He also guest blogs on Michael Ruhlman's blog you can find the latest entry here -- [link] where he mentions his baby daughter and how she might be infleuncing the fact he didn't totally hate Next Food Star.

Ahhhh, thanks. From his blog:

Joey comes off like a walking laundry list of "Things Chefs Don't Want In An Employee." Whiner. Crybaby. Blames Others. Persecution Complex. Confrontational. What Bill Buford, in his excellent book, "Heat" came to recognize as a "dickhead". It's a good thing the judges don't see the backstage melodrama. Most chefs I know get wood from kicking guys like that to the curb.

Ah-ha-ha!

I laffed and laffed at that bit, especially the last line.

Why oh why hasn't Bourdain married me yet?

Why oh why hasn't Bourdain married me yet?

Bourdain's the guy you meet up with a few times a year, he cooks you a fantastic meal while bitching about everyone and everything, there's terrific sex for a few days, then his misanthropy starts to get a little stale--along with the cigarette smoke, and you wave him off on his next trip to wherever. But you make sure his phone number is saved in your phone, and you make sure your number is in his.

That'd do.

Hey, I know this guy! Except, without the sex, 'cause, you know. But I have this friend who's a fabulous photographer but can't make any money at it. So he works all over the globe, taking bizarre jobs so that he can have time off whenever he wants it, and travels around and lives in his tent and takes photos. And so periodically we get phone calls from him from various places in the world saying he's going to be in our area next and would we like to get together and go hiking. And he comes over and we hang out and have drinks and make fun of people and he bakes amazing campfire meals and snarks at everything and then he's gone again.

Although now that I type it, it sounds more like Mike Rowe.

I finally watched this week's Top Chef last night, and I agree with what others said about the dessert course, a nice cheese course would have been a good choice. If they really wanted to do sweets, I don't understand why they didn't do chocolate. Pineapple seems like such a random choice.

TC challenge spoiler: this week the qf is to do a piecrust and I believe that the ec is a dessert thing.

Pineapple seems like such a random choice.

I'm with you. It seemed incredibly random. Though I could be biased since I don't really like pineapple very much.

In other Top Chef news, I discovered today that they have recipes up on the site. (It's entirely possible they've been there all along. That site is so difficult to navigate, they could be giving away free houses for all I know.) Has anyone tried any of these?

Since I have a lot of time on my hands lately, I've been cooking more. I was thinking of trying the winning pork chop and apple salad recipe. Oh and one of the popcorn/ceviche recipes. Which one (Harold's or Sam's) I haven't decided on yet.