Also, since I'm watching both Top Chef and Next Food Network Star, when Micah got meatloaf and was wondering what to do with it, my first thought was "DEEP FRY IT! WITH BACON ON TOP!"

That probably would not have helped her, though.

Bwah!

I loved that on Food Network when the judges were all, "Ohhh! No wonder it was so delicious!!"

oh, I'm not saying that her dish didn't suck and she should have been able to do better, I'm just saying that people calling her a liar about being south african because she lived in the US for a few years aren't being fair.

Oh, sure. Definitely.

my first thought was "DEEP FRY IT! WITH BACON ON TOP!"

psst! Not low cholesterol.

"DEEP FRY IT! WITH BACON ON TOP!"

Bwah! And then Padma could've been proven right that anything tastes good when it's fried.

TC: Hard to know about the Micah thing. Certainly, plenty of people have studied abroad and not picked up sh*t about local culture and food. Also, having being raised in the US by a foreigner, I can tell you my mother never made most of those “comfort foods”. Even now, I’m not sure what is in a tuna casserole or chicken à la king—because I’ve still never had occasion to try them. We never even had peanut butter in the house because my mother couldn’t stand the smell. And, believe me, in the 70s, taking pâté sandwiches to school for lunch was not cool.

I loved that Hung wasn’t in the top group for either challenge.

SYTYCD: I’d love to see Jessi and Cedric go. I wasn’t very interested in any of the dances last night except Hok and Jamie’s (and I thought they should have been in the bottom three last week). Still don’t like Anya.

I am the only person who likes Cedric! I agree with everyone's criticisms of him and the judging, but I find him scrappy and lovable. Also he is frickin amazing at what he does, and that is more exciting to me than, say, break-dancing or Pasha. But what do I know, I didn't think Pasha's substitute partner was really all that last night, though clearly I guess she should have been.

I like Cedric, I just don't think he should have made it this far in the competition.

Oh, I love Cedric and I will be the happiest person in the world if the Debbie Allen scholarship actually pans out. I just don't think he is right for this show.

As for Pasha and Melanie last night, I think in part what happened with Melanie is that she was stuck doing a routine choreographed to play to Jessi's strengths and weaknesses, so there were a lot of times where she was just standing around wriggling and trying to look sexy when she could've been doing a lot more intricate work . . . and she wound up having to try to do lifts with Pasha that were designed to be done by a 25 year old dancer.

SYTYCD - I would feel bad for Mia that she had to deal with Cedric, except she's fought to keep him in so she has to deal with it. I don't think Cedric is a bad person or a bad dancer, he's great at what he does but he's extremely limited and he's been kept in even though he's limited.

Top Chef - I only watched half and I can't remember what all the comfort/home cooking food and I haven't read the contraversay about Micah -- are people saying she's not from South Africa at all or just claiming she should have more exposure to American food than she's claiming?

I think comfort food is fairly regional in America. One of the first things I think of is turnip greens and corn bread, country fried steak, fried okra, cheese grits, stuff like that. I've never had chicken a la king before and lasgane was a special occasion type of thing.