And then there were … 21. Seasons of “Top Chef,” that is.

A new season of Bravo’s “Top Chef” kicks off at 9 p.m. March 20 in a flurry of novelty that includes a new location, new rules, a new host and racing sausages. (Yes, really.)

Fan fave and season 10 winner Kristen Kish takes on host duties this season, joining judges Tom Colicchio and Gail Simmons in Milwaukee and Madison, Wisconsin. This season of “Quickfires” and elimination challenges take the cheftestants to cherry country, cranberry bogs and a Milwaukee Brewers game, where a race among sausage mascots is apparently a thing.

Kristen Kish is the new host of Bravo-TV’s popular “Top Chef” series, which launches its 21st season on March 20, 2024. (Courtesy Natalie Engel/Bravo TV)

This season’s 15 contestants include James Beard nominees and rising stars from across the country, including  three with Bay Area ties. Among them: Rasika Venkatesa, whose resume includes stints at Yountville’s triple Michelin-starred French Laundry and San Francisco’s Michelin-starred Mourad, where she was chef de cuisine.

TOP CHEF — Season:21 — Pictured: Laura Ozyilmaz — (Photo by: Stephanie Diani/Bravo)

David Murphy worked at San Francisco’s Madera and at Whitechapel before opening his Shuggie’s Trash Pie + Natural Wine, which was named one of the best new restaurants in America in 2022 by Esquire.

And Mexican-born chef Laura Ozyilmaz hails from New York City’s Eleven Madison Park and San Francisco’s Saison. Ozyilmaz was a co-founder and co-executive chef at that city’s buzzy Noosh, until a major falling out with another co-owner in 2019. She and her husband, Sayat, returned to San Francisco’s dining scene last year with Dalida, an elevated Middle Eastern restaurant in the Presidio that was named one of the best new restaurants in America by Esquire last fall.

They’re the latest in a long line of Bay Area chefs competing on one of the small screen’s most popular culinary competitions. And this season brings a few surprises.

Quickfires will carry cash prizes, and elimination challenges will confer immunity.

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That trip to a Brewers game will see cheftestants vying to elevate a quintet of sausage options — brats, chorizo, Polish, Italian and classic hot dogs, the same varieties that inspired the team’s adorable racing mascots. A supper club challenge includes a Quickfire trip to a farmers market with guest judge and Oakland native W. Kamau Bell. And the season finale sends the team off to the Caribbean aboard Holland America’s MS Eurodam cruise ship.

“Top Chef” airs on Wednesdays from 9 to 10:15 p.m. on Bravo; streaming episodes air the next day on Peacock.

The Big Ten men’s basketball tournaments has set up shop in the Gophers’ backyard, and the U will need to improve its defense if it wants to make it an entertaining multi-game run for the home team.

Minnesota’s defense has been a primary culprit in losing six of its final nine conference games, including a deflating four of the last five. The U’s adjusted offensive efficiency is respectable at 56th in the nation, but its defensive efficiency lags at 118th, according to KenPom on Wednesday.

“We got worn down,” head coach Ben Johnson said Tuesday of the Gophers’ most recent game. “I thought that played a part, whether that was mental lapse, mental fog, physically worn down in stretches.”

The Gophers allowed Northwestern to shoot a ridiculous 56 percent from 3-point range in the 90-66 blowout loss on Saturday. In three defeats, Illinois hung 105 points on the U on Feb. 28, while Iowa also reached 90 on Feb. 11and Purdue scored 84 on Feb. 15.

The last time the Gophers held an opponent under 70 points was the 59-56 win over Michigan State at Williams Arena on Feb. 6. The ninth-seeded Gophers (18-13, 9-11 Big Ten) will play the eighth-seeded Spartans (18-13, 10-10) at 11 a.m. Thursday in the second round of the Big Ten tournament at Target Center.

Michigan State beat Minnesota 76-66 in East Lansing, Mich., on Jan. 18, so Thursday’s game serves as a rubber match. The winner will play top-seed Purdue (28-3, 17-3) at 11 a.m. Friday.

Spartans guard Tyson Walker took over late in the January matchup against the Gophers and finished with 21 points. He had 20 points at The Barn last month.

Johnson looked at defensive letdowns in the last two losses — to Indiana and Northwestern — that snowballed into bigger deficits.

“The one or two lapses all of sudden now turns into — it was a manageable game — and they go on a run, especially if they can shoot it from three,” Johnson said.

Minnesota gives up 36 percent shooting from 3-point range this season, which ranks 316th in the nation.

“I thought we needed to get mentally back right and back fresh, physically back fresh,” Johnson said about a reset before the conference tournament. “Because those segments where, again, your defense gives up a play or two and then you try to get it back with your offense. There is that push-pull. It just doesn’t work.”

The Gophers have only one injury concern going into the Spartans game, Johnson said. Forward Josh Ola-Joseph (concussion protocol) missed the end of the Indiana game and Northwestern game but has been improving.

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Kirk Cousins is preparing to officially sign a 4-year, $180 million contract with the Atlanta Falcons. He confirmed as much Wednesday by posting a video on social media during which he expressed his gratitude to the Vikings and everyone who has been in his corner since he signed with Minnesota on March 15, 2018.

The video is a little more than a minute long and features Cousins giving a heartfelt goodbye to the place he has long called home. He described it as a “bittersweet” moment for him, his wife Julie and their sons Cooper and Turner. As excited as he is for the next chapter, Cousins was extremely reflective on how impactful his time with the Vikings was in his career.

Thank you Minnesota.

Love,
Turner, Cooper, Julie and Kirk pic.twitter.com/DuRrIvDYSl

— Kirk Cousins (@KirkCousins8) March 13, 2024

He started by thanking his teammates, the coaching staff, the support staff, upper management, and ownership for the way they supported him throughout his tenure.

“A quarterback doesn’t really have a chance without great people around him, and for six seasons in Minnesota, I had great people around me,” Cousins said. “I don’t take that for granted. It was a privilege to quarterback the Minnesota Vikings.”

He ended by thanking Minnesotans across the state. They made the Twin Cities feel like home.

“You meant so much,” Cousins said. “As a result of that impact, Minnesota will always hold a special place in the hearts of me and my family.”

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Jason Gale | (TNS) Bloomberg News

Stay-at-home orders, border closures, mask-wearing and other measures aimed at stemming COVID-19’s spread led to the global disappearance of a notorious winter germ. Now, scientists say it might be feasible with better vaccines to rid the world of a second one.

For decades, flu epidemics were driven by four strains. One of them, the so-called Yamagata-lineage of type B influenza, was struggling to compete before the pandemic and hasn’t been seen since March 2020, said Ian Barr, deputy director of the World Health Organization’s Collaborating Center for Reference and Research on Influenza in Melbourne.

COVID restrictions gave it “the killer blow which knocked it out,” Barr said in an interview.

The strain’s disappearance eliminated a viral source of death and disease, especially among children, and a component of annual flu vaccines.

It also showed that it might be possible going forward to eliminate its type-B cousin, a strain known as “Victoria.”

Unlike type A influenza, which has a broad host range and risks causing pandemics, B strains lack an animal reservoir and might be more readily snuffed out with better vaccines that not only protect against getting sick, but also prevent transmission, scientists wrote in a paper last week in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases.

On average, the strains together account for 23% of annual influenza cases globally — including 1.4 million hospitalizations — and about $1.3 billion in health-care costs in the U.S. alone each year.

“The theoretically plausible eradication of influenza B virus could remove this considerable clinical and economic burden,” Florian Krammer, a professor of vaccinology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, and colleagues wrote in the paper.

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