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Yep, Top Chef is now South Park.

Though this challenge seems somewhat straightforward, a number of chefs are having trouble with their KitchenAid mixers. George and Melissa, in particular, can’t get their sausages to fill up properly. Both end up ripping their sausage casings and getting little pockets of air stuck inside. George abandons ship, going with a sausage patty instead (a cop out, in my opinion). Melissa, for her part, ends up with itty, bitty, little sausage links. They look a bit like elongated quail eggs.

Doug looks around the kitchen with disdain. He’s noticed how many chefs are eschewing making actual sausages in actual casings, which he’s doing. He hopes that whoever wins the challenge does so with a real sausage.

Time is up and the chefs offer up their sausages for consumption. Rob and Padma head over to George’s station first. George has a pork and veal sausage with a sunny-side up egg. It’s basically breakfast with a sausage in the shape of a burger patty. As Rob and Padma dig in, George starts acting like he just took a bit swig of Veritaserum. He notes that he couldn’t get his sausage casings to work and thus went with a patty. He tells Rob that he’s a big football fan, but “not a huge fan of yours” because he’s a Redskins fan. Rob responds diplomatically that he’s preeeeeeeetty sure that the Patriots beat the Redskins when they played a few weeks ago.

Though it seemed like George was just begging to be put in the bottom, he doesn’t end up there. Instead, we have Melissa and Greg. Melissa served a wild boar and pork sausage with lentils. Rob points out that he specifically asked for a “big sausage,” and Melissa’s little wieners were simply not satisfying enough. Greg had a pork and boar sausage with kaffir lime - Rob didn’t like the spices that he used.

Mei and Katsuji are apparently the middle children in this challenge because the top two dishes in this challenge are George and Doug. Rob wasn’t sure whether George made a sausage or a burger, but he loved the breakfast dish he got. Doug, of course, made an actual sausage - a beer-braised pork sausage with onions - and Rob found it delicious.

The winner of this challenge is deemed to be George - Mr. Not-A-Real-Sausage-and-I-Hate-Your-Team. Doug pouts. George beams. After his beat down of Katie and landing in the top three in last week’s elimination challenge, he’s on a real roll. Plus, he gets immunity with this win - not a trifling prize given how close we are to the finale.

And now we move on to the Elimination Challenge. Boston chef Tony Maws walks in - he’ll be this week’s guest judge. Tony is pushing a big bookshelf on wheels. Sitting on the shelves are a number of books emblazoned with the name of an author on the front.

Padma notes that a number of “literary legends” call New England home, and this week, the cheftestants will have to draw inspiration from one of the authors in creating their dish. They’ll be allowed to use any work by any of these authors, be it a novel, short story, or poem. The judges and diners should, however, be able to “see” the work being celebrated on the cheftestants’ plate. Joining the judges in the dining room will be a group of notable writers and literature buffs. Also sitting at judges table will be Francis Lam, a frequent judge on TC.

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