Pop Culture Princess

Pop Culture Princess
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Friday, November 28, 2008

Heroes' power outage,Blush's bridal blues and Top Chef' has a Foo Fighters Thanksgiving



Top Chef started off their Turkey Day themed episode with a rather tricky Quickfire challenge. Padma and guest judge Grant Achatz held a knife block pulling that gave the chefs a specific page number from the official TC cookbook. They had to recreate that recipe and give it a unique spin of their own.

However,midway thru the prep,Padma called for a stop and told everyone that they had to turn their ingredients into a soup.



Jamie,who did well with her minty corn soup for the last challenge,also whipped up another savory sensation. She was originally given a deconstructed falfel to make and was able to turn that into a chick pea with cilantro yogurt soup that Padma and Judge Grant really loved. I thought for sure that she was going to take the win and the immunity here.



Instead it was Leah,who won the QF for her white asparagus soup. She seemed to get some bonus points for having such a difficult veggie item to work with,not to mention that the dish she was first preparing was a tuna tartare. In addition to immunity,Leah was allowed to chose members to work with for one of the teams for the Elimination Challenge.



The big challenge was to cook Thanksgiving dinner for the Foo Fighters and their entourage(over sixty people). Each team was handed a list of preferred foods and told that some of the folks were of the vegan persuasion. The winning team would get to attend the Foo Fighters concert after the meal while the losers had to do the clean up,along with seeing which one of them gets sent home.



Leah's group called themselves Team Sexy Pants(why,I don't know and don't think I want to)and Radhika's vegan corn bread stuffing totally wowed the Foo Fighters. They were raving about how delicious it was to the judges,who agreed with them big time.



The leftover chefs were Team Cougar and thanks to Adriane,they made the better plate of turkey. Adriane really needed to do well after being on the Bottom Two twice in a row and her moist,tasty turkey with mushrooms redeemed her this week.



Alas,as is the way with Top Chef,it was the desserts that caused Team Cougar to be stuck with the clean-up. Jeff gave himself too many things to do and his spreading himself thin resulted in a pumpkin mousse and berry parfait that was bad enough to be renamed a "barfait" by one of the Foos.

Jeff also did the spoon bread stuffing that bombed,too,but the rest of his team praised for taking the reins with organizing and making sure things got done. That probably saved his bacon for this round,at least.



Danny was on the chopping block as well,for his underdone potatoes that he called "al dente." Dude,al dente is fine for pasta but not for spuds. He tried to blame the cooking equipment the team had to work with,toaster ovens and microwaves. Since both teams had the same set up,that excuse didn't fly.



Richard had to pack his knives and go due to his banana s'mores that left people wanting no more of them. They came out cold and the vanilla creme on top looked like spit,according to several of the diners.

Sorry to see you go,Richard. I suspect that Danny is going to be a big trouble maker soon,with his one fingered salute to Team Sexy Pants as they came back from the concert and his waiting room tiff with Jamie. Next week has the chef doing a food demo on the Today Show,so Danny better learn to behave himself right quick.



Blush had a double elimination this week,starting with their Max Challenge. The task was to give distinctive make up to two model based on two different decades. Sharazad tried for a 1920's look on one girl that failed on so many levels that it was curtains for her.



Farah won the challenge and received immunity,thanks to a sweet "Roller Girl" look to her 70s model. She was then teamed up with Mo for the Elimination Challenge,which was to do the make-up for a bridal party whose wedding was taking place the next day.



Todd and Nolan were paired together,with Todd being chosen by the bride to work on her face after she had seen both of the guys create looks for her bridesmaids(the other teams had to have that choice made the same way). He really gave her a flattering appearance that the judges felt not only made the bride beautiful on her special day but would look great in the photos years later. That made Todd the big winner for this round.



The last team was Maxi and Myke,with Myke being selected to work on the bride. She wanted a very vintage look that was heavy on the eyes and boy,did he give it to her! That may have made the bride happy,but she seriously looked like a raccoon eyed ringed bridezilla or a evil diva from a soap opera,take your pick.

So Myke is out,which pleased Maxi since he had no love for him at all. I suspect that Maxi's going to be around this show for quite awhile,more due to his theatrics than his actual talent with lipstick and concealer. The folks at The Soup will be thrilled about that:





Heroes went into a two part episode that had another eclipse affect our merry band of super powered beings,only this time rendering them powerless. A good reason for that may due to figuring out who the catalyst(the person with a special biological trigger in their blood)is and getting ahold of him or her.

Most of the characters believe that it's Claire(who thinks so herself). My theory is that it's Hiro who is the trigger man and with the ten year old mode that his brain is currently in,that ability is shut down for the moment. I wouldn't be surprised if once Hiro regains his memory,that everyone else's powers go back online in full force.



While I am glad to see that HRG is giving Claire some combat training(Finally! I am as sick and tired as Claire is of people constantly trying to keep her shielded from danger. At this point,she needs to be able to fight back)and that the Haitian is getting more of a back story,the best development for me is the wickedly twisted romantic relationship growing between Elle and Sylar.

Yes,Sylar is back on track and not a shock that he's coping well with the whole lack of powers deal. After all,he did some very nasty things last season without his abilities and now that he seems to have found the Bonnie to his Clyde,we may be in for a real wild ride:



RANDOM NOTES:

IT'S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA: Usually,I don't post full episodes of any show,but this season four finale of IASIP is too insanely funny not to share. The basic premise is the gang putting on a very bizarre musical that is a sly take on TV shows doing musical episodes. Here,for your entertaining pleasure,is The Nightman Cometh(loads of adult humor and very mature content-you have been warned):

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