TVSquad

I resisted the temptations of Project Runway's sister series Top Chef for the entirety of its first season. In my mind, America's obsession with celebrity chefs and food porn has resulted in only two things I can get behind - the pop communist iconography of the original, subtitled Iron Chef and gonzo chef Anthony Bourdain's macho prose on sex, drugs and eats.

This season, however, I've been completely suckered into the hot-and-heavy drama. I could chalk up my new fixation to a lost weekend, a bottle of scotch and a Bravo marathon, but I actually think the show has improved. Tom Colicchio, while no Tim Gunn, wears his quiet exasperation well. And, replacing former host Katie Lee Joel, Billy Joel's wife, with Padma Lakshmi, Salman Rushdie's wife, was a step in the right direction. Padma may not have much more going on in the spokesmodel department than Katie Lee, but you can always look at her and go, "Holy smokes. I guess surviving a fatwa qualifies you to date waaaaay out of your league."

The added advantage of watching Top Chef is all the great cooking tips offered up the offbeat cast. After a crash course in sharpening my knives, here's what I learned over the course of this past weekend's Top Chef marathon:

All things are not created equal - like Splenda and sugar.
Or, so Betty learned when she tried to bake "crispy cookies" with Splenda instead of sugar. Turns out there's, like, "science" involved with cooking.

Bacon plus strawberries equals delicious.
Apparently, wrapping things in bacon is the haute cuisine equivalent of frying Twinkies so who else but a Top Chef would come up with bacon-sprinkled strawberries. The Babe-i-rific concoction was the hit of the Warner Brothers, Top Chef-catered holiday party.

There are 120 calories in a tablespoon of olive oil.
The kids at Camp Glucose will not be getting any.

"Foams" are a sure-fire way to appear "cutting edge."
The chefs from Las Vegas are always so damn showy. They get all the "cutting edge" points for creating things like "cranberry foams" for Thanksgiving dinner. Top Chef is also a proponent of putting itty-bitty portions on homogeneous plates in an attempt to class them up.

Live and die by the amuse-bouche.
Top Chef is doing what it can to bring the amuse-bouche ("small bite" before the meal) to Middle America. Don't be surprised when Auntie Fran serves up an "amuse-bouche" before Christmas dinner - quite possibly in foam form.