Top Chef: "12 Days of Christmas" - Episode 506

So the holidays are upon us, and you know what that means - a bunch of rich people getting together on television to remind us all of how charitable they are. Do we need to throw wildly elaborate and expensive parties in order to wipe out death and disease on this planet? Seems to me that just writing a check would use up a hell of a lot less electricity and unrecyclable plastic. I'm not getting a Christmas card from Kenneth Cole again this year, am I? Oh well. More Top Chef after the jump...

 

All bah humbuggery aside, though, much like any holiday special, tonight's episode of Top Chef was mostly gloppy, schmaltzy filler. Granted, the ever-enigmatic Martha Stewart did show up to guest judge the Quickfire (remember when her evil twin took over the empire and ended up in prison?), and her challenge to the cheftestants was interesting enough. Create something wintry and delicious and only use one pot to do it in. Seems simple enough (soup? stew? Boy-Ar-Dee?), but of course, the chefs took every chance they could to make it as difficult for themselves as possible.

 

Fabio served up some polenta that took on an eerie resemblance to baby shit, Jeff cheated by cooking nine different things in the same pot and then assembling them all afterward into a potato risotto, and Eugene ruined his lovely Korean stew by dumping corn starch in it to thicken it up. On the plus side, Stefan maintains his simple, steady path by making a hearty veal goulash, Princess Padma gets her ass taken to school by Martha and Jamie when she doubts that scallops have any place in a wintertime meal (take that, bitch!), and Hosea knocks it right out of the park with his seafood paella. Much to the dismay of scallop fetishist Jamie, though, Ariane manages to defy all odds and win the challenge with her first-year-at-culinary-school cauliflower puree. Um... okay. This is the third challenge in a row that the Jersey girl has managed to snatch out from under everyone, and personally, I'm getting a little sick of it. What's with all the Mom dishes, Ariane? I can't wait until she pulls out a win by leaving a box of frozen waffles in the fridge for the judges to enjoy after school while she's away at work. 

 

With her prize of immunity and (of course) Martha's new book under her arm, Ariane moves on with her fellow chefs to the Elimination Challenge. Their assignment is to cater a charity event for amfAR, a reputable AIDS organization with popularity and influence all over the world. As the chefs are getting ready to pull their knives from the Knife Block oracle and somehow convince themselves not to drive them all handle-deep into Ariane's head, a rousing rendition of 'The 12 Days of Christmas' is heard from out in the hall. The Harlem Gospel choir enters the Top Chef kitchen, and Carla is beside herself with joy. Her eyes pop completely out of their head and start prepping scallops for Jamie's next meal. 

 

As the singing dies down, the chefs pull their knives, and our theme is revealed. It's the 12 days of Christmas (duh), and with the exception of 'Four Calling Birds' (probably because there are only eleven chefs remaining) each of the contestants are assigned a line from the famous song to craft their respective dishes around. Radhika gets 'And a partridge in a pear tree', Eugene gets 'Five Golden Rings', and so on. The chefs plunder Whole Foods for expensive cheeses and scallops (seriously, Jamie, enough already), and from there, it's on. Stefan pulls a fancy-looking chicken pot pie from the 'Twelve Drummers Drumming' lyric, Hosea prepares some smoked pork for 'Eleven pipers piping', Leah looks delicious running around the store in a tank top while looking for game hens, and Jamie? Hey, she's doing scallops again! It's a Christmas miracle!

 

Jeff's dish of various cheeses and whatnot looks about as much to me like 'Ten Lords A-Leaping' as Carla does Angelina Jolie, but hey - what do I know. I kept waiting around for someone to put a beer in a tree with some backbacon and be done with it. The chefs run willy-nilly around the kitchen preparing for the party the next day, and by the time they're done, the refrigerators are PACKED. Can't blame them for that, either, as the party is apparently for 300 people. By the time they come back the next morning to put the finishing touches on everything, however, disaster has struck, and struck hard. One of the fridges gave out overnight, and as a result, Hosea's and Radhika's dishes are pretty much ruined. Their respective meats have been destroyed by the excessive amount of heat, so into the bins they go. Chaos!

 

Not really, though. Since it's Christmastime and all, the other chefs rally around their teammates and assist Hosea and Radhika prepare new dishes in time for the party. If I had a heart, I'm sure I'd be touched. So after an inane, childish Bravo phone poll that crowns Fabio as the one cheftestant that the viewers would most want to get stuck under the mistletoe with (OMG!), the party is on. Hosea's resurrected smoked pork tenderloin is the undisputed hit of the night, while Jamie's raw scallops served with some digusting bastard child of vichysoisse spooned over it goes over like a turd in the punch bowl. Carla bugs her eyes out and scares people into trying her her braised chicken, Fabio turns on his 'ignorant foreigner' charm and tells some bullshit story about dancing crabs to get everyone's panties wet, and Eugene manages to dole out spoonfuls of snot by telling everyone it's something called 'poisson fou'. Remember the cardinal rule of Top Chef, kids - if it's French, it somehow makes sense no matter how disgusting it may be.

 

Back to the judges' table now, and the top four finishers are Hosea, Radhika, Stefan, and Jeff. Hosea collected the most red AIDS ribbons from the party guests, so he's crowned the winner and gifted with yet another goddamned book from guest judge Michelle Bernstein. In fact, all the chefs will be receiving the book from Michelle because of the help they gave Hosea and Radhika to revive their ruined dishes. Looking back, I'm happy as hell that Tom made that pissy comment about how good chefs supposedly don't learn from books earlier in the season. It's making all this rampant book-whoring much more ironically pleasurable to watch.

 

Time for this week's boot, right? Wrong. Tom decides in his usual bitchy, all-knowing way that because ALL the food this week was a little uninspiring, he's seeing fit to give the chefs a verbal tongue-lashing about it instead and cancel the elimination altogether. He adds something about how it's a holiday gift from Top Chef, but I'm calling bullshit on that right now. Why they chose to take this route instead of rightfully kicking off Jamie or Eugene (who honestly should've gone last week) is beyond me, but I'm guessing it's got something to do with the Glad family of products. Hey, yellow and blue make green! Right, Fabio?

 

LEFTOVERS - 

 

Tom, are you even capable of smiling anymore? Jesus, it's a party, man. Loosen up that damn tie already and suck down a few cocktails, Grumpy Bear. You don't always have to be such a pretentious, angry food dick, you know.

 

Martha Stewart is just plain awesome. She has the coldest, iciest, most straight-forward personality ever, and then she'll drop a dick joke out of nowhere on her show. I love that crazy bitch.

 

Please, Natasha Richardson, put your tits away for the AIDS benefit. Should we expect you in chaps and a harness for the UNICEF gig next month?

 

Look, I'm all for charity benefits and the wonderful work that groups like amfAR do all over the world, but I'm sorry - awarding each chef with a red AIDS ribbon as a sign of approval was a little tasteless. "Hello, I'm giving your dish AIDS! Congratulations!" If this benefit were for Holocaust survivors, would they have handed out little Stars of David?

 

Rich people just LOVE getting together for the holidays to remind themselves of how wonderful they are, don't they? If there's a disease they can throw a check at afterward, all the better. Garcon! More baby sheep brain tartlets over here, please. Quicker, or you'll be fired. Merry Christmas!

 

You don't really think it's Christmastime in New York on this show, do you? C'mon - it's sunny as hell outside in every shot we get. The chefs are wearing T-shirts and shorts on the patio. No one is killing anybody at a Wal-Mart. Reality check, people - it's June. Deal with it.

 

So what REALLY happened with that refrigerator? A door left open? Power failure? Evil Christmas elves who are pissed off because it's actually June? You decide.

 

Boy, that new judge next week has a face like a puckered asshole, doesn't he? Yikes.

 

-littlebigmouth.