It'll be Jenn vs. Jenn on TV later this summer as two Philly chefs are among the 17 contestants announced yesterday for the sixth season of the Bravo kitchen series Top Chef.

Jennifer Carroll, 33, the Somerton-bred chef de cuisine at 10 Arts, the Eric Ripert-fronted room in the Ritz-Carlton, and Jennifer Zavala, 31, the well-traveled New Englander who runs the kitchen at Northern Liberties' El Camino Real, are also the first Top Chef "cheftestants" from here. (Another, Mike Isabella, 34, now of Zaytinya in D.C., worked for four years at Stephen Starr's El Vez, Alma de Cuba and the now-closed Washington Square.)

This season, which bows at 9 p.m. Aug. 26, is set in Las Vegas. With confidentiality agreements with Bravo in place, neither Jenn was available to chat yesterday.

Girl power

Broomall-raised author Jeffrey Zaslow got a flood of feedback over a piece he wrote a few years ago for the Wall Street Journal about the power of women's friendships. One correspondent, Jennifer Litchman, a dean at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, told him about the bond enjoyed by her friends from Ames (Iowa) High, Class of 1981.

The Girls From Ames, now a best-seller, chronicles their friendship through health scares, childbirth and divorce. Ten stories are told, intertwined with those of an 11th woman who died at age 22.

And now that the project is over, participant Karen Leininger of Bucks County says, "we're even closer now than before." Zaslow created a bonding moment when he sent them his manuscript. "One of the girls didn't like something he included, but Jeff thought it was good," Leininger says. After getting nowhere with Zaslow, the woman told her friends, who leaned on the author to remove the material.

"It helped him realize our friendship truly is true," says Leininger, who lives with her husband, Kevin, and kids Alex, 16, Michael, 14, and Katie, 11, in Wrightstown.

Zaslow, Leininger and fellow Ames girl Jane Nash will sign books and talk at 7 p.m. today at the Borders in Langhorne.

You don't say

Spring City actor Ted Borodaeff is enjoying his five seconds of fame. He plays a mime in what he calls a short but pivotal scene in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. The bit was shot last year in City Hall's courtyard, which was done up to look like a sidewalk cafe in France for the action flick. As Kevin Dunn and Julie White, playing the parents of star Shia LaBeouf, dine at a table, a pancaked-pussed Borodaeff pops up to perform. White tells Dunn that mimes freak her out. (To say what happens next would be a spoiler.) Because Borodaeff does not speak and was technically a background player, he doesn't get a credit. Borodaeff, 57, a retired CPA, will perform all day Saturday at Phoenixville's Colonial Theater as "Cesare, the Insane Character from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" at the annual BlobFest.

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Contact columnist Michael Klein at 215-854-5514 or mklein@phillynews.com. See his blog at http://go.philly.com/insider. On Twitter: @phillyinsider.