Rochester native Laurine Wickett will be one of the 17 chefs competing on the new season of Bravo's award-winning cooking competition "Top Chef." The sixth edition, this time set in Las Vegas, will debut on Wednesday, August 26, at 9 p.m.

Although her bio on the Bravo site names Rochester as her hometown, Wickett has resided on the West Coast for years, getting her start in catering for Silicon Valley bigwigs. She currently owns Left Coast Catering, and trained at A.O.S. Culinary Arts and the Culinary Institute of America.

Click here to check out Wickett's photo and bio, as well as to get info on the other 16 cheftestants for the Las Vegas season. Expect much to be made of the douchey-looking brothers competing for the title. The good news is that Padma, Tom, and Gail are back. The bad news is that Toby Young is now permanently at the Judges Table. Boo. He was a useless addition to the panel while Gail was on wedding leave last year, and I was hoping we'd never have to listen to his painfully out-of-touch "barbs" again. He is the definition of trying too hard.

Between last season's Foo Fighters/Thanksgiving challenge that was prepared outside Blue Cross Arena and this year's Flower City-bred contestant, "Top Chef" has been giving Rochester a lot of love. Once the new season starts, make sure to check in with this blog every Thursday for your humble blogger's recaps of each episode, and tell us what you think about what's going on with TV's best food competition.