The November 7 premiere of Top Chef Seattle is six weeks away, and Jessica Sidman, the Young and Hungry columnist at Washington CityPaper in D.C. wrote an interesting piece about how chef contestants cover their tracks when they disappear for six weeks to tape the show. 

Spike Mendelsohn told everyone he was traveling in Vietnam and even queued up a batch of fake emails to send to friends and family. Though in this age, the lack of ubiquitous Instagrams, Tweets, and Foursquare checkins might raise suspicion. Bryan Voltaggio compares the sequestering to being in jail.

Chefs on the show surrender their phone, wallet, license, and internet access. Knife-packers must wait out the rest of the taping in a "holding house." And as we learned earlier this summer, a "ranger" watches over cast members wherever they go.

Seattle may be hosting the tenth season, but none of our local chefs and cooks had any mysterious absences to explain--none of the contestants is a local.