Top Chef - Short and Sweet

I can't remember if there was a winner or not but Team Rainbow just got smaller because Richard is out. Apparently his Smores looked like spit.

Let's get the holiday season started properly!

I couldn't find a clip of this that didn't have all the 24 stuff in it but here it is none the less. I present to you one of my favorite Christmas clips EVER!

Kiefer the Pirate vs. the Christmas Tree.

I so want to party with that guy!

Happy Holidays everybody!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Be safe and eat well!

Just sayin'

So, Bravo is showing season 2 repeats of Top Chef. Ah Marcel, how I've missed your foamy self! When I think of Christmas I think of you!

I don't know about anyone else but it's really beginning to feel like the holidays.

Someone else Jim and I miss is...

The Dude

This is Michael, creator of the renown Snicker on a Cheesepuff appetizer and greatest Top Chef Contestant of all time. He is not simply Michael, he is the Dude, the Lubowski of the culinary world. May we all be honored to sample his Flintstonian approach to cuisine some day.

Fish and cheese, he likes it!

4 years ago today on Lost...

"S.O.S."

Locke tries to sketch the blast doormap from memory.

Jack and Kate go to 'the line' to try and arrange a prisoner exchange (Ben for Walt) and instead find Michael

Bernard attempts build a huge SOS sign but guves up after Rose tells him that the Island healed her cancer andshe is afraid to leave.

As always, thanks to Lostpedia

My new favorite shower song...

Girl is bad-ass and she knows it!

Today in Lost history...

"Live Together, Die Alone"
The survivors have been on the Island for two months.

"Dave"
Hurley destroys his stash, then finds out about the supply drop. "Dave" tries to convince Hurley that the Island is all a delusion, and urges him to commit 'suicide' to break out of it.
Ana Lucia prevents Sayid from shooting Ben.
Libby convinces Hurley that the Island is real, and kisses him.

"Three Minutes"
Ms. Klugh lets Michael see Walt. Walt tells Michael that the Others "are not who they say they are... they're pretending". In return for Walt's freedom and a boat, Michael agrees to free Ben and lure Jack, Kate, Hurley, and Sawyer to the Others' camp.

Thank you Lostpedia!

No time for pictures, cleaning house. (sigh)

Today in Lost History

"The Whole Truth"

Sun tells Jin she's pregnant.

"Lockdown"

Anna Lucia, Charlie and Sayid find Henry Gale's balloon and a grave containing the real Henry Gale's body and ID card.

Locke is cut off from the Swan computer when the blast doors come down. He agrees to protect Ben in return for help.

Locke sees the blast door map.

Jack wins medical supplies from Sawyer in a poker game.

Jack and Kate find a Dharma supply drop.

Ben is confronted with Henry's ID card.

Thank you Lostpedia!

Season 5 starts 2 months from today!

Is it 4 yet?

Today in Lost History...

Late 1940s/Early 1950s

Rose is born.

Happy Birthday Rose! (Sorry, no picture)

2004

Sun finds out that she is pregnant.

Man, is it January yet?

Top Chef - L'Italia batte la concorrenza

I'm not sure if my mother is watching this season but I do know that today she's feeling happy and proud even if she doesn't know why. Fabio won last night's Top Chef Challenge! Viva Italia!

They started with a Quick Fire Hot Dog Challenge and frankly (get it!) none of the dogs looked that appetizing, espcially Eugene's sushi hot dog. Radikha's Indian Kabob style dog won the Quick Fire and thus immunity, which helped save her bacon this go round.

For the Elimination Challenge, contestants were given access to Master Colicchio's kitchen at his restaurant Craft and each were to create one dish that would be served to New York chefs who had tried out and failed to be on the show. Contestants really needed their dishes to complement bitter if they wanted to be successful and most were not, successful that is. This season's contestants don't seem that up to the challenge. I mean, they were able to make whatever they wanted without restrictions and most still failed to please. That's not a good sign.

Jamie from San Francisco did well though! Go SF!

Ariane made a Lemon Meringue Martini (which sounds awesome!) for a dessert, something she said she makes all the time at her restaurant. Her martini offended Padma so much that the one mouthful she took ended up in her napkin. (You shouldn't oughta offend Padma's delicate taste buds!) If Ariane makes it all the time, it should have been swallowable at the very least. Why she didn't go home, I don't know. This was her second time at the bottom and her dish was napkined.

Fabio's winning Beef Carpaccio with grilled lemons and olives. The olives were referred to as spherecized (was that it?) which is treating the olives in some way that makes the outside harder and the inside softer, like an egg Fabio said.

Jill's Ostrich Egg Quiche. Apparently using exotic ingredients doesn't prevent one from creating an unoriginal failure. One diner said it looked like dog food - Ouch!

3 down.

Next week, a very special Foo Fighters Thanksgiving.

(Apologies for the odd formatting, the compose function is not doing my bidding.)

New poster!

Thanks Dark!

Okay, where's Frank? That crusty ol' pilot better show up!

hominahominahominah...

Ladies, I give you Mr. Stephen Colbert...

As the eagle spreads!

For you Jen!

Kids, it doesn't pay to cheat!

And I didn't cheat nearly as much as I could have.

For those who aren't aware, the creators of Lost started an ARG at Comicon that involved reinstituting the Dharma Initiative and recruiting new members. Once a week a new test would be given to folks who signed up and each week you would be placed in a new group. Well there are some lovely Lost fans who pick apart every single aspect of this show right down to the source code in the show's ARG and these same lovely people discovered that there were cheats for every test. Sadly, I have to admit that I did use the cheat on the second test but that was it, I decided to play it straight the rest of the time. The last test was not a test at all but a video telling us that the cheats had been included purposefully because they were testing for honesty through out the whole game. Crap! Recruits were then grouped into either White Swan (didn't use cheat) or Black Swan (did use cheat, i.e. Me). The game ended a few weeks ago and nothing was expected to happen for another month or so, but this morning we received an email telling us that the results were in.

(To read the email go here....

http://www.tinyurl.com/6nd38m it's funny little read)

I have been designated as a Proof Reader. Doesn't sound all that bad considering Carol was given the task of Brick Layer. Debbie was given Gardener and she never even bothered to take the last 3 or 4 tests.

Wow, do they ding you for cheating or what? If I hadn't cheated, I might have been a Psychologist. Hey, ya never know. Man, looking at this brings back report card memories and I've worked hard to repress those.

Those who submitted their own questions were given DI Instructor t-shirts. (damn, why didn't I send in a question?)

I can't say that was the most exciting game they've helped us kill time with but still a good time was had. I can't to see what, if anything, it all means.

Oh gawd!

This sign is just so obnoxious!

Why not just say "Alameda, we're so very!"

Jim said the only way to make it even more snobby was to call it The Shoppes at Alameda Towne Centre. Right now someone at City Hall is probably kicking themselves for not coming up with it first. Oh damn and blast!

Back to a simpler time. It's still South Shore dammit!

Dim Sum....again.

Katherine was in town over the weekend so Jim and I went to Dim Sum with her and Phil on Sunday. So yummy!

I stole the last dim sum photo from her blog so it only seemed right to steal the new one as well. (XOXOX) But I can give out the photos below, she doesn't have those.

After all the years I've been married to Jim, the way he looks at me still makes my knees go weak. That's the look of love, no really, it is.

That's my Lovebug!

My dark masters, the Faster Disasters!

No two men ever made a chicken suit sexier!

Team Faster Farms got a nice shout out by Jalopnik's lovely Murilee Martin.
http://www.tinyurl.com/5qef78

Saturday morning wasn't bad either.

Jim and I decided to start the day with a bike ride down the Bay Path. It was a lovely morning.

Our view of San Francisco and the Bay Bridge.

The path ends at Marina Park.

Friday was a good day.

What a great way to end the week. Worked all morning until about 11:30 and the boss, Rachel and I headed to Castro Valley and had lunch at Pyzano's Pizza. I had the lunch special with a slice of the Wiseguy, so good! (mmmm, I'm thinkin' about it right now)

Pyzano's is the home of the World's Greatest Tosser doncha know.

Check it out http://www.pyzanospizzeria.com/

Isn't she pretty?

After working a very short afternoon, I swung by Lora's and visited for a bit, finally meeting her dog Dixie. Such a love! She's just the sweetest thing.

Dora made it back in to town so Lora and I met her for a couple of dangerously tasty Lemon Drops .


Di and Jim joined us.

And then Jim, Di, Dora and I hooked up with Debbie and Gina for dinner at Kamakura. Can't think of a better way to end the work week.

Happy Birthday Your Royal Highness!

Prince Charles is 60 years young today!

I will happily drink to his good health tonight.

So, Top Chef is back and they brought the cruelty right from the get go! They sent the loser of the first Quick Fire challenge home before they could even unpack. Harsh! For the Quick Fire, all contestants had to peel 15 apples with a paring knife, then the 8 slowest had cut their apples into perfect cubes and finally the slowest 4 had 20 minutes to make a dish using the apples. Lauren didn’t like them apples because she was first to go. Buh bye Lauren!
For the Elimination Challenge, the chefs drew knives and selected different neighborhoods in New York to use as inspiration for their dishes, with two chefs for each neighborhood competing against each other. Most of the contestants didn't seem to do very well, there were not a lot of glowing reviews on the food. Let's hope it's just nerves. While I was pulling for Fabio (because he's from Italy which will make Mom happy and also because his name is Fabio which makes me happy) and Jamie from San Francisco, Stefan ended up winning the challenge. Congrats Stefan!

Stefan's winning dish, Lamb chop with tabouli and beef skewer with onions.

Poor young Patrick was asked to pack his knives and go for his Chinese Salmon failure. You knew he was in trouble when he chose to cook with black noodles, something he had never used before. As I said to Jim, if you're in a competition why would you even consider using a product you're unfamiliar with? The just screams DUH if you ask me. He said he was still a student so I guess that ends that lesson for him.

Patrick's losing dish, Basted salmon with black rice noodles and steamed bok choy.

Oh, worth a mention, Patrick and Lauren went to culinary school together. I'm thinking the school might not want to promote that.

And it's good to see Tom Colicchio again! Just for fun, read his blog on Bravo's site... http://tinyurl.com/colicchio

Give Pushing Daisies a chance!

This is a very sweet, funny, surreal detective show that took a bit of a hit with last year's Writer's strike and isn't faring so well in it's new season. It could really use a few more people watching it. It's on Wednesday nights at 8pm on channel 7 (ABC), well, in California anyway. Please check your local listings.

For a full synopsis you can clck here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pushing_Daisies

Jim would really appreciate your support with this, he loves this show. Tell your friends!

Top Chef Season 5 starts tonight!

Tom Colicchio is back and I'm so happy!

I'll compile contestant pics tonight, I'm having a hard time on this work computer. It never lets me do anything fun. But yay! I loves me some Top Chef! Here's to many weeks of hearing Jim yell "useless!" whenever Padma is onscreen.

Today in Lost history

1969

Mikhail Bakunin is born in Kiev, Ukraine

2004

Jack, Locke and Saywer encounter the Others while looking for Micheal.

Tom swaps their guns for Kate (because she can never just do what she's asked so she just had to follow them and get herself kidnapped in process. Way to help out Kate! )

Can't wait!

Talking clothes...

I like it. Love the little boots!

Today in Lost history

2004

Trying to escape the island, Desmond begins to sail due west to make it to Fiji.

(But they're trapped in a bloody snowglobe!)

Thank you to Lostpedia for timeline.