Survivor-Gabon-Po Paloma

Ok can I say one thing about GC. I was really rooting for the kid, but he brought his ghetto self to Gabon, instead of his survivor self. At first I knew where he was coming from not wanting to be the leader and all, but to act like he just doesn't give a damn about anyone else really puts a big target on his back. He needs to lay low, especially since he's about as useful as Gillian was on the challenges.

The reward challenge is to have one from each tribe hold on to a pole for dear life while the opposite tribe try to pull them off and drag them to the finish line. I thought for sure the Fong tribe would lose again especially when GC gave up trying to pry Ace off the pole. Who could blame him though. Looked like Ace was striking his yoga pose and in a state of meditation during the whole thing while holding on with an iron grip. Round two Ace chooses Paloma to pole sit. I wonder what his motivation was for that since she weighs all of 90 pounds? Crystal and Randy attack her with single minded determination and easily removed her from her post. Round three Fong is finally using it's brain choosing Crystal and Matty to do the pulling. If GC would have been up there, they surely would have lost. It was a much needed victory for the Fong tribe and took little time deciding who to send to exile island why Sugar of course. Ok, I'm thinking Sugar is your typical Bimbo, but I have to take back everything bad I thought about her. While on exile island, she manages to battle ants, forge through the woods, dig in a sandy crater and wade through scary water to eventually find the hidden immunity idol. Good job, now if she can only keep that to herself.

The immunity challenge involved a slip slide. Hey, lately it seems the slip slide is popular with reality show challenges. There was a slip slide challenge on the Biggest Loser. Ok let's be honest, seeing fat people propel down a long slip slide was hysterical. Weight times mass equals alot of speed, so when they propelled themselves down they were going so fast I thought they were going to land on the freeway below!

The survivor slip slide challenge was not that funny and again the Fong tribe finds themselves behind Kota. Surely, the nutty professor could figure out the riddle to solve the code, but the gamer managed to come from behind and crack the code first. Good job. I really did want Kota to go to tribal council, they need to be humbled. Of course Sugar couldn't keep the secret that she found the hidden idol to Ace. Poor little Paloma, she didn't take the course on how to make friends and keep yourself off the block lesson and was snuffed out at Tribal Council. -

Single D

Project Runway-And Then There Were Four

Kenley is still griping about how Leanne sabotaged her outfit on the runway. Oh come on, there's just no making a silk purse out of a cow's ear. Leanne is about as modelish as an elephant in a tutu. Not to mention that the outfit itself was so hideous. Tim takes the designers on a field trip to the New York's Botanical Gardens for their next challenge, an evening gown inspired by nature. Everyone gets a camera to snap pictures for their inspiration. I'm wondering do they get to keep the camera? I love free things! On their shopping trip to Mood, Kenley forgets her tulle, aw shucks. Back at the studio, Kenley realizes that she doesn't have her tulle. I am momentarily happy with that misfortune. Why is it during these shows, we want the divas to suffer? Jerrell and Korto are like, she's not getting mine! Well hey, this is a contest after all. I was greatly disappointed when Tim said she could go back to Mood and retrieve her lost bag. Dang! I was hoping Tim would say sorry, hollatchaboy. I pretty much thought all the dresses sucked. When Jerrell was buying his fabric at Mood, I'm like thinking those fabric pieces don't go together. The colors were awful. His dress looked like it was going to fall down off the model. Korto's dress was a total disappointment. Looked like slices of cantaloupe. Leanne's soft purple dress was the best one, but once again a stray swag of dark blue fabric was pooping out the back. Kenley again is just so over the top about her dress, thinking that it matches the photo of the flowers. Hello? Her dress resembled everything but botanical. Let see a few words come to mind, like reptilian, the shedding of snake skin, mermaid, dolphin, lobster tail name a few. When Heidi said to Kenley that it wasn't very elegant, Kenley shoots back that she wasn't going for elegant. Kenley would contradict anything anyone would say. If Heidi said it was beautiful, Kenley would say it's crap that I was going for. Come on, I wanted a cat fight! I wanted Heidi to get up out of that director's seat and slap Kenley silly. Heidi should have let loose on her. Meanwhile, Kenley feels the heat of being ostracized from the group especially when the judges asked each one who they wanted with them at Bryant Park and everyone excluded Kenley. Waaa, everyone hates me, no one loves me! Get a clue. She says that has happened all her life, well duh, maybe it's the way you come off, like your sh*t doesn't stink and holier than thou attitude! In the final analysis, the judges opted to keep the four of them with one being eliminated before Bryant Park like last year when lovable Chris March was eliminated then. It will be interesting to see Kenley's collection of I Love Lucy outfits. Well we can only hope that Jerrell, Korto and Leanne step up their game and out do the princess of conceit. -Single D

Reality Check-Real recipes

As an avid foodie from way back when, when we used to own our own cafe in San Francisco to now just being the plain mom in the kitchen and loyal Food Network fan, there are many recipes that I have tested and tried out on my unsuspecting family and friends. And it is here that I will try occasionally to share these successful and not so successful dishes. Life would have been so much easier back when with the advent of real cooking shows and food network websites. Last year I was given a cookbook for Christmas. I love it but I was a little baffled by it. Do they still publish cookbooks? It was Barefoot Contessa at Home cookbook which I love, but with the proliferation of recipe websites, who needs cookbooks? I have to admit, I love looking at the pictures, but in reality, I still head for the computer for many recipes. I still have my favorite cookbooks in my repertoire, like Martha Stewart's cookbooks and the standard, Fannie Farmer with a couple of Wolfgang Puck's thrown in. Mostly, I have tossed many cookbooks out.

One of my favorite chicken recipes comes from the Barefoot Contessa, Ina Garten. You can so tell she loves her food! Lucky husband Jeffery, he comes home on the weekends to her cooking. Ina is my favorite Food Network chef who got her start by being friends with Martha Stewart. Hum, I wonder if they're still friends? Anyway, this is an easy recipe, make the marinade in the morning and let the chicken marinade in it all day, then for dinner cook it up. Everyone will think you slaved all day! Just a small disclaimer-I do tend to just throw the ingredients together-so some times the portions might be a smidgen off, but that's the spontaneous cook in me. For me it's not a science, it's just real cooking.

Indonesian Chicken:

I usually use a 2lb package of chicken thighs (my daughter only likes dark meat)

For the marinade:

Pour 1 cup of honey and 3/4 cup of soy sauce (I use light) into a sauce pan-heat until honey is liquefied-remove from heat

Add 8 to 10 cloves of garlic chopped finely

Grate one or two toes of fresh ginger root (you know how ginger looks like toes in the grocery store?) into pan.

Place chicken in baking pan and pour marinade over chicken. Let marinade for at least 4 hours in fridge.

Preheat oven to 350, pour off some of the marinade in a small bowl for basting, cook chicken until done around 45 minutes brushing sauce over chicken.

The picture of the dish above looks much drier (from Food Network), my chicken usually comes out brown with lots of delicious sauce.

Serve with rice and vegetables-chow bella!

Single D

Ghost Hunters - Buffalo, NY

The Buffalo Central Terminal in, where else, Buffalo, NY is the site of this week's investigation. Closed in 1979, the terminal is currently undergoing renovations. The are alot of reports of activity here including a phantom water cooler with people standing around. It's nice to know we can carry on our water cooler talks in the after life! The head of the building committee, Tracy, gives the team a tour. I have only one thing to say to Tracy, foundation garments! You know you are going to be on national TV wouldn't you wear a bra? Tracy tells the TAPS team that a man named Tony Fidely (not sure about the spelling of the last name) who loved the place so much that he bought it and lived in an apartment on the 3rd floor until he died.

Back to the investigation. It's a cloudy rainy night which makes the terminal that much creepier. On the 3rd floor, J & G hear voices and footsteps. They set up the thermal camera and a tape recorder leave both to catch whatever they can. They come back a little later to investigate Tony's apartment and they hear a voice which was also audible on TV then Jason sees a shadow and both think it's not friendly. They then go into a room off the main concourse to do EVP and K2 work and find themselves "chatting" with a woman who is waiting for someone to arrive by train. Apparently she thinks it's the 1940's. She's been waiting a long time!

Steve and Tango do EVP work in the rotunda room. I liked how Tango tried to dust off one of the steps before he sat down. I don't think it helped. Meanwhile, J & G are watching the monitors when they hear a man yell from the vicinity of the set up thermal cam and recorder. Grant runs to get the tape and hears an eerie voice saying "go home".

During the review, the team hears the "go home" voice loud and clear. They also pick up another voice saying what appears to be "bring back the girls". Maybe they are hanging around that water cooler. They also pick up a figure on the thermal cam in the area of the water cooler.

J & G tell Tracy there seems to be a great deal of paranormal activity in the terminal but stop short of saying it is haunted. I'm going to visit the water cooler now. Double D

Amazing Race-Premiere

Amazing Race by far is my favorite reality show. Not a lot of drama or backstabbing, I just love the traveling part of it. I love to travel and I live vicariously though the teams . Even the theme music to Amazing Race gets my blood racing. Yes, I know my life is so dull! I think some travel agency should create trips & stunts that mimic the race's route and if I had enough money, I would definitely sign up. I would love to do the show, but I'm afraid that we would be casted as the token old team :( and you know what usually happens to them, like in last night's premiere.

Last night's opener did not fail, as it caught me up the moment Phil said safe racing and the teams hopped into their Mercedes Benz. From the beginning I am rooting for the mother son team, Toni and Dallas. I'm a sap for grown children that are close to their mamas and he seems like such a nice young man. I'm wondering if he likes older, fat, neurotic women? Have I got a sister-in-law for him! At the airport, why did brother and sister, Aja and Ty who were the front runners get in a line that wasn't marked like the clue said? Listen here, read the clue and follow the directions. That is one thing that will trip you up every time, or getting lost or a cabbie that doesn't know where he's going. Haven't you learned anything? Six teams manage to catch the first plane out to Salvador Brazil with Aja and Ty getting on board. And another thing, why did Nick and Starr create an alliance with divorced couple Tina and Ken? Seems like creating an alliance would be like adding dead weight or extra baggage to your load. Although Nick and Starr did finish first, maybe Ken and Tina should stick with them. My guess is that Ken and Tina will be the team to hate this season, we'll see!

The first challenge, Barista of old school, was pretty tame. I'm wondering how the bees got in front of the mother son team? At the end of the challenge, each team got a rest stop, camping under mosquito netting. The hippy bee keepers were probably feeling right at home there. Terence of newly dating Terence and Sarah, seems a bit needy as he got all bent when Sarah was socializing at camp. She needs to talk to me not make friends! Ah Sarah, I would rethink the relationship! Besides she doesn't need him, she speaks Portuguese!

The next day challenges were either to scale down cargo netting or climb up stairs on hands and knees to the cathedral. I'm wondering if that Escudaria do Passo Church was the model used for the one in Macao? And any challenge involving the words scale down or climb up, er, I'm thinking climb down! I just knew the question to the nerds that were the only team to climb up would be how many steps there were. Why didn't they count? I was counting and I wasn't even there. The double picture is the one we took in Macao, Hong Kong. Yep that's Andy on the stairs and he didn't even climb it on his hands and knees.

In the end, the beekeepers didn't get the honey as they slowly walked up to the pit stop and were the first to be eliminated. When my daughter came in the room she said, yuck, what's up with all that hair? I'm like ya, I know, just a massive swirl of grey hair, but it was all so appropriate what with that grey hair, tie dye and Oregon beekeepers stuff, truly a match made in hippy heaven. -Single D