Pop Culture Princess

Pop Culture Princess
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Thursday, May 15, 2008

Top Chef does lunch,Matt Vs. Ben on Hell's Kitchen and Idol's Three becomes Two



Top Chef fans got a little blast from the past,as the guest judge this week was former contestant Sam,from Season Two. He and Padma set up the Quickfire challenge,which was to create a modern "sexy' salad within 45 minutes.

I like salads,but don't really see anything sexy about them(at least I enjoy them,my sister insists on calling them"rabbit food").



Spike won the QF for his beef medley salad,which gave him an advantage for the Elimination challenge. It was to make a gourmet box lunch for Chicago police officers that was to be a healthier version of what they usually eat. Each chef had to use a lean protein,whole grains,fruit and vegetable. Spike was given ten extra minutes to shop for ingredients and first pick of items from each category,which no one else was allowed to copy.



So,what did Spike come up with? First off,he gleefully admitted off camera to choosing items that he knew the others would want,in order to trip them up. Therefore,Spike went with chicken,bread,lettuce and tomatoes. He thought he was so smart for doing that but what does he make? Chicken salad,with grapes and olives,that you could either put on the bread with lettuce and tomato or eat on it's own. Basically, he gave the folks a chicken sandwich,Carl! Way to not be creative,dude.




Dale had no problem with Spike's selections as he decided to use cabbage as lettuce wraps for his lemongrass mango bison with rice and salad. Smart move,since that was a perfect substitute for bread,plus bison is tasty and has less fat than beef. Dale won the challenge and received a nice bottle of wine,along with two tickets to a Napa Valley winery as his prize. Dale may be a jerk at times,but his cooking does seem to walk the walk.



Lisa,Spike and Andrew were up on the chopping block for their lousy lunches;Andrew made a sushi with pseudo rice that tasted awful and fell apart,Spike for his sorry chicken salad and Lisa's shrimp stir fry was badly made,period. She insisted that someone sabotaged her brown rice by turning the heat up too high during the group cooking. There was no proof of that,and besides the shrimp wasn't properly cooked either.



Andrew went home,but honestly I would've be happy if all three of them were sent packing. Both Spike and Andrew were arrogant and rude beyond belief to the judges(I do agree with Judge Tom about mixing grapes and olives;olives are rather overpowering with such a mild fruit like grapes. It would be like having pickles and orange slices combined in a salad). Lisa was moody and defensive;at one point she threw Andrew under the bus by pointing out that he didn't actually use any whole grains in his dish like he was supposed to.


First,where does she get off being Little Miss Rulebook after refusing to make drunken Polish sausage a couple of challenges back and serving up Chilean sea bass with chorizo instead? Also,the judges had already figured out that Andrew didn't use rice in his dish(which is why they are the judges and you're not,sweetie!)and it was totally unnecessary to do that. Check out these losers for yourselves and tell me if you would want any of them to make you lunch:



Looks like we are getting Restaurant Wars after all next week,so let us see who will be on their A game and who will crash and burn the rice,again!




Ramsey called Matt's bluff last week,that he would do better on the Red Team and Matt truly lived up to his promise there. Not only did he help his team win the Taste Test challenge,Matt also made a risotto so good during dinner service that Ramsey singled him out for praise.

Ben went down in flames,losing to Matt during the Taste Test and then screwing up left and right during dinner service. Rosann and Jen had their troubles,too(Jen is too damn touchy and can't listen to authority while Rosann has two speeds,slow and stop)but Ben knew he was in real trouble,so he tried to finesse his way out of the firing line:



That attempt to turn on Louross failed,with Petrozza being sportsmanlike and refusing to go along with that plan. He nominated himself,which earned him some respect from Ramsey. Ben was dismissed,and rightly so. Next week,a interesting bit of finger food may wind up on the menu-yum!:





No real surprises on Idol this week,as the finale will be the long predicted Battle of the Davids. Syesha did her best,but in the end,she's just a nice enough singer to be entertaining but doesn't have a real powerhouse of a voice(*sigh*still missing Carly)to be a big sensation. There's a Broadway show in your future,Syesha,I can see
it in my crystal ball!

If one of the Davids has to win,I hope it's Cook. I wasn't a big fan of him at first because he appeared to be another pseudo emo rocker guy. However,his passion and range have been growing over the weeks,which makes me warm up to Cook and root for him to win. Out of all three of the songs that he did this week,Simon's choice of "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" by Roberta Flack(not Chaka Khan,Ryan! Were you sharing Paula's soda during the results show? Not a smart move, my man!)was his best:





I have one last Sanjaya award to present this season,and it goes to David Archuleta. Maybe having his dad officially kept away from the backstage area(after costing the producers extra money last week by demanding that mix of Sean Kingston's "Beautiful Girls" into "Stand by Me")made him a little bolder with his personal choice of Chris Brown's "With You".


As horrible as "Longer" was,I can't get on his case for that,since it was the producer's choice(clear cut proof that they hate him;you don't ask someone to sing Dan Fogelberg if you like them. It's the equivalent of taking a prune danish to a dinner party). Archuleta has all of the sexual charisma of an antique teddy bear and that is what made this performance Sanjaya worthy:

NOT MY BOO BY A LONG SHOT



THE RIGHT SINGER FOR THIS SONG



RANDOM NOTES:

UGLY BETTY: Betty finally comes to her senses and decides to end things with Henry(hey,I liked the guy but come on,he's a daddy now with Charly! Clearly,his relationship with Betty was going to go nowhere fast)and Gio may be sliding into that vacant boyfriend spot. Good for him,but he deserves to be more than a rebound guy:



THE OFFICE: The Season Two finale is an hour long tonight,folks. I know some are not crazy about these extra long episodes,but I enjoy having more of the goofy goodness being spread around:

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