Top Chef: Texas and an Impromptu Tour of the Houston Press Offices

Our TV viewing area!

​I arrived home yesterday evening to find that my cable had gone out. To be fair, it could have been out for days. I have no idea. Such are the perils of owning a Roku box and living off Hulu and Netflix instead of basic cable. Either way, I had no means of watching Top Chef that didn't include crashing a friend's otherwise quiet Wednesday evening and monopolizing their TV for an hour while I curse, drink, type loudly and bitch. You see, I literally don't have any friends - that I know of - who watch Top Chef.

And then I remembered: the office has cable! Sort of. We have a 15-inch CRT TV that only has a weird blue tint to it - no other colors - and satellite. God only knows why one of those things is fancy and the other is worse than almost any piece of electronic equipment you could buy for $15 at Goodwill. But that's where I ended up. And because the entire episode of Top Chef ended up being as boring as expected, today's photos are not of anything to do with the competition and instead are a tour of the Houston Press offices by night. EXCITING.

In tonight's episode, the four remaining competitors get a fifth chef added back into the mix: Beverly. Fucking Beverly. Who has somehow battled her way out of Last Chance Kitchen - the companion webisodes that have been airing after Top Chef each week - and back onto the show proper. Literally no one is happy to see her. Including me. I really wanted Nyesha back.

Our kitchen area! Eat your heart out, cheftestants!

​Tom introduces the Quickfire challenge, another excessively gimmicky challenge that involves the contestants picking ingredients blindfolded - for real; blindfolded - and then cooking with what they've pulled from the basket. Colicchio is having a grand old time watching the chefs wander around the kitchen blindly, grasping for ingredients from the pantry and refrigerators. I just think it's an unnecessary waste of everyone's time. Let's be honest: This is not a display of skills or talents that anyone would use in real life unless they were actually blind. And even then, no one would be so cruel as to let a blind person stumble around a kitchen trying to pick cryovac'd meats out of a lineup.

"I ended up with avocado; I didn't realize I grabbed that," says Beverly, which is just about the dumbest shit you'll hear all night. Because a fucking avocado feels like an apple. Or a shallot. Or a trout. Fuck off. An avocado distinctly feels like nothing else other than an avocado. See what I mean about how dumb this all is?

The winner of tonight's Quickfire has to choose between winning a car - a Toyota, of course - or immunity in the real competition. Who would NOT choose immunity? Who would choose a car that they HAVE TO PAY A SHITLOAD OF TAXES ON BECAUSE THEY WON IT ON A GAME SHOW instead of a shot at continuing in the very competition you came to Texas to win? My mind can't wrap itself around why this is even a decision. But then there's fucking Ed, who really wants that car for some godforsaken reason. Luckily, Sarah wins - and she's properly thrilled. She also smartly chooses the immunity, which Ed stupidly misinterprets as a lack of confidence. Dumbass.

Thankfully, the show brings something actually awesome out and introduces a line-up of the competitor's mentors, including heavy-hitter chefs Tony Montuano from Spiaggia and Tyson Cole from Uchi. There are a lot of tears, including from Paul. He cries so much, in fact, that he makes Sarah cry, makes Tyson Cole cry and makes me cry. These are the times when I both love and hate this show. I am so easily manipulated sometimes; aren't we all?