Just in Time for Thanksgiving

Top Chef All Star Dinner Reunion. Or. My title for it, TC Bitchfest 2009. 12 of your most outspoken, outrageous, most fun to get into a fist fight over Top Chef contestants, sitting down and breaking bread together. For some reason, Fabio has been given the Andy Cohen-host duties for the night. Why? My guess is to throw the subtitles producer some work, otherwise, beats me. Now from the previews (available at Bravo here) there's a couple of things I'm thankful for: 1) I don't see Season 4's resident Asshat anywhere at the table. 2) I do see a lot of my favs, Harold, Tiff, Dale, Carla, Lisa and Hung. 3) No Tom Colicchio....yet. I can't say for certain he won't show up. I hope not. What would be the point, to constantly ask the chefs if they tasted their food or complain about too much or too little salt. Shoo Tom, shoo.
What's absolutely fascinating are some of the things that were voiced, at least on the previews. One opinion voiced by more than one chef is that they are tired of being asked about certain things, which...is not unexpected. I'm pretty sure Tiff and Dave are sick to death of their catch phrase. Casey would surely like to forget what she said to a blogger, thinking it was off the record, about her experience helping Carla in the finals of Season 5 only to have it blow up online. Marcel is still a bit prickly (or a bit of a prick, take your pick) about the madness that was his season. But the one thing every single one of these chefs needs to remember is that without Top Chef, a show every single one of them chose to be on, no matter what the consequences were to their careers, without being on Top Chef, chances are none of them would have the national recognition that they have today. We wouldn't know their names, we wouldn't know what kind of influences have shaped their cooking, we wouldn't seek out their restaurants to plunk down our hard earned money and enjoy a meal. As Tiff once said, Top Chef puts butts in the seats. So tune in tomorrow and revel in juicy bitchiness and grown out hair styles because I doubt there will be much discussion about actual food. Unless they've figured out a great way to serve a succulent Roast Rack of Bitch.