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Hosea finds some extra pork in the freezer and everyone contributes to breaking it down for him. Radhika thanks her lucky stars that she saved all of the duck legs from the previous night and Fabio starts helping her break those down. It's a total team effort and as they head over to the ballroom for the amFAR event, every chef will be able to (for the most part) present the dish that they'd been planning.

Serving as the guest judge this week is Natasha Richardson, whom I know as the Tony Award winning actress from the revival of Cabaret in 1997. Stepping in for Gail (who's busy with her wedding) is the beautiful and uber-talented Michelle Bernstein, who I totally have a straight-crush on. And yes, for all those wondering, this means that I have straight-crushes on three women on Top Chef: Gail, Padma and Michelle. All strong women.

Service begins and things are NOT looking good. Apart from Hosea's pork (which is pretty good) and Stefan's chicken pot pie (which is tasty), the judges find very little to like about any of the other ten dishes. Radhika and Leah fall victim to the judges' dislike of overly bread-laden hors d'oeuvres. Jaime's raw scallop (yes, she prepared scallops for both the Quickfire and Elimination Challenge) is both slimy and lukewarm. Ariane's deviled eggs are too simple (I told you so). Eugene's seafood ceviche (with pineapple and coconut milk) is far too sweet. Melissa's beef dish is overwhelmed by her use of blue cheese and so on and so on.

While I would argue that this episode, rife with drama and tension, is the best so far in Season 5, clearly the food that was served was the worst so far from this group of chefs.

The judges reconvene at Judges Table and while they're disappointed in the evening, they select Hosea's pork, Radhika's duck, Jeff's cheeses and Stefan's pot pie as the winners. As excited as the chefs are and as eager as Radhika's is to tell them about the fridge-fiasco, I can't help but get the feeling that the judges' enjoyment of these dishes is as lukewarm as Jaime's scallop. The dishes were good and clearly better than the other seven . . . but at Judges' Table, the winners have as hard a time picking out pieces of praise from the judges as John McCain did finding a talented, intelligent running mate.

The judges don't really seem to care, but Hosea is named the winner. For those keeping track at home, Hosea has now tied Ariane for the most wins on Top Chef so far this season with three.

The losers of the challenge are called out. We have Eugene with his overly-sweet seviche, Melissa with her overly-cheesy beef and Jaime's overly-slimy scallops.

Maybe it's the holiday season, but the judges seem pretty harsh on the chefs for the second week in a row. In particular, Strong Woman Michelle Bernstein delivers sharp, barbed denunciations of each dish. Jaime should have seared her scallops instead of serving them raw. Eugene should have tried his ceviche, because if he had, he would have realized that the sweetness in the dish overwhelmed the fish completely. Melissa's blue cheese was warm and had the effect of coating the entire mouth of the diner to the point where they couldn't taste anything else on the plate. I know that my recap of their comments is pretty straight-forward but lemme tell ya, I would not have wanted to be in front of those grouchy judges. Except Michelle Bernstein. She can grouch at me anytime she wants to.

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