Top Chef - Season 4 - Episode 1

A new Top Chef! Hooray!

OK, a few quick notes:

1) I have no idea why I like this show, but I love it. I mean, let us count the ways, shall we? I am not a foodie, I barely go out to restaurants, ever (and when I do it's for $6 Mexican), and I am pretty tragically close to cooking-challenged. At home, entertaining for only myself and my spider plants, I basically make the same three meals over and over (and - ahem - one of them is a salad). But I am serious: if Javier Bardem were standing there threatening my life with that scuba-tank gun thingy of his, I probably still wouldn't even be able to boil a pot of water. And then I would be dead.

So, my point is I really like the show.

2) Let me be the first one to cast a nice big Shirley Jackson Lottery stone and say that I am really kind of glad that Minna was the first to go. It could have something to do with my being the second-most-insecure person on the planet, but - and I know I cannot speak for you - but I really wanted to see the most insecure person go down. Not that it was joyful for me, but still she had to go. It's so sad: I should be sympathetic, but I think it's some weird instinct for weeding out the weak.

You know, I watched the coolest documentary over the weekend, The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill, and these birds were - at the risk of sounding positively Californian - just awesome. They paired up and chose mates, and cared for each other, and cleaned each other, and had all these little sixth-grade fights and then got back together again. It was very sweet. Sweet, that is, until one of them got old and lame, and then all the others ganged up on him and tried to peck the sick little parrot to bits.

So, I guess that's kind of how I felt watching Minna. It's not fair, or nice, but there it is. I blame some strange fucked-up evolutionary wiring. I mean if these cute little parrots do it, then I'm basically in the clear.

3) I also love the soothing sultry Padma. I mean, after watching a whole Runway season of the dead-eyed Heidi with her pigeon English baby-talk, and the I-Can't-Believe-You're-on-TV-and-You-Don't-Use-a-Leave-in Nina, I am so ready for Padma. She is so expressive with her eyes, and dark and soulful, like some desert sheik-ess. She has this incredible warm heart and does not seem at all like those cerebral ice-sculpture judges on Runway. Maybe it's just me, projecting again, but I don't get the impression that she enjoys cutting you off at the knees on national television. And, to top it off, she's got that cool and crazy scar that invites all kinds of mystery: Was she in a knife fight? Was she attacked by a shark? Did she survive a tragic tumble into a glacial crevasse?! No, no, don't tell me; I don't want to know! It would ruin the mystique!

So, it's off to a good start. Here's to sharpened knives, people.

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