A note on scheduling. . .

Some of you may remember way, way back in the summer of 2009, when I stayed up half the night to do back-to-back recaps of the Top Chef Masters Season one finale and the premiere of Top Chef Vegas, and then recapped the premiere of what would turn out to be Project Runway's disastrous Los Angeles based 6th season the next day.

There are a few reasons I was able to work that out. First, I was taking vacation that weekend starting on Friday, so I was able to do Wednesday night's shows, zombie it through work on Thursday, and sleep-in Friday morning before re-watching the Project Runway premiere and writing it up then.

The second is that it was a one-shot deal, so the challenge of doing it was worthwhile knowing I wouldn't have to do it again the next week. That's one of the reasons I've never bothered writing about Work of Art or Make Me a Supermodel (when is that coming back, by the way?) or Shear Genius or. . .what was the interior design one again? Was it actually Top Design? What an awful name for an awful show.

Anyway, one of the reasons I've never bothered with those is because often -- especially in recent seasons -- that would've created a 3 show recapping overlap, often with two on the same night. Doing two is sustainable -- I often hit noon on Fridays and start feeling as though someone's punched me repeatedly in the face, but it's doable. Three for any period of time? Suicide.

This is all by way of saying: you will see a Top Chef finale post tomorrow morning at my usual obscenely early hour, and it will probably contain a lot of thoughts like "craptasm" and "festival of mediocrity" and "producer orchestrated shennanigans." And you will see a Project Runway post at an obscenely early Friday which will contain a lot of thoughts like "and then Kors says something like 'coodji coma hoosbeen' or 'salami, salami, bologna' which I know sounds unlikely, but that's what's in my notes."

And then on Saturday morning, probably not at an obscenely early hour, you will see a recap of Top Chef: Just Desserts. The same pattern will probably* hold true for next week.

I'm very excited about Just Desserts -- it is, I believe, the first itteration to feature a chef whose food I've eaten before they appeared on the show (Heather Chittum of Hook, who I'll be rooting for even though my notes from the one time I had dessert there state that her Nutella ice cream had "great texture" but was "insufficiently Nutella-y"). And I hate having to give it short shrift like this. But I have to sleep sometime.

Feel free to say anything you want about Just Desserts in the regular Top Chef post comments, because a) I will have watched it (or at least listened to it in the background), and b) I stand by my belief that anyone who complains about "spoilers" after a show has aired should be punched repeatedly in the face.

And in the meantime, just leave your burnt offerings on the Voltaggio altar in the hopes that he will smile on your choice to win the finale. He likes gold and virgins best.

* I say probably because the reunion shows take a bit less effort, so I may actually get ambitious and do both on the same night.