Yee-haw! Here we go with the new season of "Top Chef." Air kiss, air kiss! Oh, how we missed you.
New judges this year include Emeril Lagasse, looking more Ewok than ever, and, coming next week, "Top Chef Masters" alum Hugh Acheson, the unibrow dude who also has ties to Delaware! (More coming on that soon.)
Everything is bigger in Texas, so is that why there's so much floppy hair - on the head and the chin - this season? Just saying.
This year's crop of contestants also was bigger than usual - 29 competitors. And my, my what big egos most of them have. Contestants were name-dropping and show ponying James Beard accolades and awards like nobody's business. Sheesh. There was more prancing and preening going on than an episode of "Toddlers & Tiaras."
Then the mass, show-no-mercy elimination began. This year's twist? Contestants had to cook and please 2 out 3 judges with a dish, just to earn a Top Chef coat.
Judges who were on the fence about a contestant put them "on the bubble." At first, I was thinking this meant they had to go IN a bubble - like John Travola in that old 1970s TV Movie of the Week. But, no, that means, to win a slot, the contestant has to cook - again.
Yee-haw! We like-y. And didn't Colicchio seem almost gleeful about culling the pack down to 16 chefs?
Why is this show so popular? As one contestant said: "This is a serious competition for serious chefs." (I'm so glad that contestants no longer have to sleep in bunk beds.)
But viewers also want to see mad culinary skills. That's why it was cool that chefs had to first butcher a pig.
It was time to separate the knife wielders from those who buy their meat in plastic wrapped packages.
Tyler, a cocky, fame-whore celebrity chef wannabe who seemed to be auditioning to become a Kardashian, butchered pig meat like a ravenous zombie gnawing on one of those "Walking Dead" survivors. It was not pretty.
"You're a chef and it's a basic skill," said an at first bemused, but later disgusted, Colicchio as he watched 22-year-old chef boy "hack the hell out of" the meat.
Then the famous Colicchio smirk began - never a good sign - and even Emeril dropped his Mr. Nice Guy act and began making frowny faces.
Basic chef rule No. 1: Disrespect the pig and get shown the door. Pronto.
"I think you should just leave now," said Tom and sent chef boy home. (Kardashians, if you're looking for an obnoxious new member for your obnoxious clan, Tyler is your man.)
Whoa, Big Baldie! Was that the fastest elimination in TC history? And that was just the start. Slop some soup or forget a component of your dish and Colicchio basically said "Off with his/her head!" No mercy. I love it when Tom's a bad ass.
Group Two contestants shuffled in and had to make "a kick ass dish" with rabbit. We're talking serious eats.
"Rabbit orgies are awesome, that's why they reproduce so much," contestant Janine said.
Maybe it's just me, but I don't want to know why she even knows about rabbit orgies.
Turns out, Janine probably should have been thinking more about cooking rabbit than talking about their sex lives. She forgot a sauce for her dish and Padma and Tom sent her "on the bubble."
What that really means is you go sit on an uncomfortable looking chair in what looks like a cramped storage closet along with four other semi-losers.
Then you stare at each other, maybe draw a fake tattoo on your arm with a purple Sharpie and wait. Seemingly without beer or liquor. For what is probably hours.
Call it detention for chefs. Or purgatory.
There's still too many contestants right now to keep them all straight, and more are coming. Yep, we haven't even seen them all - that's next week.
Right now, I kind of like ex-con Keith, the big guy with the big beard.
Well, I did. Then I saw he was wearing Mario Batali orange Crocs, a look that should only be worn by Mario and, maybe, 2-year-olds.
I think I'll be waiting until next week to pick a favorite.