A few of the best stories spied elsewhere on the Web this week:
Bravo announces that "Top Chef Masters'" will be renewed for a second season, this time with the addition of Food & Wine's Gail Simmons to the judges' table.
Chicago pizza lover Craig Scharoff takes a bet to eat only sausage pizza for one month and, with a little over a week left, Scharoff has actually lost a few pounds, owing to the fact that he no longer eats his kids' leftovers.
We know you'll be lining up for the Heston Blumenthal-endorsed SousVide Supreme, the first to market sous vide machine for the ambitious home cook who can't live without the tender texture and flavor the cooking method yields.
In surprising and annoying study news, researchers found that in addition to red wine, prolonged contact with white wine erodes tooth enamel -- making teeth more sensitive to cold, hot and sweet food, as well as staining. Even more surprising is that brushing teeth after drinking white wine worsens the damage.
The new edition of classic cooking tome "Larousse Gastronomique" arrives in stores with a thud, weighing in at eight pounds and 1,206 pages, with updates from avant-garde chefs such as Ferran Adria and Thomas Keller along with recipes for traditional French dishes like crepes suzettes.
A "Top Chef" host has a little something in the oven -- and it's not a Quickfire dish.
Reps for Padma Lakshmi confirmed to Usmagazine.com that the former model, burger spokeswoman and Emmy winner is pregnant with her first child after a multi-year struggle with endometriosis.
The 39-year-old co-founded the Endometriosis Foundation of America earlier this year in an attempt to raise awareness about the condition in which uterine lining accumulates in other parts of the body, sometimes leading to chronic pain and infertility.
Lakshmi's three-year marriage to novelist Salman Rushdie ended in divorce in 2007 and the identity of the father has not been publicly revealed.
Chicago's own Rick Bayless may be the king of Mexican cuisine in America, but his win on "Top Chef Masters" proved the chef could also cook through the canon of other world cuisines.
If you've been faithfully watching the first season of "Top Chef Masters," you know it's not about the drama. It's not about the high-stakes tension. And it certainly isn't about the fashion about one of its namesake Top Chefs. (Mexican-chef extraordinaire Rick Bayless' specs invoke memories of a junior-high chemistry teacher, circa 1996.)
So how climactic could last night's finale have possibly been? Three of the most established, entitled chefs in America duking it out for ... what, exactly?
Well, words like "honor," "pride" and "respect" were thrown around, as were references to the charity money at stake, of course. There were the requisite sound bites about "every one of us deserving to win" or "this will be the closest" of all the season's scores. Yes, the group-hug feel of the entire season culminated in a finale so steeped in admiration, they had to set it in a museum, Malibu's majestic Getty Villa.
All of this made Italian stallion Michael Chiarello's fighting spirit -- so cockily annoying in previous episodes (though this week he attributed this impression to Bravo's editing) -- a breath of fresh air, even if he did overdo the boxing metaphors: "It's like Rocky Marciano, Rocky Balboa and Rocky's trainer all in the ring at the same time," he quipped, leading one to wonder who the Burgess Meredith of this trio of celebrity chefs might be -- graying Frenchman Hubert Keller, perhaps?
The pugilist vibe seemed to indicate that the gloves were coming off, or "the truffles are coming out of the bag." Keller was so enamored of his, which were overnighted from his homeland (what happened to the usual dollar limit on ingredients?) that he did a little celebratory dance, shaking the velvety fungi-like maracas.
At this late stage in the season, there's a few things about "Top Chef Masters" we've come to expect. Foremost among them: When host Kelly Choi breaks out her best grade-school instructional voice, we know we're in for something special.
Last night was no exception. When she offered an oh-so-helpful etymology primer -- "The word 'chef,' as you know, means 'chief'!" -- you could practically see the four remaining pros shudder in their aprons.
Yup, after a season of going it solo, the polished pros would direct a crew of underlings for the penultimate elimination challenge. That the challenge itself was one of the vaguest and least interesting of the season -- cook a buffet for 200 "Hollywood insiders" -- didn't matter, especially considering that the pool of sous-chefs they had to choose from were some of the most memorable: the snottiest, cockiest young turks of "Top Chefs" past.
Spike Mendelsohn, Ilan Hall, Richard Blais, Dale Talde -- they all stood there like kids waiting to be picked for dodgeball.
'A Great American Cook: Recipes from the Home Kitchen of One of Our Most Influential Cooks' Jonathan Waxman with Tom Steele Photographs by John Kernick Houghton Mifflin -- 2007 Buy it on Amazon
It's rather hilarious when a chef's cookbook matches his real-life persona.
It shouldn't have been a surprise that the man who trained Bobby Flay in the kitchen some 20 years ago is a pretty darn good teacher, and we were happily producing pretty decent artichoke specimens within minutes.
That same confident, coaxing voice is present throughout Waxman's cookbook, a hodgepodge of his culinary experiences. From the red-pepper pancakes with corn and caviar he introduced at Alice Waters' Chez Panisse to a potato gratin he picked up while training in France, this is a fine compilation from a man who has trained many of the American greats -- and who used to hobnob with the likes of James Beard and Julia Child.
What we tested and whether the book's worth buying, after the jump.
Who knew someone as adorable as Zooey Deschanel could be so difficult? Truth be told, when the actress and singer showed up as a guest judge/elfin dinner hostess last night on "Top Chef Masters," we were counting the moments until she threw the inevitable curveball: "I'm a vegetarian."
When she added "no eggs or dairy" -- never uttering the word "vegan" -- and professed her intolerance for soy or wheat, we sensed the evil guiding hand of the show's producers, eager to ratchet up the tension for the five remaining celeb chefs. The only way they could've played it up more would have been to have her break plates and pull a "Mommie Dearest" at the dinner table: "I told you, no gluten ingredients EVER!"
No such luck. The star of the heavily Bravo-promoted "500 Days of Summer" was a model of apologetic demureness when she met the cooks pre-meal, although she did decline Michael Chiarello's request to sing couple of a cappella songs in exchange for his culinary handiwork.
Behind her back, the Italian cuisine maestro was the most outwardly offended by the restrictions, calling them "off-putting."
While you're waiting for Michael Thomas Hastings' "Top Chef Masters" recap, snack on this mini interview with former contender John Besh. The New Orleans chef and author stopped by Slashfood HQ earlier this week to chat about his Top Chef Masters predictions, being judged by bloggers and why he won't be strapping an arm behind his back again anytime soon.
Now things get ugly. We've been waiting all season for something to break the respectful, civilized, almost comically cordial spell cast by the "Top Chef Masters" assortment of celebrity chefs, each gingerly battling the other for a claim to Bravo-endorsed superiority (not to mention a philanthropic sack full of Lexus-supplied charity cash). In Wednesday night's first round of finals, the cloud of cheery camaraderie seemed to have finally lifted.
It wasn't the chefs who removed their gloves -- or mitts, to be more appropriate -- but rather, the folks behind the scenes. From the quickfire challenge to the judges' table, the six chefs who've made it this far were subjected to a grueling, baffling psychological experiment the likes of which we haven't seen since the Skinner box.
Maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration. But right from the start, something was off-kilter. Even host Kelly Choi's usual preschool-teacher diction took on a tinge of deviousness as she announced that each chef would be asked to prepare his or her "sig-na-ture dish," making sure to linger on every syllable.
Could you feel the love last night on Top Chef Masters? Sure, the season until now has been all about pro-chef bonding: sharing techniques; lending a hand in the crunch; reminiscing about experiences in the culinary world.
But Wednesday was something else entirely. The competing foursome went to a place somewhere beyond mere camaraderie -- a place even further than the conciliatory, bromantic half-hug shared by final-round losers Roy Yamaguchi (Roy's Hawaiian Kitchen) and Michael Cimarusti (of LA's acclaimed Providence). What we witnessed last night was an emotional journey, a blubbering, four-hanky love-in.
The warm fuzzies started with the introduction of this group's demigod, Jonathan Waxman. Not only was the Barbuto owner and New Yorker a literal mentor to Cimarusti years prior, but his clout with James Beard and Julia Child back in the day held Yamaguchi and Oprah's favorite Southern chef Art Smith (Table 52) in awe for most of the episode.
When it came time for each chef to pick the ingredients for each others' final cook-off, their selections the best seasonal goods Whole Foods had to offer, rather than sundry oddities meant to undermine the competition: kumquats, sunchokes, mangoes, beautiful bone-in pork chops. "The word 'sabotage' isn't in a professional chef's vocabulary," Waxman reminded us.
Is it just us, or are the Top Chef Masters judges unduly fond of alliteration? Usually it's Saveur's James Oseland who rocks the tongue-twisting final-round zingers -- so good in print, yet so weird to hear on basic cable.
Wednesday it was Gael Greene's turn, surprising us with an oh-so-delicately catty swipe at Swede Nils Norén's "lapsang lapse" of a dessert -- a cube of chocolate goat cheese ganache flanked by orange gel and a smoky, tea-infused cream.
Schizophrenic as it might have tasted, it looked delectable. And the former Aquavit chef deserved bonus integrity points for standing by his dish: "Growing up in Sweden, you smoke a lot of things," he explained, double entendre fully intended.
Sweden vs. California, opakapaka and lawn cuttings after the jump.
If the unofficial theme of "Top Chef Masters" has been "putting celebrity chefs through the wringer every Wednesday night," episode four ratcheted up the pain to an almost cruel and unusual degree. As if it's not bad enough to be stripped of your line chefs and prep cooks, try cooking one-handed. Or worse -- have your creations judged by the surprisingly hard-to-please foodie/actor Neil Patrick Harris.
NPH, it seems, is a triple threat, as he is also an amateur magician. This accounts at least in part for the sleight-of-hand sadism inflicted upon this week's four competing masters. From the opening challenge -- cook an egg with one arm tied behind your back -- on through to the main course served at Hollywood's kitschy Magic Castle, a theme of mystery permeated the proceedings. It produced some of the most adventurous -- and at times, fussy and over-elaborate -- dishes the show has seen.
The ironically unassuming Anita Lo of New York City's Annisa dominated early with a delicately fluffy slow-cooked egg, served up in a cracked shell with truffle and oyster sauce.
Rick Bayless on Top Chef Masters. Photo: BravoTV.com
What fresh hell is this?
We could tell "Top Chef Masters" producers were hoping to get an "eww, gross" rise out of audiences with their elimination challenge last night: Cooking with organ meat. (They even dedicated a text message poll to the matter: "Which offal is the most awful? Ears, heart, stomach or tongue?") But to more adventurous viewers -- and to the four masters who regarded their ordained ingredients with either laid-back geekiness or "bring it on" vigor -- the far grislier prospect was the choice of guest judges: amusement-park patrons.
To be fair, the hungry throngs waiting to sample the results of the "street food" challenge seemed mostly to be savvy foodie-hipsters and not some stereotypical coaster-riding troglodytes to whom a mall pretzel with mustard is a culinary leap of faith. But that didn't stop LudoBites bad boy Ludo Lefebvre from burying his tenderly simmered pig's ear pieces under mounds of gloppy cheese in an attempt to fool the masses; similarly, Pikayo's Wilo Benet sliced the beef heart in his colorful pita pockets so thin as to be unrecognizable.
Now this is more like it. If the paragon of haute cuisine civility that is "Top Chef Masters" isn't going to provide the kind of back-stabbing, dish-sabotaging enfant terrible tantrums its more proletarian cousin offers, the least they can do is give us some righteously fiery, four-letter angst. And who better to unleash a torrent of obscenities than Wylie Dufresne?
Proving yet again that this particular season might as well be named "Top Chef: Comeuppance," this latest installment saw the "don't call me a molecular gastronomist" proprietor of wd-50 -- as well as Citizen Cake's Elizabeth Falkner -- graded by the same Season 2 hopefuls who were once subject to their withering critiques as "Top Chef" judges.
Dufresne's food may have been Vulcan-like in its futurist logic -- eggs poached in an immersion circulator, oozing toothpaste-consistency yolks; squares of crispy-skinned chicken breast -- but his mouth on Wednesday was closer to William Shatner on a bender.
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Michael Chiarello. 
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