Yup, which furthers my claim: Harold McGee=national treasure

I have to say I've really appreciated the quality of guest judging on this show lately. Link and Besh are two really excellent chefs. It looks like David Chang will be on next week. Of course I can still hope for Bourdain to make an appearance, but overall a good job with this.

Here is how you can make it in your home:

Any one of Besh's restaurants is a winner. I've been to Luke's (his casual place), which I actually liked even more than Cochon, and I loved Cochon. I've heard August is amazing and hope to get to La Province.

Love Link's cookbook and i was able to go to Cochon, totally worth it. He and John Besh are by far my two favorite New Orleans chefs. I second a Toby cookbook!

Ramen is difficult to make in part because it has sodium bicarbonate in it, which is what makes ramen yellow. If you bake baking soda you can change its chemical composition, but it isn't easy. So yeah, I think this was a fairly legit use of storebought prepared ingredients.

I agree with Chill.TV-I think making great bread is incredibly difficult, but halfway decent bread isn't that hard, whereas f-ing up a cake is an all-to-common occurance.

Sheldon is increasingly turning into the poor-man's Richard Blias-strong out of the gate, one of the favorites (though not as clear cut a favorite or as talented as Richard was in his first season), and then faltering at the end.  Last week's surf and turf was particularly painful to watch, and despite the quickfire…

I read his bio and he's gay and from the South, but you'd never know watching the show.

I read his bio and he's gay and from the South, but you'd never know watching the show.

Anyone else think the "buffet" challenge was total BS in the sense that it was basically the same as every other large crowd challenge, except that the chefs served their food under the buffet glass.  When I think of buffet, I think vats of food sitting in chaffing dishes for hours.  Yes, that doesn't lend itself to…

Anyone else think the "buffet" challenge was total BS in the sense that it was basically the same as every other large crowd challenge, except that the chefs served their food under the buffet glass.  When I think of buffet, I think vats of food sitting in chaffing dishes for hours.  Yes, that doesn't lend itself to…

This is the one episode where I got the sense that it was basically a tie between Chris and Ed, but since Ed's been the stronger competitor, they let Chris go.

Weird challenge by letting the diners choose the winner; seems like the safe route would have been to do less-healthy (although it probably wouldn't have gotten past the judges).  I'm not sure how Lindsey's meatball was "healthy."  Glad Paul won, even if it didn't look that fantastic.  Next week better be a whole hog…

After the win I was praying Bev would take that fucking big-ass bottle of booze and start spraying it around the room a la a baseball team after winning the World Series and then tell Sarah and Lindsey to suck it.

Yes, the negative reaction to the men's food at judges seemed very manufactured.  I think it is fair to say that the dishes didn't wow the judges (and most of the women's dishes didn't either), but they acted like the food was inedible.

Did anyone else find the "these people are from Texas, they're not going to like Asian BBQ" comment really stupid?  Do these contestants actually ever watch this show-you are cooking for the judges, not the rubes standing in line for free food.  Sure, sometimes their opinions matter (restaurant wars), but I'd rather…

I've constructed an elaborate backstory for the reason why Ed's upper lip cannot move-it involves a waitress/sous vide threesome gone horribly wrong.

I'm on the fence about Ed.  On the one hand, yes, he was kind of being a dick, but Sarah coming back to make sure her chicken was ok (and then immediately leaving) seemed even worse.  Of course, he probably should have realized that as long as he and Ty didn't turn out complete shit, there was no way he was going home.

There is a Flip Burger in Birmingham, the burgers were fantastic (including the burger tartar). We had the Krispy Kreme milkshake-it was ok. Kicking myself that I didn't the foie gras shake.