Thank you USPS

As a lover of cards, letters, coupon mailers and the like, I spend at least an hour of my day every day either checking the mail, mailing out something or standing in line to mail out something. While I used to frequent the post office in Santa Monica, with my recent office move I now find myself enjoying the Venice post office on most occasions.

What a delight this place is, truly euphoric. Let me start with the ambiance. The stairs covered in last nights liquids (spit, gum, vomit, you know what's coming next), the smell of local homeless mixed with old lady perfume and hippy patchouli, the bullet proof glass you have to so inconveniently squeeze your packages through to mail them, the variety of trash leading up to the door and through out the lobby, I mean this place really is charming.

Moving on to the people who frequent the Venice post office. I'm going to leave out the employees there for now, they deserve their own section in this note, for they are an amazing breed of human beings. At the Venice post office there are two gentlemen that stand...corrected...one stands, one sits in a jazzy in front of the post office with a small boom-box, lollypops, jewelry and a bucket. They always say hello, and always ask for money. They have been there every time I have ever been to the post office, yet they never remember me, nor do they care that I say hello. The only time they have anything to say is when I don't respond to their cat calls or when they find out that I will not be giving them anything for their bucket, then they always have something real nasty to share, which reminds me why I don't care for the homeless. My thoughts on homeless people on another day. As for the people always waiting in line, on any given day I can guarantee you there will be the following:

• A homeless person
• A crazy old lady who has no idea how to send a package and will yell at you for assistance and/or cut in line until she finally figures out what she needs, yet proceeds to label her package wrong anyways
• A few trend setters who wear skinny jeans, vans, sport tattoos, wallet chains and want nothing to do with the rest of the population because they are clearly cooler then us
• A normal white chick (usually me, but sometimes there are two of us)
• An australian or german tourist trying to send stuff back to their ex-boyfriend or cousin
• Some yoga fanatic who sports dreadlocks and may or may not have shoes on

These people think that they are the only people in the post office at any given time, they cough, sneeze, fart, talk loudly on their phones, etc. in line as if you aren't standing 6 inches from them waiting patiently. They always proceed to take as long as physically possible to get their package mailed when they get to the window. They either want to chat, don't have their labels completed, don't have their box taped and want to argue for 15 minutes on why they should have to purchase tape, didn't bring enough cash and have to run to their cars, need a pen, or straight up are just slow moving people.

Which leads me to my first story about the Venice post office. For the purpose of this story I will call the character Sue. Sue was the yoga fanatic who sported dreadlocks and may or may not have had shoes on. Sue had been waiting in line with everyone (there was a full house this afternoon about 15 of us in line) and got up to the window to complete her transaction. I'm not sure what Sue was mailing, or how long she had been in line before she got to the window. What I am sure about is that you don't want to get on Sue's bad side, nor was she taking her meds this day. Next thing I know Sue is telling the women who works for the post office that she needs to get laid. After ranting at her for a few minutes Sue then turns to the crowd and asks us, "Doesn't this woman need to get laid?," "She just needs a huge dildo to get her off so she isn't so bad at her job!" After announcing these things for a few Sue then leaves and heads like she is going to check her box. Moments later Sue reappears and heads back to the window, yells something else along the lines of "get this women a big dick" and then waltzes out as if nothing had happened. Meanwhile I've turned to the guy next to me and whispered, "If there is anything that doesn't ever happen to me in this lifetime I really hope it's this situation right here"

Which brings me to last week. Since I frequent this post office I have come to know the tellers, not by name, but by personality and face. And in turn, they remember me as the chick with the orange packages who always has her credit card and ID ready to go. As I head to window 5 to mail my packages last week I had no idea that the tables were going to turn, and I would be the victim of post office embarrassment. The teller, who is the nicest petit asian man ever, starts up small talk. "You still single Vanessa?" "No" I respond "I've got me a keeper" "Ohhhhh" he says "Lucky Guy" I blush, and try to move on to the thank you, see you next week. But then he goes all in, "You have babies yet Vanessa?" now mind you I am in the post office, where there is bullet proof glass that you can hear perfectly through when speaking at a normal tone, but for some reason you feel the need to yell through to be heard, so he isn't speaking softly, and for some reason I'm not responding softly either. "No babies yet," I reply. "Ohhhhh....when are you going to have babies Vanessa?" "Give me 10 years," I say with a smile, looking back to see that most people in the line are now just as concerned as to when I am going to birth children. "Ohhhh noooo Vanessa, you must have children now, too many complications if you wait. You must have babies now before 30." To which I respond, "Ok, give me 5 years then." Surely this will calm him of his worries and I can get out of this mess. "5 years Vanessa, that is still too many, you should have babies now. Why you waiting, too many complications at the doctor Vanessa, you need to talk to your man about babies." To which I respond, "Good thinking, I will talk to my man about having babies now," As I turned to leave I could see in people's faces that they either; A: wanted me to go straight home and talk to my man, or B: were trying to picture me naked and pregnant. Both were disturbing, and both were enough for me to get a scale, purchase dollar stamps, and use the post office box on my corner from now on.

Thank you USPS, for putting a mail box on my corner so I never have to stand in line again. Oh and of course thank you for the medical advice, I'll be sure to come back next time I have a serious dilemma I don't even know about, hopefully you can prescribe me something like a day full of rainbows and unicorns.

Dental Gossip

Since I work in a small office everyday, and mainly only deal with clients in their environment I am unfamiliar with the unspoken rules for certain professions as far as Dr./Patient relations are concerned, but I would like to make a suggestion. If you are a dentist, or a dentist's assistant, do not talk to your clients. They A: can not respond and 2: have no interest in what you do in your spare time (especially if it is directly related to anything you do with your hands).

This is how my dentist visit went this morning, and this is why I feel so strongly about having professional unspoken rules. I first had a long conversation with myself about whether or not to wear shorts because although it is warm out I was positive that I did not want the Dentist to be checking me out in any way, shape or form. After realizing that the dentist would not be in because it is Monday (and Yom Kippur) I put on my shorts and got on the road.

When I got to the office I was greeted by the receptionist and quickly shuffled back to a room by the dental assistant. Right out of the gates I sit down, legs up, and she says, "wow what a tan you have" I should have worn the pants.

After sitting in silence, she finally reclined my chair and started the cleaning. Immediately the questions start coming, "What do you do for work?" "Did you travel this summer?" "Where did you go to college?" "Where are you from?" Now clearly my mouth is open, I am drooling, my lipgloss is being smeared all over my face, and there is no chance of me responding. Could these questions have been asked in the previous 10 minutes I sat there while she prepped....probably.

Finally the questions stopped so I could stop grunting "uuaaayyhhh" in an attempt to answer them. I'm not sure if she got the vibe, or if those were her standard questions she asks so she doesn't feel guilty and can get right on to talking about herself, but I was stoked she was finished. Or so I thought.

Because silence is not comforting for her she proceeded to let me in on how her weekend went, her likes and dislikes, favorite foods, you name it I found out about it. She and her girlfriends went out on Saturday to a restaurant that was packed. After waiting for a table they noticed a friend of a friend at the bar (apparently he is British, really old and unattractive) and because they were desperate for a seat they sent him a wave and cruised over. He was sitting with his friends (more unattractive and even older) and they quickly offered her and her extremely hot friends a seat. One of the men, who was like a Soprano (Italian, old, fat, perverted and loud) proceeded to tell her a story about how he was dating this chick and they just went to a swingers party last weekend and then he got into detail about what they did, etc. etc. As she is telling this to me she says, "I was thinking to myself, why is he telling me this?" which is so funny because as she was saying that to me I was thinking the exact same thing. When someone tells you something that you don't want to hear in the first place, I'm pretty sure that none of your friends are going to want to hear that same story from you at another time, let alone one of your patients. She also let me know that the Soprano paid for her dinner ($130) and again for a bottle of wine they had ($140) and that her boyfriend is super cheap. To top it all off she started singing along with the radio periodically. Reminder: this is my appointment that I am paying for not America's Got Talent.

TMI assistant! I don't want to know about how hot your friends are, or about the cougar adventures you take on your time off. I want to have my teeth cleaned, get some free travel toothpaste and get the hell out of there.

Moral of the story, if you are a dentist or a dental assistant, remember that your patients are in your office to get their teeth cleaned. If they wanted advise on life they'd see a therapist and if they wanted to gossip they'd probably hang out with their friends.

In case you missed an Episode

Hulu now has all 8 episodes up and running. Check it out

Yard Sale Anonymous

Hello everyone, my name is Vanessa Henderson and I am addicted to selling things.

Ahhhh....yard sales. We all yearn to get rid of crap, clean house, move on, get a grip on our new lives and what better way to get that ball rolling then to have a yard sale?!

Advice to anyone who loves to gamble and is also ready to have a yard sale....be strong, don't waiver, because you will get addicted to selling your shit, and you will want to sell everything you have. And once you have sold everything at your yard sale (which may pour into a few yard sales and some craigslist items because you can't help yourself) don't allow yourself to start selling things you just purchased, or that don't belong to you, because I can guarantee you that is where you will end up, its the rock bottom of yard selling, and its not pretty. Yard sales are for the strong, the sober and the non-addictive types. This is why last weekend when I decided to have a yard sale, I really should have talked to a sponsor about it.

Once I set my mind to it, it was "look out everything I own because you will be sold this weekend." I set a goal to get rid of everything I hadn't used in the past 6 months to a year, which automatically qualifies everything in my storage unit (minus my Anna Sui shoes, some signed footballs, a couple more pairs of shoes, my favorite winter coat, and some important documents ;) everything else must go!!!!

I did the deed, I advertised the sale on craigslist and posted signs, it was official my stuff would be sold. This is where the need to get rid of stuff starts to kick in because it's only Monday and the sale isn't until Saturday, but my apartment was full of boxes packed with things to sell and I needed it out of there stat-pronto, what to do?! I started posting the large items on craigslist, and one by one they began to sell. This is where yard sale-ing really is like an addiction, I had random people stopping by my apartment at all hours of the day and night to pick up things that were only available for cash, no checks, can't have the paper trail. And I found myself getting such a rush every time someone drove away from the front window, knowing that those things were not mine anymore, and that I had some sweet sweet cash from it to add to the stash.

So it's the day of the sale, I've already been awake on a tagging binge for at least 24 hours. I arrive to set up at 6:00 and people are already lingering, and its funny because they are pacing back and forth, looking over the fence with their hands in their pockets and it was then I realized that my same need to get rid of stuff as fast as possible was just as strong as their need to purchase and store completely useless things that they may or may not already have one or more of. Because honestly, although a lot of the stuff I was selling was super legit, there was a lot of crap there too. I wanted to warn these people, somehow save their lives....don't do it, you don't need this shit (especially to the woman who bought all of my used candles for $1 a piece, seriously what are you going to do with those?!) But I didn't, I just stood there shouting across boxes and tables with glassware on them "$1," "50 cents," "$3 for all of them," until slowly (seriously slowly I was there until 2pm) almost everything was gone.

As I boxed up the left overs (and the high priced things I am now selling on craigslist) I felt a huge sense of relief. This weight has come off my shoulders, I no longer own anything that I don't need or love (of course, again, except for my Anna Sui shoes and a few other random fashion items ;) So long 1 hour red high heels that look smokin' hot but I always get stuck wearing for at least 4 or 5 hours until I think my feet are going to fall of my legs. And good-bye killer goth jacket that I thought I would wear when I was feeling really dark and intense and never did because when I felt that way I never went anywhere. My life can start fresh, my closet doesn't have faded old tank tops falling out of it anymore, and my shoes that are left are all comfortable, trendy and totally wearable.

I hope that this blog inspires all the women and men out there who just have way too much crap to get rid of it. Let it go. What is the point? Why pay to store things you don't use anymore? It's not worth it, life goes on. I know that you don't want to get rid of the cheerleading outfit you were wearing when you smoked your first bowl after a freshman football game, or the T-shirt you won for eating a huge steak at AJ Spurs at a dudes night out (no names mentioned....Ben), but I can guarantee you that you will feel better when you do (Ben), and so will everyone around you (especially your significant other ;).

Next on the list, Shoppers Anonymous.

Better Days

As I prepared myself to write about my bad luck streak I came across this quote and was reminded that life is all fun and games until the bad stuff happens to you, then...over time...life goes back to being fun and games.

"A woman came home to find her husband in the kitchen, shaking frantically
with what looked like a wire running from his waist towards the electric
kettle. Intending to jolt him away from the deadly current she whacked him
with a handy plank of wood by the back door, breaking
his arm in two places. Until that moment he had been happily listening to
his Walkman."

After experiencing a long couple of weeks of bad luck I realized that I had become a bad luck stereotype fitting into the "when it rains it pours" and "it can only get better" categories. I thought I would share my bad luck streak with you because looking back on it now it was far more entertaining then terrible.

Where did it all begin? Ironically it was April Fools Day when things went from bad to worse. The day after the premiere of our show my grandma was admitted to the hospital, it was a very serious situation. I flew up to take care of her and make sure she was being treated well by the hospital. And while most people would find this a very sad and depressing experience, most people do not have my grandma in their lives.

Upon arriving at the hospital I went into my grandma's room where instead of getting the run down on the foods my grandma could and could not eat, what medications she was on, and when her physical therapist would be coming in, the nurse gave me a run down on where I could find her hairspray, comb, headbands, and make-up. The first words out of my grandma's mouth were, "I need to get my hair done and a pedicure, let's get out of this place." Mind you my grandma had just woken up out of a two week coma and was hooked up to lord knows how many alarms and gadgets (one being the alarm my mom asked them to put on her because she had already tried to escape). As I sat with my grandma over the next few days I was reminded of why I don't want kids for a long time and of how unique (and by unique I mean absolutely vain) my grandma really is. Not only did she attempt to escape with every excuse possible she was also trying to get real food from me (as she was only allowed liquids, no solid food or snacks). Every morning her routine was put on purple eyeshadow (or pink depending on her headband), pink lipstick, get a mani/pedi (by moi), brush her hair for at least 30 minutes (mind you her hair was not going anywhere, especially into a style suitable for a break-out), and then she would have me put a flower in her hair. She then reminded me that the flower needed to be on the right side so that everyone would know she was single. Her life in the hospital revolved around how good she looked, everything else was secondary. As I sat there with my hair not brushed, a sweat suit on, and no make-up the only thing I could think of was "I might look like shit, but these pretzels are damn good."

As I returned home to LA, a few weeks later, I was informed that our TV show had been cancelled from TV and would only be airing online. Bummed out I headed to the mall to grab a bite to eat (code for a Pinkberry). After indulging myself I went back to my car where I was greeted by a little old lady parked in front of me. Note: her car was facing out the wrong way meaning she had to either of backed in (not likely) or swooped in by my car to the spot in front of mine. As this women proceeded to mumble something to me with a nervous grin on her face I was in my own little world and just waved and said something along the lines of "oh yeah...have a nice day" Upon reaching my next destination I got out of my car, made a delivery, and this is when tragedy struck. My car had been completely side swiped! It was then that I knew that this foreign little old lady had been saying "Sorry I hit your car, is everything ok, please don't be pissed at me" while I just waved her on with a "have a nice day" Unbelievable, after being with my grandma in the hospital I could not believe that another little old lady had gotten the best of me.

A few days later I went to the post office to dispute a package that had been returned to my attention with a note from the postmaster "not a valid address". Mind you I ship stuff to this address quite often so I knew that was not the case. As I approach the counter and explain my story the asian woman says to me "Who write this? This like fantasy land. This handwriting so bad." This is when I let her know that I wrote it, and that I'd like her to get out of her fantasy land and mail my damn package.

The next day I head to work, business as usual. Now, for the most part LA gets perfect weather year round, this day was windy. As I was loading boxes into my car I bent over to pick one final box up and this is when it hit me....literally. Something large came from behind me and knocked me completely over (it happened to be the busiest day for pedestrians that day for some reason, lucky me) as I struggled to figure out what had hit me, people were already picking up the object and helping me up with the casual "are you ok?" And I was ok, that is why my reply to the gentleman who was kind enough to grab the object was, "yeah I'm fine, I'm just pissed" I had realized at this point that what had hit me was a huge palm leave, what are the chances? After living in LA for over 5 years and always seeing these huge things in the road I had always wondered if anyone ever got hit by one, well the answer was yes, and that person was me. It was like the freaking Wizard of Oz, I couldn't believe it. Maybe my hand writing was from fantasy land because at this point I felt like I was living in one.

Some people are either born with luck or they just don't have any at all. The catch is that those that are born with it experience the full spectrum. They experience good luck just as often as they do bad. I guess I was overdue for some bad....job well done universe...you got me!

Episode #8 - V is for Victory

Kelsey and I made it through all the blandness, dropped tacos, spilt wine, over and under cooked meals, lost forks and knives, and everyone and everything in between. We prevailed and came out on top, and would not have had it any other way. 

 

Now back to the show....

Upon return from winning the museum challenge Kelsey and I were under the impression we were headed back to Crimson, a red restaurant ready for service. We could not have been more surprised when we walked through those doors. Everything was white, there was no furniture, no decor, new tables and glassware, new kitchen supplies it was amazing. Then it got better...on the counter was a binder with a note telling us that we had 3 days, $5k cash and $10k at Pier1 to create the restaurant of our dreams. OMG!!!!

We got straight to work. Kels and I had already talked about our design ideas and what we wanted, so we got our sign up, started the painting and hit the streets to get the goods we needed to make our restaurant dreams come true. 

Side-bar: We ran into Anapol and Lisa at Pier1 and we were joking around trying to see what they were getting, we had no idea Lisa had eaten a serious sandwich for breakfast. She should have named their restaurant "The No Fun Zone" because after we kicked their butts Lisa became the mayor of No Fun City. 

Back to the restaurant, because the show didn't fully communicate our theme below is a break down so you can get a better idea of what we were going for:

Name: "Restaurant C" which comes from our family name, our mother's name and to represent that we are from California (Nor-Cal Hella cool)

Colors: Chocolate brown, Tiffany blue, cream and silver

Decor: We did half the walls striped, half solid and then hung different types of "C's" on the walls so they weren't bland (like Marco thinks Kelsey is ;) We had killer water glasses, centerpieces and had "Restaurant C" spelt out in wooden/metal letters over the bar. It was to die for in there. Oh and I forgot to mention the silver and white leather flowers all the waitresses had in their hair, so cute!

Menu: We originally wanted tapas, but Marco talked us out of it with the legit idea that less is more. Since the walls were sort of candy shop-ish we themed the menu to go along with that and the California side of things. We had lamb lollipops and make your own mini ice cream sandwiches. Along with fish tacos (which originated in San Diego) and seared ahi with a tomato and avocado salsa. We brought back the lamb from the museum since it was such a hit, and had the cherries off the menu, but brought them to every table "compliments of the chef."

Three days of prepping for a restaurant is a lot of footage so you missed out on a lot of the hard work that went into the show. Particularly building those tables ourselves. We had to unwrap and build like 30 or 40 tables, it was insane. How Anapol did that on his own I will never know. Kelsey and I opened up some beers and went at it, by the end we were laying on our backs trying to get the last few screws in cracking up from exhaustion. I also had to carry every single one of our chairs up from the basement (30 stairs) it was a scene. 

Then we started unwrapping packages to get our decor out and ready to go. We basically purchased everything in our color pattern that we could from Pier1 and then just started playing with things. This is when we discovered the Foo Dogs and decided to bring one over to the other restaurant. As Kelsey and I watched the show it could not have been more hilarious. To first of all see know-it-all Lisa come out of the kitchen and get all spiritual like she totally knew everything was entertaining, but then the footage of her actually meditating with the thing put us way over the edge. Just amazing!

Cut to dinner service. We hired our peeps (Kelsey didn't get Mary, hellooo...didn't she see our family emergency!?) and got to it. Before the doors opened we were given guest books of who would be dining in our restaurants that night. I read through mine and recognized a lot of critics names which helped me to set up special tables for them, etc. Apparently this was not the case in the other restaurant. Rumor has it that Anapol didn't recognize one name in his book, which might have lead to why Marco didn't have a table. But definitely had nothing to do with how their dinner service went. Kelsey and I took Marco's advice "less is more" and "simplify" Kelsey prepared dishes she was comfortable with and knew were solid as to not stretch herself too far since she was already being the head chef in her own restaurant. There are a million other things to worry about, complicating your food is a poor choice. We did have a few issues with expediting and tickets getting moved around, but all in all everyone was fed, the night was a blast, and the restaurant was sexy as hell. The best part for me in front of house was that I was able to walk around and talk with every guest, check in on them to make sure they were happy, and catch up with the critics. At this point we have no idea how we are being judged so everyone is a critic, meaning everyone needed special attention. This is part of why we decided to not put the cherries on the menu. By leaving them off we could bring them out to every table as a special treat making our guests feel like we took the extra step to make our restaurant a success. 

Hands down the funniest part of the episode: When a guest asks Anapol for another glass of chardonnay and his response is, "yeah yeah, we're kicking you out of here in 5 minutes anyways" Who says that?! Did Anapol forget that he was running a restaurant in NYC on national TV? To have been a waiter your entire life and think that A: its okay to tell someone that and then B: when Marco Pierre White arrives at your door with Pierce Morgan to not have a table and to rudely let them know that is beyond me. When a celeb walks into your restaurant you get them a table especially if there is room enough for them to grab their own chairs. LOL! Reminding me of the second funniest part of the show, Marco spitting out Lisa's food. Amazing! Seeing those things gave us a hunch we might have this one in the bag...but it was still a close race. Lisa cooks amazing food and is definitely talented behind the stove so we were nervous that her food might be more impressive then ours and that we would only be judged on those things, like previous episodes. 

When Marco walked into our restaurant the mood changed. Everyone was silent (minus the phone ringing) I mean you could really sense the nerves in the room. Like I said, if he was going to announce us loosing in front of all those people we would have died. And we totally kept our cool because the last time we reacted we were super embarrassed because we thought we had won and we didn't. But once Marco finally let us in on the big news it was on!!! We could not have been more excited!!! To win something like this on your own is amazing, but to be able to share it with your sister and really make our family proud was out of this world. I'd break it down like this: painters: $700, water glasses $300, being able to win a restaurant and a trip to London with your little sister on national TV: priceless. 

Soooo.....Kelsey and I did it, we went to NYC, we were on a national reality cooking show and we won!!!! In case you think that Kelsey and I happen to be some stupid chicks in LA that have everything handed to them and want to be a hater...then shame on you. Kelsey and I have worked for every single thing that we have, we have been up against some pretty steep obstacles, we are fighters and we are a team and we deserve to win this competition just as much as anyone else on the block. And thank you to everyone who has supported us through out the show, and through out our lives, it means the world to us both!!!

Kelsey and I both would do this again in a second. We loved the challenges, we loved the crew and all the people we met (minus a few people who we'd rather have our finger nails torn off before we had to see again) and we became closer as sisters. Restaurant or not, the experience was enough for Kelsey and I to be richer people. Although a grand prize of $250K, restaurant equipment and a trip to London helps us be a little richer too ;) 

 

Episode #7 - Fingers and Youth

After shopping around in my mind last night post episode seven I've decided its a good thing Anapol and Lisa were the yellow team because envy was a really bad color on them. And poor sportsmanship really doesn't flatter grey hair or old women very well either. I could not believe that Lisa could be so mean and angry, she was so nice to our faces that it was a shocker to see her bad attitude during confessionals. More on that later... I've decided that the most entertaining aspect of the entire show was actually the stuff they didn't show.

Once our challenge has been laid out for us the Executive Producers came over and explained the rules, budgets, time constraints, etc. Here is where the competition really began. If you remember I had received a $100 tip from Vinny in a previous episode, so this meant that Kelsey and I actually had $600 for this challenge and they only had $500. Anapol lost it, he didn't think it was fair we got to use that money, and we battled it out for a while before the producers were like sorry Charlie, its her money fair and square. Here is what they didn't show. While we were shopping at Eli's I decided to use the extra $100 to purchase the centerpieces for the restaurant we were to be sharing, so essentially I ended up using the extra money for both of us, which I think made Lisa and Anapol that much more annoyed with the whole situation. 

Looking back, Kelsey and I really never attacked anyone, we worked as a team, and we worked with other teams, we never had a bad attitude or conveyed poor sportsmanship. But it seems like every other team at every opportunity took a serious stab at Kelsey and I. Panya pulling the race card amongst other things out on me, Sam freaking out about how much cuter she is then me (even though she's not going to get into it), Lisa thinking Kelsey is an idiot, and the list goes on. It really is shocking for Kelsey and I as we watch because hand down every day we'd say hello, good morning, how are you to everyone, even giving them compliments having no clue they were all trash talking behind our backs. I guess killing them with kindness was really working.

Back to the action, during the 5 or 6 hours we had to prep for the dinner service Kelsey got started in the kitchen and I hit the pavement to get gold leaf and a cherry pitter. Those two things might have taken me 2 hours to get with traffic, but I knew that our dessert had to be amazing because it would be the last thing the critic would eat. And Anapol and Lisa were throwing a fit that I wasn't there to unpack dishes, but what would Anapol have been doing if I was there? I would have been unpacking boxes and he would have been folding napkins or something. Truth of the matter is that I can do things twice as fast as Anapol, we had 20 minutes before dinner service and I set the tables, folded the napkins and placed the centerpieces with no problem. Marco was testing us to see how we would work as a team, and Kelsey and I were going to support each other before anyone else, she needed these things for her dessert so I got them. 

Cut to wine pairing which was barely mentioned on the show. Front of house had to pair wines with each of the chefs dishes. I let Anapol choose first he decided on his wines and then I went with what was left. Anapol chose the Claret to go with Lisa's fillet which has a cab sav sauce, and the critic really let him have it for that choice. I mean hello, cab sav sauce, serve cab sav. And her comment about loving the sparkling with the cherry was great, I had planned that out. Champagne is sexy and fun, and so was our dessert choice and I wanted the critic to get that that's what Kelsey and I were trying to convey. 

Another thing that Kelsey and I found more then entertaining was how Lisa was always so quick to jump on things before Kelsey and how many times it bit her in the ass. Case #1: Kelsey does lamb and Lisa clearly stats, "I would never have done lamb in that kitchen but I kept my mouth shut" like she was sabotaging Kelsey. Then later when Marco talks about it she's like "oh yeah I thought about doing lamb" it's like make up your mind and be honest with yourself. Case #2: then she bully's Kelsey so she can  be first on the menu. Dude, I watch top chef, I know going second is gives you far more of an advantage so when she came bolting up (behind Kelsey's back) to change the menu I was like game on bitches!!! 

The only thing that was blown out of proportion was Anapol throwing Kelsey and I under the bus for not knowing what her dish was and mis-explaining it to Marco and his date. I honestly think he just didn't know what it was, and instead of saying let me go check like a normal waiter would have done, he started an explanation and got stuck with it. I don't think he was trying to malicious at that point. However, I did hear him talking smack about Kelsey's food later on in the evening, and there really is no excuse for that he was straight up throwing us under the bus. Karma people...have you not been watching what happens to everyone else who is mean on the show....they get the boot!!!

Meanwhile, back in the kitchen, Kelsey and Lisa had set up a plan on how to deal with the small place and large quantities of food being served. They would plate their own dishes and then the other chef would help get them into the dumb waiter. Well the reason it looked like Kelsey was asking for help was because while she was plating her dishes Lisa wasn't loading them into the dumb waiter. End of day, Marco and Lisa can make Kelsey out to be helpless and weak all they want, but she continues to pull through and cook amazing food. Whether Lisa helped plate dishes or not it was Kelsey's recipe and natural talent as a chef that made the dishes what they were and that is what the critic was really judging. 

Post judgement, and thinking we had won the whole thing, we all walked outside. I congratulated Lisa on her hard work and effort and she wouldn't even look at me or respond. I don't care who the F you are, have some tact. I would have thought that after 30 years of being a chef at a million fancy restaurants and being accustom to working with high end clientele and having all that experience Lisa would know how to handle herself in this type of situation, not the case. People's true colors come out when they loose or are put up against a wall. I mean to talk all that shit and loose must have really hurt. Kelsey and I never counted our chickens before they hatched, we took everything as it came and enjoyed every opportunity we were given, I mean helloooo....people would die to be able to do what we were doing how could we be negative in a setting like the one we were in? It really bummed us out that she was such a poor sport. 

Restaurant or not, at least we still have our fingers and youth!