I like Top Chef Masters better than the original. One of the reasons is because of Kelly Choi. The rail-thin host says what she needs to say and gets out of the way. But last week, Ms. Choi was summarily replaced. She won't return for Season 3. In her stead will be Curtis Stone, who is probably most famous for his appearance on Celebrity Apprentice 3.
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TLC viewers may the know guy better as the dude who hosted the curiously intrusive but entertaining Take Home Chef, for which he'd approach women at supermarkets and offer them unsolicited help to make a meal.
I'm sure there was a show in which he approached a male home-cook to do the same, but I never saw it.
In any case, the most interesting episodes were when his chosen co-star was female (and he always picks the telegenic ones). You don't learn to cook so much as you watch Stone–one of People magazine's Sexiest Men of 2006, along with Pitt and Clooney–and his subject flirt before the husband/boyfriend arrive.
Okay, so now I see why Top Chef Masters hired the guy.
Before becoming an award-winning restaurant critic for OC Weekly in 2007, Edwin Goei went by the alias “elmomonster” on his blog Monster Munching, in which he once wrote a whole review in haiku.