You Criticize the Practice By Murdering Their Plants, Ignoring All The History, Denying Them Romance

(Vampire Weekend, The Kids Don't Stand a Chance)

I'm feeling a little tired and achy. Sinuses are killing me. I'll try not to let that get in the way of my enjoyment of what will hopefully be a good episode of Top Chef, but all I really want to do is go to bed. It's times like these I wish we had a TV in the bedroom.

Stephanie and Antonia are empowered and ready to fight. New Zealand looks like he's ready for a hit off the gravity bong.

Quickfire Challenge. Oprah's personal chef is the guest judge, and they're loaded up with Uncle Ben's rice. They have to make an entree in 15 minutes, and they get to use microwavable rice. Next week's Quickfire Challenge will be who can make the best PB&J sandwich with Goober Grape. Stephanie makes a seafood pancake, which I would be terrified to order at IHOP. Nikki's fried rice looks awesome. Spike's stuffed tomatoes also look really good, and it seems like Oprah might see them on her dinner table soon. So far everybody's rice dish looks really good except for Antonia's rice salad and New Zealand's miso-glazed turkey, which looks like it has been slimed. Antonia's rice salad takes the prize, which gives her immunity, and Stephanie is in the bottom 3 again at yet another Quickfire Challenge.

Elimination Challenge. A nuritious, delicious meal for a family of four, on a budget of $10. Adding insult to injury, they're still sending them to Whole Foods, with their ten bucks. Maybe they can stock up on the free samples, because ten bucks at Whole Foods ain't going very far, especially with the high price of food for snobs. I don't understand how these people are filling their carts and baskets on ten bucks! I was at Whole Foods today, and you can spend ten bucks there without even touching anything.

They're all getting a little kid as a sous-chef tonight. Hey kid, chop this onion, will ya? This is kind of cute, actually. This is definitely going to add a LOT of likability to some of these chefs. Richard already seems like a good guy. Lisa still seems like a bitch. It's amazing how you throw a kid into the mix and you can immediately cut through the BS of somebody's outward personality and get to who they really are inside. Not surprisingly, all of the chefs seem like really fun, nice people. Not nearly as interesting as the normal drama, but sort of refreshing. I also love that the kids are eating the dishes as well as the judges. The strange thing is, though, that Colleccio is just standing in the kitchen eating each dish, instead of sitting with the judges in the dining area. Maybe he can't sit with them because he's been exposed as a nerd, like Patrick Dempsey at the end of Can't Buy Me Love.

Richard wins the feelgood award for saying that while he wants to win the competition, he loved cooking with the kids, and after seeing Antonia cry when the kids came out (because she missed her own daughter), it made him "want to go home and make some babies. Some little Blaise's." Maybe there's more to him than just a completely ridiculous fauxhawk. I wonder if the little Blaise's are going to all have fauxhawks.

Judges' Table: Andrew, Nikki, and Antonia are the top three of the night. I love my man Andrew, but Antonia's totally winning this one. That's my prediction, which, well, maybe you shouldn't put your money on Antonia just yet. But this has totally been her episode, with her phone call to her daughter, her excitement to be working with kids, etc. And ... MONEY! I AM MONEY!! Finally, I make a prediction that sticks!

Bottom three are Lisa, Stephanie and New Zealand. Let's see if I can keep the streak alive. Lisa's a goner. (Wishful thinking? Absolutely.) I'd be sad to see New Zealand go, because he's like a character from some stoner comedy from down under, and Stephanie, man, she's too good to have been in the bottom three for two weeks in a row. Colleccio says that Lisa's underseasoned beans were shocking. Oprah's cook doesn't like the way she handled criticism. All signs point to ... me hoping she gets the boot. Looks like my streak of correct predictions has ended as quickly as it began, since Lisa is safe and New Zealand is packing his knives and heading, well, back to New Zealand, I guess. He says something about enjoying the experience, but I can't really understand much of what he says, so that's just a guess.

I was going to say that Dale's "FUUUUUU(beep)" from next week was a great way to end the show, but then Andrew mentions that he has a "culinary boner right now." And ... scene.