I am also very pleased that they actually required them to make dessert.

I would have preferred it if they had been forbidden to make dessert. That way the judges could have eaten 4 courses that showed off their best efforts and nobody would have been able to play the "But I took a risk and made dessert!" card. Requiring a dessert did even the playing field, but it also forced all three of them to essentially waste one course out of the four.

He’ll probably do sous-vide pureed peas, and apple-juice “caviar.”

LOVE

"I cook simple food and I keep minimal ingredients instead of overthinking things,"

That comment annoyed the crap out of me. You cook Thai and Vietnamese food! Those are not "minimal ingredient" cuisines! Argh.

This, except I don't think he cares about hair color.

har. true, but I think that he prefers blondes. I mean, how else did Cat Deely get this gig?

Well, forced to make a dessert or being forbidden from making one - either of those is better than leaving it up in the air and then questioning the judgement of people who do either.

I kind of like Cat Deeley. It is possible I am a sucker for her accent, though. Also, I find watching her tower over the dancers endlessly amusing. She's listed at 5'9, and assuming she's wearing 3 inch heels most of the time, there are a lot of tiny tiny dancers on this show.

I kind of like Cat Deeley.

I don't hate her, I've just never understood what qualifications that she had for the job except she was pretty and had a nice accent. Well, I suppose that's all you need for a presenter, though.

Also from the Zap2it recap, and hee:

Lisa talks about how easy it is to work with chef Bloomfield -- "Our personalities are really, really similar." Bloomfield should contact her lawyer about a slander suit.

Also, how adorable was the little jig Stephanie was dancing at the end?

I kind of like Cat Deeley.

I kind of love her. she seems to genuinely care about the dancers. i'm especially thinking of Anthony Bryant and how she tried to comfort him after the judges told him he wasn't going to Vegas.

SYTYCD - I don't know what Mary's on, but I'd like some.

From Lee Anne's blog:

Here’s a run-down of the protein selection each chef had. Eric Ripert’s list consisted of: caviar, clams, sea urchin, lobster, hamachi, snapper, poussins (baby chickens) quail, quail eggs, chorizo, bacon, veal tenderloin, and rack of lamb. Dan Barber’s table had abalone, calamari, scallops, tuna, halibut, guinea hen, duck, duck fat, foie gras, prosciutto, pork belly, rabbit, and venison. April Bloomfield’s table had oysters, octopus, head on prawns, jumbo lump crab, mahi mahi, organic chicken, squab, pancetta, sweetbreads, oxtails, beef tongue, wagyu strip, and ostrich steaks.

From a culinary producer’s point of view, it’s a little frustrating to see our chefs go for the same old proteins again and again, even with such a selection. (Scallops: Official Sponsor of Top Chef.) And Lisa and the damn prawns. Leave the shrimp alone already and show me that you can cook something else. It drove me bonkers because getting all of those beautiful proteins to the island of Puerto Rico almost shaved ten years off my life in stress alone. (My fish arrived two hours before we began the final challenge.) Obviously there was quite a bit of repetition, especially from Richard, so I was puzzled by some of their protein choices.

behind the scenes at SYTYCD -

cute read:

[link]