Top Chef Finale Guessing Game — Win Top Chef Prizes!

What a long, crazy season it’s been. Top Chef 5 finally comes to a conclusion Wednesday night when Carla, Stefan and Hosea will compete for the title in New Orleans. Of course there will be surprise twists (shocker!), while both Gail Simmons and Toby Young will be back to judge.

To celebrate, ES is giving you a chance to guess the outcome of the finale — and one lucky winner will receive a copy of Top Chef: The Cookbook (signed by a mystery chef’testant) and a 2009 Top Chef calendar!

Here’s the contest: Leave in the comments your guesses for what ingredients the champion Top Chef will use in the final episode. You get five guesses, and whoever picks the most correct items wins. Tiebreaker goes to the person who correctly predicts the winner. For example, here are my guesses:

1. Bacon
2. Scallops
3. Sriracha
4. Cranberries
5. Andouille Sausage
Winner: Carla

Rules: All guesses must be left in the comments of this post by 9:59pm this Wednesday evening, and you only get the point if the winner tomorrow uses your ingredient at any moment in the episode. Don’t be a smartass — you can’t guess “salt,” or “olive oil” or anything dumb like that, nor can you be overly broad and guess “fruit” or “pork.” All disputes will be settled by Padma Lakshmi and/or yours truly.

Remember, the winner will get a Top Chef cookbook and official calendar so think hard! Leave your guesses below, then join us Wednesday night as we live blog the Top Chef finale and crown our own winner.

Don’t remember what they use all the time on Top Chef? Check out our exit interviews from this season:

– Fabio: I’ll be back

– Leah: I’m not a whore

– Jamie: I could give a shit about Top Chef

– Jeff: Fabio cuts his own hair

– Radhika: Hosea’s my favorite

– Ariane: Leah fucked me over

– Melissa and Gene: It’s all rigged anyway

– Danny: Can’t believe I didn’t make it to the football challenge

– Alex: Get rid of Rocco

– Richard: I can’t stop crying

– Jill: I really thought the ostrich egg was gonna be awesome