(sm)All-Star Game

The Public Shaming/Rationalizing of Sexy Pants and Crabman continues at the top of the show. How did it end up like this? It was only a kiss. It was only a kiss. I'm Mr. Brightspot. Or something. And then we've got to sell some crap.

Otumeru Battaru!
Today's secret ingredient: Quaker Oatmeal! Traditionally eaten in winter by old people, small children, and invalids, oatmeal is bland and must be flavored with the addition of sweet ingredients to hide the flavor and consistency of mashed, boiled oats. The Quakers are a perfect emblem of oatmeal, with their simplicity and puritanical opposition to pleasure, colored clothing, pants for women, papal authority, and the draft. Today, one can find oatmeal marketed wherever one finds actual breakfast foods, and wherever you find oatmeal, you'll find the smug, self-satisfied smile of our dour Puritan forefather as he contemplates a day filled with hunting witches or stealing land from the original inhabitants. Whatever he does with his day, you know he's doing it with a gut full of gluey mashed grain. Allez cuisine!

Wait. Which show am I recapping again? Oops.

Hair Product and Sexy Pants flop, and Luigi's Eggplant Three Mile Island is so bad that Starbuck can't look at it without laughing. Factoid of the day: Stretch eats a lot of oatmeal. She says it a lot louder, so it's more like A! LOT! OF! OATMEAL! She's just excited as hell about oatmeal, isn't she? Starbuck's Cocoatanut Shrimp is another winner, but Bork wins it with some kind of banana-oatmeal mousse.

This Quickfire brought to you by Quaker Oats. Quaker Oats: they help ya poop.

Fumble!
For this Very Special Elimination Challenge, we'll be flogging the Superbowl to get you pumped up for your football-themed episodes of Burn Notice, 30 Rock, Monk, and Psych, which will, in turn, get you even more excited about football.

I'm just kidding, of course. 30 Rock was a repeat this week.

For this special competitive cooking event, the chefs will face off against a team of returning winners... no... stars... um... contestants? from earlier seasons who a) are in New York, and b) have nothing else going on in their lives.

Each chef will take a cuisine from the home city of an NFL team and face off against the (sm)All Star Chef that chooses the same cuisine. But first, Bork gets to pick his cuisine AND his opponent. He picks Dallas and Andrea from Season One, most famous for being kicked off twice (true) and being a vegetarian (not).

Each chef gets a cooler full of ingredients and will have 20 minutes on competition day to make a dish. Any chef who loses their face-off is eligible for elimination.

Sexy Pants is up against Nikki from Season Four with New York cuisine. Sexy Pants, I predict confidently, is going to get her ass kicked, but Nikki's obviously bet big money on the home team, because she inexplicably cooks chicken livers instead of steak. Thanks for making me look like an idiot, Nikki. Whut the hail? Sexy Pants gets 7 points (touchdown!) from the judges because steak tastes better than liver, duh. Somehow, Nikki gets 3 points (field goal!) from the panel of giblet-loving freaks in the audience.

Crabman faces off against Miguel Chunk Le Funk from Season One in the Battle For Seattle. Crabman makes salmon in an eggroll wrapper which sounds weird to me, but kicked Miguel in the chunks. Crabman takes 10 for the home team.

Stretch has New Orleans and makes 20 minute gumbo, which sounded like an invitation to disaster to me, but I guess the prep time on the previous day paid off, because she beats loudmouth jackass Andrew from Season Four in a 7 to 3 split decision.

It's a rout! Next up is Bork's victory lap. He makes traditional Dallas... um... salad? Andrea, who was paying attention when the challenge was announced, whips a hot and spicy (...like her men! Rimshot! Bork immediately declares his undying love, and our eyes and our stomachs both roll) TexMex chili. Andrea crushes Bork ten-nil, winning both the judges and the audience. Bork can't believe it and I'm laughing like a hyena. Salad. What a dumbass.

She hadn't seen the season yet, so she couldn't tell him, but I have and I can. Bork, that's what an ass-whipping looks like.

Starbuck is up against Camile Who? from Season 3 with her hometown San Francisco cuisine. They both make crab stuff, and I was a little worried when I saw Starbuck's giant slab of grilled sourdough. The judges decide that, for today only, they like a big chunk of bread, and Starbuck wins it.

In the Miami Vice Round, we find that Josie from Season Two knows a thing or two about football, and Miami cuisine too. Hair Product is all over the place (Really? Who could have seen that coming?) and is left desperately bitching that her ceviche is not really ceviche, despite the fact that he used cooked shrimp in his. His argument, like his food, scores no points.

It comes down to Luigi versus Season Four's Spike in the Green Bay Packers Totally Cheeseball round. Luigi overcooks his venison, and it's all ovah! The 7-3 split goes to Spike, who wins over the judges. Luckily for the home team, Luigi's only needed 3 points to deny the (sm)All Stars the win.

Reviewing the Play
The Young Wilfred Brimley tells Starbuck that he loved watching her work, which is code for "you're going home empty handed again." Stretch's gumbo wins the night and two tickets to the Superbowl, which she is probably going to give to her husband and son, because she doesn't even like football.

Luigi revises his story about the overcooked venison (now claiming that he did not, in fact, overcook it after all, and tries to blame the judges) and gets shirty with the guest judge about combining acid and cheese. YWB shuts up Luigi by reminding him which of them is the judge. Bork shuts his pie hole. Hair Product tries to claim the moral high ground by saying that his dish was more complicated than any of the other dishes, and is reminded by Radicchio that, no matter how complicated it was, it just wasn't as good as Josie's.

Shockingly, Mini-Radicchio was barely an ass today. I'd estimate his performance at 50 centicheeks at best. What happened? Did they up his meds? Did he realize how much he sucks? Was he trying to figure out where David Beckham had wandered off to during the football episode?

In the end, Hair Product is out, and it's hard to argue that he's not the least talented of the three that were up for elimination. He's been an unfocused mess all season long, and his organizational skills just don't translate to his food. I will content myself with gently pointing out that if you're given every possible advantage and you somehow manage to piss it all away, that should probably count against you if the person with all of the disadvantages turns around and kicks your ass in the elimination round. Can I get a "Hell, yeah," Chutney? No?

Next episode: I forget what's happening in the next episode and make a feeble generic prediction. I've really got to start paying attention to the previews.