Category: News

At the 2022 South By Southwest festival, Chicago indie rock trio Horsegirl took home the coveted Grulke Prize for the festival’s best Developing US Act. The band has been surging ever since, with their Matador Records debut album, Versions Of Modern Performance, due out on June 3rd. It’s a weighty build-up for the youthful band, consisting of high school senior Penelope Lowenstein and college freshmen Nora Cheng and Gigi Reece.

Today, the trio have released the new single, “Dirtbag Transformation (Still Dirty),” a comfortably rocking track that doesn’t try to be something it’s not. This is simply tight, clean rock and roll, and it’s easy to latch onto their naturally polished sound. The lead guitar riff doesn’t try to tower over any other aspect of the composition, because this is a band that’s operating a true coherent unit; there’s a reason the buzz has been building. The track’s video feels like an outcast talent show and it was quirkily filmed at Lowenstein’s elementary school.

The band shared a statement on the making of the visual:

“The video provides a small look into our Chicago youth scene — it includes members of bands like Lifeguard, Friko, Dwaal Troupe, and Post Office Winter all grouped into oddball bands with weird gimmicks. We always have the best time making our videos with our friends in spaces we feel connected to. All of our friends showed up with various assortments of clothing and props, like wooden spoons, a bowling shirt collection, and an accordion. We wanted to harness the strangeness of everything that was brought to us, and wanted to showcase all of the people and bands that mean so much to us.”

Good old fashioned “strange” rock and roll. Yes please. Watch the video for “Dirtbag Transformation (Still Dirty)” above.

Versions Of Modern Performance is out 6/3 via Matador Records. Pre-order it here.

Taco Bell has answered our call and brought back its delicious Nacho Fries. We love these things. They’re crispy, crunchy, and some of the best-seasoned fries you can order from a drive-thru in all of fast food. So whatever else Taco Bell concocts with them, we figured, we’re in.

So what are we eating today? The “Steak White Hot Ranch Fries Burrito.” No, I’m not having a stroke. My brain didn’t just malfunction and starting spewing out random modifiers, that’s the actual name. Yep, ranch in a burrito. Only at fucking Taco Bell, man.

Okay, so the Steak White Hot Ranch Fries Burrito (worst name ever) is essentially Taco Bell’s version of a California burrito — a wonderful medley of flavors combining char-grilled carne asada with crispy French fries, melty Monterey Jack cheese, creamy guacamole, and cool sour cream. Only… you know, Bell-ified.

They’ve traded the guacamole for tomatoes (for an easy hack, add the guacamole back in) and the jack for their salty sharp cheddar cheese, which they then double up with even saltier nacho cheese sauce. Doubling down on the doubling down theme, they marry the sour cream with a healthy dose of stinky White Hot Ranch, Taco Bell’s new spicy take on ranch dressing.

In what must be their attempt at another SoCal Mexican food favorite, carne asada fries, the item is also available as a Nacho Fry platter, dubbed the “Steak White Hot Ranch Fries” (seriously, who named these?). Which features all of the same ingredients except for — as you might have guessed by the name — the burrito. Both preparations are joining the menu for a limited time, after a successful test run in Chicago last year.

Over in the Windy City they love ’em, but here in California we’re kind of, you know, the capital of California Burritos, so it might be hard to win us over. Especially with ranch. But hey, if anyone can take something that sounds disgusting and make it disgustingly delicious, it’s Taco Bell.

Taco Bell — Steak White Hot Ranch Fries Burrito

No shade to the Chi but… this burrito is awful. Okay, let me rephrase that, this burrito is entirely contingent on how much you like ranch dressing. If you like ranch dressing, this burrito might, at its best moments, make for an interesting curiosity. If you hate ranch dressing, this burrito is only going to make that hate grow stronger.

Let’s talk about the sauce first, since that’s the only part of this burrito that’s really new or novel. It’s hot. It doesn’t have that cool and refreshing quality that buttermilk ranch has. Instead it hits you with a sharp tang that ignites your taste buds, leaving you with a pronounced and lingering burn. I like the heat level a lot, it’s surprising and probably the hottest sauce I’ve ever tasted from Taco Bell, but kind of curdles when mixed with the flavors and aroma of flour tortilla,. In fact it’s kind of putrid.

I know that seems like an overly harsh way of describing it, but truly, it tastes like something that’s going bad; like something you’re not supposed to eat. Like poison. White Hot Ranch aside, the rest of the burrito isn’t great either.

The fries provide the most flavor — a nice mix of paprika, salt, onion, and garlic with the smallest hint of cayenne pepper. But the steak is rubbery (do they steam this shit?), the cheese is too salty, the sour cream isn’t noticeable, and the tomatoes are fine, but guacamole would be better.

The fries also get too steamy in this thick and gummy tortilla, causing them to turn to mush about halfway through your burrito, losing all that crispy texture they were meant to provide in the first place.

Which brings us to… Don’t order the burrito, order the platter version. Trust us.

Taco Bell — Steak White Hot Ranch Fries

The Steak White Hot Ranch Fri — okay, seriously, how many people’s orders have been ruined because of the way these two separate items are named? All the person taking your order has to mishear is the word “burrito” for you to get the wrong thing. What if you want an order of the Steak White Hot Ranch Fries and a Steak White Hot Ranch Fries Burrito? Why not just call it the White Hot Ranch Burrito and the White Hot Ranch Fries? I can’t be the only one who is bothered by what these things are called. Right? Right?!

Phew. Moving on, the Steak White Hot Ranch Fries (if that’s the name, I’m going to use it) is an improvement on the Steak White Hot Ranch Fries Burrito. By not wrapping this dish in Taco Bell’s thick flour tortilla, the fries retain their crispiness and each ingredient can really stand out. The ratio of steak-to-cheese-to-fries-to-tomato-to-sauce provides a better showcase for all of the flavors involved here; it’s just a better construction for this dish.

The only problem is, you aren’t guaranteed that perfect ratio with every forkful, you kind of have to hunt for it. Eventually, you will hit a point where you’re eating just fries, but luckily the fries are good enough to make that a satisfying experience.

Each (perfect) forkful is a bouquet of salty savory flavors, all wrapped together in a sizzling and spicy finish. The only real issue is that steak. Taco Bell does offers a veggie version of this dish, replacing the steak with black beans. I kid you not, it’s listed on the Taco Bell promotional menu at the drive-thru as “Steak White Hot Ranch Fries (veggie).”

I tried to order the black bean version for this review. I even simplified the name for them, asking for “Veggie White Hot Ranch Fries with black beans.” I threw “veggie” and “black beans” in there just to to be thorough. I still ended up getting the steak version, and no one will ever be able to convince me that way Taco Bell named this isn’t the reason why.

Bottom Line:

Your life will be better if you never try Taco Bell’s Frankenstein twist on the California Burrito (which in many places can be had for not much more than the Taco Bell version). But if you’re interested in some tasty spicy ranch and love Taco Bell’s fries, the Steak White Hot Ranch Fries are a definite winner.

Find your nearest Taco Bell here.

Before winning the Billboard Music Awards for Top R&B Album, Top R&B Artist, Top R&B Female Artist, and Top Viral Song this past weekend, Doja Cat was asked about an online chat with Jack Harlow from 2020.

During an Instagram livestream, Harlow and Doja exchanged pleasantries before Harlow explained that both of their fan bases thought they were dating, as Harlow looked like the person Doja was dating at the time. The two continued to ask each other questions, before Doja shouted “What the f*ck? My wig is coming off, I gotta go, bye.”

After she signed off, Harlow said, still on stream, “Oh man, I’ve had a crush on her for months,” however, fans took Doja’s abrupt sign-off as the “Kiss Me More” singer’s way of curving Harlow.

Two years later, Doja has since clarified that this wasn’t the case.

“My wig was peeling off and I noticed that and I was like, ‘Oh, gotta go, bye,’” she said to E! News on the BBMAs red carpet. “Not that I care about that thing usually.”

Harlow was asked by ET about the infamous livestream, to which he responded, “I’ve become cool with Doja. That was early in our friendship, now we know each other pretty well. So I ain’t gonna do nothing too silly. I think I’m playing it cool today.”

Jack Harlow is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

The Better Call Saul Lie Detector Test is a weekly recap of the major events of the final season, separated out by their apparent truthfulness at the time. This is not one of those recaps that gets into granular detail about things. It will miss the occasional callback or foreshadowing. But it will be fun. Sometimes, that’s what’s important.

Season 6, Episode 6: “Axe and Grind”

Kim is making good decisions

Were you shouting at your television a little bit, too? Were you sitting there watching Kim behind the wheel of her car — on her way to her big meeting for the big legal defense project, the one Cliff specifically recruited her for and she would be extremely good at, the one that could change her life for the better and get her on a track to a fulfilling career in the law — and just screaming “NO. DON’T DO IT. DO NOT TURN AROUND. KIM. LISTEN. NO”? Maybe even just inside your own head?

Lord knows I was. I knew it was a long shot, though. This is not a show about people making good decisions. It can’t be. That’s the thing about a prequel. Everyone we see on this sucker ends up murdered or on the run or has a mysterious future that is being dragged to hell by the people who end up getting murdered or going on the run. Kim was doomed the day she met Jimmy. I know that. We all do. But this one still stings.

It’s even more heartbreaking when you take that cold open into account, the one where she got caught stealing jewelry as a Nebraska teen and her mom threw a ruse on the store manager to get her out of trouble. And then stole the jewelry herself. Kim Wexler has not had a lot of ethical clarity in her life. It kind of all makes sense, though, this thing where she wants to do good and be helpful but can’t help herself. It’s all very literal, in a way. She was driving down a path of righteousness and morality and then slammed on the breaks and whipped through the median to head back toward the dark side.

It’s a little depressing if you think about it too much. Kim was probably doomed before she met Jimmy. There was a fire burning there already and he was just the gasoline. It’s sad, really. But it makes for tremendous television.

You should tell Mike where to put his guys

Hey, speaking of heartbreaking moments involving characters I like a lot who do not make great decisions all the time, let’s check in with Mike. Mike is:

• Pulling security off of his own house to make sure Kaylee’s house is extra protected
• Guiding her through a star-gazing lesson while watching her from across the street
• Lying to them and saying he’s in Chattanooga because seeing them in person could put them at risk if Lalo is tailing him
• Kind of sighing a lot

I still want one episode — just one — where Mike flies to Philadelphia and goes to an Eagles game. Picture a crowd going absolutely insane after a touchdown, jumping and hollering and high-fiving, and Mike just sitting there in silence with half a smile flashing on his face for one single second. It would make me so happy. Freakin Go Birds, baby.

A bedazzled jean jacket is a timeless look

I legitimately laughed out loud when Kim’s mom walked in during that flashback looking like she just came from a George Michael concert. Look at her. The attention to detail here is remarkable. I hope she is still alive in the present day and still dressing exactly like this and she shows up at the Cinnabon in the Nebraska mall where Jimmy/Saul/Gene and his mustache are rolling out dough. I do not ask for much.

Actually, I kind of ask for a lot.

But still.

Give me this.

And give me a while behind-the-scenes segment about the process of making or acquiring this jean jacket. Those two things. And all the other things I’ve asked for. That’s all.

Things are about to get really bad for Howard

D-Day is here and I could not be more excited. We have conspiracy walls with Post-It notes and method actors getting way too intense about their fake facial hair and about six layers of subterfuge to tie it all together. We also have, of course, chaos. A little jaunt to the liquor store for a pricey bottle of celebratory tequila resulted in a quick glance at the real person that Community Theater Daniel Day-Lewis was pretending to be in their incriminating photos, and yup, he has a broken arm now. And a cast. Which makes things awkward. The whole plan is going to hell. It’s a thing.

Which is… I don’t know… good news? It’s easy to forget in all of this that Jimmy and Kim are being the jerks here. Howard appears to be a decent guy, to whatever degree characters on this show and/or lawyers in general can be decent guys. He’s just trying to do his job and make his wife a nice fancy latte and no one is giving him a break anywhere. His biggest crime this season is being kind of a pretentious doof, with his buffed shoes and stupid license plate and all of it. Flip the perspective on this whole endeavor and Jimmy and Kim look like full-on villains.

And yet… still… again… I’m really excited to see if this plan works. I’m even rooting for it to work. Even knowing it’s terrible for Kim and Howard doesn’t really deserve it and it’s sending Jimmy down a path that ends in an aforementioned Cinnabon. I should be more conflicted about this. I really should. But I’m not. If I’m being fully honest here, I think it’s the license plate. Imagine if you were stuck in traffic for an hour behind a Jaguar with a “NAMAST3” license plate. You’d pray for his personal and professional demise, too. It was nice of the show to give us all this little push.

Francesca is having fun

Good news and bad news for sweet Francesca.

Good: Jimmy — er, Saul, this is weird for her and us, too — is letting her decorate the entire office, which is coming together nicely when the unshaven masses aren’t peeing in the corner. She has an eye. It’s very serene. Except for the urine.

Bad: She is now an accomplice in the Sandpiper ruse, thanks to the phone call she placed on one of the many burner phones her boss keeps in a drawer in his office, which, as far as red flags go, is… pretty red. It’s rarely a great thing when you’re standing in an alley next to a dumpster — the law library, if you will — using a fake name in a conversation you’re having on a flip phone. Francesca knows this. She doesn’t love it. This might be why she shoots for all that serenity in the decor. To keep from smashing things. She fascinates me a little bit.

It is wild how easily this show shifts from Ocean’s Eleven to a horror movie sometimes

Meanwhile, in Germany…

Lalo is still on the hunt for information about what Gus is building, and he used to gift from the Ziegler house to track down the lumberjack, and then he stalked the lumberjack through the woods, and then he played possum after getting walloped in the ribs so he could turn around and slice the guy with a razor blade hidden behind a business card, and now he has the axe and some questions that he would like answered.

Two things about all of this are true:

• Lalo Salamanca remains the most fascinating character on television, for reasons I wrote about here but can be summarized as “he’s like if Danny Ocean was crossed with John Wick,” and I get a little excited whenever he pops up on the screen
• This episode was directed by Giancarlo Esposito, Gus Fring himself, and it is both a testament to the show as a whole and his work behind the camera that the entire tone shifted about 180 degrees for a minute there — New Mexico lawyer shenanigans to cabin-based terror — without losing an ounce of quality

Also, big shoutout to the people doing the captions for AMC for “[Branch snaps].” That’s when I knew for sure this was going sideways for someone. The takeaway from all of this is twofold, and we will return to the bullet points to lay them out:

• Everyone on this show is good at their job
• Never go into the woods

Both good things to remember.

Foreshadowing does not always need to be subtle

I do not know exactly why Jimmy was getting dosed-up with animal medicine that made his pupils dilate like he was an anime character that just fell in love, or how it ties into the plan to hose Howard, or whether any of it is safe/good. What I do know is that I did the full-on “DiCaprio pointing at the television” meme in real life two separate times during the scene: Once when I saw our buddy the shady veterinarian and again when the card for the vacuum guy straight-up fell out of his deeply encoded black book of crimes.

This could not possibly have been less subtle without like neon flashing text on the screen. The vacuum guy is how Gene the Cinnabon Man happens eventually. It’s where this is all headed. Better Call Saul is occasionally more delicate with its callbacks and foreshadowing. I don’t even catch them all until days later when someone sends me a link to Reddit and implies I’m an idiot for missing it. There was no missing this one. I kind of appreciate that. It’s nice to get a wide-open layup sometimes.

I love Fernando

LOOK AT HIS LITTLE FACE

LOOK AT HIM

I AM VERY WORRIED ABOUT HIM

I NEED WEEKLY CHECK-INS ON HIM AND HIS TUMMYACHE

I NEED TO SEE LALO HOLD HIM IN ONE HAND WHILE HOLDING A PISTOL WITH THE OTHER

JUST ONCE

I AM KIND OF SERIOUS

Just as the second fervor over Chris Rock getting slapped at the Oscars by Will Smith started to die down thanks to Dave Chappelle being similarly attacked on stage during a stand-up performance, ABC president Craig Erwich has opened the door to Rock being a potential host for next year’s Academy Awards ceremony.

While talking to Deadline about how pleased he was with this year’s broadcast — minus The Slap, of course — Erwhich confirmed that he’s open to Rock hosting the 2023 ceremony. It would be one way to address the topic head-on, and more importantly, get it out of the way, so the focus could return to the nominees where it belongs.

While Erwich obviously regrets what happened with Smith and Rock, he thinks the Oscars on an upswing that he hopes to see continue next year:

“It was the biggest bounce back of any award show this season. If you look at what they were trying to do, which is really bring entertainment back to the program, they had three amazing hosts, clips, and incredible musical performances, I thought it was a great way for the show to reclaim its place on the mantle. There’s always things to learn and we’ll endeavor to do even better next year.”

However, bringing Rock back as the host is a risky gamble. The comedian faced significant backlash for making a joke about Jada Pinkett-Smith’s baldness, which was reportedly not scripted, and was the somewhat forgotten whole reason for the slapping. Rock is also in the middle of a stand-up comedy tour where he’s been wading into controversial topics. Most recently, he fired off jokes about Amber Heard and her high-profile court case involving Johnny Depp.

“Believe all women, believe all women… except Amber Heard,” Rock reportedly joked. “What the f*ck is she on? She sh*t in his bed! She’s fine, but she’s not sh*tting fine.”

Needless to say, it’ll be interesting to see if the Oscars actually pulls the trigger on letting Rock host and whether or not he gets slapped again. Both are clearly in the mix.

(Via Deadline)

Top Chef is currently in full swing, with the latest, first post-COVID-bubble season taking place in Houston, Texas, building towards a finale with only five chefs remaining. Meanwhile, this past weekend was the Kentucky Derby, less a horse-race than a week-long party in many parts of the country.

To create a perfect menu for all those Derby Day parties, Williams-Sonoma partnered with Top Chef season 16 winner Kelsey Barnard Clark, who not only won the Top Chef season set in Kentucky, but is a native Southerner — from Dothan, Alabama. It’s hard to think of a better choice than Barnard Clark, whom I nicknamed “Wine Mom” and “Elle Woods” in my rankings. She created for them a series of easy-yet-elegant Derby dishes, featuring everything from wings with Alabama white barbecue sauce to succotash (for which she says you can even use leftover corn), taken from her new cookbook, Southern Grit.

Barnard Clark was easily one of my favorite competitors, and I must not have been alone because she was also voted Fan Favorite for her season, an honor that comes with an extra $10,000 prize. Naturally, when I was offered an interview in conjunction with the Derby menu, I jumped at the chance. In our first attempt at it, Barnard Clark was stuck in traffic, on the way back from the beach with her young family (Fun Mom indeed). And stuck in traffic with a car full of kids, despite the miracles of modern communication, probably wasn’t the most conducive atmosphere for an in-depth chat (as a dad and a stepdad, I was amazed she even attempted it).

We did get another shot at it, which is why I didn’t quite get this writeup posted in time for the actual Kentucky Derby. I also didn’t really intend for it to be an “in-depth” chat in the first place, but with Barnard Clark, who now runs KBC in Dothan, Alabama along with her media schedule, has such a winning mix of plainspoken candor and high level of insight, both into food, the restaurant industry, and the television industry, that I couldn’t help but continue picking her brain. We had a lot to talk about, and she’s full of both charm and wisdom, so I’ll just shut up now and let you read it.

—

Since winning Top Chef, have you gotten comfortable doing a lot of media and television appearances and things like that?

I mean yeah, I mostly have my representation to thank for that. I don’t know if you’re familiar with Bullfrog, which is like an agency. [My agent] only represents about six people, and all of us but one are Top Chef winners. It sort of became her passion because she realized that when we go on the show, we’re just normal people who were chefs and then all of a sudden it’s like, now you’re famous, and we don’t know what we’re doing. It’s one thing if you did an all-star season, but me coming from a small town in Alabama, I had no experience. You’re literally just immediately thrown into this other world, and we’re not savvy at all because we have no practice with it. So three, four years down the road I’ve gotten the hang of it a little bit better, but it was crazy that first year. It was a very wild ride.

That’s only something that happened post-winning the show? You didn’t have any representation or things like that before?

No, I got the representation because the period between you physically winning the competition versus the world knowing you won is roughly nine months. So I got like, nine months to prepare for what was to come. I had an agent by the time the finale aired, which was nice. And Top Chef definitely holds your hand, there’s a media person on staff that definitely helps with that, but she’s not your publicist or your agents, it’s not the same, obviously.

Right. I follow most of you chefs on Instagram and stuff and it’s funny to watch the transition between pre-television and post-television. I think they were doing side by sides for some of you guys where you showed what you look like before Top Chef and afterwards, you always come out looking so much more polished.

That was hilarious. Mine was not funny at all, because I still look mostly the same — I mean, mine was so soon, like maybe in 10 years it’ll be funny, but some of them were so good. I think too, especially if you did Top Chef in the early years, it was really different than it is now. It’s pretty crazy. I look at like things I said on the show and it was just stuff I would never freaking say or do now, or wear the things that I wore that were on Top Chef. You become just much more thoughtful with your words, I guess.

That was actually going to be a question I had, if you would do anything differently now knowing what you know if you had to do over again?

Oh hell yes. Like all of it. The ending turned out fine, but it is sort of going through a booby trap that you all of a sudden just end up on the other side of. I didn’t do it very gracefully, I’ll be honest with you. That’s why I always say like when you go on All Star, I can’t imagine doing an All Star season because we know way too much. Kind of like Tournament of Champions. When I did Tournament of Champions, it was weirdly not exciting because everyone was so calm and not nervous because we knew exactly what was going on. But I had no idea what I was doing [during the original run]. Really, my plan going into it was like, I’m going to be myself, I’m not going to worry about the cameras. Which is like yeah, in theory that’s great, but I watch some of this stuff and I’m like, “You’re on freaking camera, what are you doing right now? Did you just totally black out and forget?”

I assume the producers, that’s kind of their goal, to get you guys to forget all that. Did you notice strategies of things they were doing to try to make you guys forget that you were being watched and just sort of be candid and off the cuff?

Oh my God, 100%. And actually, I’m working on this project with Magical Elves productions [the production company behind Top Chef] and we hung out for like a week and it was just a small team and there was a new girl, like on the talent side, and she had never done this before and she was like, “How do y’all get people to say…” And one of the producers, he’d been on The Bachelor a few times and some food shows, and he was like, “Oh listen, we basically become your best friend, we make you think that you can trust us and then we manipulate everything you say and do.”

I’m like, yeah, that’s pretty much how it goes. Especially, you’re in this bubble, specifically with Top Chef, where you’re totally cut off from the whole world and you don’t have anyone and you sure as hell don’t feel like you can really confide in your castmates. Because you’re competing against each other. Anything you tell someone, like “I’m really having a hard time with this,” they absolutely can, and if they’re smart, will use against you in the next challenge. So you’re really on this island by yourself. So you start leaning in on producers a little bit, but they have their own motives as well. But it works. We all do it.

One of my first internships out of college was I was working as a production assistant on a reality TV show. For me, there were some parallels between those crews and the people who work in kitchens. I remember thinking those reality TV show people were kind of like pirates, because they’d crew one show in one city and then go immediately go off to another city right afterwards. Then when I read Kitchen Confidential I think Bourdain called the kitchen “the pirate ship.”

Yes. In fact, I have found myself being very attracted to the job of being a producer. If I decided to just bail on food, I could totally see myself doing that. Because that’s like what chefs are, we’re very nomadic. A lot of the time we do end up settling down somewhat, but at the end of the day, we all have that nomad gene in us where we want to just travel and do crazy things. We love chaos and we love a routine, but we also love to break a routine. It’s very similar because production is all about keeping your kit and making sure everything is precise, but then having fun and going rogue. It’s like having your shit together in terms of, like mise en place, but then using your creativity to go wild. So I think that’s probably why we all get along really well.

When I was on Top Chef, it was my first experience on TV, really. So I just remember telling one of the TV people at first, God, this job is so weird. And one of them was like, “And yours isn’t?” And I was like, “Yeah, you’re right.” We literally move anywhere for a job and do crazy things and we don’t even call it a job. It’s more like this is our life and it happens to be our job.

So I’m looking at your wing recipe. I think that was the most intriguing one on your Kentucky Derby list. I noticed that you’re a chicken rinser. That feels like a controversial decision these days. Do you have a theory behind that?

Oh, you mean from that last, what was it? Paula Patton? Did you see that TikTok or something?

Oh yes, yes. I know what you’re talking about, where she’s like pouring the seasoning directly into the–

Yes, yes. She seasons the oil instead of the chicken. Anyway, I am definitely a chicken rinser. I believe in washing chicken because it’s disgusting, first of all. And that’s really my reasoning for it, rinsing in cold water. And then yeah, depending on what you’re doing with it, like at KBC, we keep it in a brine with pickle juice and buttermilk. I tell people number one, it’s for seasoning, but number two, pickle juice kills all things. It’s like the edible bleach of the culinary world.

So your deviled eggs recipe has a note at the top that says you built a chicken coop in your backyard. Do you sell those at all or are those just for family use?

We’ve got 15 chickens and a rooster and no, it’s just for family use. I guess this was back about four years ago that I built it and got the chickens.

Was that super important to you to have fresh eggs whenever you want?

Yeah. I wouldn’t say I grew up with that by any means, but it was also that I wanted my kids to grow up around — I always said I wanted to live on a farm, but I don’t want to be that far from work and all that. So it’s sort of like the best of both worlds, having a little farm in the yard, but not having to be way out in the country. But I love animals, number one. And number two, the same with the garden as well, I wanted my kids to like grow up understanding and having a different level of respect and connection to their food and where it comes from.

Do you notice a huge difference between fresh and store-bought eggs?

I definitely do now. I think that anyone who’s kind of gotten used to the taste of fresh eggs and then you eat a store-bought egg it’s totally different. Specifically when they’re boiled, they’re a lot softer and more… Store bought, they’re always older. So once you boil them, the whites get very hard and chewy, and with fresh eggs, they don’t. They literally just melt in your mouth.

As a Top Chef winner and a TV personality, you’re sort of you’re going around, you’re doing a lot of travel and media, you’re living sort of this cosmopolitan lifestyle. Do you feel like that still fits with your restaurant in Alabama? Do you feel like you have to, I don’t know dial it back for like the local palate or anything like that?

You’re talking about what I serve?

Yeah, just in terms of, I imagine your experiences are now a little more eclectic than the average diner at your restaurant.

I mean you’re definitely spot on with that. I actually had a restaurant that I felt like it was a failure, and I always looked back on that and it was because I was doing what I wanted to do and not listening to the town and where I was. I was thinking like a chef and less like a business woman. So for me, I think the biggest shift in my success as a restaurant owner, as a boss, as a leader and anything, is to do what’s best for the restaurant and take what I want out of it. So I think that like, my creative fulfillment and things like that don’t necessarily always happen within the restaurant. My career fulfillment and my business fulfillment, because I’m definitely someone who’s very much entrepreneurial and business minded, that’s what I get fulfillment from with the restaurant. When it comes to cooking really amazing food that I want to be cooking, it doesn’t always happen there and that’s okay, because the restaurant’s doing other things for me. I think for me at this point in my life and just where the restaurant is and how it’s become successful, investing the most time in my staff and my people is more important to me than investing everything in the food. The second I switched my mindset with that was when we really became successful.

What’s that been like, having a restaurant going during the COVID experience? Do you feel like indoor dining and stuff like that has bounced back?

I mean, yes, to be totally honest with you. What was harder to me was being in a state that didn’t really acknowledge COVID hardly while being a part of a world that was. It always has been difficult to live in the very deep south, as someone who doesn’t exactly see eye to eye with the majority of the people, and definitely doesn’t have the same belief system as a lot of the people. Which is fine, I love different things and I love to be welcoming of that, but that was a little difficult during COVID, because we weren’t shut down that long. And our laws and regulations were very lax at times, and I was looking at all of my friends, all of my peers, just shut down, really just like begging for anything. So I almost felt guilty for that, number one. And number two, we were enforcing things that weren’t enforced by the state within our restaurant, which was very challenging as well. We had our own challenges I think that were a little bit unique, but I think everyone could tell you a different story of how they had a difficult time during COVID with their businesses.

Going back to your Derby menu for Williams-Sonoma, I noticed you have a succotash recipe on here, and it says you can use leftover corn for this?

Yes. Or frozen corn, even. I’m a big fan of frozen corn kernels. I don’t love anything canned because I can taste everything, and I feel like canned things always taste canned. Like canned tomatoes I’m fine with, but everything else… Frozen corn is one of my best friends because it’s something that especially, in a lot of places like you can buy fresh frozen corn that was put out during the summer. I always have that in my freezer at all times.

What other types of frozen stuff do you have in there?

All types of frozen beans and peas. Peas is something that I eat almost every day of the week because my kids love it and the whole family loves it. And that’s something that we get at our Piggly Wiggly. It’s always local and I keep those frozen at all times. Those are my biggest staples. I freeze a lot of meat as well. I buy meat in bulk and break it down myself and then freeze it. So there’s almost always multiple types of beef, chicken, plus a lot of people give me things like duck, deer. I have a ton of that in my freezer at all times as well.

If you had to give advice to someone who has no media experience, just a chef that’s going on Top Chef, what advice would you give them?

I’ve had a lot of people reach out to me right after they go on the show or right before they’re going on the show, and I think the biggest thing I would tell anyone is like, figure out who you are. Whether you’re even sure yet, figure out what your story is. Because if you don’t know it by the time you get there, they’re going to make it up for you, trust me. So decide what you want it to be and stick to it. Sell it and make it. And I don’t mean like, “Hey, I’m Kelsey and I’m from Alabama, but I’m going to now talk about how I’m obsessed with Italian food and I’m going Italian.”

I mean, it has to be true to you. Like, dig deep into your roots. Has your training all been in, I don’t know, like Aztec cuisine and you’re obsessed with Aztec cuisine and that’s what you want your story to be? Then sell that. And let that be the food you cook. Because I think to me, even when I judge, if I can’t figure out why the hell you cooked something and you can’t tell me why you did it, you’re already down on the bottom for me. I don’t even want to go to bat for you because there’s no heart there, you’re just cooking someone else’s food. Getting there and being, even if you’re not super confident, fake it till you make it and just commit to that. Commit to, this is who I am, this is what I’m going to be, and this is the food I’m going to cook.

For me, that was always going to be Southern and French food and I stuck with that the entire time. I was always like, if I cannot find a story from my actual heart about why I want this food to be on this plate, I can’t cook it. It always started with a story and then ended with a plate. All the times that I actually did well was when I stuck to that.

This last season before this one, they sort of had a situation where they had a winner where they found out some stuff about him, and sort of had to disavow him after the fact. Do you think they’re doing anything different now? Is there anything that they can do differently to avoid that? And do you see the process being any different as a result of that?

A hundred percent. And without saying too much of why I know what I know about it, I think I will say this: I think the coolest thing about Top Chef is that I look at them totally differently now after that scenario than I did before. Because they could’ve pretended like it didn’t happen. They could have erased him. They could’ve changed the ending. They could’ve done a lot of things. And I think what I really applauded was them just being like, “Hey, we didn’t know and we don’t support this.”

I think that is powerful in this day and age, just being honest. And then what they’ve done now more moving forward is, again without saying too much, the people who are getting cast are 100% being vetted. It wasn’t like we weren’t before, but they’re definitely doing a nose dive deep into your background now. They’re asking questions, they’re asking peers that you don’t know about questions, which is what should be done to maintain the respect of the show. And I think every show should do that. If you want to have any kind of respect, all you have to do is ask a few questions. I mean, there’s been a lot of that lately, where if you would’ve just asked four people in the restaurant that person worked in, one of them would’ve told you. That’s all it would’ve taken, one person to say, “Yeah, no, this guy’s an asshole and you probably don’t want him on your show.”

Do you think it’s a matter of, traditionally, coming up in kitchens has been sort of a chauvinist environment, and now there’s this broader change that’s happening, but then you’re still getting people that sort of came up in that and are still influenced by it?

No, I think that there’s just still a lot of assholes in the world, and no matter what we do, I don’t think we’re going to get rid of them in any culture. I will say, where it used to be very much, I call it like locker room behavior more than anything, that was absolutely the kitchen. When I was in it, there is no sugarcoating, it was horrific. It was so inappropriate. I would’ve rather been in an NFL locker room than in the kitchens that I was in, any day. It would’ve been so much more professional and appropriate. That is now gone because it was way crossing the line. It wasn’t like a little bit inappropriate, it was like downright abusive. So that was a kitchen thing before that absolutely can’t happen anymore.

But as someone who runs a kitchen, I’m the first to say, like we’ve had guys that I’m like, what is wrong with you? Like number one, you’re fired and number two, what the hell is wrong with you? Get out of here and don’t work anywhere until you go see a therapist for a while. So I think it’s less a kitchen thing and more than just, like some people just suck.

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Read the rest of our Top Chef Power Rankings here. Vince Mancini is on Twitter.

100 Gecs put their weird stamp on 2019 with their peculiar and attention-grabbing debut album, 1000 Gecs. Now, the world awaits its follow-up, naturally titled 1000 Gecs. The new LP is expected to drop at some point this year and while we don’t have a firm release date yet, we do have a couple of singles: “Mememe” came out last year and the duo dropped “Doritos & Fritos,” which is among 100 Gecs’ catchiest and most accessible material yet, a month ago. Now they’re back with a new visual for their latest single and yes, it’s odd.

The clip sees Dylan Brady and Laura Les reprising the wizard personas they adopted for the “Mememe” video, but this time, they’re soaring high above the city, which has taken notice based on the fact we see this supernatural activity through the lens of a news broadcast.

Lyrically, Pulitzer-worthy lyrics from “Doritos & Fritos” include, “Okay I went to France to get some new pants (Ooh!) / I went to Greece to get something to eat (Ooh!) / He said, ‘Sh*t, all we got’s Doritos and Fritos’ / I said, ‘Then give me all of those f*cking Doritos and Fritos.’”

Meanwhile, the group has earned the attention of Nine Inch Nails, as 100 Gecs will be supporting them on a couple of tour dates next week.

Watch the ‘Doritos & Fritos’ video above.

Houston rap icon Scarface is retiring from the rap business, but not before he takes one last bow. He recently announced his 32-city Farewell Tour, which will take one last spin of the US. Kicking off in Oakland, California on July 8 and running through August 27 in Odessa, Texas, the 51-year-old will give fans a final opportunity to see him live before he rides off into the sunset and sends his jersey into the rafters after almost 40 years.

A likely contributor to Scarface’s impending retirement is his recent bout with COVID-19 and kidney failure. Although he received a new kidney in 2021, it looks like he’s bowing out after his rough ordeal to take a well-earned rest. However, it’s hard to let go, thus: The Farewell Tour. Tickets go on sale Wednesday May 18. See the full run of tour dates below.

07/8 – Oakland, CA @ Yoshi’s
07/9 – Los Angeles, CA @ NOVO
07/10 – Phoenix, AZ @ AURA
07/12 – San Luis Obispo, CA @ Fremont Theater
07/13 – Sacramento, CA @ Harlow’s
07/15 – Portland, OR @ Roseland Theater
07/16 – Seattle, WA @ Moore Theatre
07/19 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Soundwell
07/20 – Denver, CO @ Gothic Theatre
07/21 – Oklahoma City, OK @ Cotillion Ballroom
07/22 – Kansas City, MO @ The Truman
07/23 – Sauget, IL @ Pop’s
07/24 – Minneapolis, MN @ Skyway Theatre
07/26 – Springfield, MO @ Outland Ballroom
07/27 – Nashville, TN @ Brooklyn Bowl
07/28 – Pontiac, MI @ The Crofoot
07/29 – Cleveland, OH @ House of Blues
07/30 – Indianapolis, IN @ The Vogue
07/31 – Fort Wayne, IN @ Piere’s
08/2 – Columbus, OH @ Skully’s
08/3 – Washington, DC @ Howard Theatre
08/4 – Harrisburg, PA @ XL Live
08/5 – Portland, ME @ Aura
08/6 – Queens, NY @ Rock the Bells Festival
08/7 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Club 24
08/11 – Huntsville, AL @ Envy Entertainment
08/12 – Birmingham, AL @ Iron City
08/13 – Mobile, AL @ Soul Kitchen
08/14 – Jackson, MS @ The Hideaway
08/18 – Dallas, TX @ House of Blues
08/19 – Austin, TX @ Empire Control Room
08/27 – Odessa, TX @ Ector Theater

Two Canadian forces will combine this summer to give us a refreshing treat. Continuing his partnership with Tim Hortons, Justin Bieber is teaming up with the coffee chain to deliver a French vanilla cold brew beverage called Biebs Brew.

Tim Horton’s teased Biebs Brew on Twitter with a picture showing Bieber carrying a cup of cold brew labeled Biebs Brew, captioned “June 6th. It’s worth the wait.”

Biebs Brew follows last November’s Timbiebs, a line of donut holes consisting of flavors like chocolate white fudge, birthday cake waffle, and sour cream chocolate chip.

“We couldn’t stop at Timbiebs,” said the Biebs in a statement. “We needed a Biebs Brew too. And we are bringing both to Tims next month. Doing a Tim Hortons collab had always been a dream of mine. I grew up on Tim Hortons and it’s always been something close to my heart.”

The Timbiebs will also return this summer, and beliebers will be able to order a “Biebs Bundle,” in which they can get a large brew, along with 10 Timbiebs pieces, for $5.

“Timbiebs was a huge success — truly beyond all of our expectations — and what made it so great was the authenticity of the partnership,” said Hope Bagozzi, Chief Marketing Officer for Tim Hortons, in a statement. “[Bieber’s] commitment to working with us to develop a natural and authentic twist on the Tims experience is what made Timbiebs a hit and we know guests are going to love Biebs Brew and his take on Tims Cold Brew.”

America’s favorite Ryan is looking to be an action star. Ryan Gosling is set to play the lead in the upcoming film adaptation of the classic TV show The Fall Guy.

The Fall Guy (not to be confused with Free Guy, a different Ryan’s movie, or First Man, another Gosling movie) was a TV show that ran from 1981 to 1986 and followed Colt Seavers, a Hollywood stunt man who also worked part-time as a bounty hunter. Hey, those Hollywood salaries are rough! Think a ton of Hollywood action stunts with some murder sprinkled in. Just like Once Upon A Time In Hollywood!

Gosling has been busy as of late, starring as Ken in the highly-anticipated live-action adaptation of Barbie alongside Margot Robbie. He will also star in Netflix’s upcoming thriller The Gray Man alongside Chris Evans and Ana de Armas. The similar titles beg the question: who is naming these movies and why do they all sound the same?

Production is slated to begin this year in Australia. Universal Pictures’ President of Physical Production, Jeff LaPlante, said in a statement: “After a successful partnership on the studio’s production of Ticket to Paradise in Queensland, Universal is thrilled to return to Australia and base in New South Wales for the highly-anticipated film, The Fall Guy.”