In which the born-again Chicago chef gets an hourlong commericial for his restaurant and his book which is in itself a commercial for his other restaurant. It's Top Chef.
It puts the hydrocolloid gel in the liquid or else it gets the whisk again. Spike, that known master of haberdashery, should be less confused by a USDA-approved hair net, an extra one of which somehow ends up over his mouth. Perhaps this is a shout-out to the knife-and-accessories-packed Andrew, as imagined in a pivotal Silence of the Lambs role? Though honestly I see him as more a Red Dragon kind of guy, what with the gluing to the wheelchair and biting off of the lips. And in case you were wondering, my dear sweet Catholic mom read that book when I was like six years old, and gleefully told me about that scene. And I feel it’s made into who I am today.
The voice-overs are getting so obvious and patchy that it’s as if the fake lady who fake-assists you on a customer service call (as imagined by the brilliant Rachel Dratch) is phoning it in for Padma. “I-I-I think you said, ‘A gigantic hourlong ad for Tramonto’s Suburban Starwood Double Restaurant Deal that will pay for his kid’s Bob Jones University tuition.’ Is that right?”
When making use of her own voice, Padma’s accent skitters from Moon Unit Zappa c. 1982 to present-day Avenue C mami chula to a Ferran Adria/Santi Santamaria cage match on the Catalonian border to her usual affected mouthful of marbles in the span of a single stilted, product-placed sentence.
From one of the actual commercial breaks: things that just do not belong together not matter how much DDB or Ogilvy or whomever strive to make it so:
-Michelob Light and yoga ladies
-Wii Fit and actual human fitness
-The M&M format and dark chocolate
-Tom Colicchio, Kathy Griffin and Jackie Warner from Workout
“Gee Padma, I guess it’s probably not hearts of palm season in Chicago right now.”
Former Top Chef Ilan just stuck jammed his whole hand in his mouth on camera, presumably to get at that last bit of poached egg. None of the previous Top Chef winners dining at Chez National Exposure seem to have invested any of their prize money into a basic table manners class, unless I’m wrong and steak knives are meant to be held at 0-degree angles, parallel to one’s face, for the duration of a meal.
And, I cannot wait to see how Sharkface’s hairdo and general fuckwittery hold up in PR, and whether Padma shows up in doorknocker earrings and a drawn-on mole.
