Blah blah blah Masters, but: FABIO!! Sweating like a goat at the beach! Or whatever.

I miss Fabio.

And anticipate missing Anita.

Top Chef: Masters

I love this show so much! I'm so glad they made them do the palate test, but I think it was a little mean to give them peanut butter, which would totally coat your mouth for anything next. But seriously, Rick, you didn't actually call hoisin sauce ranch, did you? Hee! I cannot believe that Hubert lost this. I kind of wish they'd done the Lee Anne version of this, with them having to name ingredients in a sauce. I would have liked to have seen how well the masters did with that.

Agree that Hubert & Rick seem to be the most mellow, and are therefore doing the best with the competition. It was really fun to watch them excel at doing their thing.

Definitely will miss Anita, but I agree that she could have rescued the raw bar if she'd been able to keep her cool. She could have seared the tuna, maybe, and done something with the scallops.

I thought Chiarello was getting the loser edit. But they said his dishes had their ups and downs, and they only talked about the downs. They must have talked about the ups, but we didn't hear it.

Although Anita's mistake was going raw, and the "you didn't cook" element has figured before. So who knows. But I'll miss her. And I can't believe she didn't get hoisin sauce either!

I just saw ABDC for the first time (because of what you've been saying about it here, actually!). Now, I don't know much, if anything, about hiphop dancing (or music), but I really liked a lot of those crews! (And the SYTYCD camera operators should be taking lessons from the camera crew here, btw.)

Favorites: We Are Heroes, Rhythm City, Southern Motion, and Vogue Evolution. That back lean that Heroes did was a-mayyyyy-zing!! Rhythm City was a terrific example of what I've always thought was hiphop, Southern Motion was really tight in their choreography and so together (I was surprised they ended up in the bottom 3), and Vogue Evolution was probably my fave of the night--just fabulous in every sense of the word.

I will definitely be tuning in on Sunday. I want to see if Southern Motion breaks away from the "hick-hop" and goes more towards what they did in the dance-off (very impressive). Can Vogue Evolution also go more traditional hiphop, or is vogueing their forte? And can Heroes and Rhythm City continue to impress?

Could I love Rick and Hubert more? No, I could not.

I was disappointed by all of them in the taste test though. Given the ingredients we did see, I can't believe 7 was the best. And to only get 5? Quelle honte!

I can totally see why Hubert won over Rick with the judges (as I think Rick won the highest with the crowd). As they said, this was right in Rick's comfort zone, while Hubert pushed himself (if only in the sheer number of dishes - seventeen?!??!?).

I did like that the two who most relied on their sous chefs won the highest marks. Although you know that Spike is fuming somewhere about how he didn't get credit from Hubert for the gazpacho (vs. how much credit Richard got from Rick for the ice cream). Ahhhhh, happy place.

The Anita/Jaime relationship cracked me up, too. "I had forgotten some things about her...."

I really hope they do Masters again. I have found this so unexpectedly enjoyable.

Next week's going to be a whole lot of Top Chef, I tell you what. Season premiere of the Vegas show followed by the Masters finale, if I'm reading my TV schedules right.

I'm still behind on TV from vacation so I just watched the last two weeks of TCM last night and didn't quite have the stamina for a third.

The restricted diet challenge was interesting to see what they came up with.

I wonder - would coconut milk whip up like whipped cream if you added some sort of stabilizer (xanthan gum or cream of tartar)? I think a strawberry granita with the brittle and some whipped coconut topping would have been a much better dessert than the rice milk ice cream thing.

Coconut cream will make whipped cream without any stabilizer needed.