Janosz from Ghostbusters 2, but is actually Russian. Tim is the hometown chef whose wife died recently. John appears to be a bit kooky. And then there's Angelo, another New Yorker, who redefines douchey cocktail party namedropping. Tim totally calls him on it, but only in confessional. I'm telling you, it's got to stop.

The Quickfire Challenge is a familiar mise-en-place race in four stages: peel 10 potatoes, brunoise 10 cups of onions (that's chopping them into tiny cubes--"an ayf by an ayf by an ayf," Kevin helpfully reminds us), break down 4 chickens and then cook a dish with those ingredients and a handful of pantry items. Winner gets $20,000; it's that High Stakes Quickfire again.

Kenny starts out smoking the competition, and Angelo immediately sets in to beat him. Fat chance. Kenny takes each and every one of the three opening rounds, convincingly. I wonder the same thing every time I watch these races: why does everyone else stop when a chef shouts, "CHECK!"? Keep on chopping, you dopes!

Anyway, the final four is Kenny, Kevin, Angelo, and Tim. Kenny's Moroccan chicken duo and Angelo's roasted chicken with onion jam vie for the top spot, and in a truly annoying development, Angelo takes the win over technically-dominant Kenny. Angelo tells us he wants to be the first chef to win every single challenge. Thanks, Angelo, that really clears up your motivation.

For the Elimination Challenge, our intrepid chefs are asked to create a dish that represents their electorate, if you will--their home towns. The 17 chefs will be split into four groups, with each group sending two chefs to Judges Table, one to win and one to go home. The Quickfire's final four get to pick teams.

Angelo: Tiffany, Kelly, John
Kenny: Tracey, Lynne, Stephen, plus last-picked Ed (who Angelo got to assign to any team he wanted to)
Timothy: Alex, Tamesha, Andrea

Angelo and his popped collar leads the rest of the chefs to Whole Foods to shop. John buys something pre-made from the freezer--always a good sign. Tim's going for local rockfish, while Alex wants to deconstruct his mother's borscht recipe. My wife loves Jacqueline's apple cups. That she's planning on filling them with chicken liver mousseline is perhaps a bit of a wet blanket.

The kitchen leads to some further revelations. Angelo, believe it or not, is from Connecticut. "I feel like an orchestra with flavors," he effuses about his own talents. John's choosing to make a dessert with his pre-made goods--always a good sign. Kenny's dish, a cinnamon and coffee-rubbed trout with goat cheese polenta, takes the prize for most appetizing. Jacqueline's terrine, which she chooses to not strain, is by far the least appealing.

At the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium, the chefs prepare to serve the guests of the Cherry Blossom Festival's opening ceremonies. Ladies and gentlemen, please meet our new Toby Young: Eric Ripert! What a blessed eviction of an incumbent.

Amanda deserves kudos for having the onions to use a term like "neo-classical California cuisine" in the opening challenge of Top Chef. These are the faces real chefs make when you use a term like that:



She makes a jagged red snapper carpaccio with clementines and caraway. Arnold bakes a kaffir lime and basil cake, and gets no commentary for his effort. Kevin's sous vide lamb with Meyer lemon marmalade sounds tasty and is tasty. Everyone, especially Ripert, notices how grainy Jacqueline's liver and port wine mousse is.

Stephen's potato-crusted deep-fried ribeye is too thin and too tough as a result. Heavy Boston baked beans and over-breaded cod cakes doom Ed's dish. Tracey blands up some shrimp with her cheddar grits. Kenny's dish pleases all, especially Ripert who likes the quinoa particularly. Lynne whips up some waffles and corn-Camembert ice cream and, apparently, no one notices.

Alex pays tribute to his mom with a well-cooked beef short rib and beets. Tamesha wields the power supreme and crafts jerk chicken globes; that's the last we hear of them. No one in Miami would recognize Andrea's pork with chorizo gnocchi, but it tastes all right. Tim offers rockfish with pickled leeks and sesame seeds; there's too much skin and not enough cooperation with his sauces.

Tiffany's Cajun shrimp and crawfish salad with tomatillos happened. Kelly seasoned her New York strip steak well, and served it with fiddlehead ferns. Angelo conducts his orchestra into Arctic char with pickled shallots, tapioca, and smoked bacon foam, as well as a bit more dill than Gail wanted. John takes his store-bought pastry crusts and tries to whip up a believable maple napoleon; no one buys it.

The Stew Room is dead silent. (At least, it is when we first see it; during the mid-break vignette, a bunch of stickinbutts bemoan the partying being done by other chefs, but manage to avoid saying that they aren't there to make friends.) Padma arrives and calls out Kevin, Alex, Kenny and Angelo--very clearly the winning group.

Kenny's dish was perhaps poorly edited but tasted great. Kevin's dish featured all the composition that Kenny's lacked, and was just as tasty. Alex did his momma proud. And dammit, Angelo's assurance that he knows what you should notice in your mouth, plus how and when, appears to have come true in Gail's mouth, at least; Eric liked the bacon foam, too. He announces that the winner of the first Elimination Challenge is Angelo, who is now 2 for 2. Ugh.

Angelo is asked to call out Stephen, Jacqueline, John, and Tim. Tim's all pissed. The judges ding Stephen on his tough ribeye, Jacqueline on announcing at dinner that she didn't add any fat to what is always a fatty dish, but worse that she still doesn't know the recipe by heart after having made it 100 times. John's pastry was soggy and just a bad idea from the start. Tim should have eliminated the rockfish skin, which got unpleasant in the mouth.

The first elimination of this season is, rightfully, John. He failed on the premise and the execution of the challenge--never a good sign. Plus, he's just kind of a weird dude.

Looks like we'll get more Bourdain (guess that rumored feud wasn't so serious after all), Mike Isabella from Season 6, plus trips to NASA and the original CIA. And a three-legged challenge? It's got my vote. A political pun! In your face, Padma!

Welcome back, readers.

To address a current problem: yes, I really fell off the Top Chef Masters wagon this last season. Honestly, I still haven't watched any of the last four episodes. I still don't know who won--and don't spoil it for me, they're all DVRed.

Tonight, the flagship sets sail once more, this time from Washington, D.C. I will watch, and I will probably live-tweet. But I have to warn you that the same issues that made recapping Top Chef Masters difficult will still be in effect for Top Chef DC. Plus, my buddy Carol Blymire will be recapping for The Washingtonian and she's got a few things going for her that I don't:

1) She's a Washingtonian herself, and more plugged into the local references that will populate the season.

2) She's much more literate on the national food scene than I am.

3) She's got the time, and the freedom to juggle writing assignments that I don't have.

4) She's quite a looker, if I might say so.

So I'm gonna try to stay on top of this season's recapping here at Irony or Mayo, but it's very possible that I will let you down again. Sorry--it's only fair to warn you. If I falter, please give Carol a read. Heck, even if I'm recapping, read her stuff too. She's great!

I compose this post from our deck furniture, a stunning chocolate brown and lime green affair. I am here to tell you that you should ignore all the tools from HGTV Canada that don't know how to buy a house; buying a house is awesome.

Okay, maybe not everyone buys a house from a young family who had to be undiagnosed obsessive-compulsives. I mean, who takes down all their photos after the offer goes through, then patches the nail holes and paints over the patches? Our circumstance was as close to Better Homes and Gardens as you can get for the money.

And oh, the gardens. Our landscaping is pretty great. I was itching for a yard to play with as we neared the end of our last rental agreement, but I had no idea.



Even the dogs are getting into it.



Buying a house is awesome, because at the end of it, you get to have a house. And even if it's not a big house, it's a start.

Today is Burgers and Brew 2010, and I won't be there. Sad face!

I covered this event last year for The Daily Page, and it was a pretty fun event. This year, though, I'm in Appleton for my mom's birthday. It's a trade I'm willing to make, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't going to be thinking about little burgers around 4 this afternoon.

Those burgers sound, as usual, delicious. I turn once again to AV Madison for a preview of the menu, and once again I'm met with a surprisingly narrow view of the culinary offerings. Last year, Scott Gordon referred to the quail egg-topped burger from Lombardino's as "bizarre" and a "miniature bird abortion." Why the hate, Scott? And this year, Erika Janik calls it "infamous." I've seen the lines for that burger, Erika, and I do not think that word means what you think it means.

Erika also freaks out a bit over the Fresco burger, a little patty topped with black truffle aioli, radishes, and bone marrow-sauteed onions. Bone marrow isn't some new food concept, nor is it even new to Madison (the popular-like-gangbusters Coopers Tavern offers roasted veal marrow as a starter). That's not to say it isn't unusual, but to call it "crazy shit"--well, I'll just say that someone maybe needs to read Fringe Foods a little more.

But hey, that's AV Madison's (and AV Club's overall) schtick: look at how high we can raise our eyebrows at these cultural phenomena and pretend like we don't want or value them! It works most of the time; I'm certainly a regular visitor to both sites. But when it comes off as leading an unexamined life and being proud of it, it does a disservice to everyone involved.

Anyway, I wish everyone there great weather and an even better time. And someone save me a Brewbarb Burger!

I'm just gonna come out and say it: Marcus Samuelsson is too pretty to be Top Chef Master. And I totally want his Critics' Table outfit. But dude takes it seriously; turning a Simpsons Quickfire Challenge into a discussion of immigration and ethnic pride? Jeez, guy. Lighten up.

Yes, it was a very Kyle episode of Top Chef Masters, back on May 12 (I know, sorry!). The Quickfire Challenge was, as I mentioned, Simpsons-themed. The dishes were based on characters, and Matt Groening and Hank Azaria (along with some writer who wasn't Conan O'Brien) provided the criticism.

Gotta love Susur Lee pronouncing Marge as 'MAR-guh,' and creating a dish in the image of Marge's face and hairdo. Poor guy had no idea, and ended up rebuilding Hung's Smurf village. I thought Jonathan Waxman had the winning dish, a no-frills spaghetti and meatball dish for Bart. But the win went to Rick Moonen for his shrimp-based Sloppy (annoyed grunt).

At this point, I was thinking that Tony Mantuano was looking like the straggler most likely to be eliminated. For Susur's lack of Simpsons knowledge, the theme of the Elimination Challenge certainly seemed to play right into his wheelhouse: the return of Season 3's Scary Surf and Turf challenge.

Enter Andrew Zimmern and my boy Eddie Lin of Deep End Dining. The proteins: geoduck, monkfish liver, jumbo squid, sea cucumber, goat leg, duck tongue, black chicken, and kangaroo. That, my friends, is a solid list of crazy-ass animal kingdom.

I thought Rick, with his first pick, would go monkfish (I nailed that) and duck, but he took black chicken over the tongue. Each ingredient could only be chosen twice, which guaranteed that the last pick would almost assuredly have to deal with sea cucumber. Poor Susan Feniger.

Jon's in a fog, but everyone else seems to have a bit of comfort, whether it's from having eaten weird shit with Zimmern before (Tony) or feeling intuitive about clams (Jody Adams). Rick got a massage at the Asian grocery, so he's clearly feeling all right. Marcus, for being a very heady chef, is still swimming around in the "I had tuberculosis and did I mention I was an orphan" pool.

When food hits plate, Marcus' inability to separate a TV show from a TB childhood comes through in a plate crammed with interfering elements. For Jody's confidence, her geoduck is irreverently tasty but her goat is too rare. Susan comes through with surprising and tasty sea cucumber, while Rick and Susur continue to perform well.

At Critics' Table, Susur comes correct with another 19 star performance, and the win. There's a clear divide between the top two (Susur, Rick) and the bottom three (Marcus, Jonathan, and Jody). Marcus' over-intense flavors and Jon's slight lack of refinement still come out ahead of Jody's universally low scores, mostly for the botched goat. Bye, Jody! You seem like everyone's favorite aunt, jocular and a little mischievous.

Tailgating comes next, and as soon as I watch that episode, I'll have something to say about it.

It was November of 2009--remember it? The world was destroyed by the CERN Large Hadron Collider? Yeah, good times.

Anyway, I was in a discussion about the merits, or more specifically the demerits, of Miracle Whip and the lack of any mayo products at Nick's Restaurant in Madison. In that conversation, I posted the following comment:

Miracle Whip has a cozy place in my heart by virtue of leftover turkey sandwiches post-Thanksgiving at home. But at a restaurant? I'd expect either irony or mayo.