Pea puree pea puree pea puree pea puree pea puree pea puree pea puree.

“For your Quickfire challenge, Congressman Schock is going to perform weird ‘tickle play’ acts on all the male cheftestants, then roundly deny it in the press. Your time to run begins NOW!”

Quickfire: The cheftestants are visited by Rep. Aaron Schock (R-Illinois), who would totally be played by a sun-kissed Patrick Wilson in a biopic:

Weird thing about this pic: Patrick Wilson is clothed. That dude is ALWAYS NAKED

Congressman Schock explains that quasi-recent Capitol Hill ethics reform has resulted in a rule barring lobbyists from excessive wining-and-dining of lawmakers — all food at hob-nobby functions must be able to be served on a toothpick and eaten while standing, so the chefs have to whip up a dish-on-a-stick to impress a guy who, despite his unwitting/awesome status as a gay icon, doesn’t think gay-bashing should be considered a hate crime.

Lil’ Arnold Face in drag for ya, Schock! Eat it! On a stick!

At the bottom: the increasingly villainous Alex, whose bacon/scallop/strawberry/basil is too busy and cannot be saved by a patriotic stars-and-bars toothpick; Greatest-Generation Ed, who uses a Polynesian cocktail umbrella (!) for his duo of tuna; and Kelly, who’s informed her scallop/watermelon stick lacks flavor.

At the top: Our dude Jersey Kev gets a nod for his grilled pork kabob, Angelo “brings back” the cucumber cup and provides the Schockster with “fireworks in my mouth,” and a confident Stephen impresses dude with a rich scallop/beef/bernaise trio (There’s a lot on that stick, I really enjoyed that!” says the politician. hahah). Angelo, though, wins immunity and $20K for his cuke cup, quite possibly the largest-gapped low-risk/high-reward victory since they gave the American Idol belt to that kid who mows my lawn instead of that coiffure eyeliner sex robot guy.

“Hmm, which of these sexy mesclun mixes would I rather bang…”

Elimination: The chefs must prepare a “power lunch” at the Palm D.C. — gonna go ahead and assume they have slightly more credible wall caricatures than our Larry Mendte and Alycia Lane heads —using a random meat/seafood. Tasters include Joe Scarborough, why-hell0-there NBC White House correspondent Savannah Guthrie and now-extremely-skinny guest judge chef Art Smith.

Jersey Kev, who was chef de cuisine at the Grill at the Ritz-Carlton in the pre-10 Arts era, knows all about the challenge, as he cooked for John Street and crew once a week back in the day. Amanda, on the other hand, admits she’s never cooked a porterhouse before, and proceeds to take all the meat off the bone, which means it’s not really a porterhouse anymore. She also forgets to bring salt and pepper (?!), so she runs around on some “you can’t spare one square?”-type mission for awhile. Ed gets down ripping apart lobsters with his bare hands, while Alex raves about “dinosaur-style” salmon portions. Tiffany finds time during all this to proclaim that she and Ed and not, I repeat not, shacking up on some Top Chef love stuff. “I got a man!” she exclaims. Which of course makes me think like:

Ed’s Big Daddy Longstroke and your man’s Pee Wee Herman!

Then there’s the pea puree. Ed makes one for his lobster dish, but it goes mysteriously missing … around the same time a pea puree materializes on Alex’s salmon plate. Everyone whispers and chats and theorizes about where Ed’s puree went off to on some Double P is for Pea Puree Sue Grafton type shit, and some people suspect Alex — but no one says anything to him! What’s the worst is that Alex and Ed, along with Tiffany, end up in the top three — and Art Smith ends up giving Alex the W and raving about the puree like crazy. Rough, Positive K Ed! Of course, we’re not provided with a lick of actual evidence implicating Alex as pea puree thief — but it’s certainly curious. Good job Top Chef, you made pea puree interesting!

At the bottom: Jersey Kev, who overcooks lamb; Kelly, who way oversalts her porterhouse steak (at least what she served was a porterhouse, though!); and Andrea, who chooses to top swordfish with a crazy-sounding vanilla bean mustard beurre blanc that just sounds disconcerting. That wacky sauce, as you might imagine, gets her the boot.

Top Chef D.C. Episode 7: Schock therapy

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