Top Chef: Ted! You came back to us!

Praise Ted! Finally, the prodigal judge (can a judge be prodigal if he only appeared in the prelude to the season?) returned to us. Although I notice that he was sitting in Gail's seat, so perhaps he and Gail will be tag-teaming it this season. If the previews for next week can be believed, Ted will be on the panel then, too, and that can only mean good things. No offense to Gail, but Ted is a little more articulate and considered in his food opinions, whereas Gail agrees with other people a lot.

This week's challenge: update classic family-style dishes. I thought this was a pretty cool and creative idea, until I remembered the TGI Friday's challenge from last year, from which this challenge only differed in that the chefs were given a set menu of dishes to recreate, and they were required to make them lower in cholesterol. Also, the dishes were served to Elks, not firefighters.

As soon as I saw the previouslies, which were all about Howie, his fight with Joey, and his bottom-feeding in the first couple of challenges, I knew that one of two things would be happening this week: either Howie was going to redeem himself or he was going to go home. The latter was true; Howie won with his pork chops, while Micah went home for disrespecting meatloaf. Seriously. I mean, I'm no meatloaf defender, I could happily spend the rest of my life not eating meatloaf. But even I – like the judges – was a little offended by Micah's attitude toward meatloaf, which she treats like some gross foreign food that those nutty Americans glomp ketchup all over.

By the way, I know Keckler addresses the terrible spelling in Bravo's graphics quite a bit, but as I'm an editor, too, those spelling errors hurt me just as much. This week's offense: "Sloppy Joe's." See, some people just can't spell, and that's okay. But if you don't have a copy editor handy, then Google and the dictionary are your friends. Especially if you're writing something for work, and even more especially if it's going to be shown to a national audience.