Hey, you come here often? Nice shoes…

According to some reports, Tom Colicchio is big in the bear community. This week he visits a different kinds of Bears community. Apparently, according to the Top Chef cell phone poll, 50% of America wants to touch him in touch football too.

1 - Koren Grieveson is a guest judge. Bring the Avec love.

2 - Dale says he has no experience pairing beer with food and seems scared. Odd, I thought good chefs trust their palate. Though he’s not nearly as bad as Spike who says, “It all tastes the same to me.”

3 - Quickfire challenge = Anheuser Busch commercial

4 - Stephanie takes a page out of the Hopleaf pagebook, mussels and beer

5 - Spike not only hates women, but now he’s a homophobe. Though he takes a bath with Mark in this episode, so maybe he’s just a self hating closet case.

6 - Richard only likes “refined” food. That’s cool, I only like humble chefs.

7 - Ryan’s making poached grilled pears with creme fraiche? It’s a tailgate dude, not Charlie Trotter’s in 1994.

8 - Richard goes with a gas grill. The dude smokes everything with his porta-smoker, but he wusses out here, odd.

9 - How cute, Paul Kahan and Tom Colicchio wore matching newsboy caps.

10 - I still think Andrew’s on crystal meth.

11 - Richard confirms multiple personality disorder and refers to himself as “we”

12 - Nicky bought sausage and grilled some peppers and onion? Hmmm, the show is called Top Chef, not Top Short Order Cook.

13 - Ryan - he gone. Bit of a shocker. At least he cooked something.

FYI, Potential Spoiler: Pete Wells over at NYT speculates that a female chef might win it all this year. Here in Chicago, my sources tell me that Stephanie Izard hasn’t been looking for a job, and has been cooking a lot of “dinner parties” for friends and other cooks. Sounds like practice for a live finale to me.