Seattle foodie eyes are all turned towards the future, when we hope to be watching one of our amateur local chefs scoring big on the Fox series MasterChef (auditions and interviews began this Sunday at Sur La Table Kirkland).

Here is an excellent report on the state of the tryouts, including the names of some of the contestants who made it on to round two—they include erstwhile Seattle P.I. food critic Leslie Kelly. A full list of Masterchef auditions dates is here.

MasterChef will be hosted by Gordon Ramsay who, according to New York Magazine’s Grub Street blog, is in serious financial trouble. And speaking of Grub Street and chef reality shows, the blog reports that Padma Lakshmi revealed this weekend that fellow Top Chef judge Tom Colicchio likes to keep a bottle of booze with him during the show’s grueling judging sessions. Shocking.

The revelation was part of a Q&A hosted by the ubiquitous Frank Bruni, who was on Book TV recently debating the ethics of eating animals with that loon Jonathan Safron Foer, and can also be seen harassing a Le Bernadin sommelier in the February issue of Food and Wine.

And circling back to Seattle: that same issue of Food and Wine honors our own Poppy by calling its happy hour “America’s Best.”