well the top chef reunion was last night and like any other bravo reunion, it was quite entertaining, providing us with many never-before-seen clips and some insider comentary on the season. what more could we ask for, right? well...

first thing's first, we have our top chef winner, stephanie! and for the record, she would rather be known as the winner of season 4, not the first female top chef. i completely understand where she's coming from too, saying how she thinks of herself first as a chef, not as a female chef. gender shouldn't have anything to do with it, though i do think it was long overdue. and how can anyone not like stephanie? she's so sweet and friendly, it's no wonder that she won fan favorite too. she's planning on opening a second restaurant with her $100,000, though with the $10,000 fan favorite prize, she took everyone out for dinner and drinks. aww!

we were missing one of the biggest characters of the season and arguably one of the best chefs ever, richard blais. apparently his newborn child is more important than sitting around with his 15 competitors to reminisce for an hour. fortunately he did show up (via satellite) but it was towards the end of the show so we didn't get his musings throughout the show, which would have been nice.

but anyways, it was nice to see a more humane side to some of the chefs, like dale and spike. i'll admit that i was NOT a fan of dale's during the show, but last night, he seemed very laid back and chill and someone i wouldn't mind hanging out with on a friday night. and i'm still wondering what it was he didn't want to talk about as was shown in the promos, but alas, they never showed it. spike too was more of a funny guy than normal, though he wasn't portrayed as the jerk that dale was, so it wasn't much of a stretch to put a good light on this bath-taking, hat-wearing goofball.

then there's andrew. oh andrew. where to start... he's a bit on the zany side, always has been, and those over the top types never appealed to me, but i will admit, when he said he'd let spike bang him (even though he's not gay) i was on the floor laughing! that was great. and the ADD comment (advanced dungeons and dragons) was quite clever as well. it just seemed at times that he was trying a little too hard to be the season's class clown, but when he wants to be, he can rattle off these one-liners that take the cake. perhaps even produce a culinary **** or two.

antonia is this season's casey, complete with a black cloud of doom, or  the black hammer as they deemed her. it seemed whenever someone ended up in the bottom with her, they ended up packing their knives. nimma, valerie, zoi to name a few. actually, those were the only three. if this was REALLY the 'curse of antonia' then lisa would have gone home in the movie food challenge since she was antonia's partner, and looking back, i wish that had happened. i wish they'd talked a little more about my favorite chef of season 4, but at least i got to see her do a funny little dance in the stew room, so that will suffice, i guess.

lisa's gargoyle face got touched on a bit, and she defended herself by saying when the **** side comes out, she gets very serious. it's too easy, so i'm not going to say anything about how she ALWAYS had that face on and how "lesbian party" people were afraid to come up and talk to her because of how they thought she was a ****. and speaking of that, couldn't she have just said "party"? i was going to a PARTY? did she HAVE to throw in the lesbian part? i just found that funny, that's all.

along with all of the spotlight segments focusing on the key players of the season, there were of course clips of more behind the scenes antics. the stew room montage was funny as was the f*ucking profanity montage! the chefs were some sailors this time around. not to be overlooked were the top chef nightmares and the sexual tension between gale and andrew. those ovens weren't the only thing heating up the kitchen. ha!  ryan's elaborate descriptions, jenn and zoi's relationship, and the bromances were touched on as well. i wish we'd heard more from nikki!

*sidenote* does anyone else think that 'bromance' has overstayed its welcome? i think it's dead, and if not, i'm praying it's on its last leg.

anyways, another season of top chef comes to an end. at least there's project runway next month and shear genius next week! get excited!