Charity

Kristi's new bud Crabman is on, and he gets a quick call home to check on his dad, who was diagnosed with cancer just before the show started. If I hadn't had my remorse gland removed, I'd probably feel bad for making fun of the fact that Crabman doesn't know what the phrase "gunning for you" means, but I did, so i don't.

Nat E. Dredd, Rasta Gourmet
Whoah, edgy challenge! Is it oregano? No, no, no, NO! We're cooking with pot, and... What? What's that? Ohhhhh, cooking with one pot. Martha Stewart's Quickfire challenge is to make a 1-dish holiday meal. Soup, anyone?

Top Dishwasher tells us that housewives and grandmas all over the world use cornstarch to thicken their stews. Too bad he's not on Top Grandma.

Martha Stewart calls Luigi's food gray, and they say guys are more likely to be color blind. You would think that someone who builds an empire on design would know the difference between beige and gray... Whatev'. I'm not seeing it, but I don't want to get shanked in the yard, so I don't say anything.

Starbuck is once again in the top three and you can tell by her tight little smile that she knows she's not going to win. Damn, what's a girl gotta do to get a little love?

Oh. She's gotta be from Jersey.

The LoJack on Martha's ankle starts beeping and she's got to run home or something, because she is out of here as soon as the Quickfire is over.

Challenge
There's a choir, there's some caroling, there are some knives, and somehow we end up with a challenge instead of a multiple homicide. Oops. Is my lack of holiday spirit showing?

It's a celebrity gala for amfAR. The chefs are each assigned one of the twelve days of xmas, which several of them promptly ignore. The rest come up with the saddest, weakest, most pathetic links they possibly can. Did the chefs have some sort of side-bet that ended up on the cutting room floor?

Chutney gets the Partridge in a Pear Tree, and makes Duck Breast with, I kid you not, Pear Chutney. Time is so tight that she skips her de rigeur "Not just the Indian Chef" speech.

Crabman, that's not the kind of pipe they're talking about. He makes some lame ass piping, pipe, smoking excuse so he can serve smoked pork. You know, they do eat in Scotland, dumbass, and just off the top of my head, Ireland has both pipers and Guinness. I bet you could make a kick-ass Guinness reduction and... Hmm. I may have to do some experimenting.

Hair Product's Lords a Leaping is even lamer. He gets two kinds of Greek cheese and makes a preposterous "island hopping" connection. Look, I love cheese as much as the next person, but WTF? Really?

They scramble around in the store, they prep their food, they stuff the fridge.

Oh damn, someone left the fridge open, and Chutney and Crabman are so screwed.

Everybody pitches in to bail them out, even Bork. It turns out that Chutney and Crabman are slightly less screwed than one might assume: when Chutney broke down her ducks she put the other parts in another fridge, and Crabman "finds" a bin full of pork that "just happens to be laying around" the Top Chef KitchenAid Calphalon Wusthof Cusinart Glad-Bags Kitchen ...you know, as bins full of pork for 300 so often do.

Everybody kind of half-asses their dishes so that everybody has something to serve.

Elimination
The winners will be chosen by popular vote. Each attendee has a red ribbon, and they vote by pinning them on the table (or chef's whites) of the judge whose food they judge to be the best.

Does Stretch know that Turtle Doves are actually birds and not turtles? ...or mushrooms?

Luigi serves up some bullshit story about dancing lady crabs, but nobody's really buying it, especially those of us that heard the equally bullshit Can Can connection he made last night.

Jersey Girl made Deviled Eggs? Now, I love me some deviled eggs at a picnic, but they don't really say "black tie celebrity bash" to me. This is clearly a "Who's got immunity now, bitches?" choice. Too bad there's not some kind of high-end delicacy that comes from geese... maybe one that's suitable for use in canapes or hors d'oeuvres. If only there was something like that, she'd have been in there like swimwear.

Bork hasn't even bothered to come up with a connection to his theme, aside from the fact that he ate a chicken pot pie once at Christmas or something. Padma and guest judge Natasha Richardson try to help him out, but he couldn't care less. The conversation goes a little like this:
"So the pot pie is the drum?"
"Yeah. Sure. Whatever." (blank stare)
"...but the drumstick is inside?" (helpfully)
"Oh, drumstick. I see what you did there."

Not Everybody Leaves
Crabman and Hair Product run away with it, with Bork and Chutney rounding out the top 4. Crabman wins and gives props to everyone else for saving his ass. They all get a cookbook. For Augustmas. I guess.

The crowd hated Top Dishwasher, The Mouse, and Starbuck. One of them got 8 votes. Eight out of 300. Ouch.

Radicchio eventually comes in and tells them that they all sucked, even the winners. But, in the spirit of August, or whenever the hell they filmed this, and recognizing that they all made sacrifices to bail out Chutney and Crabman, he's not going to send anyone home.

Conspiracy theory, anyone? I think they wanted to send Starbuck home for her slimy scallops, but they realized they would have looked like total dicks if they sent the last member of Team Rainbow home from an amFAR benefit on the Christmas episode. Maybe?

Maybe not. Maybe they just realized that everybody sucked, and that it was partly due to the production staff not checking out the kitchen before they turned off the lights.

Whatever. I like Starbuck. I'm glad she stayed, and I'm sure she's learned her lesson and will steer clear of scallops for the rest of the season.

Next week: Double elimination?