REAL HOUSEWIVES OF BEVERLY HILLS – 9/12/11

Written by:
Elizabeth Spilotro
Website: www.thislittlemama.com
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It’s me again! Thank you so much to everyone who read the first RHOBH recap, and especially everyone who posted such enthusiastic comments here on the site. In honor of PastryChef23, the column’s very first commenter, I felt it would be appropriate to start this week’s column with a short recap of the Lisa Vanderpump episode of Top Chef: Just Desserts that ran last week. If you don’t care about the wonders of pastry chefing, just skip along ahead.

Our celebration of all things dessert starts with a Quickfire being judged by Top Chef Masters favorite Hugh Acheson, famous for his expressive unibrow, ways with puns, and (apparently) inspired cuisine. (I wouldn’t know.) Hugh energetically wiggles his Bertbrow while explaining to the Cheftestants that their challenge is to create a teeny-tiny dessert that will inspire a new flavor of Extra Gum Dessert Delights, and fit into a teeny-tiny serving piece. This, wiggles Hugh, is a “sticky situation”. Oh HO! You funny man!

This being the third episode of TC:JD, I still don’t have all the Cheftestants sorted out in my head. And I really don’t get this whole challenge because I don’t chew gum, and if I did I wouldn’t want it tasting like ice cream or chocolate cake. Our Cheftestants don’t really know what to do with this, either – two are making pina colada-inspired desserts, one an oatmeal cookie, and most of the rest various passionfruit items. They must have a glut of passionfruit in the Top Chef Kitchen. Where is Hugh’s mother to tell him to chew with his mouth closed?? ICK. After a loud round of slobbery slurping, Hugh declares Craig the winner with his strawberry mascarpone mini-pancakes, which neither scream “dessert” nor “gum” to me, but alas.

Craig thus wins: $25K, with which he plans to disregard his culinary school loan obligations and go shopping for Smurfs; his very own delectable gum flavor; the right to be a leader of the next Elimination Challenge (and pick the other team leader), a blessing and a curse if ever there was one; and immunity therein. Craig is a gay, eternally 4th grade version of Shaggy, if Shaggy was a pastry chef instead of a pothead who talks to dogs. He picks Amanda, arguably the most polished and confident (dare I say arrogant?) Cheftestant in the bunch as the leader of the other team. Well, why not. They do the schoolyard pick and face the challenge.

The challenge is to create a dessert table pitch for the 2nd anniversary of Villa Blanca, Lisa Vanderpump’s Beverly Hills dining establishment. Two things to take away from this: (a) this is very specifically a pitch, meaning this is all pretend and there isn’t a gelato’s chance in hell that either of the dessert tables presented is actually going to materialize at Villa Blanca; and (b) hello, product placement! Not just in this episode, but all over Bravo; if Villa Blanca has only been open two years, it confirms my suspicion that placing Lisa on RHOBH was part of their whole PR plan to Take Beverly Hills and market the place. Maybe everyone knows this but I don’t live in LA so for all I knew Villa Blanca had been hosting the BH Red Hat Society for 20+ years. The Vandersmoothies have been quite clever in getting Bravo to cross-promote Villa Blanca all over the network; not only is it a regular filming venue for RHOBH, but I’m pretty sure NeNe and Lisa from RHOA lunched there once (on camera, natch) and I want to say it’s popped up in a few other Bravo shows. And now here it is on TC:JD. Quel surprise!

Mr. Lisa and Giggy stroll in to give the Cheftestants some idea of what they are in for. This dessert table is meant to be All About Lisa. Accordingly, it is to be:
· pink
· meticulous
· feature fresh flowers
· be glitzy but in good taste (you know, think figure skating)

In answers to Cheftestant inquiries, Mr. Lisa informs the assembled that Lisa’s favorite flower is the pink rose, that Giggy is her first love and Pandy her second (ohh, the mental health bills…), and that if she were making a special dessert for Pandy it would be a crumble. Or at least I think that’s what he said. It could have been “a gumball”.

The teams are sent off to create tables featuring a maximum of six desserts each. Craig’s former culinary school teacher, Sally, takes charge of his team and gets the crew rowing along. Craig is going to make pink lemonade and then help everyone else. <> Amanda’s team, meanwhile, clearly perceives themselves to be the all-stars with the arrogance to match. They snip and snap at each other while Melissa, who I think is from Haiti, declares herself to the camera to be “dead inside”. That’s the spirit for making glitzy, tasteful desserts! Off they go to work, spinning sugar and celebrating the macaroon, soon to overtake the cupcake as the cutesy dessert of 2011. Melissa’s pot boils over. <>

At the start of day 2, Amanda declares herself flattened by a cold and devoid of taste buds. Nelson solves a Rubik’s Cube (where the hell did they find that?) in seconds flat. <>

The judges arrive with the BH 9ers who will be judging this episode: Lisa, Mr. Lisa, Pandy, Kyle, and Taylor, who is an interesting choice as the task requires consuming food. Kyle, clad in a colossal taupe silk bow, declares that this will be a fattening day. Taylor goes rigid. She says nothing but nods slowly like a hypnotized Queen Elizabeth II when introduced, trying to contain her rising panic. Food is coming! Quick, hide behind the ficus!