Previously on RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars, the queens were joined by the ultimate queen Kristin Chenoweth for this season’s Snatch Game. While BenDeLaCreme and Shangie continued their dominance, Trixie’s RuPaul fell flat and Chi Chi introduced Maya Angelou’s little sister Mya to the world. In the werkroom, Shangie and Trixie had some capital-D drama after Shangela found a hate note from Thorgy in Trixie’s station … making it the ultimate gag that Shangie joined Ben in saving Trixie and sending Chi Chi out of the competition.
Back in the werkroom Trixie was in complete shock after Shangela saved her, despite making it sound like she was giving her the axe. After vowing to move forward and get closer, DeLa spoke about her logic behind eliminating people based on their track record. Shangela felt that wasn’t going to be the way it goes down, Kennedy was grumpy about something and Trixie advised they all just keep the mirror messages polite. Looking at you Milk and Thorgy.
Ru dropped by the next day, in full Warhol regalia to announce this week’s challenge – the Warhol Ball! Which means sewing … which means Shangie is hella screwed. Before that, Ru gave the girls a mini-challenge to create a Warhol image in quick drag. While I’d like to say it was close, it wasn’t … as Aja slayed her portrait and the rest of the queens.
The Warhol Ball required the queens to each design a wearable soup can inspired by their charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent. While their second outfit needed to be a Studio 54 inspired disco look. Trixie was feeling super confident about the challenge, given her ability to sew and killer mind for branding. Aja was planning to do a candy soup, while BeBe was inspired by sneezing.
Despite not knowing how to use a sewing machine, DeLa was confident a hot glue gun could hand her another design challenge win. The true gag of the season however was finding out that BeBe was like Shangie and DeLa and couldn’t sew, enlisting the services of Aja to sew the base of her outfit. Proving their friendship was moving forward, Trixie tried to help Shangela work the sewing machine … until they discovered Shangie’s true weakness was her inability to identify stretchy fabrics.
The next day Aja was feeling confident, finally getting some recognition for being stylish. Given she is a millennial, Kennedy was pissed off and didn’t want to hear it. Thankfully her anger was cut short as Shangela polled the room about how the confident girls would eliminate the bottom queens, I assume to check if there was any hope for her. DeLa came up with an equation to try and make it fair with people’s track records, which brought grumpy Kennedy back out as she railed against DeLa’s opinion. Likely because she has the worst track record of the remaining queens.
Trixie owned the soup portion of the ball, with Ben not far behind. For the disco looks, Aja continued her looking flawless. Shangela, well, fell hard, Trixie was perfection, Kennedy looked full disco queen, BeBe looked gorgeous in Aja’s gown and DeLa looked good, but was overshadowed by her amazing voiceover.
During judging, Aja was read for filth – despite having one of the best looks IMO – for not having a soup that reflected her persona and not researching the era, even though it looked ‘70s to me. Shangie’s soup was praised, though her outfit was rightfully torn to shreds. Trixie was rightfully lavished in praise, and thanked for finally waking up ala Pearl. Kennedy’s soup was a shoot, but her look was a boot. BeBe also received universal praise while denying the fact Aja helped at all and poor DeLa was given lukewarm praise for just giving 100% this week. Ultimately Trixie and BeBe took out the challenge, while DeLa was just safe for the first time along with grumpelstiltskin, leaving poor Aja in the bottom with Shangela.
Backstage Trixie was stripping off while kicking off the one on one’s with Aja, who spoke about the fact she was going for high fashion disco. While Trixie agreed that she was one of the most beautiful, the judges hated it and her soup was mis-branded, adding to her confusion. Meanwhile BeBe was debating whether to reward Shangie’s track-record or Aja’s killer growth between seasons. After a brief interlude of Ben and Kennedy talking about the challenge owning the former, in the latter’s grumpy opinion, we were treated to Trixie and Shangie’s one on one where Trixie was feeling Shangie shouldn’t be expecting her to save her, just because of last week though conceded she has knocked it out of the park, week after week and wasn’t sure she should eliminate her for glue a record to her head. On the flipside, BeBe gave Aja a pep talk which sounded like she should have used the time to back her bags if BeBe wins, pushing Aja to tears.
While Trixie completely dominated the lip sync, it was to Diana Ross meaning BeBe had the upper hand. With her parlaying that hand into victory and sending Aja out of the competition, I assume to keep the secret that she helped BeBe make the outfit. Thankfully … she may not be down for long, as Ru’s Kitty Girls Chad and Alaska brought three eliminated queens back to get their revenge.
Was one of them Aja, though? That you’ll have to wait and see … but you can always enjoy some a’jas while you wait.
I had no idea what the hell a’jas were until Ottolenghi, after which I fell deeply in love with these perfect little bread fritters. Then I tinkered with his recipe and made then even better, if I do say so myself.
Enjoy!
A’ja
Serves: 6-8.
Ingredients
8 bread slices, crusts removed
6 eggs, whisked
1 ½ tsp ground cumin
½ tsp sweet paprika
¼ cup chives, chopped
¼ cup flat-leaf parsley, chopped
2 tbsp tarragon, chopped
100g feta cheese, crumbled
1 tbsp chilli flakes
zest of a lemon
salt and pepper, to taste
olive oil, for frying
Method
Soak the bread in water for a couple of minutes before squeezing as much liquid out as possible. Roughly chop the mush and transfer to a bowl. Add the eggs, spices, herbs, feta, chilli, zest and a good whack of salt and pepper, and stir well to combine.
Heat a lug of oil in a skillet and add about half a cup of mixture into the pan and flatten to form a fritter. Cook for a couple of minutes, flip and cook for a further couple of minutes. Remove from the pan and repeat until the batter is done.
Devour immediately, filled with glee.
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