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He was born in Chicago and built his foodie empire in Philadelphia, but now chef Jose Garces will be an Iron Chef for all of America. Garces was crowned the Food Network’s latest member of the Iron Chef America team on Sunday night’s episode, beating out New York chef Jehangir Mehta, and capping off a season that began with 10 contestants.

“We had a viewing party with about 400 people at one of my restaurants, Distrito, last night,” Garces said. “So the celebrating has been done and overdone. Now it is time to get down to business.”

Garces was up against nine very strong contenders, but he said he ultimately wasn’t surprised to win the title. In the final competition where each chef was given 60 minutes to make a five-course feast that represented America's melting pot. The secret ingredient was ribs and racks of all sorts, including buffalo, pork and beef.

“I went into the competition feeling like I was gonna win. I just had a natural confidence and I know what I can do under those pressure situations,” Garces said.

As an Iron Chef, Garces joins a roster of celebrated kings and queens of the kitchen including, Mario Batali, Cat Cora, Bobby Flay, Masharu Morimoto and Michael Simon.

Garces seemed to be the front-runner on the show from the start of this fall’s season when he won the first challenge by creating a comfort food dish. Garces, the son of Ecuadorian immigrants crafted an Ecuadorian stew of annatto chicken broth and queso fresco.

The newest addition to the Iron Chef family has a lot of projects in the works. In addition to overseeing three restaurants in Philadelphia, the Mexican Distrito, the Peruvian-Cantonese Chifa and the tiny burger and whiskey bar, Village Whiskey, Garces is opening a prepared- foods café in the City of Brotherly Love called Garces Trading Company. He is also looking at developing a larger restaurant focusing on the farm-to-table concept and organic foods as well as a small beer and brats house.

“We want to make around 12-15 artisanal sausages, put them on a homemade bun and pair them with American local craft brews,” Garces said.

He may be branching out these days, but Garces wants to encourage up-and coming-chefs to try to keep their focus narrow in the beginning in order to really master what they love.

“I would tell a young chef to get as much experience as you can and try to find a specialty and cuisine to focus on. I think it’s good to be well-rounded but what worked for me is that at a certain point in my career I decided Latin food was going to be my thing,” Garces said.

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Nobody died and dubbed me the arbiter of all things fashionable, but I can spot a "don't" pretty easily, and last night at the American Music Awards in Los Angeles, there were plenty to go around. In fact, there were so many, like J.Lo, you could have tripped on them. Let's take a "trip" down memory lane.

Janet, "Miss Jackson" if you must, looked like a Crate and Barrel couch that had too much bedazzling.

Speaking of bedazzled, Shakira's shorty black number made Janet's look positively dowdy with all the sparkle and glitz. It was sort of a latex, LED tube dress that fit her like a glove. The hips don't lie.

Rihanna is usually lauded for her ensembles, and while I don't always love the '80s outfits she dons, I can appreciate her ability to pull them off. So what happened last night? Rihanna was covered from neck to ankles in what looked like a white velour "onesie." You know, sort of like little kids pajamas. It was offset by horizontal cutouts that looked like tan stripes, which one person described as a glorified Cinnabon and another termed "Ace bandages." She was wearing a short white shrug that looked like football shoulder pads with spikes jutting forth.

Lady Gaga... you expect a dramatic look from her, it's part of the schtick. But her weirdly proportioned nude leotards, oddly wrapped with the accessory of the night, "Ace bandages," offset by a contraption that looked like a ribcage with Christmas tree lights, and very "Alienesque" headgear were beyond the pale. I kept looking at those straps trying to figure out why they were there and what they were hiding.

Carrie Underwood always manages to look extremely pulled together, which is why I was surprised to see her off the mark Sunday night. She wore gold lamé hot pants, with a side drape (think curtains) that did nothing for her figure and made her hips look way out of proportion. Black versions of the "Ace bandage" criss-crossed the lamé from hip to shoulder and she wore silver ankle boots. Silver and gold.

Jennifer Lopez is another woman who normally looks very elegant. In this case perhaps she was channeling her inner borough with the boxing theme. She jabbed her way through the audience wearing a short, silky robe, then dropped it to reveal shorts cut like those you wore in the '70s. You know the ones I'm talking about, with the white piping... they never looked good on anyone. She was no exception: as she sang "Louboutins," I kept trying to figure out what it was about this bizarre "Thunderdome" outfit that appealed to her. Her second costume was borrowed from a page in the Carrie Underwood book, the hot pants blown up into gold stiff bloomers. Then J.Lo slipped, the world "Twittered" and west coasters had to see it on YouTube. Note to J.Lo: don't dance in the Louboutins. They are made for sitting on barstools.

Alicia Keys took the ever-popular black leggings and paired them with a shorty black jacket emblazoned with gold chains that ran from shoulders to hips. Lots of movement and Forever 21. Leggings show off every flaw, by the way.

I'm not asking for the ladies in the house to look the same, and certainly with risk comes reward. But I'm not sure there was a lot of payoff  for what these ladies paid out. Full disclosure: I am sitting here writing this in jeans and a hoodie. I'll remind you that I don't get paid to perform on stage, just write about it. Call me a "hater," but was there anything on that stage that appealed to you last night? If so, I'd really like to hear it.

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You must remember this; a kiss is just a kiss. Unless of course that kiss is between two men… and broadcast worldwide from say, the American Music Awards.

Then a kiss becomes part of the national agenda, as it did when Adam Lambert planted a wet one on the lips of his keyboardist at the AMAs on Sunday night. And even though Lambert’s kiss wasn’t the first time two men have smooched on network television, it promises to take on a life beyond just a kiss. So let’s prepare to brace ourselves for Smooch-gate 2009, as everyone and their mother weighs in on Lambert’s lip lock.
 
Some folks are already so riled up that they have taken to Twitter asking people to file a formal complaint about Lambert’s performance to the Federal Communications Commission. And others have just begun complaining.
 
“Just watched Adam Lambert's performance @ AMA's. Appalling,” JoshYates posted to Twitter, in one of hundreds of tweets lambasting the performance, of which there are an equal number applauding it. 
 
The AMA kiss isn’t the first time that two men have kissed on network television and it certainly won’t be the last. In 2000, the characters on the NBC sitcom “Will & Grace” ambushed Al Roker on the “Today" show to protest the network’s refusal to air a gay male kiss on television. Out of frustration the characters cheekily kissed in front of Roker and the live “Today” audience. Admittedly it was a chaster kiss than you might plant on your grandmother.  Surprisingly teen drama “Dawson’s Creek” was one of the first shows to pick up the mantle from there and show an onscreen male couple in a serious relationship sharing a really passionate kiss in 2000.
 
The barriers to gay kissing didn’t exactly come tumbling down after that, even on “Will & Grace”. Will Truman’s (played by the straight actor Eric McCormack’s) love life remained G-rated until 2006 when the show took on another network television barrier with Truman kissing his boyfriend James, played by another straight actor Taye Diggs, in what was promoted as the first interracial gay kiss on television.
 
Since then two men have kissed on network television on CBS’ “Cold Case” and ABC’s “Brothers and Sisters” and “Desperate Housewives.” And this season, even the CW’s “Gossip Girl” had a gay kiss involving a straight character, Chuck Bass. So shouldn't we be used it by now? Apparently we aren’t.
 
Last week "Out" magazine editor-in-chief Aaron Hicklin attacked Lambert and his management for not allowing Adam to be gay enough in front of the press. So even Hicklin had to admit he was pleasantly surprised by Lambert’s kiss on Sunday night.
 
“With his performance at the AMAs last night, Adam Lambert is signaling loudly and clearly that he refuses to be bound by the old rules. Having been critical of his management for being overly cautious around Adam's photo shoot for 'Out' I'm delighted and thrilled by the statement his AMA performance makes. I don’t think he'll lose a single fan by staying true to himself, and quite likely will gain a legion of new admirers,” Hicklin said. “Adam's reach and appeal among younger audiences makes him infinitely more threatening to conservatives than, say, Elton John, and I think he knows it and wants to make the most of it.”
 
Lambert didn’t just kiss a guy. He also walked a dancer on a leash, grabbed a dancer's head and simulated oral sex and flipped the crowd the bird.
 
But that kiss is what made headlines and that kiss is the photo everyone will remember from the 2009 American Music Awards and that kiss is going to be so much more than just a kiss once the media is finished dissecting it.

If you think you're cut from the cloth of rock gods, there's hope: word on the street is that Aerosmith still has an opening.

“We want to keep Aerosmith going, and we want to keep playing,” lead guitarist Joe Perry said on Sunday.

The legendary rock band began the star search earlier this month after Steven Tyler revealed that he was interested in working on “brand Tyler.” And despite the rumors swirling that the new lead could be Josh Todd from Buckcherry, there isn’t a winner yet.

“We’ve heard a lot of people mention a lot of people, but the bottom line is we have a short list and we’re talking to people,” Perry said.

Tyler also isn't being very hands-on in finding his replacement.

“The last time I talked to Steven was before the show in Sturgis [South Dakota]. We have heard from him the same way you guys have,” he said, which means Tyler's primary method of communication has been news outlets. Disappointing, especially considering that the band's 40th anniversary is coming up in less than a year.

But Aerosmith is still soldiering on, and Perry is encouraging anyone and everyone to send in tapes – literally. “We found the singer in my band on YouTube, so there’s no reason why we couldn’t find someone to sing with Aerosmith,” he said.

Drummer Joey Kramer has been a little more specific about what the remaining Aerosmith members are looking for.

“There’s a difference between a frontman or a performer,” Kramer told Rolling Stone.

“Luckily for us, Steven is both of those and probably the best out there. If he chooses to pursue a solo career for a while, then it would have to be somebody who can do both.”

Larry David and the cast of 'Seinfeld'

Sunday night's season finale of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" brought us the long-awaited "Seinfeld" reunion (though it was actually the final part of several episodes throughout the season). And the one thing that can't be denied is that the cast got back into character without missing a beat. There was something magical about watching the same people on the same set reciting some very "Seinfeld"-ian lines.

However, it has to be asked: Would this have worked as an actual "Seinfeld" reunion, and not bits and pieces of one worked into "Curb?" Probably not. The references to iPhones, Blackberries and Bernie Madoff seemed a little forced and very little of the "show-within-a-show" made me laugh out loud. At the same time, it was still better than the "Seinfeld" series finale - which Larry David, the character, and Larry David, the actual person, continue to defend, even against Jerry Seinfeld himself.

Having said that... as an episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm," the show was great. The season-long plot line of Larry trying to cast his ex-wife to play George's ex-wife, followed up with Jason Alexander actually trying to steal her away from him was genius. Despite his non-"iconic" status, as Jerry described it, it was pretty hilarious seeing Larry try to play George when Jason briefly dropped out. Larry's obsession with trying to catch who left a coffee cup stain on Julia Louis-Dreyfus' table ("Do you respect wood?"), was classic "Curb," and got the biggest laughs out of me.

Whether taken as a "Seinfeld" reunion, or just a very good episode of "Curb," at least it leaves "Seinfeld's" legacy on a higher note than it was when the show actually ended, and gives us a nice glimpse of what would have happened to these characters 11 years later.

What did you think? Did you enjoy the "Seinfeld" reunion itself more than I did? What did you think of this "Curb" season as a whole? Sound off on video, or in the comments below.

Rihanna stopped to talk to CNN's Denise Quan as she made her way down the red carpet for the American Music Awards Sunday night.
Rihanna: So big things are happening, a lot of work and we're at the AMA's, we're performing some new songs too tonight, so, I can't wait.
Denise Quan: How does it feel to be back to business?
Rihanna: Great, great. When I was off, for the little time that I had off before we started working on music again, I drove myself crazy. I just felt like a delinquent, I'm like what am I doing? I need to work and now I'm back to work and its getting crazy and busier than ever but its what I love to do so I have no complaints.
Quan: How does it feel to have all these fans supporting you?
Rihanna: Amazing. It makes you - you know, you don't feel lonely, you know, you feel like you have a team of support and there's nothing better than that. Especially when you go through something rough, you always feel like you always need friends. You always feel like you want somebody to reach out to you and lean on and having my friend's support throughout the whole thing its just amazing to me.
Quan: It's almost Thanksgiving. What are you most thankful for?
Rihanna: I'm most thankful for my happiness right now. To me the biggest thing in life is to be happy, you can have anything you want but, if you're not happy it doesn't make any sense and I'm really HAPPY right now and I'll be in France on Thanksgiving, I don't know how they celebrate it over there but we'll see.

Here’s the thing about “Project Runway”: yes, we watch for the drama brought by the designers, but we also watch it to witness the talents of the undiscovered.

There’s no better mix of those two elements than the final episode of every season, when there’s nothing left to do but show and prove. I wasn’t at all surprised that the final three came down to Carol Hannah, Althea and “Meana Irina,” who, despite her attitude problem, can design her butt off.

Full disclosure: I started slacking on my “Runway” devotion about halfway through this season. I became one of those fans who blamed everything on the show’s move to Lifetime: this season’s lack of bite and wit “never would’ve happened on Bravo,” I said.

But last night, I realized how shortsighted I’d been. The final episode had everything: tears from a sick but still sewing Carol Hannah; anticipation; the trinity of Nina, Heidi and Kors, plus frenzied pacing as the designers and three resurrected from eliminations – Christopher, Logan and Gordana –whipped up a 13th look for their 12-piece collections at the 11th hour.

And if that wasn’t good enough, we even got a Tim Gunn breakdown! A Tim.Gunn.Breakdown. When the always suave, never flustered one is walking around flailing his arms and yelling threats that “he’s about to lose it,” you know it must’ve been one tense tent.

If you missed last week’s episode: Carol Hannah drew her inspiration from the “ethereal” architecture at Duke U., Althea from retro sci-fi movies and Irina wanted to do her take on the urban woman warrior with an all-black collection – which Nina explicitly told her not to do. Yeah, she did it anyway. And it kinda rocked.

See, Irina’s like the girl from high school whose meanness was really a line of defense – much like the hooded outerwear and knits, black leather and hats that she thought a New York woman needed to battle it out in the Big Apple. It was dark, but cohesive; ready-to-wear, but with sparks of original detail.

Carol Hannah’s was equally impressive in terms of construction and tailoring – just look at the inverted pyramid tutu topped off with body-hugging silk, or her exquisite Grecian gown – but it completely lacked cohesion. I haven’t agreed with the judges on much this season, but I co-signed out loud when they noted Irina was the only who presented an actual collection.

Because, sadly, Althea the suit-maker just didn’t bring it, from her runway day outfit – halter top, leggings, and ankle Uggs? Really? – to her mishmash of “sci-fi” looks. Never mind that none of it actually appeared futuristic or innovative (see: Jay McCarroll, season one, if you need a refresher on what innovation looks like). The judges kept commenting that she was "plugged into the street," and I have no clue what that means other than I don't particularly want to wear it. Yes, she can do separates, but unfortunately, that separated her collection from winning the title.

What did you think of the season finale? Was this season everything that you expected - or wanted - it to be? And more importantly, is there a tiny piece of you that thinks Carol Hannah was robbed?

It seems ironic to me that it was this time of the year more than 30 years ago that I had my first “encounter” with Oprah Winfrey.

I was a little girl whose legs dangled off the pew when Winfrey appeared as a featured speaker on Sunday at my grandmother’s church in West Baltimore, Maryland. I immediately recognized her as an anchor on the local news station, WJZ, and I couldn’t believe that such a star would be standing in the pulpit of Whitestone Baptist Church.

Ordinarily church meant suffering through a sermon I didn’t understand and staring in awe at the women who – in their exuberance at being in the presence of the Holy Spirit – seemed to shout, sweat and dance the walls down.

But this Sunday I was mesmerized by Oprah.

Like any good storyteller, she started out slow, sharing tales of growing up first in Mississippi, then in Milwaukee and Tennessee. Like me, she loved to read and I felt like she was walking up and down my street when she recounted the many church plays and programs in which she had been called to perform.

I literally slid to the edge of the pew as Oprah told the tragic story of a slave woman who upon being revived from a vicious beating from her master thought she was seeing stars, only to realize it was salt on the ground which had been thrown on her lacerated back. The congregation moaned their pain and understanding of the hardships of life.

Then, just as smoothly as she had plunged us into the depths of despair, she raised us up again with the words of an ex-slave, Sojourner Truth, who at a Women’s Convention in Akron, Ohio, in 1851 asked “Ain’t I a woman?”

"If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back and get it right-side up again. And now that they are asking to do it, the men better let them,” Oprah said, reciting Truth’s words. It was the mid 1970s, and with the civil rights and women’s rights movements so fresh in everyone’s minds, the words seemed to ring with poignancy.

She encouraged us all to never let hardship sway us from our paths. I left the church that day amazed by what I had heard - and by Winfrey who, even then, seemed larger than life. My 8-year-old mind desired to further the connection I felt with the woman who was now my new hero.

I got it into my head that with her being so far away from her home in Tennessee, surely she would want to join my family for Thanksgiving dinner. So I waited until my grandmother drifted off to sleep one afternoon, and I looked up the phone number for WJZ-TV in the phone book.

Trying to sound as grown up as possible, I asked the station’s operator to connect me with Oprah Winfrey, planning to offer the invitation to the secretary such a celebrity must surely have working for her.

I was shocked when Oprah answered the phone.

My prepared words failed me and I instead stuttered out how much I had enjoyed her speech at Whitestone. “Awww, thank you honey,” Oprah replied, before I promptly hung up on her in my nervousness.

Years later, as a reporter at the Baltimore Sun, I shared that story with a colleague who was interviewing Oprah about her film “Beloved.” I explained how much the now hugely influential talk show host had inspired me as both a woman of color and a journalist.

When my friend later told me she had shared the story with Oprah during the interview and that Ms. Winfrey had expressed her delight at my words, I felt like I was once again that little girl, basking in the glow of my idol.

A mysterious Observer on the Fox series 'Fringe.'

Last night's episode of "Fringe" - the culmination of a full week of hype - certainly delivered on answers, but added a heaping helping of new questions.

So far, "Fringe" has done a better job of explaining itself in its second season than "Lost," co-creator J.J. Abrams' previous series. We've figured out this much: there are alternate realities, and Walter (John Noble)'s son Peter (Joshua Jackson) is actually from an alternate reality, he just doesn't know it, and therefore Walter is hesitant to tell him all he knows. One thing we still don't know is exactly how the bizarre Observers - yes, we find out for the first time on the show that there's more than one - fit into all of this.

Since Walter is playing dumb on the Observers, which he actually knows a lot about, we get one of those scenes essential to any J.J. Abrams show where a scientist-type has to explain what's going on. Agent Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv) and Peter pay a visit to Massive Dynamic, where we learn the theory that the Observers aren't traveling through time, nor are they immortal, but they "observe" time, especially major historical events.

One Observer in particular breaks their code of not acting, except when correcting a mistake they made, by kidnapping a young woman prior to taking an airplane which is destined to crash. Because of this, we also find out more about their strange sci-fi instruments, and that they carry strange guns, which look normal, but throw people back and stun them.

As it becomes more clear that Walter knows a lot more than he's telling, Noble really gets to shine here, being equally brilliant playing the absent-minded, slightly-mad scientist (I live for the scenes with his assistant, Astrid), and the man with all the answers who can advise an Observer on how to proceed.

When an assassin's bullet takes down the rogue Observer, the immortality theory bites the dust with him, and he reveals that he has found the capacity to have emotions, to cry and even to fall in love. He felt that the woman he saved from the plane crash was important, having observed her all of his life. Was he just an inter-dimensional stalker or is there more to it than that?

Aside from the fact that Observers are being seen more and more, foretelling some momentous event, Olivia, who recently took a trip to another reality, is someone they see having a particularly dark future.

I was happy to see an episode focusing on the overall story-arc of this show again, as the weird-crime-of-the-week episodes aren't nearly a strong.

Were you fascinated by the Observers as well? Do you agree that this show could stand to have fewer stand-alone episodes? What are your "Fringe" theories (what is the meaning behind the strange symbols before commercial breaks, anyway)? Share your thoughts on video, or the comments below.

It's been rumored for weeks, but now it's actually happening: Oprah Winfrey is ready to announce tomorrow that she's ending her immensely popular and influential TV talk show.  She'll drop the news on Friday morning's live show from Chicago.

Fans shouldn't panic just yet: WLS, where her show began as "A.M. Chicago" in 1984, says the final "Oprah Winfrey Show" will air in September of 2011, giving her nearly two more years to spur water cooler talk, influence trends, and push authors to the top of the best-seller list.

What then?  The media queen has been trying to get the cable channel OWN, the Oprah Winfrey Network, off the ground with Discovery Communications for awhile now, and it seems a good bet she'll move her attention and resources there.  After all, why "settle" for a show – even one of the most talked-about and enduring in TV history – when you can have a network?