Last week, Top Chef returned to the Bravo network for a second season, complete with a new host and a fresh-faced group of hungry culinary hopefuls. And one of this season’s contestants on the excellent cooking competition — which pits aspiring cooks against one another in immunity and elimination battles to win $100,000 in prize money, a feature in Food & Wine magazine, an appearance at the Aspen Food & Wine Classic, Kenmore PRO appliances,…

Can a bar created to cater to young professionals itself be gentrified? That’s the question on the minds of some Columbia Heights residents who have watched Wonderland Ballroom race rapidly from a non pretentious neighborhood hangout to an aggressively hip lounge, complete with the corresponding aggressive pricing and Orange Line clientele. After opening in 2004 in a residential neighborhood in Columbia Heights at the old site of the gay bar Nob Hill, Wonderland developed a…