Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

A Cuisinart toaster oven like the one Eric Ripert used in his series of web videos.

Joy of Cooking!

Poached in butter.

RIBEYE!

Bacon and chocolate is an awesome combo.

Regarding the Quickfire challenge - there had already been an amuse-bouche challenge to start season three where Tom pretty much hammered any chef for not getting the concept of single-bite hors d'oeuvre. I'm a little annoyed that Rocco wasn't as fastidious in his criticism of some of the cheftestants that clearly made something closer to an appetizer.

My prediction that Ariane is this season's Lisa (TC4) in terms of her ability to survive and thrive is looking good. Though I'll agree with ArchieLeach in that Jamie is starting to have the same body language problems that Lisa displayed.

Why is Rocco "famous again?" Did you not see his wonderful "What's Your Med Style" ad campaign for Bertolli?

@bessfour You didn't miss anything. There was no winning cheftestant/dish last night. They got to watch the Foo Fighters perform so everyone on Team Sexy Pants won.

Does anyone else find it funny how the show goes to great lengths to sell us on it being a Thanksgiving episode even though we know filming took place in the summer?

Alaina, you had a lot of fun with the section titles, didn't you?

Butterball had to be one of the most blatant uses of product placement without it being a part of the challenge's description.

My gut feeling is that Ariane will now run off a streak of "safe" challenge results and will make it to the latter half of the season. As far as this week's eliminated, I would have sent Daniel packing. He messed up potatoes! Richard's flaw was trying to be too high concept with the s'mores.

A few years ago, my parents, with no interest in cooking their own turkey, ordered one of these birds for our Thanksgiving dinner. That mystery gravy really is awesome. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy my brother makes the Alton-style brined turkey these days but the Chinese-style turkey fit in really well with the char siu and ribs that my parents preferred to make for Thanksgiving.

So how exactly is this frying?

No thanks, I'll stick with the oven. Or, you know, a real fryer.

I was surprised that Fabio won with the beef carpaccio - I really thought Jaime's really clean looking soup would take it but it seems that the best entree will always trump the best appetizer/dessert.

@sammie I kept thinking the same thing last season with Lisa and it never fickin happened.

Every time Ariane survives, I think back to Lisa from season 4 and her ability to survive despite being in the bottom every week. I'm afraid Ariane will be the same - bad but not the worst each challenge and just barely scraping by.

Does anyone else notice that the producers have changed it up this season for Judges Table? Instead of having the winners and losers come out separately, they're having them come out together? It makes moments like Hosea's ("I thought I was in the top!") possible. It's tweaks like that one that keeps Top Chef on top of the cooking competition reality show heap.