Team Rainbow: Gays and Lesbians on 'Top Chef: Las Vegas'

Bravo's hit culinary series Top Chef has played host to an abundance of gay and lesbian contestants, and season six, debuting on Wednesday, is no exception. Top Chef: Las Vegas features three out contestants this year, including two lesbian chefs vying for the grand prize.

Season six of the number 1 food show on cable returns on Wednesday, August 19th at 9 p.m. ET/PT. Top Chef: Las Vegas will pit 17 hopeful chefs from across the country battling it out in the kitchen for $100,000 to invest in their culinary career. Delectable host Padma Lakshmi will be back to model her gorgeous fashions alongside dapper head judge Tom Colicchio. Food & Wine magazine's Gail Simmons and food critic Toby Young will once again round out the panel of judges this year.

Last year on season five of Top Chef, three out contestants (Jamie Lauren, Patrick Dunlea & Richard Sweeney) banded together to form an impromptu 'Team Rainbow' in the first episode, only to have one of the members fall flat on his face during the first Elimination Challenge. Adorable gay Patrick was sent packing before viewers could even get to know him, but the legend of Team Rainbow lived on. Bravo even made a colorful Team Rainbow T-shirt to reap profits from the show's legion of gay fans.

If all three of this season's gay contestants manage to hang on past the first episode, it might be time for Bravo to resurrect that Team Rainbow T-shirt. Reading the bios for Preeti Mistry, Ash Fulk and Ashley Merriman, chances look good this year's team of gays might just stick around for the long haul.

Out lesbian contestant Preeti Mistry, 33, hails from San Francisco, where she works as the Executive Chef for Bon Appétit Management Company at Google headquarters. Google has a reputation for serving insanely amazing food to their employees, so hopes are high Mistry will kick some serious butt. Mistry was also educated at the prestigious Le Cordon Bleu in London, giving her a serious leg up on some of her competitors. For you ladies who might just get a crush on silky voiced Preeti, keep your hands to yourself – she’s been with her partner for thirteen years.

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Ashley Merriman, 32, may not lay claim to the same kind of international culinary background as Mistry, but she's worked on both coasts at classy restaurants and learned her craft at the Institute of Culinary Education in New York. Ironically enough, Merriman originates from Center Sandwich, New Hampshire – no really, that’s an actual place. Merriman loves to cook “robust” food  and thinks a meal isn’t complete unless you’ve been “beat in the face by a stick of butter.” Plus, she has an entirely infectious grin that might just disarm even the toughest of Top Chef critics.

Rounding out Top Chef: Las Vegas' new Team Rainbow is 29 year-old gay contestant Ash Fulk. Where Merriman and Mistry stand on a solid foundation of culinary education, Fulk brings hands-on experience straight from the toughest job in the kitchen - Sous Chef. Self taught chefs sometimes bite the big one early on Top Chef, but Fulk understands the joyous deliciousness of both grilled corn on the cob with mayonnaise and southern style sweet tea. Okay, so that actually sounds a little gross. But you never know, he might just prove to be the dark horse to watch. Though if he doesn’t ditch the cheesy bow tie…

Top Chef has always been friendly to gay and lesbian contestants. Anyone who has ever watched an episode of the show has probably been exposed to the gay (gasp!).  Season 4 even featured a lesbian couple (and all their drama) competing against each other. Bisexual contestant, Hung Huynh, took home the top prize in season three. But so far, the lesbians have sadly failed to nab the illustrious title of Top Chef. Season 1 bisexual finalist Tiffani Faison and her team won $20,000 for charity on Top Chef: 4 Star All Stars, but it's just not the same.

Why does it matter if a lesbian walks out of this season's Top Chef as the winner? Well, in the big picture, it doesn't really matter if the Top Chef is gay, straight, bisexual or green. However, whomever lands the top prize will receive that much more exposure in the press as a positive role model for aspiring chefs out there in the world.

The wonderful thing about seeing GLBT people on reality television shows is that they are a lot closer to representing ‘real life’ gays than impossible Hollywood stereotypes like the chicks on The L Word or the perfectly fabulous men of Queer as Folk. Reality shows aren’t real life, of course, but shows like Top Chef lump us in with everybody else as normal, fallible, funny human beings that anyone can relate to.

Women in the top ranks of the culinary world are rare enough, lesbians even more so.  What if seeing a strong, out woman trash all the guys and emerge at the top of the pack in her chosen field inspires one young girl to seize her dreams of being the next Julia Child or Emeril? That’s certainly worth buying a Team Rainbow T-shirt and tuning in to support this year’s queer contestants.

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