I ff'ed through the dinner where it was probably illustrated.

There was no explicit mention in the edit that what they were eating was Creole food, but they have to know by now that the guest judge's restaurant is always relevant to the elimination challenge and that they should pay attention to what they're eating.

His cockiness will be his undoing. But, he's been called on it, so maybe he'll step up in the finale.

Stephanie Izard makes an interesting point about that -- he's watched himself on TV by the time they taped the finale, and he STILL comes out like that?

The fact that Emeril explained this to the chefs before they started cooking and Hosea immediately started blathering on about how he wants to do something simple and home-style and full of soul made me want to tear my hair out.

Gah, seriously!

Interesting about Jeff from Tom C's blog:

That night, however, Jeff was never in the running for a reason that didn't make it into the final edit. He did a very fine job, however he used some sort of sterno chafing dish to keep his oysters warm that, for whatever reason, imparted a taste of burning sterno to the oysters. We all smelled it and remarked on it while the chefs were setting up their stations, and then we tasted that horrible taste when we sampled his selections. So, unfortunately for Jeff, who otherwise was cooking very well, he could never have taken the top spot of the evening.

Which explains why all the comments about his oyster were "I loved the idea of it" and not "I loved the way it tasted."

Intersting Fabio tidbit from Tom's blog:

Fabio was very gracious in defeat, though, and I will share with you that the following morning, I had a chance to spend a little time with Fabio, and I learned that he has a lot of exciting developments happening professionally. This is a man who by the age of thirty had run and sold several successful restaurants in Italy, come to the U.S. and created great opportunity for himself. Without spilling the beans prematurely, I'll say only that we all have not heard the last from Fabio …

Also, he said Carla poached here whole oysters AND fried her beignets to order. Color me seriously impressed.

I was just about to post the Fabio quote!

Re: the sterno. I think we saw Stefan asking about something burning, didn't we?

And we saw Carla poaching her oysters during the set-up. I'm shocked she arrived at the venue and they still hadn't all been shucked. I give her serious props for taking that on, having only learned to shuck oysters the week before.

Also? So glad Toby is gone.

Yeah, Carla was all excited to see Gail return.

Padma and Gail both looked gorgeous in their gowns. And Tom didn't look too bad either.

It was so nice to see Gail! She looked gorgeous. I think marriage agrees with her.

I wondered, too, if Carla was worried about affecting the texture/taste of the oysters by steaming them open. I love that she fried the beignets to order, as well. She made me so happy last night. She seemed so in her element.