Hello, commenters! Ready for some live-blogging action? I sure am. In fact, like Kevin, I want to "bond on a fat kid level" with every one of you. So let's all summon our chubby inner child, shall we?

We're up to week 4 of our weekly culinary chat-fast, which (in case you haven't crashed this party before) happens down in the comments section, as soon as Top Chef gets underway on Bravo at 10 pm Eastern. Before we get started, allow me to do a little fat-chewing about what transpired last week:

  • Many commenters wondered why Ashley voiced no gay-rights-related complaints over cooking for the U.S. Armed Forces, after her wedding-challenge protest of the previous week. Perhaps she only plays the gay card during even-numbered weeks?
  • Commenter ms_priestypants' avatar picture of a cute little beagle kept eying me reproachfully throughout the live blog, making me feel guilty that I forgot to walk my dog before it started.
  • During the judging, Gail complained once again about a lack of acid. Apparently, Gail really likes acid. Maybe Padma's pot dealer knows somebody who could hook her up?
  • Ashley offered to be a "refill bitch," pedestrian pasta sent Preeti packing, and Jesse smacked herself in the head and said "balls!" (But not in that order.)

Also, a big highlight for me was that my call for more commenters to deliver "field reports" on cheftestants' restaurants (like Heneage did a couple weeks back) netted two fresh volunteers: ChickyOnly offered to try out Tintin's Iluna Basque in San Francisco, while Lizawithazee said she'll plan to visit Ashley's Branzino during an upcoming trip to Seattle. Hopefully, they will succeed in these missions, and we'll have their field reports to look forward to during a future live blog. Meanwhile, I'll post the list of remaining cheftestant restaurants/cities in a comment again tonight, in case any other aspiring citizen-journalists out there want to take a whack at this foodie-field-reporting thing.

As for tonight, the preview clips reveal we're in for a French-themed episode, featuring something called "Franco-American fusion" (which I think is what happens when your SpaghettiO's get stuck together?). Also, the quickfire challenge will involve cooking escargot, and (SPOILER ALERT) the loser will go home! So it's the old "cook a delicious snail or get the hell out of here" ploy. And how many times have we seen that before?

Actually, I guess we've never seen that before. So that'll be cool. Let's watch for that!

Ok fellow fat kids, almost time to bond. I'll see you in the comments section soon … right after I walk my dog.