This post brought to you by T-Mobile

Oh, “Top Chef.” Just when we’re wondering if this is the season you’ll jump the shark, you bring us back down to earth with a heart-warming Christmas story. (Of course, from the sound of his stew room lecture, it sounds like Tom’s starting to think this might be the season “Top Chef” jumps the shark too.) But really, the producers couldn’t have asked for a better story line: Someone leaves the fridge open. Food stands out at room temp overnight. Radhika and Hosea lose their proteins. Everyone pitches in to help them recover. They both end up in the top four. Hosea wins. Hometown gal Radhika sails through to the next round. Yay, Christmas spirit!

Elsewhere in matters of story development, we learn through a phone call to his sister that Hosea’s father was diagnosed with cancer right before taping began. It would have been a fairly dramatic snippet, had we not been so distracted by the blatant T-Mobile product placement. Really “Top Chef”? Really? We know you have bills to pay like the rest of us, but exploiting Hosea’s one phone call home for a little sponsorship coin just didn’t feel right.

The T-Mobile incident inspired us to start keeping track of product placement. Once we started to add it all up, it was even more pervasive than we thought.

Hosea’s family drama: Brought to you by the T-Mobile Sidekick

Martha Stewart: Brought to you by Martha Stewart’s “Martha Stewart’s Cooking School”

One pot cooking: Brought to you by Swanson

Shopping at Whole Foods: Brought to you by Whole Foods

Jeff rifling through the spices: Also brought to you by Whole Foods

Packed refrigerators: Brought to you by GladWare

Breakfast conversation: Possibly brought to you by Hansen’s soda … we’re not sure

Fake Christmas champagne toast: Brought to you by Korbel

Michelle Bernstein: Brought to you by Michelle Bernstein’s new book “Cuisine a Latina”

Stew room: Brought to you by Glad ForceFlex and Dr. Pepper

And that’s not counting what we missed. There’s got to be some freaky subliminal stuff we overlooked …

Next week: Christmas all over again! And that means double the hilarity of watching chefs try to act like it’s really Christmas when everyone knows the episode taped months ago. We’ll be taking the week off, so Merry Christmas to all, and may all your Christmas wishes (ahem, "Top Chef" cookbook, Calphalon cookware, subscription to Martha Stewart’s Everyday Food) come true.

For more on this week's episode, don't forget to check out The Stew.