I really liked the elimination challenge, as well. Just enough room for the cheftestants to express themselves, while needing to honor tradition as well.

I also loved that Carla knocked the peas out of the park. Something so seemingly simple, but she totally pleased the man who wanted the peas.

Good peas out of season is hard.

She really lucked out by finding fresh ones at the store--even the judges were surprised by the availability.

A good dish of green peas is not to be passed over. Yumm, peas!

and I liked that we could see her tasting them at the store, not just buying them blindly. With her simple preparation, all of the ingredients have to be perfect.

[link] - she should never have made it into the top 36 to begin with. she forgot her lyrics twice during hollywood week.

I don't want to hear the judges whine about people forgetting their lyrics this season because they put at least two people through who did that very thing during the last rounds in hollywood.

Tiggy - I wonder if that explains this article in sfgate.com.

Ooh, Survivor tonight, right?

Interesting thoughts from Toby's blog:

Last night’s episode was a good illustration of the golden rule when it comes to food reality shows: Keep it simple. I know from having been a judge on three different ones that the most common reason contestants are eliminated is because they over-reach; they opt for the fussy and complicated when, really, they’d be better off cooking the most straightforward version of the dish in question.

However, this is only a good strategy for avoiding elimination. Once you’ve reached the final, you have to pull out all the stops. So far on this season of Top Chef, Stefan, Carla, and Fabio have survived by cooking well in a fairly safe, conventional way. Hosea has been much more ambitious — and, as a result, he has been among the losers as often as he has among the winners. It will be interesting to see how he fares in the next two episodes and whether the other three can raise their game.

(emphasis mine)

i'd bet so, Suzi. i don't see how everyone involved didn't think this was going to be controversial. i mean, really. i already wanted to throw something at my tv last night when Simon said someone just needed to give her a chance. ummm...i think two record deals is more than enough chance.

check out her music video. girl can sing, but she's boring as all hell. THAT is her problem. [link]

She's been cut and replaced with Felicia someone for not being eligible. Evidentally she is close friends with several of the executives of 19 Entertainment.

Also I was looking at next week's listings on Zap2it and TV guide to find out how they are going to deal with 3 groups of 12.

I was trying to figure out -- is it 3 nights of singing and 1 night of elimination or what? And this is what I read (spoiler fonted) Tuesday -- 12 contestants sing. Wednesday -- 3 finalists are chosen and 9 are cut).