Greetings, Top Chef watchers. Liz and Justine here to chronicle the last week before the competition moves from its cozy home of Las Vegas to the finale in Napa Valley. Most of the fat has been trimmed from the ranks of the cheftestants but one more still has to be cut.

Enough with the cheesy cooking plays on words. On to the cooking!

The show barely starts before we’re faced with two major fashion moments — Did you see Bryan’s sparkly silver rock-star belt? How about Kevin wearing a rosary under his T-shirt? Like all of the chefs, they’re missing their families and doing it for them. Eli reveals to the viewers at home something Liz knew all along: that he’s friends with past cheftestant and finalist Richard Blaise! Eli was even best man at Blaise’s wedding! (Liz saw them compete together on Iron Chef America a few weeks back, so she was hoping they’d talk about that in this show.)