Last week, desserts took down another cheftestant. Jacqueline coulda been a contender! Instead she's just a sugar pimpin' bum. Also, Angelo proved himself to be a dick, who is willing to make America's children fat just so he can win the competition, or at least make Kenny lose. He was literally pumping trans fats directly into an 11-year-old girl's stomach in his attempt to get rid of Kenny.
Not forgetting that the last two competitors were sent home over their miserable desserts, and knowing that they need to sell the Just Desserts spin-off, the evil producers chuck a dessert challenge at the chefs. Adding insult to cooking injury, the quick fire challenge is run by a skinny Elvis impersonator who everyone swears is a hunka hunka burnin' pastry chef, and he and his bouffant and blue suede shoes get covered in sugar and crème at Jean Georges. The assignment? American Pie. The chefs start sweating beads of vanilla and chocolate and throwing whatever they find in the walk-in into a pie crust. Cooking, yelling at ovens, and trash talking ensues. There are several non-traditional pies (shut up, Curry Apple Date Saffron Glazed travesty) and the much more normal (yeah, that's my face asleep in the blueberry lemon). The winner? Kenny, with a bananas foster interpretation.
Padma announces the Challenge: Picnic! For 150 interns! Yes, the wheels of Congress will squeal to a halt as all the interns on Capitol Hill flee their coffee-fetching, phone answering, paper filing, and message running duties and head to Mt. Vernon for a Top Chef picnic. No climate change bill this year? BLAME TOP CHEF. While some chefs are overjoyed at the thought of a chance to grill, others are sneering at the thought of pedestrian meat broiling. Angelo, obviously, feels quite confident with his beef. I think we can all agree: DIE ANGELO DIE. Tom comes into the Top Chef kitchen for his biannual sniff n' sneer and gets to witness some fireworks over calling shotgun on an oven. Fireworks are patriotic, right?
The day of the challenge, the chefs arrive at Mt. Vernon -- which you history buffs will know is where Thomas Jefferson grew cocaine -- and start firing up their grills. Before you can learn to pronounce quinoa (KEEN-wa, motherfuckers!), the judges are standing in front of the contestants with plates out and mouths open. Jonathan Waxman is guest-judging for no apparent reason than he felt like bad-mouthing some up-and-coming chefs to build up his self-esteem after his Top Chef Masters loss. The judges don't seem to like anything, but the interns are all, "Free food and no handsy Congressmen? Win-Win!" The chefs all sample each other's wares, and even Angelo has to admit that Amanda's ribs are excellent, but he could be trying to make her feel good about herself in order to watch her fall, cry and start huffing gas again.
Judgment Time: Padma wants to see Ed, Amanda, Arnold and Angelo. Padma gleefully announces that Yogi Bear would steal their picnic baskets first! Hey, Boo Boo -- they're the Top Four! Arnold and his lamb are crowned the winner. It falls to him to haul Tim, Stephen, Tracy and Kevin in for their public shaming. At the end of the flogging, the chefs are returned to the group as a cautionary tale. The losers are keelhauled and returned to stand in front of the judges, and it is Tracy who is forced to walk the plank. She packs her sloppy sausage patty and heads home.
Watch the episode here, then see who we think will win!
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Melissa Locker a.k.a. Lulu Bates would never deign to dine with interns. You can follow her on Twitter @woolyknickers.
As you may recall, last week the treacherous World of Desserts (which looks a lot like the land of Dairy Queen, but all the chocolate oceans have rip tides and the tumbling strawberries are boulders) took down Jacqueline. Her decision to use two pounds of sugar in a supposedly "healthy" dessert put Hostess Brands to shame and half the middle school in a diabetic coma. It also wiped the smile clean off White House Chef Dreamboat's face, because Jacqueline did not think about the children. Jacqueline's departure wasn't much of a surprise what with her dual residency in the Bottom Three and inability to NOT ADD TWO POUNDS OF SUGAR TO HEALTH FOOD. More intriguing was the revelation that Angelo is a total prig who has no qualms about using his immunity to KILL CHILDREN VIA PEANUT BUTTER. What about the children, Angelo? What about the children? Sure, Kenny could have made a vegetable, but Angelo wanted to make Ants on a Log for the kids, despite the fact that they were twelve and not six years old. Anyway. Angelo clearly has no experience around young children aside from glaring at them in restaurants and praying the subway doors shut before they can get in and disturb his zen-like ride back to his photo-ready mid-century modern studio apartment. Angelo also whispered in Tracy's ear (and his microphone) that he doesn't "like" Kenny, but you can't really blame him, because they were in a middle school after all. Anyhoo, Kenny survived the attack, totally ruining any chance (for now!) of a "He Killed Kenny!" joke. Rest assured, it will come. But now we know that Angelo hates children, Kenny, healthy eating, and open microphones.
As the day breaks, Jacqueline's fellow Bottom Three contestants are still reeling from their near defeats. Amanda is the first to have this whole experience get "really real" and the gravity of the competition is hitting home. Luckily she has brought some comforts from home with her to help ease the transition, namely: her body ball. Don't leave home without a 48-inch diameter ball! While Kenny has a supportive letter from someone named Juicy, Amanda has a supportive ergonomic body ball. She perches on her dear old pilates buddy whilst toothbrushing. I'm sure her dentist would be proud of both her good posture and her below-the-gumline ultrasonic tooth cleaning. Meanwhile, Kenny is still reeling from his sense of failure for, well, failing to win anything yet. Luckily he has Juicy's letter to make him laugh. While I don't know for sure, I am pretty sure that Juicy is a wad of chewing gum he left tucked behind his ear Violet Beauregard style so as not to ruin his palate during the competition. They are both pining for the day when that glob of fruit-flavored mastiche can be returned to his mandibles. Yes, the wad of gum stays up late penning meaningful notes chock full of "juicy" bits of wisdom. Meanwhile, Angelo is sitting in the shrubbery in a desperate attempt to commune with nature and escape the seething glares of all the losers trying to harsh his mellow (which is not very mellow). He knows that Kenny is gunning for him and he just needs to remain focused on his Asian flavors. He is reciting a mantra of "ginger, lemongrass, fish sauce, mint" over and over again while hiding out to the decorative kale. Inside, Arnold reminds us that this is a competition and last night really reminded them of that. As opposed to living together and competing against each other on a daily basis.
The chefs file into the kitchen of the Hilton where Ronald Reagan was shot, which is conveniently located across the street from the Royal Palace strip club for all their after-competition needs. Padma greets the judges, but as per usual all eyes are on the guest chef as if the chef's very existence could offer a clue to the future quickfire challenge giving the contestants a much-needed two-minute edge to think of a dish. Today's guest judge is Johnny Iuzzini, Jean-Georges' resident pastry chef and judging by his hair and adorable motorcycle chain wallet, a rockabilly fan. He has Elvis' hair and the smirk of a James Beard Award winner who is regularly introduced as a "pastry god" (like Hephaestus but with more butter). He is also wearing a bright pink shirt so there is no risk of blending in with the cooks in their chef whites. Padma explains that Johnny and Gail over there are the new judges for Top Chef spin off: Top Chef: Just Desserts -- SQUEEE!! Or not, I don't care, it's JUST desserts. Padma then introduces today's Quickfire Challenge and mutters a three-letter word: PIE. As the word trips off her pillowy lips, the chefs' eyes widen, jaws drop, sweat beads their foreheads and they start to tremble. Two contestants flat out die right then and there. The last two Top Chef Losers were taken down by dessert and now they all have to reinvent American Pie for a pastry god who shellacs his hair with mint-infused simple syrup? OH THE HORROR.
Arnold and Kelly immediately start with The Words and the Battling Over Spatulas and Arnold reminds us that Kelly bugs him. Kelly reminds us that she does not remember that Arnold exists and has baked a lot of desserts at the restaurant she owns with her husband over there in one of those cold states that the food world usually tries to ignore before they force feed them tree bark or trans fats or something. Angelo explains that he has never made a pie in his life, but through the Power of His Mind he convinces himself that he is not making pie, but curry. Specifically, a sweet potato curry pie. Then we get a bunch of shots of the chefs complaining about the burdens of pastry or, in the case of Lynne, gloating about her mad skillz and the dessert wisdom that comes with age. Well, age and twenty years as a cooking instructor. Arnold reminds the viewing audience that pastry cooking is very different from savory cooking and requires, like, measurement and reading and weighing and hard stuff. He no likey. Also in the no likey category? Alex, who is bugging his tablemate Ed with his sloppy technique and overly-thick almond crust. I mean, how dare he, right? Ed, however, is no fount of wisdom. After last week's challenge where Angelo combined peanut butter and celery, while the judges saw baby poop on a celery stick, Ed saw INSPIRATION. So he is making a banana cream pie with celery, which sounds pretty revolting, but I am not a Chef, merely a person with a tongue and taste buds and common freaking sense. Angelo calls his BFF Tracy over to the oven because her pie was about to be the Tragedy du Jour and *shudder * over-brown. Obviously Tracy is not happy with the results of her almond-blueberry pie and has to start over. I'm on the edge of my seat. Oh phew, she made it. Judgment Time!
Kenny is first pie. He asks Padma how she is and she coldly glares at him and barks, "I'm hungry" in a voice that clearly will be begging for ZUUL . Not wishing to get between the demonically possessed and their pie, Kenny steps back as Padma plunges her fork into the depths of his bananas foster pie with currants and Chinese five spice (not to be confused with the other five spice commonly known as the Spice Girls). Johnny Iuzzini, who has managed to sneak his fork around Padma's body block, points out that five spice is not a typical pie spice and Kenny stares at him blankly because, WASN'T THAT THE WHOLE POINT OF THE QUICK FIRE? Moving right along, Amanda has made a rosemary apple pie that she meekly proffers with a quiet, "I'm not a pastry chef" aside, which is seriously annoying because NO ONE among the competitors is a pastry chef. Luckily, Johnny calls her out on her fake humility and points out that his grandma isn't a pastry chef either but she puts out tasty and delicious pies whenever he wants one because he is her favorite grandchild and cousin Jimmy can suck it. Stephen gives a curried apple pie and Johnny refrains from remarking that curry is unusual in a pie, because it was a stupid thing to say during a pie reinvention contest in the first place. Gail thinks there is something sour in there, but it is hard to tell from
the editing whether it is a good sour like sour cream or a bad sour like dead dreams. Kelly has a spiced raspberry and chocolate ganache tart which looks like a plate of deliciousness and Johnny Iuzzini totally hits on her on national (albeit cable) television by mentioning that she has a great emulsion. Dude! She's married! But you know those demi-gods: no morals and bad taste. What? She's a smoker. It'd be like kissing an ashtray. Arnold gives the judges a kalamansi and key lime pie parfait with Korean soju. What the heck is a kalamansi? Here's the vegetation profile. Basically it looks like a lime, smells like an orange, and tastes like a lemon. Padma grills him about the green herb and Arnold replies, "It's mint?" He says it like a question, because he knows it is mint, but is worried that Padma will correct him anyway. She nods, glares, and moves on to Angelo's sweet potato pie with curry spices and an undercurrent of hostility. Also, crumb crust. Tracey's blueberry-almond crunch pie looks as sad as ever and because she didn't bother adding any thickener it is weeping blueberry tears. I'm sure that was the intended effect. Tiffany offers a rather tame peach cobbler with cornmeal crust and buttermilk-lemon crème anglaise. Cooking instructor Lynne's mango pie with basil and vanilla crust is greeted almost mutely, but the judge's real derision is saved for Ed's banana cream pie with salted peanuts and celery spuma. So, what the hell is a SPUMA? According to wiktionary, it's a foam, froth or slime, which kind of sounds like a kill, fuck, or marry situation for a chef. I mean you can get away with a foam or a froth, but if your spuma comes out as a slime? I don't even think Marcel could pull off a slime and Ed? You are no Marcel. Also, it sounds like a symptom of an STD. As in: "I knew that toilet bowl was skanky, so when I saw spuma coming out of my vajayjay, I headed straight to Planned Parenthood." But Ed wants us all to pretend that his grandma used to make this dish, more or less. Gail -- being possibly awesome to hang out with, although far more possibly incredibly fucking annoying what with her Padma inferiority complex and wannabe smartass smart girl thing -- coyly asks how his spuma compares to his grandma's spuma and snaps a Z in the air. Ed throws down his whisk, puts up his dukes, and demands, "How dare you talk about his grandma like that!" and then remembers it was his stupid word in the first place and fake laughs, "Ha ha?" Alex made a white chocolate, tapioca, and chevre pie, but with the addition of an egg, it's more like a quiche and, well, real man or not, no one wants to eat a white chocolate quiche. Johnny Iuzzini tenderly puts his arm around Gail and leads her away from the pietastrophe. The results are in! The losers? Alex with his revolting tapioca quiche, Tracy with her too thin piecrust and weepy blueberries, and, of course, Ed. Because no one wants to admit that spuma exists. It's the embarrassing secret of the pastry world. Ed shakes his head in confusion. How could this happen to him? How????!!!! The winners? Kelly with her simple raspberry chocolate tart and comehither eyes. Also a winner? Stephen and his curried apple surprise. The big winner? Kenny and his bananas foster five spice concoction. Kenny acknowledges his win not with hoots, hollers, or high fives, but with a solemn head nod and a "Suck it, Angelo" smirk.Padma introduces today's Elimination Challenge: Prepare a picnic for Capitol Hill interns. The picnic must include one main dish and two sides, because that is how god intended a picnic to be and who is Bravo to mess with god's plan? Alex pretends this picnic idea sounds really exciting what with all the interns milling around Mt. Vernon's lawns just waiting to eat his meat. Arnold, however, is tres concerned about his pores and what will happen to them if he has to stand over a hot grill for two hours. Oh the exfoliation that will be required! Off to Whole Foods the cheftestants roll. Kevin is tapping into his wife's Puerto Rican heritage, while Tracey is going to make a sausage because she wants to impress the judges and makes sausages all the time. Can I just call it now? Tracey is SO going home. Any time someone claims something is easy it just means Imminent Doom. The chefs run through the store knocking over old people and mowing down children in their pursuit of the perfect spear of asparagus and the last morsel of beef tenderloin. No one snaps at them either, proving once again that this is not reality, it's Bravo. Can you imagine someone running over your toe at the grocery store and not, like, making a shiv out of an ear of corn and taking them down? Anyway, the chefs are busy not being knifed despite their rude behavior, but the most interesting thing we hear is from Amanda. She explains that she did a lot of cocaine and pills in her early 20s, but fought back from the brink of I don't know what. Valley of the Dolls? Sid and Nancy? Requiem for a Dream? She's a fighter and she don't abide no one cutting in front of her in the parsnip line or at the check out counter. She's a fighter and no one should count her out even when she makes bland chicken or boring pie. Although maybe now we understand why she would serve alcohol to children without blinking. Boozy chicken is a gateway drug! Like how marijuana leads to heroin every single time. Anyway, I don't really know why they edited in Amanda's life story right smack dab in the middle of an average Whole Foods run, but there you have it. Amanda will cut a bitch. Maybe you.
After a few establishing shots proving that we are still filming in the nation's capitol, the cheftestants head back to Top Chef DC HQ. (Washington exists solely on a diet of acronyms and ID badges.) Arnold reminds us that the challenge is to make a picnic lunch for 150 of the nation's finest college sophomores and potential future leaders of America. Or at least potential interns at bigger and better institutions, like US Weekly. Arnold doesn't do barbecue, per se, but is willing to skewer a lamb meatball or two or 300. Contrary to Arnold, Kenny loves grilling because it reminds him of his father. He has been grilling since he was seven years old and ...what? SEVEN? Someone let you play with lighter fluid and flames and hot meat and matches at SEVEN? Well, okay, huh. Tracey is talking nonstop to her proto sausage and cursing at her meat grinder. She realizes pretty quickly that Top Chef has supplied sub-par equipment (no, not you GE Monogram) and she will never be able to grind and stuff her sausage. Sausage patties it is! With Vidalia onion and bell pepper relish! Yee haw! She's going home! Tim and Amanda are both making ribs and Tim, being a proud male professional chef from Maryland, which is arguably the South, does not really see any grill competition from a skinny white girl. So maybe that's why they told us about Amanda's past, because clearly drug use = grill skills.
Do you ever find yourself just watching the show and wondering, "What is Angelo Cooking?" Luckily the producers know We Care. Angelo is making an Asian barbecue. There. Question answered. Also, in case you were concerned, he IS confident. Suddenly we hear yelling. Amanda has Alex in a headlock demanding to know how he could dare to use HER oven. Chef Tom Colicchio walks into the kitchen, but doesn't interfere with Amanda's interrogation of Alex, which involves her shoving his hand into a powered up blender. Don't ask, don't tell, right? WRONG. Tom asks her WTF, but looks nervous, because she is a little scary. Amanda explains that there was a braise in her oven and she took it out. Tom takes a deep breath, turns red, and asks if she had labeled the oven or anything? She says no, but it doesn't matter: Prison Rules. Tom backs away slowly before she gets mad. YOU WOULDN'T LIKE HER WHEN SHE WAS MAD. Anyway, back to the food: Ed is making a Moroccan inspired tuna sandwich with cous cous. Tom thinks it is too much, but Ed makes the dangerous mistake of ignoring Tom. Stupid, stupid Ed. Arnold is concerned about time. Stephen is making a bacon-wrapped Chilean sea bass. He has a fish restaurant and is confident. Uh oh! Impending Doom. Tiffany is getting stressed out by Amanda, but she is smart enough to know to stay away from the crazy lady. Suddenly time is up and the chefs head home.
Outside their luxury townhouse, a bunch of chefs loiter outside ruining their palates with cigarettes. Tracey, Kelly, Amanda, Stephen, even (gasp!) Angelo, although we don't actually see him smoke, so maybe he is just gathering intel or hiding from Kenny. As the chefs grill (pun intended!) Amanda about her ribs, Angelo explains to the camera that Amanda is a good chef, but not a great chef and will never beat him. Except, you know, physically.
The day the chefs are driven to George Washington's historic estate at Mt. Vernon, dropped off and fed to the sheep. Or something. They have one hour to fire up their grills and cook their food. Arnold, being eternally concerned about his pores, doesn't know how to use a grill, but he does know how to copy Kenny. Rest assured, his grill gets lit. Tim butts into the conversation to add the requisite sexist remarks that grilling always inspires: Girls can't grill! They burn their vaginas! They are bad at math, too! The producers help his cause by editing in Tracey yelling, "How do you turn the grill down?" as Kenny chuckles to himself. Kenny then points out that Angelo, once again, is making Asian fare. He says that like it's a bad thing. Angelo just smiles and cuts his Vietnamese beef. Time is up and sad pathetic interns of America start spilling into the barbe-queue. Get it? Of course you do. Interns like nothing so much as free food, because for the most part INTERNS AREN'T PAID and live off of the scraps of office birthday parties and catered lunches. When I was an intern in Washington, D.C. (yes, it's true), my lunches consisted of leftover Christmas chocolate for many months or at least well into the month of March. So these interns are probably starving and lacking several essential vitamins and minerals, which explains why some of them are gnawing on their own ID badges on the way to the table. The judges follow in the interns' wake with a respectful twenty-foot distance between them and the riff raff. They greet Arnold first. The guest judge for today is Jonathan Waxman of Barbuto restaurant in New York. If you were housebound, snowed in, without a party line, no internet, lacking friends, sans books and hence desperate enough to watch Top Chef Masters, you might recognize him. Arnold presents them with a sesame lamb meatball with gazpacho and tabouli. Tamesha -- who I sort of forgot existed because we never ever see her -- made a marinated skirt steak with a fennel citrus salad. Angelo made a Vietnamese lettuce wrap and a smoked egg salad. I have no idea what a smoked egg salad is and, trust me, the picture doesn't help explain it. Alex grilled a pork butt and managed to announce it without giggling, which is more than I would be able to manage. The judges are making their assessments in groups of four. They think Arnold's was delicious, Alex's was good but needed a kick in the butt (pun intended!), Tamesha's was overly sweet, and Angelo's was picture perfect. up Tim and his pork with a side of chauvinism. Also, corn. Midst presentation, a duck too
k a crap on his table barely missing the portabella mushrooms. The duck wins! Following tamely in the duck's shadow, Amanda presents her dry-rub baby back ribs. Random question: How does one market a baby's back ribs? I mean, it takes some balls to put BABY in the name of something everyone is expected to eat. Anyway. Amanda has grilled asparagus and a salad with a meyer lemon-bacon- hazelnut vinaigrette. Since meyer lemon, dry rub, bacon, and hazelnuts are all Magical Foodie Buzzwords and she has Crazy Eyes, my guess is Amanda will win. The judges head back to their picnic table with two plates of ribs and Kelly's bison burger and Kevin's in-law's rice and beans. Tim's meat is a dry disappointment and Kelly's bison burger is "nothing a home cook couldn't do". Don't let all the double negatives fool you: GAIL HATES HOME COOKS. Remember that when it comes time to not renew your Food & Wine subscription. Amanda's ribs trounce Tim's ribs, but it's her grilled asparagus that gets Jonathan Waxman's lady parts in a tizzy. Kevin's rice and beans are bland and everyone takes turns mocking them. Kevin is totally getting excommunicated from his family when this episode airs. Puerto Rican in-laws are no joke! The judges trudge back to the grills. Culinary instructor Lynne has prepared a leg of lamb with ras el hanout, zucchini faux spaghetti and balsamic onions. Kenny made harissa marinated...eh, he has immunity so who cares. Last in the group is Tracey and her sausage sliders. Lynne's dish comes across as heavy, Tracey's slider is over-fenneled, over-sized, and undercooked. Kenny has immunity. Back for a final go round at the feeding trough: Tiffany offers wild sockeye salmon with a tamarind game and Andrea has root beer glazed skirt steak and Stephen serves up his bacon-wrapped sea bass and, as promised, Ed says "tuna" and "loin" in the same sentence and doesn't get bleeped by the FCC. The judges settle in for a snack n' sneer. But they all look surprised when they actually like Ed's dish despite the fact that he totally ignored Tom's advice. Luckily Andrea's dish is too sweet and Tiffany's glaze is flavorless and Stephen's dish lived up to his worst nightmare: undercooked bacon paired with overcooked fish. Delish!As the judges head off to the vomitorium, the chefs all sample each other's wares. Angelo is in love with Amanda's ribs. He loves them so much he can't wait for the day that he can legally marry them and not settle for second-class citizenship of domestic meat partnership. Then we have one of those brief Bravo interludes where they run the B-roll for filler because ...actually I have no idea why. But! Tracey is a clairvoyant! With 85% accuracy!
The cheftestants all wait in the pre-fab set for their green room looking miserable and second guessing their use of Szechuan peppercorns instead of Heinz ketchup what with this being America and all. Padma comes in and asks for Arnold, Amanda, Angelo and Ed because they couldn't be seen to just favoring names that start with A. That would have been unfair. She congratulates them on their winning dishes. Everyone smiles, except for Angelo, because he's totally used to this scene. The judges demand to know how Ed had the cojones to make a tuna sandwich for a picnic. I mean: BALLER, right? Ed explains that he's made a lot of tartines in his day and it just came from that. He'd also like to thank his grandma and her spuma, if he can say that on television. Tom Colicchio really liked Arnold's meatballs. He took a bite and thought, "Wow, there's food here!" Um, yes, Tom. Arnold's balls were meaty and delicious. You can go shower now. Amanda's ribs get accolades, her asparagus gets lauded, and her salad was derided as having an existentialist crisis with a meaningless existence. Angelo's wrap had nice snap. That was it. Snap. Jonathan Waxman gets the privilege of announcing the winner: Arnold's balls! Arnold sticks out his tongue in glee. Angelo sticks out his in exasperation. Amanda claims that being in the top four is just as good as winning, which is actually true because one of the weirdest things about Top Chef is that when you win a challenge you don't get anything. In fact, winning a Quickfire is FAR SUPERIOR to winning an Elimination Challenge because you can win immunity or, like, $20,000 dollars. $20 large is a hell of a lot better than a pat on the head from the judges. So yeah, aim high-ish, chefs. The crown of victory weighs heavy and it is Arnold's solemn duty to call up his fellow chefs for summary execution. On the chopping block today: Tim, Stephen, Kevin, and Tracey. As Padma explains that their dishes were very, very disappointing, Tim shakes his head in confusion. But but...he's a man! From (arguably) the South! He knows how to barbecue! How could this have happened? Stephen looks like he is going to cry as Tom calls his dish bland, oily, unappealing, and tough. As Gail berates Kevin for making bland Puerto Rican food, he tries to explain that the food he made is exactly as his Actual Puerto Rican in-laws make it on a daily basis. Gail points out that home cooks are like earthworms that need to be crushed under foot and he, as a CHEF, needs to aim for the stars. Then she says his in-laws have bad taste and he has ugly glasses. Enough, Gail! Let the man have some shred of dignity. Or at least don't make it so his in-laws want to cover him in mojo sauce and run him out on a plantain rail. Tracey isn't surprised to be here BECAUSE SHE IS CLAIRVOYANT and, yes, Jonathan Waxman, she did taste her food. Tom raises the insult bar and claims that her food was insulting to Italians, including him. Tracey wasn't sure how to respond to that because, what the fuck, Tom, don't call her racist because her sausage patty sucked! The judges send the losers out so they can mock them in private.
Tim's food gets the high praise of "edible", but Tracey's patty could have been made by Jonathan Waxman's ugly and toothless stepchild. Alex's rice and beans was an affront to both his in-laws and Gail and Stephen's fish was un-picnic-like. How will the judges ever choose which of these losers to send home? Tom calls the Losers back in to flog them for their failures. And what were those crimes again? Stephen: CONDUCT UNBECOMING A PICNIC!; Tim: WATERY BEANS!; Kevin: CRIMES AGAINST RICE! Tracey: WHITE BREAD! SLIMY ONIONS! Tracey is sent home, because it was a barbecue challenge and girls can't grill. But don't worry, she knew she was going home. She is clairvoyant. She is prepared, she is ready. She has a career as a psychic waiting for her.
Melissa Locker a.k.a. Lulu Bates would never deign to dine with interns. You can follow her on Twitter @woolyknickers, although @aplusk is fitter.