And we’re back.  With bad news; they’ve done away with chefs posing during the opening credits.  Sure, it made the cheftarians look like a bunch of idiots, but I had so much fun making fun of it!  The only explanation: they knew I was mocking them.

Chris J. wears sunglasses on his head and regular glasses where his glasses belong.  We get it dude, you don’t have a normal office job.  You don’t have to rub it in our face.  Regardless, his new name is Periscope.

The Quickfire Challenge is to cook rattlesnake.  Stefan would have strangled a snake himself, so I have no sympathy for the chefocrats who are afraid of dead snakes. 

Chuy says he’s an expert because he had a “unique” childhood growing up between California and Mexico.  Umm, isn’t the popularity of that childhood the reason why the Tea Party hates brown people?

Harvard Westlake makes beer-battered snake.  She says that when she thinks snake, she thinks beer.  Maybe she’s an alcoholic.  “When I think Mexican food, I think beer.”  “When I think dinner, I think beer.”  “When I think feelings I think beer.”  Regardless, drunk Harvard Westlake wins $5,000.  That’s it?  Fucking recession is even pinching Bravo’s budget.   Occupy Top Chef, y’all.

The Elimination challenge is cooking for a quinceanera.  As they have Chuy explain (because you know, HE TOOK URRR JUBBBS), it’s basically a Mexican bat mitzvah.  My bar mitzvah had a kosher caterer, so the grub wasn’t that great.  In fact, my mother’s social rival criticized the cold sesame noodles.  Yes, Jews really are like the Bluths.

The Mexican bat mizvah girl, Blanca, says she doesn’t like spicy food but she likes ceviche.  The fuck?  I thought ceviche only existed on Top Chef.  Seriously, I just had it for the first time and it’s like hey, someone got lemon juice in my crudo.

Cassie Powers starts taking charge of her team because she lived in Mexico, and of course they put up a picture of her drinking a tropical drink to show that she lived down there.  It was either that, or a picture of her holding the day’s newspaper while she was a drug cartel captive.

The teams had to split up, one going to a Mexican specialty store, and the other to a certain grocery store that advertises heavily on the show.  Bubba bought Cassie Powers pre-cooked shrimp, while she was at the specialty store, and Cassie Powers flips out at him.  She turns the team against him by being bitchy and he says he feels alone.  Hey man, you’re a black dude who talks like Bubba from Forrest Gump, you should know your shrimp.

The chefpublicans are divided into Green (going to win because Chuy is Mexican) and Pink (going to lose because Bubba bought pre-cooked shrimp) teams, because that’s the quinceanera theme.  Lucky Mexicans, Jewish parents would never let their kids use those colors.

Heather does a gross looking tres leches cake, while Harvard Westlake does a pink, purple and blue layered thing that looks too good to eat.  Literally, it doesn’t look appetizing (pie kicks cake’s ass) but you don’t want to mess it up by cutting into it. 

Blanca meets the judges and says she’s looking forward to the food more than anything else at her Quinceanera.  Ha!  You’re most looking forward to getting felt up by a cute guy, admit it.  Blanca is actually tougher on the food than Teflon Tom.  Maybe she’ll go My Super Sweet Sixteen on it and start crying because it’s not perfect. Speaking of My Super Sweet Sixteen, my sister was on that show.  Not as an actual Super Sweet Sixteen bitch, but as a guest at Bjorn’s (the black kid with a diamond-studded velour jacket). 

Meanwhile, on the Green Team, Chuy makes peanut salsa.  Ten minutes later, I’m enraged that, according to Menupages, nobody in New York City serves peanut salsa.  I must have this peanut salsa, where can I find it?!  However, the Green Team gets dinged a bit because Tiger Son puts cabbage in his dish.  Cabbage doesn’t add anything to the dishes, ever.  Name a single time where cabbage was a better addition to a dish above some other vegetable.  Fieldston uses store-bought tortillas as well, and her chicken sucks, but she’s on the winning team. 

Before they get to dessert, Top Chef shows people dancing to the Macarena.  Or whatever they dance to these days.  I was bar mitzvahed in 1997, that was the jam back then.  As for dessert itself, the tres leches cake tastes better than whatever Harvard Westlake whipped up but, whatever, it’s all worse than pie.

Anyway, we get to see a little bit of the post-meal quinceanera reception.  Padma is moved by the father daughter dance because it reminds her of when she was married to Salman Rushdie.

Of course, the Green Team wins.  Cassie Powers gives a second place in Miss America smile as she knows her dish sucked and she could be toast. 

All the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills look the same to me.  Seriously, I can tell blacks or Asians apart better than I can tell them apart.

Sarah complains to Bubba and he tells her to be careful not making excuses.  Cassie Powers and Krypton join them on the bottom at Judge’s Table.  Chef Flacco calls everyone out for not displaying leadership.  Trust him, he’s a quarterback. They relive the process of buying cooked shrimp and it seems that, while Bubba should have known better, he wasn’t the only one at fault.

Bubba says he never used corn tortillas even though it was an enchilada.  Sarah says she knew but didn’t tell him because she didn’t want to be bossy.  They get snippy.  Meanwhile, Krypton has Farva’s voice. 

Chef Flacco wonders why we have to tell Bubba to not buy precooked shrimp and toritllas.  Have to guess Bubba will go, if only because I didn’t see too much of him in season previews.  But I want Sarah to lose, because all she does is complain and pass the buck.

Still, it’s Bubba that goes.  Turn in those orange Crocs, as  you’re no Molto Mario.  He says he holds no grudges against Cassie Powers or Sarah, or else he would have shivved them in the yard.  The winner of this episode, of course, is the Top Chef camera crew, as they no longer have to include Bubba (a foot taller than most other chefunists) in group shots. 

Next, on Top Chef, a chilli-cook off!  We’ll get to see how many Simpsons references I can fit into one recap!