Colicchio to "Top Chef" viewers: "I'm glad you were next to me eating food. I don't remember seeing you."

Hmmm ... do I like that Tom Colicchio is extremely frank in this Salon interview? Or does he just come across as an elitist a-hole who can't be bothered with the unsophisticated palates of the scrub working class?

With "Top Chef's" highly anticipated finale one day away, Colicchio is certainly a bit -- er, prickly -- in the early going of the interview. He talks about the decision to send Dale home -- you remember that night? Colicchio (some prominent TV critics have accused him of mailing it in this season) was too busy getting his bald dome waxed to be present for the voting -- and further insists that the show isn't trying to rig it so a woman (even a soulless, baby-eating beast-woman like Lisa) is named "Top Chef."

No matter what you think heading into the home stretch, this quote from Colicchio about the growing interest in chefs is pretty hilarious:

"It started, I would say, in the early to mid-'80s, when people realized they couldn't just keep going to discos and snorting coke, and they had to grow up and find another form of entertainment. And it became restaurants. I'm serious about that. I'm not joking."

On a random note, Colicchio would make a darn good Lex Luthor.

More "TC" Lisa-bashing to come ...

-- Thomas Rozwadowski, trozwado@greenbaypressgazette.com