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Top Chef's Amanda to Ed: Why Did You Say I Was No Good?

We catch up with last night's eliminated contestant to talk tuna, Angelo and more

By Marc Malkin Aug 26, 2010 6:09 PMTags
Amanda Baumgarten, Top Chef Bravo

Amanda Baumgarten has a question for her fellow Top Chef contestant Ed Cotton.

The Los Angeles sous chef doesn't understand why Ed had to publicly trash her on the show…

We caught up with Amanda earlier today to talk about being booted on last night's episode, the pea puree controversy, her weird fan and Ed's not-so-nice commentary.

Do you think you deserved to be sent home last night?
I don't know if I deserved it, but I know that I was fine with the decision.

Was it hard to hear some of the criticism from the other contestants? Some of them got really harsh.
They did get harsh. I made the decision before I got there that I would take the high road. I found it very interesting that some of the other people didn't do that—I think Ed in particular…I was like, 'Why would you go there? Horrible jabbing comment.' It's like, You've been cooking longer than me. What do you gain out of saying I'm no good?'

Do you think Angelo sabotaged you by not telling you how to properly prepare the tuna?
I don't know. Maybe. I wasn't thinking about it at the time. But whatever.

Did Alex steal Ed's pea puree?
Oh, my god, no! He didn't. He made it right next to me. He didn't steal it.

What are you hoping to get out of being on Top Chef?
I think I've gotten a lot out of it already. I have fans! I think that's really cool…I go out to the dining room of my restaurant and shake hands and take pictures with people. That's been so much fun.

Any weird fan mail?
Yeah! I've gotten one explicit photo. I was like, I must be famous if someone is going to send me a naked picture of himself. How rad is that?

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In other reality TV news, did you hear who's going to be competitng on Dancing With the Stars? Find out over at Watch With Kristin.