A handful of former "Top Chef" contestants gathered in Midtown last night to hawk the latest in Top Chef-ware, including knives, a Quickfire wine and a Quickfire cookbook. (Personally, we may have lingered too long over the coming "Top Chef" game, which combines a Trivial Pursuit-type format with little knife play pieces.)

   Top Chef Las Vegas' Jennifer Carroll

Amid the cocktail chatter, we cornered a few cheftestants with two pressing questions: Who is your favorite Season 6 chef? What's your reaction to Gourmet magazine's closing?

Season five's Ariane Duarte professed her love for Kevin and Jennifer Carroll, calling Carroll "tough" and "talented." Top Chef Master's Anita Lo gave the nod to Jennifer, saying that Carrroll was a friend of a friend at Le Bernadin. "I'm rooting for Kevin," season five winner Stephanie Izzard confided. "He seems real sweet and genuine. I like his personality."

TV host and Bravo programming senior vice president Andy Cohen diplomatically demurred when asked who his favorite cheftestant is. But our follow-up question, "Jennifer Carroll, awesome or what?" loosened him up. "I think Jennifer Carroll is so fascinating," he says. "Pretty much everyone whose left has some sort of personal demon that they're also fighting against. It's almost like Top Neurotic Chef."

"Everyone seems to be fighting some kind of interpersonal war, from the Voltaggios to Robin to Jen. It's like they can't trust their own instincts . . . and more to come on that story," Cohen added mysteriously.

The mood darkened when discussing the end of "Gourmet" magazine. "The sky is falling. It's been a terrible year for magazines and restaurants," Lo says. "It's a huge loss for us."

"I was really bummed," season five's Dale Martin says. "I have some friends who work for the magazine. We have these waves that keep hitting us in the food industry. It's definitely not over."

"I hate anything with that kind of a backstory coming to a close. That goes beyond me being a sentimentalist, which I am," Cohen says. "There has to be room in this great country for several great food magazines."

With the loss of "Gourmet," people cited "Saveur" and "Food & Wine" as the remaining top foodie publications. ("Top Chef" is aligned with Food & Wine magazine.)

"People are not buying magazines like they used to, " Izzard says, adding that her mother has every "Gourmet" issue since the 1970s" "I'd much rather flip through a magazine than click on something."

NBC Universal reps also disputed all the accusations that surfaced yesterday in a Reddit account that purports to be from a former "Top Chef" staffer, pointing out that Jamie Oliver has never appeared on the cooking show.