The mother of all cooking competitions!

Ooooh, my favorite summer teevee show, Master Chef, returns tomorrow night! Huzzah! I always enjoy the hell out of this show, even with its tendency to over-inflate itself ("One home cook will win the cookbook publishing deal, the cash prize of [six-figure amount here], and most important of all, the Coveted! MasterChef! TROPHY!!!"), when it's really just a fun cooking show to watch. I've blogged about the show on occasion in the past a couple of times, so I'll just relink my favorite two such items:

:: Gordon, the Fat Guy, and the Skinny Douche. This is mainly about Joe Bastianich, the "skinny douche", although apparently Graham Elliot has undergone stomach surgery since last season and is no longer so much "the Fat Guy". Time will tell if we have two skinny douches on the show now, although as I note in my post, since Season One, they've dialed way back on Joe Bastianich as the "douche" of the show. But still, he's generally cast as the "mean judge", which is really funny. Last year after one episode in which he really lit into one of the contestants, I had to laugh when someone commented on the show's Facebook page, "Hey Joe, why can't you at least be nice and respectful like Chef Ramsay?" That was hilarious -- had they really never watched Gordon Ramsay on, well, anything other than Master Chef?

:: The Many Faces of Monti Carlo, my tribute to my favorite reality show contestant ever, on any show. You know what? If I were to name my own five favorite posts I've done for this blog over the years, this one almost certainly makes the cut. Monti herself discovered it, commented on it, and linked it from her Facebook page!

Bring on the Mystery Boxes! I, for one, would like to see a Mystery Box full of nothing but very cheap "starving college student" stuff. Let's see what the home cooks do with Ramen noodles (preferably to unidentifiable "Oriental" flavor), boxed mac-and-cheese, and stuff like that!