Welcome back, fellow Top Chef live-bloggers! In the three weeks since we last gathered, a holiday season has come and gone, and a shiny new year has dawned.

I hope that none of you made any foolish resolutions about eating less, or drinking less, or being nicer or anything—because at 10 Eastern, it'll be time to watch a lot of food, drink and post snarky comments.

But first things first: Because our last live blog was so long ago—and we've all probably killed many billions of brain cells since then—allow me to refresh our collective memories with a few highlights from the last episode:

  • The quickfire knife-drawing ritual was punctuated with startling bouts of histrionic ululation from members of the Harlem Gospel Choir. I mention this only because I like the phrase "histrionic ululation," and I didn't want to pass up the chance to use it in a sentence.
  • We discovered that Tom Colicchio doesn't think much of deviled eggs. So if you ever meet Colicchio, don't try to impress him by whipping out a deviled egg. He will sneer at your eggy offering and say, "That's it? That's all you've got?" And his stern glare will cause you to cringe and slink from his presence in shame.
  • In a Christmas-in-August miracle, many cheftestants sucked but—thanks to peace, good will and the grace of the baby Jesus — none was eliminated. Not even the swarthy little tattooed guy who probably worships some heathen volcano god. And then all the cheftestants shouted "Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown!" and sang "loo loo loo, loo-loo loo loo …" and a talking Press-'N'-Seal bag wished everyone GLAD™ tidings of comfort and joy!

At least, I think that's what happened. I may not be remembering that accurately. December 17 was a long time ago.

Anyway, enough with the old. Let's ring in the new with a few things to watch for tonight:

  • Radhika will say, "It's a chef-eat-chef world." I'm not sure what she's referring to, but I really hope it has nothing to do with Hosea and Leah's relationship.
  • Tonight's "Diet Dr. Pepper Quickfire Challenge" will be to create something sweet, using no sugar. Good thing Velveeta isn't the sponsor, or the challenge would probably be to create something cheese-like, using no cheese.
  • Two will be eliminated, based on "blind judging" (i.e., the judges won't know who made what). This is actually a cool idea: Forget personality or past performance. It's just culinary chops or the chopping block! Put up or pack up your knives! (This assumes, of course, that any producers who may "consult" on judging decisions are blindfolded too.)
  • Some snide British dude will replace Gail on the judging panel. He'll probably roll his eyes a lot and say haughty, English-y stuff like, "That was simply awful!" American reality-TV audiences love that shit.

Ok gang, time to grab your libations and your laptops. Because tonight we're gonna live-blog like it's 2009!