But, seriously, look around the next time you're out to dinner somewhere nice. Chances are, the executive chef is a man. At the end of Top Chef Season 3, New York Magazine interviewed seven prominent female chefs in New York about sexism in the industry. All of them had stories about being ignored by everyone from colleagues to vendors, about the difficulty of finding investors to open your own restaurant or worrying about being a "gimmick" chef due to gender, and about how "girls" go into pastry because baking is considered more of a woman's job in a professional kitchen. The most prominent chefs in the country (and on television) are men, the biggest and most difficult-to-get-into restaurants in any city usually have kitchens run by men, and, heck, the nicer the restaurant, the more likely it is for even the waitstaff to be male. Many of us rhapsodize about Mom's home cooking, but we vote for Dad's fancy steaks when we're out and about without even thinking about it.

So, the next time you're out for a nice dinner, maybe take your feminism along and make a point to patronize a place where a woman's in charge of more than just your seating or your dessert. As Stephanie, Lisa and a lot of other women out there prove, not every woman's place is in the kitchen, but some women work really well there.

Finale Wrap-Up: "Top Chef" [Salon]
A Woman’s Place? [New York Magazine]

• Spencer Pratt is getting an advice column in Radar. "Yo Spencer!" will debut in the April issue; the idea is so dumb it's genius. [USA Today]
  
• The Beckhams went shopping at the Pleasure Chest adult store in Hollywood and stocked up on supplies. "They seemed to know exactly what they wanted," a witness says. What do you think was on their list? Vibes? Lube? The purple penetrator? [The Sun]
  
• Watch Britney's new anime video! [People]
  
• "It pains me to report that on the first day of the shoot, Britney knew her lines better than I knew mine," How I Met Your Mother actor Josh Radnor says. "She's been great to work with." [People]
  
• The CW network is developing a contemporary spinoff of Beverly Hills, 90210. Maybe think of it as a mashup of The OC and Gossip Girl. [The Hollywood Reporter]

• Nicky Hilton says: "There's no truth to any starvation, eating disorders rumors. I think the press has been printing a lot of pictures of me from unflattering angles. My friends see the pictures and they're like, 'Oh my god are you OK?' And then they see me, and they're like 'Oh...' It's really not that interesting or true." [MSNBC]
• Amy Winehouse's father says the fact that he had an mistress when Amy was young is partly to blame for her troubled life — he had a "work wife" while he was still married to Amy's mom. Sigh. [The Sun]
• Is Rachael Ray's syndicated show going off the air? The ratings suck. She'd still have her Food Network shows, though. Unfortch. [Page Six]
• Anne Hathaway: Into absinthe. [Page Six]
• Top Chef host Padma Lakshmi and actor Skeet Ulrich? Hot. [Page Six]
• Three blind items! 1. "Which friendly actor recently fell off the wagon? Though he's been in rehab several times, he was spotted stumbling out of a Hollywood hotel at 7 a.m. looking totally 'wasted.'" 2. "Which young soap starlet made networks execs extremely nervous when she was starting out? She was known for fooling around with her much older producers." 3. "Which Hollywood hunk cheats on his gorgeous model girlfriend all the time? They've been together for a while but he's clearly not ready to settle down." [Page Six]
• Is Paul Newman OK? He's having back problems. Be well! [Rush & Molloy]
• Melissa Joan Hart popped! The actress and her hubs welcomed their second child, a son, on Wednesday. Welcome to the world, Braydon Hart Wilkerson. [People]
• The final Harry Potter book will become two movies; the first is due in November 2010 and the second in May of 2011. [ET]
• Paul McCartney is appearing in ads for PETA — the organization that dumped his estranged wife Heather Mills last year. [Mirror]
• Speaking of Sir Paul — the judge should be ruling on his divorce — and deciding how much cash Heather will get — on Monday. [Yahoo News]
• China's Culture Ministry says it will tighten controls over foreign artists after Björk shouted "Tibet! Tibet!" at a recent concert in Shanghai. China forbids artists from performing content that "harms national unity." [Reuters]
• Patrick Swayze's mom on her son's cancer: "He just doesn't deserve it. He's got such a big heart. He's been such a good and generous and thoughtful person. It breaks my heart to know he's suffering." [Perez Hilton]

• Fergie and actor Josh Duhamel are engaged. We hope Fergie didn't wet her pants when he proposed! [People]
  
• Good news for society, bad news for Paris Hilton: Paris' grandfather, Baron Hilton, has decided to give 97% of his $2.3 billion fortune to charity when he dies. [Reuters]
  
• Lindsay Lohan spent Christmas Eve with Adrian Grenier at his Brooklyn apartment, but they're definitely not a couple. [Page Six]
  
• Also, Lindsay's dad called paparazzi photographers to tip them off to his reunion meeting with Lindsay at the Mercer Hotel. Aw, sweet! [Gatecrasher]
  
• Also: Lindsay's ex, Riley Giles, is selling his personal photos of her to the tabs. Again: How sweet! [MSNBC]
  
• Pete Doherty gave Amy Winehouse's husband Blake Fielder-Civil some tips on how to make the best of his prison time. Fielder has also asked Doherty to look out for Winehouse. Oh lord: Not a one of them stands a chance! [The Sun]

• Will Smith: Scientologist? [Page Six]
• Move over, Fergie: I Love New York star Tiffany "New York" Pollard is also engaged: Her future intended is show winner George "Tailor Made" Weisberger... [People]
• ...who is apparently already cheating on her. [Gatecrasher]
• Courtney Love is moving to New York. She bought a townhouse in the West Village. She says on her MySpace blog, "itllcost ...alot...to returjn it to a house biut fbc doesnt need to have all that space til she moves here at 18." [Gothamist]
• But whatever will Courtney fill all that space with after having been robbed yesterday? [Perez Hilton]
• Ah, nevermind: The stolen goods have been returned. [Perez Hilton]
• Britney had to return the kids back to K-Fed after spending Christmas with them. The exchange of progeny took place at a Starbucks, naturally. [Daily Mail]
• Johnny Depp: Too emotionally scarred to ever marry again. [MSNBC]
• Top Chef host / former model/former Mrs. Salman Rushdie Padma Lakshmi dnies that she and "financier" Teddy Forstmann are dating. [Page Six]
• Drew Barrymore and her boyfriend Justin "Mac Guy" Long: Definitely together, united against parking tickets. [Page Six]
• Leonardo DiCaprio and Bar Rafaeli are definitely back together. [Gatecrasher]
• Also a couple: Gossip Girl co-stars Blake "Serena van der Woodsen" Lively and Penn "Dan Humphrey" Badgley. [MSNBC]
• Jennifer Aniston reportedly celebrated Christmas with real-life best Friend Courteney Cox Arquette. [Daily Mail]
• Melanie "Scary Spice" Brown has won the custody battle for her daughter against her ex-husband, Jimmy Gulzar. Which is good, 'cause it's so much more effective when the Spice Girls sing "Mama" in their reunion tour when their very own kids are front and center. [TMZ]

• Wow, "Keith" must be working some serious overtime! Southwest Airlines gave another woman hell for wearing "revealing" clothing, just a week after a woman was nearly booted off a flight for wearing a mini-skirt. Setara Qassim was forced to wear a blanket by a flight attendant because she thought Setara's top was too low cut. Dude, is it just us, or does Southwest seriously have a problem with girls with ample breasts? [NBC6.net]
  
• Eating right, staying active, and watching your weight during pregnancy furthers the chances that your unborn baby will grow into a healthy adult. Memo to Nicole Richie: Eating right, staying active, and watching your weight ups your chances of being a healthy adult too! [Newsweek]
  
• A Top Chef contestant and a small group of her friends were beaten outside of Long Island bar in what appears to be a hate-crime. Josie Smith-Malave, who is gay, says she hopes the perpetrators will be caught and prosecuted on felony hate-crime charges. [Local6.com]

• "Is football too dangerous?" asks Time Magazine. If we say yes, will our boyfriend stop dominating the television Saturday through Monday for four months out of the fucking year? [Time Magazine]
• Seventy-five percent of moms have major nightmares about something horrible happening to their children. See, women carry the bulk of the parenting load, even in their dreams! [MSNBC]
• Children who are exposed to high levels of testosterone in the womb may see symptoms of autism later in life, further evidence that links the male hormone to the disorder. [MSNBC.com]
• Further proof that humans are descended from monkeys: female chimps love bad boys just as much as women do. [MSNBC.com]
• It's the 40th Anniversary of the Abortion Act in the UK, but there's a bit of a debate raging as to how late in a pregnancy a woman can terminate. The Daily Mail has an interesting panel of women who've had abortions weighing in on the discussion. [Daily Mail]
• An 80-year old Iowa woman had "Do Not Resuscitate" tattooed on her body, but doctors are still keeping her on life support because they say the tattoo is not enough proof of her wishes. Do they think "Do Not Resuscitate" is the name of a heavy metal band or something? [Crooks And Liars]
• A woman who is the victim of an alleged rape has sued the judge in the case because he has barred the use of the words rape, victim, and assailant from the courtroom during the trial. The woman was barred from using the words during her testimony, which lasted 13 hours, a clear violation of her first amendment rights. [Law.com]
• A lawsuit against the University of Colorado was reinstated after being dismissed in 2005. The original case stemmed from the gang rape of two women in 2001 by the school's football players and recruits. The suit alleges that CU officials failed to respond adequately to a long history of sexual harassment and assault by school football players and were therefore liable for the environment that allowed the rapes to occur. [Ms.]
• A Vitamin-D deficiency during pregnancy increases the risk of getting pre-eclampsia, the leading cause of premature birth. Trista Sutter — you know, the OG Bachelorette — talks about her personal experience in this week's US Weekly! [Science Daily]

• There is no justice in the world: President Bush has commuted Scooter Libby's jail sentence. [MSNBC]
  
• Pam Anderson is 40. And we are speechless. [People]
  
• Looking for a little real estate to invest in? How about Dracula's castle in Transylvania? It's the summer home that comes with vampires! (Garlic bulbs not included). [ABC News]
  
• A border collie named Smooch saved two drowning kayakers. And up in heaven, Lassie smiles. [USA Today]

• We actually screamed, "Holy shit!" out loud when we (thought) we saw a headline reading, "Bill Hits Hillary On Campaign Trail". Though that misreading would still have been less shocking than if we'd read it as "Bill Hits On Hillary On Campaign Trail." [BBC]
• It's official: Salman "No Longer Hiding Despite The Fatwa" Rushdie and Padma "Please Pack Up You Knives, Top Chef Contestants" Lakshmi have split. [CNN]
• Eva Peron (and Patti Lupone?) would be proud: Argentina's First Lady is running for president in her own right. And somewhere in Iowa, Hillary Clinton feels threatened. [NYT]
• Want to sleep less soundly tonight? Read on: That foiled London car bomb was designed to ensure female casualties. [Slate]
• Speaking of casualties, there have been 12 in the U.S. military since Friday. [DoD]