Manners for the Modern Man

Based on some recent events, I thought I'd offer a refresher course in appropriate behaviour.

1. Do not send me a "contemplative" e-mail from your blackberry while you're waiting on the train platform mere moments after I've left our date. Is your memory so short that you've forgotten the valuable lessons of Swingers? Just because the technology has changed since 1996 doesn't make you any different/better/cooler/less weird and stalkery seeming than Mikey. And no matter how flattering it is, it's going to seem a bit creepy.

Hell, in some ways, the more flattering it is, the creepier it's going to seem.

2. The following are appropriate reasons to leave someone in the middle of an event without advance notice:

a. You are a pediatric transplant surgeon, and a fresh set of corneas has just come in for an adorable blind child, and you have to get to the hospital right now.

b. You are, in reality, Batman, and you just saw the Batsignal, and you have to go fight crime.

You'll notice that this list does not include running into "some dipshits [u] went to college w at the bar."

You should also note that despite what you "hop," [sic] this does not help you to have "proven [yourself] as a non douchebaggy accompaniament" [sic] and potential "awesome wedding date" for future occasions.

And please note: I'm not JUST saying that you shouldn't pull this shit on a lady during a date (whether it be romantic, platonic, or some weird, still trying to figure each other out hybrid).

I'm saying you shouldn't do this to another human being, under any circumstances, ever. (Barring, again, the above exceptions re: Batman; pediatric transplant surgeon).

And finally:

3. It is never appropriate to grab or otherwise intentionally touch (and yes, we can tell when it's intentional and when it's a crowd/train movement related accident) a strange woman's ass on a Metro platform or other public venue, you fucking greasebag asshole.

And if you do, you don't get to act indignant when said woman hits you in the face with her rolled up newspaper*.

*Which, frankly, you're damned lucky I was carrying. Otherwise you would've gotten a mean right hook to the eye, and I was wearing my extra jewelries that day.

I will gladly pay you Wednesday for a sirloin black truffle burger today

Yesterday was a good day.

First, I won an e-bay auction which landed me some pretty awesome seats to take my Dad to a Cardinals game when I do my Memphis-St. Louis jaunt next month. Yay me.

Then about ten minutes after that, J.T. won Survivor: Tocantins and the fan favorite award, which means he'll have ample means to support me when I move to Alabama to have his beautiful big headed backwoods babies.

But before all that, the best part of the day happened: I made black truffle burgers.

I'll let that sink in for a moment.

Remember when I said that I had to cook something from the Top Chef cookbook that wasn't from Season Two, because I hated Season Two? Well, the Black Truffle burger is from Season Three. So that's one life goal down.

The Black Truffle burger is the brainchild of one Howie Kleinberg, who is frankly probably better remembered for the fact that he spent most of season 3 dripping beads of sweat off his bald head and directly into the food than he is for the food itself.

Howie made the Black Truffle burger for the Red Robin Corporate Sponsored Burger Challenge which was the quickfire in the first episode of the "Restaurant Wars" challenge in Season 3. He was in the top group, but lost to CJ's Scallop Mousse and Shrimp Burger with Tangerine.

I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, CJ is extremely tall and good looking and has one testicle and I love him and want to climb him like a tree. On the other hand, I'm opposed to seafood burgers getting the win in any sort of "ultimate burger" competition, because let's face it: the ultimate burger is always, always, always made from a member of the cow family. And on the. . .third hand, a scallop mousse and shrimp burger sounds like anaphylaxis on a bun.

And on the. . fourth. . . hand. . . the black truffle burger is so goddamned good. I don't know if I've ever had a burger this juicy and delicious before. I've sure as hell never made a burger this juicy and delicious before.

Mise en place, my bitches:

You will need: a pound and a half of ground sirloin; three ounces of truffle butter; 4 oz of Taleggio cheese; 4 slices of pancetta, and salt.

So let's address the elephant in the room first. These burgers. . . .they're not cheap. These are definitely special occasion burgers, like when you're watching the finale of a TV show that systematically starves people for 39 days, and you want something really juicy dripping down your face.

They're also not as expensive as you think they're going to be. The truffle butter was $7.99 for 3 oz, yes. But the sirloin was $6 something, the cheese was $3 something, and four slices of the pancetta was 80 cents (I got extra). Throw in $3 for buns and $3-ish for lettuce and tomato, and you're still coming in at about $24 total, or $6 per burger.

Now imagine what you get for $6 at your local burger joint. Yeah. And these bitches have truffles in them.

Second issue: finding truffle butter. Since Top Chef has a tendency to be one big Whole Foods commercial, and since I also remembered CJ and Tre buying truffle butter to use in a pasta dish at Whole Foods during the third season, I assumed I'd be able to get it at Whole Foods. Nope. No dice. Apparently not everything you see on reality TV is true. Who knew?

They did have it at Harris-Teeter, though, in convenient 3 oz containers. Exactly the amount I needed. Oh, Harris-Teeter. If I could marry a grocery store, I'd marry you.

So you plop your meat and your entire container of truffle butter and your tsp of salt into a bowl, and start working them together until, according to the directions, the butter is "just incorporated."

Something I'd recommend based on my experience is that you let the butter soften up a bit before trying this. Incorporating cold butter into cold meat is no easy chore. I stood there, massaging the combination and trying to mentally raise my body temperature the way you do when you're trying to stay home "sick" from grade school. I tried thinking about sex. I tried singing the burgers the song of the hummingbird as it gets ready to find that female hummingbird, and -- make sweet love to it -- all night long. Just two hummingbirds moaning' and groanin' and letting their bodies caress and touch each other in ecstasy. . .

Anyway, eventually I got to this point:

And I figured "good enough." Attractive, isn't it? Who doesn't want to nosh down a huge ball of raw meat flecked with greasy white spots?

Anyway, I love him, and I call him Blobby. Like Bobby, only with an L.

After a few minutes of scraping every last molecule of truffle butter out from under my fingernails and pressing it back into Blobby so that it wouldn't go to waste, I formed him into four patties.

Pretty.

And then I gave each of the Blobby Jr.'s a hat of delicious thin sliced pancetta.

Mmmmm. . . .Pancetta Hat.

So while you're doing all this, you want to get your oven preheated to 350, and an oven proof skillet heating up over medium high heat on your stove.

I used my big ass cast iron skillet, because I love a chance to use a big ass cast iron skillet. I especially love testing for heat by flicking water at it and seeing if the drops "dance," which I feel like I learned from the Little House on the Prairie or something.

Once the water dances, get the burgers into the pan, pancetta side down.
The pancetta, which is like the super-awesome Italian cousin of bacon, does its thing and cooks up and creates a nice slick of Italian bacony grease in the bottom of the pan.

Let it do that for 4-5 minutes (4 if you like your burgers rare; 5 for medium-rare), then flip them over.

Look how good the pancetta hats look now!

So then they cook for 4 or 5 minutes on that side, and the bottoms of the burgers get to soak up all the delightful grease their pancetta hats made for them while they were cooking on the pancetta side.

And then you put a slice of taleggio cheese on top. So the cheese becomes like the feather on the pancetta hat.

And then you slide the whole shebang into the oven for 5 minutes.

The result? One filthy, greasy, cheese covered cast iron pan. And this:

So yeah, I should've gotten smaller rolls. I was expecting the burgers to come out larger (which, yes, I realize I could have made them larger and flatter, but I like a fat patty).

But these were sooooooooooooooooooooooooo goooooooooooooooooood. All of the separate elements came together perfectly into an orgy of juicy, salty goodness that made me cry happy tears. And inhale my dinner.

So thank you, Howie Kleinberg, for busting me out of my Season Two recipe rut, and for inventing this completely awesome burger. You totally should've beat CJ's scallop and shrimp burger ass.

CJ, I still want to climb you like a tree.

Fashion Show No Mo'

I was watching The Fashion Show last night, and trying to take notes on it, and I was sober and it was boring and I thought "enough of this."


Because if my dating history has taught me anything, it's that any relationship you can't stand to be in unless you're drunk isn't good for you. And that all men snore, even if it's just a little.

So no more Fashion Show, tadpoles. Don't cry. Apparently none of you were watching the stupid thing anyway. And it's only a month until Top Chef: Masters premieres. EEEEEEEEEE!!!

For those of you who were even remotely interested: Kristen (of the JEM hair) quit; Merlin wore an embroidered poncho/caftan thing; Daniella won while continuing to be a stank faced bitch and making dreadful shiny shorts; Jonny copped an attitude; Isaac Mizrahi acted outraged; some chick who looked like she'd died in 1986 and been dug up just to compete in this show was given the "we're just not buying it;" and Reco continued to be the show's ghettofabulous voice of reason.

For the rest of you, feel free to think about the following things that have already horrified me this morning (and it's not even 8 a.m.!)

1) The prospect of an E.T. sequel where E.T. visits a grown-up Gertie. Apparently this has been debunked, but merely hearing about it gave me a blood pressure spike during the 6:00 a.m. news. Hey, Speilberg, why don't you just wipe your ass with Goodnight, Moon and film Magic Curl Barbie getting gang-banged by a bunch of He-Man figurines, since you're hell bent on defiling all that was precious and good about my childhood?

2) I'm pretty certain that one of these two things is the worst thing to ever happen on Facebook--yes, worse even than all of you jackasses who are fans of "sleep"--but which is worse:

a) the fact that one of my friends (and/or her husband--I don't know who to blame) started a Facebook profile for her son, who is totally old enough for this sort of thing since he's breathing down the neck of his third birthday?

OR

b) the fact that one of my friends chose "Jesus Christ" as one of the "Five Famous People I've Met" in that annoying and addictive "Pick Five" feature?

I await your decision.

The only post in the history of this blog to talk about swine without mentioning bacon.

I was sitting around at work the other day without too much to do, and I couldn't help but noticing a few of the changes that had been made to the office environment since the onset of swine flu.

And then I started thinking about the nature and order of those changes, and even how those changes had. . . changed since this whole mess started.

And I thought I'd share some of them with you, because I think there's an interesting parallel with the way society as a whole has dealt with the whole thing.

First we reacted:

These signs went up in our kitchen areas and all of our bathrooms (or, at least, all of our ladies' rooms--I don't know what goes on in the men's rooms) after the first American cases were confirmed. Which is fine; which is great.

In fact, signs about proper handwashing and not coughing on your coworkers should probably just be de rigeur in all public bathrooms and shared kitchen areas, just so we're always reminded not to shake hands with important clients when said hands are covered in some god knows how awful combination of phlegm, snot, and poo.

But then we overreacted:

Two boxes of masks made their appearance after the first cases in the DC metro area were reported. I find them hilarious for two reasons: a) no way is two boxes of masks enough for everyone on our floor; and 2) it was shortly after the Extremely Reputable Organization had made public announcements about how these masks were a complete sham, and wouldn't protect anyone.

Do as we say, not as we do, people! There are more masks for us that way!!!

But a week or so later, we kind of stopped reacting. And then we started making fun of our previous reactions:

It's been almost two weeks since the maintenance guys came along and installed wall mounted hand-sanitizer dispensers on completely random walls throughout our building. In that time, there has not been a drop of sanitizer in those dispensers.

The signs, I believe, went up yesterday.

Return to your normal lives, America. Go about your business. Take off your masks. Shake poo hands with your friends and family. Eat your bacon. There's nothing to see here.

Hypocrisy, thy name is Sandra.

So Sandra Lee's new show Money Saving Meals debuted this weekend, and I'm sure some of you are expecting to hear me dump gallons of vitriol all over that delusional little project*.

But really, my entire response to the show can be explained by contrasting this clip (in my patented film the tv format):

. . .with a statement Sandra herself made in 2002:

What sets Lee’s cookbook apart is her defiant use of brand-name ingredients in her recipes, a practice verboten to the vast majority of chefs and cookbook authors. "I take absolutely no money from manufacturers,” she said. “I put those in there because when you’re cooking a recipe, it needs to be consistent with the way it was designed. Different products give different flavors.” Using the brand names she supplies, Lee said, “there’s no way you can mess it up.”

Or 2003:

She swears the stipulating of brands isn't paid endorsement. "There's a difference in taste," says Lee,

Or July of 2007:

Lee stated that many shows for the home cook tend to "gloss over" which brands to use in recipes. "People used to say that Julia Child's recipes didn't work, but that was because they didn't know what [ingredients] she used."

This is why Lee makes it a point to recommend specific brands for her recipes. "We don't get paid by the brands," she said. Her job is to "be a guide through the grocery store," to make sure that the home cook is able to accurately recreate a recipe. "ReddiWip and Cool-Whip have very different consistencies."
"Open a can of broccoli soup...a can of Campbell's and a different brand...and look at it. They're different...it's a better quality ingredient. My job is to tell [the audience] which to use."

Or November of 2007:

I decided to refocus my energies by closing down the lifestyle company and writing my first cookbook, which would include easy-to-follow recipes using specific brand name products combined with fresh ingredients. Every recipe had to taste as if it were made from scratch.
In creating the recipes, I strolled the aisles of the local grocery store to educate myself on brand names and the ingredients of each.

Or 2008:

Lee's hallmark is to recommend specific brand names in her ingredient list. She said she doesn't get a kickback for the recommendations; they just reflect her actual dishes. The P-I asked about changing brands to fit our own tastes or budgets. We saw no reason to buy a container of McCormick's cinnamon, for instance, if we already had Spice Islands (or even better, an inexpensive bulk-bin bag) on our rack at home. Lee said to go ahead and substitute, just be aware that the taste of your final dish may not be the same as hers.

Or, hells bells, even three months ago:

Sandra Lee Semi-Homemade that features unprecedented brand name product integration. The magazine will keep with Sandra Lee's philosophy that specific brands deliver specific results,and include brand-names that provide a legitimate Semi-Homemade solution throughout its content and recipes.

So, Sandra, which is it? Do specific brands yield better results, and now it's ok to go for a lesser brand because in this economy, everyone (but you) should just suck it up and settle for lower quality?

Or was the whole "we're not getting paid for any of this--McCormick's/Old El Paso/Rositas/Cool Whip is just the best one out there!" thing a lie the whole time?

Because either the brand makes a difference and you shouldn't sub in whatever's cheapest, or it doesn't make a difference, and you and the corporations you've been a willing shill for have been profiting from your web of lies.

And speaking of, if part of the "Semi-Homemade Philosophy," as the introduction to your other show has always stated, is to provide recipes that will save us "time and money," then why have you spent the last several years advocating an approach that you now admit costs more?????

Jesus, the next thing you know she'll be telling us that her recipes actually take a long freaking time to assemble. Except she won't be that honest about it--she'll say "look at how much time you save by doing X" without ever admitting that she's the one who's been encouraging us to do Y.

So I won't be watching Money Saving Meals. Like Semi-Homemade, there's something about it I can't stomach. But this time it's not just the food--it's the hypocrisy.

*I'm sure others of you are expecting to hear about the Top Chef tour event that was in DC this weekend, since I giddily declared months ago that I'd gotten a press pass from Blogging Top Chef. But, as you may have guessed from the hints in my Fashion Show post, someone, somewhere along the line with Bravo/NBC Universal/General Electric/Sheinhardt Wig Company reneged on that. I'm only moderately peeved, though, since the only Top Chefs listed at the event were Spike and Carla, and I've already met both of them in far less contrived situations. So suck on that, Bravo, you jerks.

The first--and quite possibly the only--Fashion Show recap

Believe you me, poppets, I spent some time thinking long and hard about whether I was going to bother recapping The Fashion Show, Bravo's new fashion oriented reality competition program which is in no way a rip off of Project Runway, not at all, absolutely not.

I mean, in the first place, do I really want to invest in another Bravo program when I still have a few weeks left of Make Me a Supermodel, and nothing could possibly give me more joy than another few weeks of hot, British, occasionally naked Jonathan? And then the Real Housewives of New Jersey starts soon, and I'm beyond fascinated by the absolute Guidoness of these women. I mean, you could have driven to Ellis Island and picked up my great grandfather when he was getting off the boat from Calabria, and he would've been less Guido than these women.

And in the second place, I'm kind of angry at Bravo, for reasons that are best left unsaid, but if I were a generation older and the sort of person who did that sort of thing, I might call them a horrible politically incorrect name that rhymes with Schmindian Schmivers.

But on the other hand, there are still months and months until Lifetime finally unlooses the long-since-wrapped Sixth Season of Project Runway. Long, dull months with nothing to do but sit out the humidity in my basement apartment listening to my hair get bigger and bigger by the second.

And then I saw him.

His name is Merlin. I kind of want to adopt him, and keep him in my closet, where I'll never have to see him or speak to him, because who am I kidding? In person, he'd be the worst thing ever.

So anyway, I'm in. . . at least for now. Be prepared for this one to be sparse, though. I'm cat sitting, and while the cats finally have cable (yay!) they have some sort of insane Verizon cable and I don't understand the remote control at all, so I can't pause and rewind and things.

And away we go!

New York! Issac Mizrahi voice-overs about finding 15 talented designers to create fashion for us. Kelly Rowland is also there, being incredibly wooden. They explain the basics of the competition--the designers will be judged by them, Fern Mallis, and a guest judge; win $125K provided by Tresemme, and see the winning pieces produced and available for sale on Bravo. Yeah, this is absolutely nothing like Project Runway.

Ok, so the one way it's not is that WE get to decide who the winner is. I'm not at all excited about this. The heartbreak of this week's Dancing With the Stars has taught me not to trust the opinion and taste of the American public. You know what the American Public will get you? They'll get you a rodeo cowboy who dances with an iron pole up his ass staying over Li'l Kim. Li'l freaking Kim, y'all.

The credits show each of the designers in the pages of a faux magazine. There are a number of them, and they all have ridiculous names like Haven and Reco. Oh, and Merlin. Lest we forget. Anyway, the designers, in order of introduction, are:

Kristen: from Chicago; has JEM hair and makes organic clothes

James-Paul: Postcolonialist designer; has worked for Vivienne Westwood

Merlin: Has a red cape and a matching peter pan hat. And is Merlin. Lest we forget.

Lidia: Avant Garde

Reco: designed for strippers to pay his way through college. This is AWESOME. This is like chicks who strip to pay for college, but requiring actual talent.

Kristen asks if Merlin knows any magic tricks. He says "I disappear people one by one." Ha-ha.

Jonny D: men's wear

Laura: Eco-friendly designer

Keith: evening wear

Johnny: Modern Streetwear designer and fashion school drop out

Haven: 80's inspired. I wonder if Haven is her birth name--if so, it validates my theory that your name is your destiny, because Haven is totally a name that no one except the teen vixen on an '80's soap should ever be cursed with.

Markus: went to "best fashion school in world"

Anna: from Brooklyn

Angel: experimental; works with heat sensitive inks. So. . . it's like those Hypercolor shirts or what?

Daniella: ready to wear designer

Andrew: men's underwear designer. Yes, please. Apparently a lot of people know him as "the panty Christ." I went to high school with a girl who was afraid of the word "panties"--she would scream and freak out if you even said it. We all hated her, so we used to have our 6'4" red-haired pink-skinned friend chase her around chanting "panties, panties, panties." It was the creepiest thing ever. Those were good times.

Um, anyway, the point of that little digression, in as much as there's ever a point to my little digressions, is that she would've been terrified of the Panty Christ. Which is how we shall always refer to Andrew.

Issac and Kelly enter and everyone claps. Issac says the competition is about creativity, construction, saleability and wearability.

Now they'll have their 1st Harper's Bazaar Mini Challenge, which is like a quick fire, but with clothing. It's a clothfire.

Kelly tells us "I have worn over 100 little black dresses in my day." Isaac says they have an hour to make a little black dress. . .. out of a black t-shirt.

Fashion Flurry! we see them making all their dresses, and guess what--there are 15 of them and I'm not going to be able to discuss them all. Anyway, at some point, Merlin leaves his boots (white thigh high go go boots) on a machine to mark his turf and Anna steals it.

The judge for the Mini Challenge is Laura Brown from Harper's Bazaar. She calls Reco's out as a stripper's dress, but a good one; says Johnny's has airbags built in; compliments Keith's and Merlin's and hates the garment bag on James Paul's. The three top are Merlin, Keith, and. . . .some large guy with a bun on top of his head. Oh, that's Johnny. After the airbag comment? Huh.

The elimination challenge is in teams. The three winners will be the heads of the teams. Merlin gives an interview wearing the rat-hat from Seinfeld about how he doesn't want to work in teams.

Commercial!

Back! Each of the head designers gets to choose their design team, and they choose based on dress rather than names. And I would try and tell you who was on which team, but really, there are so many of them and it goes on for so long and all you really know is that Reco is the first one chosen (by Johnny) and Lidia is the last (and goes with Merlin)

Elimination challenge. Isaac tells them that every season, his design team has to think of "must have" pieces. Each team must create one "must have" garment and design five different looks around it. Each designer will create a copy of the must have piece and the look to go with it. The 5 looks must create a cohesive collection. They have two hours that night and eleven hours the next day.

Just to impress this on you: this is nothing like the challenge from Season 4 of Project Runway where they had to choose an iconic look (like overalls) and working in teams design a small collection that updated that look.

Johnny's team comes up with harem pants, which Reco informs us is "a couture name for Hammer pants." Under whatever name, I can't think of a single situation in which I must have harem pants.

Ok, maybe if I ever manage to whip together my long planned Evil Jeannie Halloween costume. But that's the only time.

Keith's team is going with a sexy pencil skirt that can be worn as a strapless dress. THAT? Could be a a must have.

Merlin's team decides on a bolero jacket in navy.

They go to B&J fabrics which is NOT AT ALL LIKE when they go to Mood on Project Runway.

Merlin and Daniella fight over whether the bolero jacket should be navy, with him insisting that he's the leader and her insisting that she knows whats in fashion right now. Daniela wins, and Merlin checks out with his navy fabric saying "eez going look like eez for an ol' lady." Wuss.

They work for two hours and then go to their digs at Le Parker Meridien, where they're sleeping in wooden bunk beds. Seriously, it looks like a dorm. Or every apartment the Project Runway contestants ever lived in. Commercial!

Back. Merlin dances around their apartment in his briefs and dress shirt/tie with a goblet of wine. Someone makes a comment about his "man berries." Argh. That was the short scene. I continue to hate the short scenes.

Ok, finally back. Morning in New York. The Fashion show is in one day. Haven recaps what their team is doing with their harem pants. They're doing. . .as much as one can do with harem pants. Haven admits to not being good at sewing. Reco is making a jacket with a neat collar.

Merlin's team has more drama over the jacket, with Merlin calling it "dee mose seemple, datted piece I seen in my life."

Team tube skirt is concerned about Jonny D, who appears to have dressed his form in a business skirt and satin nipple covers. Oh, that's supposed to be a Marilyn Monroe inspired halter top. Huh.

Issaac and Kelly come through for their version of the Tim through/Tom through. They tell the designers that every fashion show will be in front of a live audience of buyers and fashion insiders who will vote on their looks. The winning look will be made and sold online.

Isaac points out--gently--how odd it is to have a grey satin harem pant as a "must have," and then they go around pointing out less gently how crappy all the sewing is on many of the looks.

At team Merlin, they discuss the bolero jacket more. Merlin's is kind of cute for a playsuit; James Paul has a muslin sack.

Team Keith describes their skirt/dress. Kelly and Isaac freak out over how tight the skirt is, and Kelly brilliantly says "I need some butter and a miracle to put that on me." Ha! I kind of love Kelly already, despite her initial woodenness and the absolute W-T-F-ery of having her in what I can't stop thinking of as Heidi Klum's role.

Kristen then completely sells out her team as not having good communication.

Kelly and Isaac leave the workroom giggling deviously, and gossip in the hallway about the teams. It's kind of unsettling--like if Tom Colicchio gave his mean opinions in the company of a girl who does nothing but giggle and agree. Kelly is wearing a cocktail ring that you could use as a tea saucer. I fucking covet it. Kristen's team calls her out for her bitchassedness in selling them out. Commercial!

Back! Day of Fashion show! everyone gets dressed in their little dorm style apartment. Holy god, there's another 45 minutes of this nonsense left.

The models get ready while the stylists name drop Tresemme awkwardly. "Hey, Katie, can I have the Tresemme shine spray please." Ok, this really is nothing like Project Runway--it's more like the first season of Top Chef where Harold had to be all "and then we went back to the townhouse and had a barbecue using our Kingsford Briquettes, and a nice salad with some Hidden Valley Ranch dressing."

The guest judge is Ellie Tahari, whose line was featured on Make Me a Supermodel recently. He must have a deal with Bravo.

Johnny's team goes first. Reco's design is cute-ish--there's a limit to how enthused I can be over purple satin harem pants. Some girl's design looks like a sloppy version of Recos with a lot of ruching at the waist. Johnny's design is "athletic"--which means it's a pouffed sleeve crop top with the pants, which, oddly, is exactly what I wear to work out. Haven's is a short sleeved crop top with the pants. Markus has a sheer top with the pants. This team fucking sucks. Harem pants FAIL.

Kristen is first with team Keith, and her design is odd and badly proportioned and styled like crap. Jonny D's is just cheap and awful. Keith's is cute, but too short and too tight. Anna's . . .is good--the skirt is a dress with a red bolero over it. I'd wear it if the dress were a different fabric and longer and not as tight. Panty Christ's dress looks good.

Team Merlin! Daniella's is stark and kind of awful. Merlin's is a playsuit, which I would never wear myself, but it's freaking cute. Angel's looks like a stewardess from the 60's. James Paul's is a sack with some angles. Lidia's has a collar that will eat her head and an awful skirt.

Wow. . .so much suckage. I realize that they're supposed to do more "realistic" challenges in this show, but I've been more impressed with first episode Project Runway challenges where they had 20 minutes to make a ballgown out of orange rinds and crap than I am with this shit.

We get reactions from the audience, which I largely disagree with, because some of them are actually positive. These people are freaking liars--there's nothing good to be said about this mess. They should sack up and acknowledge this. It would make the show a lot more interesting

Isaac congratulates them for completing the first show. Kelly tells them that in the whole show "there was not one must have piece. . .that I care to have." YES! Thank you, girl. Commercial!

Back. Isaac tells them they need to hear criticism.

Fern loves the ideas of their items, but the execution was poor. Isaac was embarrassed and would fire them all if they worked for him. He knows they're capable of more, and they've let him down.

Johnny's team is safe, and can take a seat. Um. . .what? They made shiny harem pants.

Merlin's team is the winning team. They're all excited, except Daniella who's scowling, and then there's a poor attempt at drama, and Isaac tells them to communicate without offending each other.

The two looks that stood out were James-Paul's dress and Merlin's playsuit. Isaac says the bolero is at its best with the playsuit. James Paul talks about squares and rectangles and creating volume. Fern likes the black/navy combo. Isaac tells them that the winner is. . . .James-Paul. WHAT???? Is. . .what???????? Jesus Christ, this is like fucking bizarro world.

Merlin's team gets to sit down.

So, clearly team pencil skirt is the losing team, and someone's going home. Isaac tells them the idea was good, but the execution was poor. Kelly points out that if the skinny models can't wear the skirt, no human can.

The bottom two looks are Kristen's, where they want to know what the designer was thinking and called it bargain basement. Fern points out that you can't see the must-have, and the styling is poor.

The audience called Jonny D's outfit slutty. Isaac points out that it's "breast centric." I'm going to refer to things as 'breast centric" from now on. Oooh.. .apparently the model had to be cut out of her skirt to go to the bathroom.

Deliberation. Rather than sending the designers away, the judges go and huddle back stage. Again, there's some weirdness here that makes it very different from other Bravo shows. . .and not in a good way, necessarily. It seems really furtive and mean, like they're saying shit behind the designers' backs. Which. . .yeah, they're doing, and they do on every show, but the fact that they go creeping off just emphasizes that. Commercial!

Back. Kelly says that one of them is going home tonight.

Isaac says that Jonny picked a "woman glorifying design" and made it look terrible. In Isaac's world, "glorifying" and "skankifying" are synonyms.

Kristen's look was unfocused, and he wonders if she should be in this business.

Then he tells Jonny "we're just not buying it. Bye-bye darling." Jonny leaves. Kelly tells Kristen that she's still in, but she's hanging by a thread. Multiple catch phrase FAIL.

Jonny packs his design in a garment bag and cries. Which is totally different from Project Runway, where the designers put their losing design on the dress form and cry.

This season: bleed for fashion! don't insult us! Daniella continues to be a bitch. Lots of crying. Reco looks oddly like Dave Chapelle.

And. .. a lot of other stuff designed to convince us this show is not just a rip off of Project Runway. No way. Not at all. Why would you even think such a thing?