Sa-WHAT?

A few things I found very troublesome about last night's Top Chef. And this does not include the really, really unattractive cheftestants this year. I don't think they all need to be gorgeous but they also don't need to be distractingly unappealing. Don't any of them live near salons? Just a baseline of normal-looking would be completely fine. I mean, it's Bravo! Facials should be mandatory.

On to the culinary irritations:

Watermelon "carpaccio." Creating "twists" on dishes is only clever when it's...clever. I find myself mostly just annoyed at dishes like thinly sliced fruit called "carpaccio" and random things marinated in citrus and called "ceviche." Tofu "ceviche" = culinary fail, IMHO. This has happened before on Top Chef and has been equally annoying. Carpaccio is meat. Ceviche is seafood. And on that note, stacked-up food is not always "lasagne" and food rolled in other food is not always an "enchilada" and food on bread is not always "pizza."

Weird pronunciation of "ceviche." The first time I heard the cheftestant Jen call it "Sa-VEECH" I thought I misheard. Then she did it again. Please stop it. Even if that is correct in some remote part of Spain that only she has ever visited...please just stop.

I'm not a dessert technologist. I don't like panna cotta that much. But I respect that lots of people like it. So if I DID NOT KNOW HOW TO MAKE IT I suppose I would NOT MAKE IT when I'd already completed my initial dish. And I would NOT STIR IN BURNED BAY LEAVES. And then I would not stand in front of the judges and say "I'm not a dessert technologist" and "mistakes were made." The entire panna cotta situation was very odd.

Reading the blogs this morning I can see I'm not the only one baffled by the show so far this year. I'm sure things will improve.