Top Chef - Season 5, Episode 6
Happy Holidays from the cast and crew of Top Chef, all of whom do their best to whip up the Christmas spirit in August. Hanukkah doesn't rate a mention, which Hosea Rosenberg and Leah Cohen don't seem to mind.
The Quickfire is to create a quick holiday meal in one pot. Everyone manages the one-pot rule, though the holiday theme is quickly forgotten by everyone, including Padma and guest judge Martha Stewart. Jeff, Eugene, and Fabio fall to the bottom, but keep their gripes to interview, lest they draw the wrath of the convicted felon. Hosea, Jamie, and Ariane take the top three. Ariane wins yet another challenge, much to Jamie's consternation. She's sick of being second-best, though if she knew what the rest of the episode held, I think she'd be happy to remain there.
The Elimination Challenge involves making hors d'oeuvres for a large charity ball, hosted by guest judge Natasha Richardson. I guess Martha had to check in with her parole officer. The chefs pull knives to see which verse of The Twelve Days of Christmas must inspire their dish. Shopping and cooking ensues, but when the chefs come in the next day to do their final preparations, they discover that an overstuffed fridge has swung open, ruining Hosea and Radhika's food. There are a tense few minutes before a magical cornucopia of replacement food appears and a magical time extension gives Hosea and Radhika a chance to whip up something new. All the other chefs pitch in to help them get things done, which was nice to see.
The judges aren't especially impressed with anyone's food, though they manage to choose Hosea, Radhika, Stefan, and Jeff as the top contenders. Hosea wins the challenge, but he and Radhika make sure to spread the credit around. Also nice to see. Some of these people certainly have the potential to be assy, but look at this crew, and then think back to Season 2. Yeah. Jamie, Melissa, and Eugene fall to the bottom three. After the judges deliberate for a while, Ptom comes back to the Kitchen, rips everyone for making lackluster food, then announces that as a Christmas gift for all the goodwill the chefs have shown, nobody's getting eliminated. That, or eliminating someone after a challenge goes awry would be a breach of contract and would open them up to a lawsuit. Happy Holidays!
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Italian. Wedding. Soup.
Top Chef - Season 5, Episode 5
Ah, what could be better than being joined with your soulmate in wedded bliss? How about having a bridal shower and having your bosses pick up the tab? That shrewd Gail Simmons parlays her judge status into a free party by agreeing to have the chefs cater her bridal shower.
First, in the Quickfire, the chefs compete tournament style to see who can identify the most sauce ingredients. It's a very cool challenge, and Hosea emerges victorious.
Then, the chefs are split into four teams for the bridal shower challenge, and are tasked with finding inspiration in Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, or Something Blue. That old chestnut is tonight's theme. Well, actually, the theme is how assy Stefan is, as Jamie, Hosea, Jeff, Leah, Stefan's twice-ex-wife, or the editors would be happy to tell you. But the poem is the secondary theme, and it throws more than one contestant for a loop.
Teams Old (Jeff/Stefan/Hosea) and Borrowed (Jamie/Ariane/Radhika) ultimately land in the top two, with Ariane scoring a surprise and seemingly undeserved win, much to Jamie's chagrin. Teams New (Eugene/Daniel/Carla) and Blue (Melissa/Leah/Fabio) sink to the bottom. The former's dish is just a complete mess from top to bottom. Eugene makes conceptual mistakes and gunks up his rice, Daniel screws up Carla's portion of the dish, and Carla refuses to attack her teammates. Ptom considers all three of these things unforgivable, though I'll bet you can spot the one that doesn't belong. In the end, Daniel takes a walk for just not getting it, and tortures us with a never-ending sports metaphor on his way out.
Ah, what could be better than being joined with your soulmate in wedded bliss? How about having a bridal shower and having your bosses pick up the tab? That shrewd Gail Simmons parlays her judge status into a free party by agreeing to have the chefs cater her bridal shower.
First, in the Quickfire, the chefs compete tournament style to see who can identify the most sauce ingredients. It's a very cool challenge, and Hosea emerges victorious.
Then, the chefs are split into four teams for the bridal shower challenge, and are tasked with finding inspiration in Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, or Something Blue. That old chestnut is tonight's theme. Well, actually, the theme is how assy Stefan is, as Jamie, Hosea, Jeff, Leah, Stefan's twice-ex-wife, or the editors would be happy to tell you. But the poem is the secondary theme, and it throws more than one contestant for a loop.
Teams Old (Jeff/Stefan/Hosea) and Borrowed (Jamie/Ariane/Radhika) ultimately land in the top two, with Ariane scoring a surprise and seemingly undeserved win, much to Jamie's chagrin. Teams New (Eugene/Daniel/Carla) and Blue (Melissa/Leah/Fabio) sink to the bottom. The former's dish is just a complete mess from top to bottom. Eugene makes conceptual mistakes and gunks up his rice, Daniel screws up Carla's portion of the dish, and Carla refuses to attack her teammates. Ptom considers all three of these things unforgivable, though I'll bet you can spot the one that doesn't belong. In the end, Daniel takes a walk for just not getting it, and tortures us with a never-ending sports metaphor on his way out.
Sunday, December 07, 2008
TV Dinner
Top Chef - Season 5, Episode 4
Previously on Top Chef: Team Rainbow came out, came together, and were blown apart in the span of about five seconds. The chefs made Thanksgiving dinner for the Foo Fighters. Ariane redeemed herself with a wonderful turkey, while Richard's goopy banana s'mores got him sent on his teary way. Thirteen chefs remain. Who will be eliminated tonight?
Opening credits. Drinking Game Rule #4: Take a drink every time Radhika makes an Indian-style dish.
Monday Morning Quarterback Session. Ariane feels better about herself. Richard has left an emotional letter behind for his roommate Alex, who feels sad and alone now. Alex is getting married in a month, but promises to concentrate on cooking. Ah, the focus is shifting to a cast member who's been roundly ignored up to this episode. Guess what that means, kids? Jamie is bummed to lose her queer peers, but shrugs it off.
Quickfire Challenge. The chefs are met in the Kitchen by Padma and Rocco DiSpirito, who Fabio gently derides for being a phony Italian chef. Hehehe. The table is laden with breakfast items, which fills Jamie with dread, as she is not a breakfast person. Doesn't cook it, doesn't eat it. I rarely have time to eat breakfast, but if I did, and if someone else woke up early to cook it, I'd want it every morning. Today's Quickfire is to create a breakfast amuse-bouche. The chefs have half an hour, and Rocco mentions that bacon is always welcome. Well, sure. Ready? Go!
Stefan has a neat tool which cuts a perfect circle off the top of an eggshell. Jeff wants to throw all of his good breakfast ideas into this challenge, even though everyone is theoretically aiming for a single-bite dish. Daniel combines corn flakes and zucchini flowers. Weird. Ariane works on a stuffed French toast that is popular with her kids, while Fabio disdains American breakfasts altogether, opting instead for brioche and cappuccino. Leah wants to make sure her bacon, egg, and cheese flavors all make it onto the fork. Melissa ruins an egg. Time runs out, catching Carla by surprise. Whoops! Rocco and Padma go down the line.
To save time, let's just hit the highlights and lowlights. Stefan's huevos rancheros are overshadowed by the nifty way he's served them in the egg shells. I'd be concerned with the raw egg still clinging to the inside. Daniel has crusted his zucchini flowers with corn flakes, and stuffed them with a hash of potato, bacon, mushroom, and egg. It's still weird, but I'd be curious to try it. Ariane's French toast gets a favorable response, and she's visibly relieved that her success with the turkey wasn't a one-off. Jamie has put together bacon, lettuce, and tomato grilled bread, and topped it off with balsamic syrup.
Leah's a bit peeved that other chefs are getting away with two-bite or bigger dishes, when an amuse-bouche is supposed to just be one. She hopes that adhering to the challenge parameters will help her out. I almost have to rewind to make sure that a chef on this show realizes that ignoring challenge parameters can bite you in the ass. Uncanny! Her bite is bacon, quail egg, fried sage, and cheese on grilled bread. Yum. Fabio's brioche is topped with bruleed banana, and there's a big, honking glass of espresso cream on the side. He says that breakfast shouldn't be too heavy, and Padma points out that his espresso is so rich as to almost be pudding. Jeff has, like, three things lined up in a row, which would've been nice if the challenge had been to create an amuse-amuse-amuse bouche.
Results. The bottom two are Daniel, whose corn flakes overwhelmed the entire bite, and Fabio, whom Rocco wants to punish for having the nerve to be authentically Italian. Fabio grouses in interview that he should have listened to Rocco's hint about bacon, and next time, he'll just plop some bacon and "bullshit eggs" on toast, and he'll probably win. Heh. Fabio's really growing on me. Stefan had a great container. That's seriously why he's in the top three. Leah had a great arrangement of flavors. Jamie's dislike of breakfast doesn't hold her back, and she rounds out the top three. Rocco has a hard time choosing between her and Leah, but ultimately picks Leah, who scoops up her second consecutive Quickfire win. Along with immunity, she also wins a copy of Rocco's new book, which she accepts with a tight-lipped smile. I get the feeling that's getting tossed in a cardboard box in the basement when she gets home. She gives the Standard Speech. Meanwhile, Jamie is pissed, either at herself for coming close to a Quickfire win without getting it for the second time (which is fine), or at Leah for having the audacity to take two in a row (which is shitty). I'll give her the benefit of the doubt.
Elimination Challenge. Padma tells the chefs that it's super-duper important to have a high public profile as a chef. More people knowing about you means that more people will "seek out your restaurants, buy your books, and try your food". I love how "buy your books" comes before "try your food". This, combined with Rocco giving his book away as a challenge prize, makes this episode sort of sadly hilarious. I don't know whether to laugh or cry over the attitude that being a successful chef is about everything except making good food. As long as you're sufficiently pretty, or assy, or fight with your mother on television, or write books about how kitchens are akin to the TRENCHES OF WAR, or are the Southern equivalent of a black minstrel show, you'll be fine. Don't know rigatoni from radicchio? No problem, as long as you've got a nice rack that jiggles fetchingly as you whisk egg whites!
Anyhow, the Elimination Challenge is to create a dish that can be shown as a two-and-a-half-minute demonstration for a live television presentation. Despite my grouse just now, I think that's a really good idea. For a reality show challenge, that is. Not as a benchmark to determine who's a more talented chef. Adding to the hilarity that is this episode, several chefs immediately become jittery and nervous, because they don't want anything to do with live television. These people... People who cheerfully and willingly signed up to be followed by cameras 24/7 for weeks, taped as they brush their teeth, edited into a story arc that may not be particularly complimentary, have their every move and word eviscerated by sarcastic bloggers (ahem), and so forth... Are quaking in their boots at the thought of explaining food for 150 seconds. Awesome. Rocco explains that the recipe should be simple enough to follow at home. Not only is that more incentive for people to make something, but a more complicated recipe is all too easy to screw up as you demonstrate it. Presentation will figure into the judging, as well as the food. Fabio is not thrilled about having to cook and present something while chattering in perfect English.
The chefs go shopping for half an hour with a budget of $100. Fabio, Eugene, and Hosea all harass the fish guy about chopping and slicing their own fish, and he lets them have at it. Alex says he's the only guy who has enough guts to attempt dessert with a rose-infused creme brulee. Maybe the other chefs aren't spineless; they're just staying away from Alex's ideas this week because they've heard what's coming, too.
Back at the Kitchen, the chefs get an hour of cooking prep [I just mistyped that as coking prep, which would have been something to see]. Jeff works on something that sounds complicated, but will work out to be simpler than it appears. That's a good idea. I always like to feel like I've accomplished something when I try a new recipe. Fabio tells us that there is no way Alex can mix, cook, rest, and cool a creme brulee in one hour. Jamie is confident, as she's made her frisee salad with duck egg on live television before. She says her main concern is making sure the egg is cooked within the two-and-a-half minute time limit.
Leah is happy to have immunity for what she considers a very tough challenge. She works on seared duck breast with corn and blueberries, which she allows is an odd combination, but swears it works. I'll buy it; I once ordered calf liver in onion/blueberry sauce on a whim, and it turned out to be quite good. Radhika wants to "bring out [her] personality" with a spicy/sweet shrimp. I'm not sure if this particular preparation is Indian or not. Let's pretend it is. DRINK! Carla says her psyche will be destroyed if she winds up on the bottom. Ariane works on a beefsteak tomato salad with watermelon, feta, and other odd ingredients. Daniel says he's quite comfortable cooking in front of the camera, which somehow leads into an ambition to be in a movie. Time winds down, and the judges enter.
A small demonstration table is set up with a television camera pointed at it. Ptom, Gail, Padma, and Rocco all crowd around the person cooking and ask questions, which I would find a lot more disconcerting than just chatting to myself in front of a camera. Ariane's up first, and cruises through with no problem. Jamie, who has live television experience and has been kicking ass in challenges lately, is just a wee bit overconfident going in. Her ass is soon bitten when the egg doesn't have time to cook all the way. She doesn't know which is worse: Running out of time or plating undercooked food. She decides to plate the egg, but knows she's screwed up. She crosses her arms defensively and gets a sour look on her face. Alex says he's not much of a public speaker, and runs out of time before he's through explaining his creme brulee. Of course, he may have finished on time if Padma hadn't been pestering him with questions, but that's neither here nor there.
Jeff makes a malfouf (stuffed cabbage) roll with shrimp and muhammara (hot pepper) sauce. He does a good job, and his food appears to impress the judges. Fabio makes a good point, though, in that for the casual viewer at home (AKA his mother), "malfouf" and "muhammara" mean nothing, and all she wants to hear about is things like tuna, carrots, and asparagus. Hehehe. Fabio puts his charm to good use, and keeps the chefs entertained as he prepares his tuna salad. Daniel's skirt steak puts out a lot of smoke, but Padma says it's delicious. Stefan has the intelligence to make a completed pot of minestrone to swap in at the end of his demo, but he also has the personality of a mackerel.
Hosea sings the praises of wasabi peas. Eugene can't satisfactorily explain the difference between sashimi and sushi, which sends me off on an internet hunt (sushi is slices of raw fish, vegetables, or egg mixed with special rice; sashimi is simply the raw fish by itself). Melissa makes blackened habanero shrimp that are so spicy, Ptom has to go spit it out. Carla runs out of time. Radhika runs out of time. Leah runs out of time. She shrugs that she doesn't ever think she wants to do live television, and Padma and Ptom smarm simultaneously that she may have to. That's right, if you're a chef, there will be no hiding in the kitchen for you. You think all you have to do is prepare food that people will then purchase and eat? No. If you do not seek out television exposure voluntarily, you will be MARCHED ONTO A SET AT GUNPOINT.
Deliberations, Part I. Jamie's duck egg was raw. Leah had no confidence, but has immunity. Attempting to make creme brulee in an hour was unwise of Alex. Carla had a nervous energy that put Rocco off, and didn't make it through the demo, but her tortilla soup was good. Daniel had a lot of personality, almost to the point of mugging. His food was good, but the preparation was frenetic and messy. Stefan had a smart idea, but is as much fun to be around as mustard gas. Melissa's shrimp was beyond spicy. Jeff had a lot to work with but made it through with confidence and aplomb. Fabio is a dream guest for a talk show. Ariane hit it out of the park. Padma comes back to the fret 'n' sweat room and announces the bottom three, which are Melissa, Alex, and Jamie. The top three are Jeff, Fabio, and Ariane. Judges' Table will be the next day, and everyone is dismissed.
The chefs go home. Jamie cries herself to sleep. Alex crabs that he could have pussied out and made a salad, but wanted to do something more impressive. Ariane takes this as a shot at her, and points out that two-and-a-half minutes is not a lot of time, so she's not about to go out there and start sauteeing duck. Good for her, I say. Making a salad is pussying out when there are tons of other options. When you've got less than a commercial break to prepare something? Go for it. Leah tells Alex that he seems like he doesn't really care if he gets eliminated, because he's looking forward to his impending wedding. He admits that the competition is not the be-all, end-all of his world. Later, out on the patio, Leah tells Melissa that she's got to stand up for herself at Judges' Table, because nobody else is going to do it for her. Melissa tells us that hell yeah, she'll fight for her spot, now that somebody has told her to.
At 2AM, Ptom comes in and rouses Jeff, Ariane, and Fabio. Once they're all sufficiently alert, he tells them that the hosts of the Today show will be trying their dishes on-air and selecting a winner. That perks Fabio and Ariane right up. Jeff, on the other hand, is not super-happy to be serving a spicy, Middle Eastern dish to a bunch of ladies with unsophisticated palates at 6:30 AM. OK, I'll buy the not-wanting-Middle-Eastern-food-at-6:30AM argument, but "unsophisticated palates"? I'll give him Kathie Lee Gifford, because come on. But I have to think that Meredith Viera has eaten at some high-end places, you know? The chefs re-prepare their dishes. Meanwhile, the other chefs are assembled in front of a television at their apartment. The top three wait in the green room as their food goes out to the hostesses. Jeff is bemused by how many people are milling around outside a television studio in Manhattan on a weekday. Now who's unsophisticated? I kind of feel him, though. I went out for brunch in New York on a Friday afternoon, and was like "What's with all the kids? Go to school!"
Ptom explains to the hostesses how they'll be picking the challenge winner. They begin by sampling Ariane's beefsteak tomato salad. Meredith skips the watermelon, but all four make yummy noises. Fabio's food is eaten without much reaction one way or the other. Jeff's is met by confused faces before Kathie Lee makes a big production out of spitting it out. Why is she still on television, by the way? Who still likes her? The chefs back at the apartment make "Oh No She Di'int!" faces. Fabio says it's bad news when someone spits your food out, but again, it's Kathie Lee Gifford. I doubt many of us are anxious to emulate her or her tastes. The hostesses huddle up to choose a winner, and pick Ariane. She jumps up and down in jubilation backstage. Jeff and Fabio give her high-fives. Carla cheers for her back at the apartment. I'm still loving Carla these days. LabRat pointed out that she's that rare person on television who actually appears genuine, and isn't putting on some giant front for the cameras. Meredith comes back to congratulate Ariane (and the other two as well), and Ariane interviews that after this challenge and the Thanksgiving one, she's been pulled out of her Whirlpool of Despair. Good, because watching that was no fun.
Judges' Table. The top three come out to be congratulated one final time. Rocco gets to present Ariane with a special gift as challenge winner, and says that "nothing makes [him] happier than tools". He gives her a kit with about twenty-four kitchen implements in it.
LabRat: "I don't think those are the kind of 'tool' Rocco likes."
Ariane is also told that as winner, she'll be presenting a dish live on the Today show the morning after this episode of Top Chef airs. I'm not a morning person, so with all due respect to Ariane, I skipped it, deeming some extra Z's before having to get up for work far more appealing. She's very happy and excited.
Odd Asian music. Gong. Melissa, Jamie, and Alex come out to face the judges. Melissa likes spicy food, but understands that it may have been too hot for the judges. They don't even believe her statement that she tasted it, as the sheer heat rendered the judges nearly comatose. Gail says that Melissa shouldn't have used habanero, as it's a pepper too hot to be played around with by people at home. I bit into a habanero-stuffed olive once by accident, and oh my God. I like spicy food, but I was ready to dunk my head in a bucket of ice water. Jamie admits she got frazzled by the time limit. Ptom tells her that flipping the egg would have helped cook it faster. Jamie nods and says she's learned from her mistakes. Rocco points out how grim and angry she looked when she didn't do well, and she explains that she was angry at herself, not the judges.
Alex wanted to stand out by doing something different and to push himself. He says that's the whole point of the competition, and Ptom smarms (he's certainly full of that tonight, isn't he?) that the whole point of the competition is to win. Sure, Ptom, because you've never torn into someone for playing things too safe. I must be imagining those twenty episodes. Still, Alex should have known better than to prepare a dish that couldn't be made within the hour time limit, and he says that he didn't know what he was thinking, and set himself up for failure. He kicks himself for trying something so risky when the challenge called for something simple. It seems to me like he's hinting to the judges that he'd be okay with elimination, but I don't know that for sure.
Padma asks if anyone's got anything else to add, and Melissa remembers that she was supposed to stick up for herself, and intimate to the judges that she has more ambition than Alex. Unfortunately, Melissa's too meek to do something that venomous, so she just tells the judges that she really wants to be there. Then she repeats it about four times. The judges even give her an opening, asking if she thinks that means someone else doesn't want to remain in the competition, but she doesn't take the opportunity. Not that I think she should; that'd be supremely douchey. It's just that "I really want to be here. Really. A lot. Really." is not what I'd call standing up for yourself. Alex admits again that he messed the challenge up, and when asked why he should stay, says that he's a lot better than what he's shown so far. The chefs are dismissed.
Deliberations, Part II. All three of the losing chefs delivered inedible dishes. Jamie's egg was close to being good, but the execution was way off. Plus, her presentation sucked. Melissa was defensive of the amount of spice she put in, but Rocco says that it wasn't acceptable by any standard. Meanwhile, Melissa is talking to Fabio and Hosea, pretending she delivered some sort of Clarence Darrow defense of herself and some stunning indictment of Alex. Um, not. She was so mousy, even Alex isn't sure if she was trying to "throw him under the bus" or not. DRINK! Jamie points out that even if she is, it's too late for her now. He still thinks it's a fucked up thing to do, using the bus metaphor again. DRINK! The judges are saying that there's no way Alex could have made the dish work, given the time limit. They reach a decision.
Hey, remember that exceedingly weird two-second segment where Leah and Hosea flirted, and then it inexplicably went back to commercial? Welcome to the sequel. At least in this one, Carla makes an encouraging naughty face, like, "Get it, girl!" Heh.
Elimination. Melissa's food was just far too hot. Alex couldn't complete the task as given. Jamie presented a raw egg and a poor performance. Ptom throws it over to Padma for the chop. Alex, please pack your knives and go. The foghorn never lies! Naturally, Carla is the first to give him a good-bye hug. I'm telling you, she's awesome. There's no way in hell she'll win the season, as Ptom has no use for nice people, but I'll enjoy her while I can. Alex regrets taking such a big risk, but looks forward to heading home to be with his fiancee. So, he's fairly happy to go, and the other chefs are fairly happy to stay. Everyone wins!
Overall Grade: B+
Previously on Top Chef: Team Rainbow came out, came together, and were blown apart in the span of about five seconds. The chefs made Thanksgiving dinner for the Foo Fighters. Ariane redeemed herself with a wonderful turkey, while Richard's goopy banana s'mores got him sent on his teary way. Thirteen chefs remain. Who will be eliminated tonight?
Opening credits. Drinking Game Rule #4: Take a drink every time Radhika makes an Indian-style dish.
Monday Morning Quarterback Session. Ariane feels better about herself. Richard has left an emotional letter behind for his roommate Alex, who feels sad and alone now. Alex is getting married in a month, but promises to concentrate on cooking. Ah, the focus is shifting to a cast member who's been roundly ignored up to this episode. Guess what that means, kids? Jamie is bummed to lose her queer peers, but shrugs it off.
Quickfire Challenge. The chefs are met in the Kitchen by Padma and Rocco DiSpirito, who Fabio gently derides for being a phony Italian chef. Hehehe. The table is laden with breakfast items, which fills Jamie with dread, as she is not a breakfast person. Doesn't cook it, doesn't eat it. I rarely have time to eat breakfast, but if I did, and if someone else woke up early to cook it, I'd want it every morning. Today's Quickfire is to create a breakfast amuse-bouche. The chefs have half an hour, and Rocco mentions that bacon is always welcome. Well, sure. Ready? Go!
Stefan has a neat tool which cuts a perfect circle off the top of an eggshell. Jeff wants to throw all of his good breakfast ideas into this challenge, even though everyone is theoretically aiming for a single-bite dish. Daniel combines corn flakes and zucchini flowers. Weird. Ariane works on a stuffed French toast that is popular with her kids, while Fabio disdains American breakfasts altogether, opting instead for brioche and cappuccino. Leah wants to make sure her bacon, egg, and cheese flavors all make it onto the fork. Melissa ruins an egg. Time runs out, catching Carla by surprise. Whoops! Rocco and Padma go down the line.
To save time, let's just hit the highlights and lowlights. Stefan's huevos rancheros are overshadowed by the nifty way he's served them in the egg shells. I'd be concerned with the raw egg still clinging to the inside. Daniel has crusted his zucchini flowers with corn flakes, and stuffed them with a hash of potato, bacon, mushroom, and egg. It's still weird, but I'd be curious to try it. Ariane's French toast gets a favorable response, and she's visibly relieved that her success with the turkey wasn't a one-off. Jamie has put together bacon, lettuce, and tomato grilled bread, and topped it off with balsamic syrup.
Leah's a bit peeved that other chefs are getting away with two-bite or bigger dishes, when an amuse-bouche is supposed to just be one. She hopes that adhering to the challenge parameters will help her out. I almost have to rewind to make sure that a chef on this show realizes that ignoring challenge parameters can bite you in the ass. Uncanny! Her bite is bacon, quail egg, fried sage, and cheese on grilled bread. Yum. Fabio's brioche is topped with bruleed banana, and there's a big, honking glass of espresso cream on the side. He says that breakfast shouldn't be too heavy, and Padma points out that his espresso is so rich as to almost be pudding. Jeff has, like, three things lined up in a row, which would've been nice if the challenge had been to create an amuse-amuse-amuse bouche.
Results. The bottom two are Daniel, whose corn flakes overwhelmed the entire bite, and Fabio, whom Rocco wants to punish for having the nerve to be authentically Italian. Fabio grouses in interview that he should have listened to Rocco's hint about bacon, and next time, he'll just plop some bacon and "bullshit eggs" on toast, and he'll probably win. Heh. Fabio's really growing on me. Stefan had a great container. That's seriously why he's in the top three. Leah had a great arrangement of flavors. Jamie's dislike of breakfast doesn't hold her back, and she rounds out the top three. Rocco has a hard time choosing between her and Leah, but ultimately picks Leah, who scoops up her second consecutive Quickfire win. Along with immunity, she also wins a copy of Rocco's new book, which she accepts with a tight-lipped smile. I get the feeling that's getting tossed in a cardboard box in the basement when she gets home. She gives the Standard Speech. Meanwhile, Jamie is pissed, either at herself for coming close to a Quickfire win without getting it for the second time (which is fine), or at Leah for having the audacity to take two in a row (which is shitty). I'll give her the benefit of the doubt.
Elimination Challenge. Padma tells the chefs that it's super-duper important to have a high public profile as a chef. More people knowing about you means that more people will "seek out your restaurants, buy your books, and try your food". I love how "buy your books" comes before "try your food". This, combined with Rocco giving his book away as a challenge prize, makes this episode sort of sadly hilarious. I don't know whether to laugh or cry over the attitude that being a successful chef is about everything except making good food. As long as you're sufficiently pretty, or assy, or fight with your mother on television, or write books about how kitchens are akin to the TRENCHES OF WAR, or are the Southern equivalent of a black minstrel show, you'll be fine. Don't know rigatoni from radicchio? No problem, as long as you've got a nice rack that jiggles fetchingly as you whisk egg whites!
Anyhow, the Elimination Challenge is to create a dish that can be shown as a two-and-a-half-minute demonstration for a live television presentation. Despite my grouse just now, I think that's a really good idea. For a reality show challenge, that is. Not as a benchmark to determine who's a more talented chef. Adding to the hilarity that is this episode, several chefs immediately become jittery and nervous, because they don't want anything to do with live television. These people... People who cheerfully and willingly signed up to be followed by cameras 24/7 for weeks, taped as they brush their teeth, edited into a story arc that may not be particularly complimentary, have their every move and word eviscerated by sarcastic bloggers (ahem), and so forth... Are quaking in their boots at the thought of explaining food for 150 seconds. Awesome. Rocco explains that the recipe should be simple enough to follow at home. Not only is that more incentive for people to make something, but a more complicated recipe is all too easy to screw up as you demonstrate it. Presentation will figure into the judging, as well as the food. Fabio is not thrilled about having to cook and present something while chattering in perfect English.
The chefs go shopping for half an hour with a budget of $100. Fabio, Eugene, and Hosea all harass the fish guy about chopping and slicing their own fish, and he lets them have at it. Alex says he's the only guy who has enough guts to attempt dessert with a rose-infused creme brulee. Maybe the other chefs aren't spineless; they're just staying away from Alex's ideas this week because they've heard what's coming, too.
Back at the Kitchen, the chefs get an hour of cooking prep [I just mistyped that as coking prep, which would have been something to see]. Jeff works on something that sounds complicated, but will work out to be simpler than it appears. That's a good idea. I always like to feel like I've accomplished something when I try a new recipe. Fabio tells us that there is no way Alex can mix, cook, rest, and cool a creme brulee in one hour. Jamie is confident, as she's made her frisee salad with duck egg on live television before. She says her main concern is making sure the egg is cooked within the two-and-a-half minute time limit.
Leah is happy to have immunity for what she considers a very tough challenge. She works on seared duck breast with corn and blueberries, which she allows is an odd combination, but swears it works. I'll buy it; I once ordered calf liver in onion/blueberry sauce on a whim, and it turned out to be quite good. Radhika wants to "bring out [her] personality" with a spicy/sweet shrimp. I'm not sure if this particular preparation is Indian or not. Let's pretend it is. DRINK! Carla says her psyche will be destroyed if she winds up on the bottom. Ariane works on a beefsteak tomato salad with watermelon, feta, and other odd ingredients. Daniel says he's quite comfortable cooking in front of the camera, which somehow leads into an ambition to be in a movie. Time winds down, and the judges enter.
A small demonstration table is set up with a television camera pointed at it. Ptom, Gail, Padma, and Rocco all crowd around the person cooking and ask questions, which I would find a lot more disconcerting than just chatting to myself in front of a camera. Ariane's up first, and cruises through with no problem. Jamie, who has live television experience and has been kicking ass in challenges lately, is just a wee bit overconfident going in. Her ass is soon bitten when the egg doesn't have time to cook all the way. She doesn't know which is worse: Running out of time or plating undercooked food. She decides to plate the egg, but knows she's screwed up. She crosses her arms defensively and gets a sour look on her face. Alex says he's not much of a public speaker, and runs out of time before he's through explaining his creme brulee. Of course, he may have finished on time if Padma hadn't been pestering him with questions, but that's neither here nor there.
Jeff makes a malfouf (stuffed cabbage) roll with shrimp and muhammara (hot pepper) sauce. He does a good job, and his food appears to impress the judges. Fabio makes a good point, though, in that for the casual viewer at home (AKA his mother), "malfouf" and "muhammara" mean nothing, and all she wants to hear about is things like tuna, carrots, and asparagus. Hehehe. Fabio puts his charm to good use, and keeps the chefs entertained as he prepares his tuna salad. Daniel's skirt steak puts out a lot of smoke, but Padma says it's delicious. Stefan has the intelligence to make a completed pot of minestrone to swap in at the end of his demo, but he also has the personality of a mackerel.
Hosea sings the praises of wasabi peas. Eugene can't satisfactorily explain the difference between sashimi and sushi, which sends me off on an internet hunt (sushi is slices of raw fish, vegetables, or egg mixed with special rice; sashimi is simply the raw fish by itself). Melissa makes blackened habanero shrimp that are so spicy, Ptom has to go spit it out. Carla runs out of time. Radhika runs out of time. Leah runs out of time. She shrugs that she doesn't ever think she wants to do live television, and Padma and Ptom smarm simultaneously that she may have to. That's right, if you're a chef, there will be no hiding in the kitchen for you. You think all you have to do is prepare food that people will then purchase and eat? No. If you do not seek out television exposure voluntarily, you will be MARCHED ONTO A SET AT GUNPOINT.
Deliberations, Part I. Jamie's duck egg was raw. Leah had no confidence, but has immunity. Attempting to make creme brulee in an hour was unwise of Alex. Carla had a nervous energy that put Rocco off, and didn't make it through the demo, but her tortilla soup was good. Daniel had a lot of personality, almost to the point of mugging. His food was good, but the preparation was frenetic and messy. Stefan had a smart idea, but is as much fun to be around as mustard gas. Melissa's shrimp was beyond spicy. Jeff had a lot to work with but made it through with confidence and aplomb. Fabio is a dream guest for a talk show. Ariane hit it out of the park. Padma comes back to the fret 'n' sweat room and announces the bottom three, which are Melissa, Alex, and Jamie. The top three are Jeff, Fabio, and Ariane. Judges' Table will be the next day, and everyone is dismissed.
The chefs go home. Jamie cries herself to sleep. Alex crabs that he could have pussied out and made a salad, but wanted to do something more impressive. Ariane takes this as a shot at her, and points out that two-and-a-half minutes is not a lot of time, so she's not about to go out there and start sauteeing duck. Good for her, I say. Making a salad is pussying out when there are tons of other options. When you've got less than a commercial break to prepare something? Go for it. Leah tells Alex that he seems like he doesn't really care if he gets eliminated, because he's looking forward to his impending wedding. He admits that the competition is not the be-all, end-all of his world. Later, out on the patio, Leah tells Melissa that she's got to stand up for herself at Judges' Table, because nobody else is going to do it for her. Melissa tells us that hell yeah, she'll fight for her spot, now that somebody has told her to.
At 2AM, Ptom comes in and rouses Jeff, Ariane, and Fabio. Once they're all sufficiently alert, he tells them that the hosts of the Today show will be trying their dishes on-air and selecting a winner. That perks Fabio and Ariane right up. Jeff, on the other hand, is not super-happy to be serving a spicy, Middle Eastern dish to a bunch of ladies with unsophisticated palates at 6:30 AM. OK, I'll buy the not-wanting-Middle-Eastern-food-at-6:30AM argument, but "unsophisticated palates"? I'll give him Kathie Lee Gifford, because come on. But I have to think that Meredith Viera has eaten at some high-end places, you know? The chefs re-prepare their dishes. Meanwhile, the other chefs are assembled in front of a television at their apartment. The top three wait in the green room as their food goes out to the hostesses. Jeff is bemused by how many people are milling around outside a television studio in Manhattan on a weekday. Now who's unsophisticated? I kind of feel him, though. I went out for brunch in New York on a Friday afternoon, and was like "What's with all the kids? Go to school!"
Ptom explains to the hostesses how they'll be picking the challenge winner. They begin by sampling Ariane's beefsteak tomato salad. Meredith skips the watermelon, but all four make yummy noises. Fabio's food is eaten without much reaction one way or the other. Jeff's is met by confused faces before Kathie Lee makes a big production out of spitting it out. Why is she still on television, by the way? Who still likes her? The chefs back at the apartment make "Oh No She Di'int!" faces. Fabio says it's bad news when someone spits your food out, but again, it's Kathie Lee Gifford. I doubt many of us are anxious to emulate her or her tastes. The hostesses huddle up to choose a winner, and pick Ariane. She jumps up and down in jubilation backstage. Jeff and Fabio give her high-fives. Carla cheers for her back at the apartment. I'm still loving Carla these days. LabRat pointed out that she's that rare person on television who actually appears genuine, and isn't putting on some giant front for the cameras. Meredith comes back to congratulate Ariane (and the other two as well), and Ariane interviews that after this challenge and the Thanksgiving one, she's been pulled out of her Whirlpool of Despair. Good, because watching that was no fun.
Judges' Table. The top three come out to be congratulated one final time. Rocco gets to present Ariane with a special gift as challenge winner, and says that "nothing makes [him] happier than tools". He gives her a kit with about twenty-four kitchen implements in it.
LabRat: "I don't think those are the kind of 'tool' Rocco likes."
Ariane is also told that as winner, she'll be presenting a dish live on the Today show the morning after this episode of Top Chef airs. I'm not a morning person, so with all due respect to Ariane, I skipped it, deeming some extra Z's before having to get up for work far more appealing. She's very happy and excited.
Odd Asian music. Gong. Melissa, Jamie, and Alex come out to face the judges. Melissa likes spicy food, but understands that it may have been too hot for the judges. They don't even believe her statement that she tasted it, as the sheer heat rendered the judges nearly comatose. Gail says that Melissa shouldn't have used habanero, as it's a pepper too hot to be played around with by people at home. I bit into a habanero-stuffed olive once by accident, and oh my God. I like spicy food, but I was ready to dunk my head in a bucket of ice water. Jamie admits she got frazzled by the time limit. Ptom tells her that flipping the egg would have helped cook it faster. Jamie nods and says she's learned from her mistakes. Rocco points out how grim and angry she looked when she didn't do well, and she explains that she was angry at herself, not the judges.
Alex wanted to stand out by doing something different and to push himself. He says that's the whole point of the competition, and Ptom smarms (he's certainly full of that tonight, isn't he?) that the whole point of the competition is to win. Sure, Ptom, because you've never torn into someone for playing things too safe. I must be imagining those twenty episodes. Still, Alex should have known better than to prepare a dish that couldn't be made within the hour time limit, and he says that he didn't know what he was thinking, and set himself up for failure. He kicks himself for trying something so risky when the challenge called for something simple. It seems to me like he's hinting to the judges that he'd be okay with elimination, but I don't know that for sure.
Padma asks if anyone's got anything else to add, and Melissa remembers that she was supposed to stick up for herself, and intimate to the judges that she has more ambition than Alex. Unfortunately, Melissa's too meek to do something that venomous, so she just tells the judges that she really wants to be there. Then she repeats it about four times. The judges even give her an opening, asking if she thinks that means someone else doesn't want to remain in the competition, but she doesn't take the opportunity. Not that I think she should; that'd be supremely douchey. It's just that "I really want to be here. Really. A lot. Really." is not what I'd call standing up for yourself. Alex admits again that he messed the challenge up, and when asked why he should stay, says that he's a lot better than what he's shown so far. The chefs are dismissed.
Deliberations, Part II. All three of the losing chefs delivered inedible dishes. Jamie's egg was close to being good, but the execution was way off. Plus, her presentation sucked. Melissa was defensive of the amount of spice she put in, but Rocco says that it wasn't acceptable by any standard. Meanwhile, Melissa is talking to Fabio and Hosea, pretending she delivered some sort of Clarence Darrow defense of herself and some stunning indictment of Alex. Um, not. She was so mousy, even Alex isn't sure if she was trying to "throw him under the bus" or not. DRINK! Jamie points out that even if she is, it's too late for her now. He still thinks it's a fucked up thing to do, using the bus metaphor again. DRINK! The judges are saying that there's no way Alex could have made the dish work, given the time limit. They reach a decision.
Hey, remember that exceedingly weird two-second segment where Leah and Hosea flirted, and then it inexplicably went back to commercial? Welcome to the sequel. At least in this one, Carla makes an encouraging naughty face, like, "Get it, girl!" Heh.
Elimination. Melissa's food was just far too hot. Alex couldn't complete the task as given. Jamie presented a raw egg and a poor performance. Ptom throws it over to Padma for the chop. Alex, please pack your knives and go. The foghorn never lies! Naturally, Carla is the first to give him a good-bye hug. I'm telling you, she's awesome. There's no way in hell she'll win the season, as Ptom has no use for nice people, but I'll enjoy her while I can. Alex regrets taking such a big risk, but looks forward to heading home to be with his fiancee. So, he's fairly happy to go, and the other chefs are fairly happy to stay. Everyone wins!
Overall Grade: B+
You Look Like Peter Pan
The Amazing Race - Season 13, Episode 11
Previously on The Amazing Race: The only boring season in the history of this show. Thank goodness we can wrap this shit up and hope for a better crop of tasks and contestants next time.
The final three teams make their way from Russia to Portland, Oregon, which appears to be a very pretty city. Lots of trees. Once there, a Detour requires teams to choose between climbing a tree and doing a balance beam walk across a suspended log, or simply running across a lashed series of logs on the water. For some odd reason, everyone opts for the former, including Tina, who reminds Ken (and us) about a gazillion more times how scared of heights she is. Gee, if only there had been an option where climbing a tree wasn't necessary. Say, the other Detour choice? Dan and Andrew get a crappy cab driver on their way there and fall behind. I'd feel bad for them if they had any business being in the final three.
After the Detour, teams take a 2000-foot zip line across a river from a bridge, which Tina suddenly has no issue with. Weirdo. At the bottom waits one of those wonderful mental tasks I love so, as it neatly shuffles dumb people out of contention. Teams must think back to each of the previous legs, and find a picture that corresponds to either some Route Info, the Detour, the Roadblock, or the Pitstop for that particular leg. Ken and Tina get a good jump on the task, but are eventually overtaken by Nick and Starr. After two pointless intervening tasks in which they find a dinosaur statue and a donut shop, teams race for the finish line, where Phil and all the eliminated teams wait. Everyone except Toni and Dallas, who were still stuck without passports in Russia.
Nick and Starr become the first family team to win (except for the Season That Shall Not Be Named, obviously), which is nice to see, as is the fact that it's always nice to see the team that raced the smartest win. Ken and Tina come in second, whereupon Ken re-proposes to Tina. Have your heart warmed if you must. Dan and Andrew, who the cameras stopped paying attention to after the Detour, manage to finally check in, which must mean that they weren't required to do the memory task. Otherwise, the teams would still be waiting at the finish line now.
Nick and Starr are pleased as punch with their win and with each other, proving that it doesn't matter if you're dating or related or gay or intense or laid-back. The real key to winning The Amazing Race is being young and muscly.
Overall Grade: B
Overall Season Grade: The blandest C possible.
Previously on The Amazing Race: The only boring season in the history of this show. Thank goodness we can wrap this shit up and hope for a better crop of tasks and contestants next time.
The final three teams make their way from Russia to Portland, Oregon, which appears to be a very pretty city. Lots of trees. Once there, a Detour requires teams to choose between climbing a tree and doing a balance beam walk across a suspended log, or simply running across a lashed series of logs on the water. For some odd reason, everyone opts for the former, including Tina, who reminds Ken (and us) about a gazillion more times how scared of heights she is. Gee, if only there had been an option where climbing a tree wasn't necessary. Say, the other Detour choice? Dan and Andrew get a crappy cab driver on their way there and fall behind. I'd feel bad for them if they had any business being in the final three.
After the Detour, teams take a 2000-foot zip line across a river from a bridge, which Tina suddenly has no issue with. Weirdo. At the bottom waits one of those wonderful mental tasks I love so, as it neatly shuffles dumb people out of contention. Teams must think back to each of the previous legs, and find a picture that corresponds to either some Route Info, the Detour, the Roadblock, or the Pitstop for that particular leg. Ken and Tina get a good jump on the task, but are eventually overtaken by Nick and Starr. After two pointless intervening tasks in which they find a dinosaur statue and a donut shop, teams race for the finish line, where Phil and all the eliminated teams wait. Everyone except Toni and Dallas, who were still stuck without passports in Russia.
Nick and Starr become the first family team to win (except for the Season That Shall Not Be Named, obviously), which is nice to see, as is the fact that it's always nice to see the team that raced the smartest win. Ken and Tina come in second, whereupon Ken re-proposes to Tina. Have your heart warmed if you must. Dan and Andrew, who the cameras stopped paying attention to after the Detour, manage to finally check in, which must mean that they weren't required to do the memory task. Otherwise, the teams would still be waiting at the finish line now.
Nick and Starr are pleased as punch with their win and with each other, proving that it doesn't matter if you're dating or related or gay or intense or laid-back. The real key to winning The Amazing Race is being young and muscly.
Overall Grade: B
Overall Season Grade: The blandest C possible.
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
Foo Foo Platter
Top Chef - Season 5, Episode 3
Previously on Top Chef: The contestants cooked lunch for people who aren't telegenic or sassy enough to be successful chefs. Jill made an ostrich egg taste like glue, while Ariane's dessert made Padma seize in disgust. Fabio won the challenge, Jill's incomprehensible rambling at Judges' Table got her chopped, and Ariane was pulled further into her whirlpool of despair. Fourteen chefs remain. Who will be eliminated tonight?
Opening credits. Drinking Game Rule #3: Take a drink any time a contestant reacts to a judges' criticism by sneering that they just don't get it.
Monday Morning Quarterback Session. Fabio - happy. Ariane - unhappy. Richard - King of Unnecessary Exposition. No big changes there. That dispensed with, the chefs head out for the day.
Quickfire Challenge. The chefs are met in the Kitchen by Padma and guest judge Grant Achatz. Padma wishes everyone a happy Thanksgiving. The fact that they always give warm, holiday greetings in what is probably the dead of August never stops being funny. Hosea is heartened to see a guest judge who has successfully battled cancer, as his father has just been diagnosed with it. Let's send a mind-melded batch of Get Well Soon his way. The chefs step forward to draw knives, each of which has a number on it. Those numbers turn out to correspond to page numbers in the Top Chef cookbook, which must not be selling well if they have to plug it like this. The chefs have an hour to put their own, personal spin on the recipe found on their chosen page number. Ready? Go!
Jeff has gotten a recipe of Howie's, though they neglected to include massive flop sweat on the ingredients list. Leah has gotten one of Hung's many tuna tartare dishes, which includes white asparagus. Shortly into the challenge, Padma re-enters, and almost hysterically yells for the chefs to stop what they're doing. Daniel recaps this in interview, which is a good chance to note how wildly his facial hair varies across this episode. It's clean-shaven, but for a soul patch! Now, it's scruffy! Now, it's that negative-space mustache again! Padma tells the chefs that the challenge is changing; now they must take the ingredients they've already started working with, and make a soup out of them. Product-placed broth has been provided. Leah, who was quite confident before this happened, now has to pull a raw tuna soup out of her ass, and do it using white asparagus, which she loathes. Ouch. Carla brings her special brand of kooky to her soup. I must admit that Carla, even with her spirit guides and those wacky interviews with her eyes bugging out of her head, is starting to worm her way into my heart.
Jamie, who knows her soups, doesn't think she'll have any trouble working with a recipe of Miguel's. Well, sure. I mean, it's Miguel. The best picture they could find to put in the cookbook makes him look like he wears a helmet to school. Padma comes in to give the five-minute warning. Chaotic cooking montage, followed by chaotic plating montage. It's a bit improbable to refer to filling bowls of soup as "plating", but I guess "bowling" is out, for obvious reasons. Pity. Padma and Grant go down the line. Stefan has made a scallop/shrimp burger into a Thai green curry with scallop dumplings on the side. Makes sense. Ariane, who had Dale's (that's adorable Dale, not obnoxious Dale) rack of lamb, which you'd think would be pretty easy to turn into some sort of stew. Ariane has combined diced lamb with eggplant, red pepper, and couscous. Grant finds it overcooked, and Ariane shakes her head, like "Well, someone hates my food. What else is new?". That doesn't count for the drinking game, though, so put those glasses down.
Daniel has thrown together a ham and egg soup, which sounds difficult. He's included mushrooms, corn, and cheese. Padma, who sounds stoned out of her gourd, says she's never had ham and egg soup before, but is able to slur that she likes it. Daniel is pleased in interview. Perhaps he's pleased that he's been able to grow a full beard in three seconds. Richard has a black bean and roasted pasilla pepper soup with rice. Grant says it needs acid, which Richard was going to include, but ran out of time. Melissa has made her version of an Italian wedding soup, which looks nothing like Italian wedding soup. But it's her version! She still needs to work on her version of a haircut.
Fabio got a recipe of Michael's, and if they included him in the cookbook, it's no wonder nobody's buying. I can't imagine there were too many people salivating for the chance to emulate the guy who made Cheeto shitbombs. This more successful recipe is a duo of salmon and trout, which Fabio has put into a mushroom and asparagus soup. Grant finds it flat. Carla had Lia's poached shrimp, which she's turned into shrimp, tomato, and coriander soup. Sounds good. Grant backs me up. Leah has made a chilled asparagus soup with tuna. Jamie has naturally turned Miguel's deconstructed falafel into chickpea soup. Padma and Grant love it.
Results. Perhaps in the spirit of the season, there are no challenge losers named. The top three are Jamie's chickpea soup, Leah's ability to work with the hated white asparagus, and Daniel's inventive ham and egg soup. Grant selects Leah as the winner. Her response is rather muted, but she perks up when she's reminded that she's immune from elimination in the next challenge. Speaking of which...
Elimination Challenge. The challenge will be to make Thanksgiving dinner for some very special clients. The chefs will be split into two teams, and as winner of the Quickfire, Leah gets to choose her team. She unsurprisingly selects Jamie, Hosea, Fabio, Stefan, Radhika, and Melissa. Padma plays a video message from the clients, who turn out to be the Foo Fighters. Hey, celebrity guests that I like! I don't think that's happened since Jennifer Coolidge. They claim to be big Top Chef fans, which I have trouble believing for some reason. The chefs will cook for the band and its entourage at their next venue. They've passed along a copy of their "rider" to make sure the chefs have plenty of traps to fall into. Padma outlines some examples of what they'll find, such as the band's love of chocolate-covered frozen bananas. Yeah, I think that was one of the things Squanto introduced to the Pilgrims. There will be eighteen vegetarians in the horde of diners, which Hosea thinks is no problem. He's from Colorado, which is apparently bursting with picky eaters. The winning team gets to attend the show, while the members of the losing one are not only ripe for elimination, but must clean up after the feast. Gordon Ramsay is already halfway to court to file a claim of copyright infringement.
Later, the chefs are driven out to an arena in Rochester, where they're met by a roadie. Fabio asks to see where the kitchen is (subtitled...DRINK!), and the roadie leads them...outside. Not only is it outside, but the only cooking equipment available is one burner and a bunch of microwaves and toasters. The chefs get fifteen minutes to try and think their way through this. Stefan is confident, while Jamie snaps over and over that they only have one burner, so a lot of grandiose ideas, like two gravys (gravies?) are implausible. Meanwhile, Jeff is putting his mad phat organizational skillz to work. Ariane is put in charge of the turkey, and she complains in interview that nobody on her team thinks she can handle it, simply because she's sucked in every challenge so far. She may have left that last clause off. In semi-accordance with the "rider", Richard will be making banana s'mores. Everyone heads out to shop for supplies.
At the store, we're given the team names. Leah's team has been christened Team Sexy Pants, which is dumb, but which will have delightful consequences. The other team is Team Cougar, named in part for Ariane's woman-of-a-certain-age hotness. Perhaps fortunately, she's not really sure what the term is all about. Everyone stocks up. Turkeys are piled into carts. Carla calls out a "Happy Thanksgiving!", no doubt confusing the hell out of all the other patrons who are buying watermelon for the weekend barbeque.
Back at whatever patio the poor chefs have been exiled to, Eugene shows us how with a chafing dish and some charcoal, he's built a little smoker to provide some extra cooking equipment. Genius! We get a peek at the menus, though with the Reliably Shitty Titles Department, it's anyone's guess what will actually show up on the plate. As you might expect, they're full of turkey, potatoes, stuffing, and desserts, though there is a curious lack of green vegetables. Jeff talks about making a pumpkin mousse, and we're forced to pause the show, as his title of chef at the "Dilido Beach Club" looks like something else. Something VERY else.
Tiffany: "He works at the Dildo Beach Club?"
Limecrete: "And all they serve is phallic-shaped food, with maybe some asses for variety."
LabRat: "I dunno. Getting in might be difficult."
Team Cougar harangues Ariane about making sure the turkey's cooking. She gets exasperated, which would be understandable if she hadn't been such an underperforming sad-sack since the word "go". Apparently, cooking outdoors with budget and menu constraints wasn't enough of a curveball, because Nature decides to get in on the act by raining. Panicky production assistants try to protect the food with flimsy patio tents, which works about as well as you'd expect. Fabio complains that there's no way he's going home because it's raining in his tiramisu. I always enjoy sentences that nobody will ever have use for ever again. Daniel gripes about getting the "goddamn" potatoes done, and I'm surprised, because I don't think I've ever heard that uttered on primetime basic cable without the "God" part bleeped. Not that I care that he said it; it's just interesting for cultural footnote purposes. The chefs realize that time is running out, and if the food's not on the tables inside when the clock stops, they can't serve it. A lot of mad dashes ensue. Carla wants to show that the kids that didn't get picked for kickball can win the challenge. Eugene says they got everything finished by the "skin of our ass". Nice. I'll have to steal that phrase.
The judges, Foos, and other diners enter and line up for service. Daniel tells us as much in interview (negative-space mustache) before dishing up his potatoes (stubble with soul patch). Team Cougar also starts off with spoonbread stuffing (with figs/cranberries/walnuts/onion), five-cheese mac and cheese with bacon (mmmm), roasted turkey with mushroom gravy, and maple-smoked pork loin. Jeff's stuffing isn't a big hit, as the Foos aren't into a lot of bells and whistles like the figs in their stuffing. Grant says that sometimes, you just have to execute the classics, as if the chefs wouldn't have been slammed for playing too safe if they had done just that. Alex's mac and cheese is popular, but Daniel's potatoes are undercooked. Both meats do well. Eugene gets points for MacGyvering out on the pork smoker, while Ariane's turkey earns her some much-needed redemption.
On to Team Sexy Pants' dinner. Turkey, vegan cornbread stuffing, sweet potatoes, and roasted corn salad. Fabio charms the pants off Padma. At least she wishes he would. The vegetables are lauded. The vegan stuffing was far better than the other team's, and Dave Grohl gives high praise for the burned marshmallows on the yams, as "you GOTTA burn the marshmallows, man". I have to agree. The turkey, on the other hand, does not compare to Ariane's. Everyone decides to move on to dessert. Richard flames. He also torches his s'mores. Zing! The judges' approach surprises Ariane, who's in the middle of a huge mouthful of food, which Jeff chides her over. Oh, let the woman wolf down a few bites. Fabio presents his roasted pumpkin/honey/cinnamon tiramisu and Hosea's peach and blueberry crisp with cinnamon cream. Ah yes, when I think of autumnal harvest flavors, peach and blueberry immediately spring to mind.
The judges also load up on Team Cougar's desserts. Jeff was expecting them to eat Team Sexy Pants' dessert and then come back, so things that were supposed to be hot had to be served lukewarm. He's disconcerted. Carla serves a peach and cherry cobbler (more autumnal goodness!), Jeff serves his pumpkin mousse tossed with fresh fruit, and Richard serves his banana s'mores with vanilla cream and chocolate ganache. The judges go back to the table to eat, and it is here that Team Sexy Pants' name comes in handy, as that is how all the austere judges must now refer to them. Fabio's tiramisu is popular, and Ptom likes that he merged an American tradition with his knowledge of Italian food. Sexy Pants gets a hearty thumbs up on dessert. Team Cougar gets off to a bad start with Jeff's pumpkin mousse. The Foos make an astute point in that combining things you chew (the fruit) with things you simply swallow (the mousse) can be irritating. It's true. That's why suspending things in Jello is against God and Nature. The s'mores also draw criticism, as the cream on top resembles a big wad of spit.
Deliberations, Part I. It's generally agreed upon that neither team blew the other out of the water. Team Cougar's turkey was much better, while Team Sexy Pants ruled dessert. Team Sexy Pants also had the vegan stuffing, but the Foo drummer says that more of Team Cougar's entrees were better, and that desserts aren't the most important part of the meal. In general, I'd agree. If I go out to eat and have a terrific dinner followed by a disappointing dessert, I'm still satisfied. If, on the other hand, dinner is awful and there's a delectable dessert, I'd be kind of pissed off. Still, dessert carries more weight at Thanksgiving dinner. Ever taken a bite of a truly wretched pumpkin pie? It's not fun. The judges and Foos approach the teams to render their decision.
Team Sexy Pants takes the challenge. They celebrate. Eugene grouses, while Carla offers Team Sexy Pants congratulations. The winning chefs attend the show, while the losing ones despondently clean up and go through a lot of rationalizing and anxiety. Richard hopes that Team Cougar won't resort to throwing each other under the bus. DRINK! Back at the Kitchen, the teams are reunited. Melissa shows she's just as good at being a gracious winner as she is at styling her bangs by breezing in and declaring how awesome the show was. Daniel flicks her off. Classless, yes. Undeserved, no.
The Cougars go in to face Judges' Table. Jeff says he's surprised the team lost. He thought they put out a good meal, given the curveballs the challenge contained. Ptom points out that the other team had the same obstacles. Asked if there was a team leader, Alex says that while they didn't assign one, Jeff emerged as one. Lest you think that means Jeff is being sold out, Alex and Richard go to great lengths to clarify that Jeff's organizational skills were tremendously handy, and if the team lost, it was on execution, which is everyone's responsibility. Nice. Ptom tells Jeff that he looks pretty pissed off, and if he's hoping to spark a tantrum, he'll be disappointed. Jeff simply says that he's upset that they lost, because everyone on the team was great, and he wouldn't trade any of them for anyone on the other team. It'd have been better if he'd stopped there, and not added the Baseball Movie Cliche of "they gotta lotta heart, sir" on the end, but I admire the sentiment.
Ptom says that Team Sexy Pants didn't clobber them by any means, and Gail jumps in to tell Ariane that her turkey was perfect, and much better than the other team's. Ariane grins in relief. She had to be thinking she was going home. Jeff's spoonbread was too dry. Daniel claims responsibility for the potatoes and the vegetarian stuffed mushrooms, about which we haven't heard a peep. Gail mentions that the potatoes were undercooked, and Daniel says that it was a time issue, so he combined the roasted potatoes with the cooked ones. I guess the latter were boiled? Ptom asks why he didn't just leave the undercooked ones out of the dish, and Daniel says that there wouldn't have been enough to serve. That's a reasonable response.
Team Cougar's real problem was dessert. Carla's cobbler was a fine concept, but was off in execution. Jeff's pumpkin mousse was imbalanced. Richard's s'mores weren't s'mores. There was no burnt sugar, and not enough chocolate to be classified as a s'more. I only wish Food Taxonomy had been offered at my university. Richard says that he wanted to offer chocolate-dipped frozen bananas, but obviously the challenge parameters put an end to that. He tried to do what he could to feature the banana over the chocolate. Another reasonable response. Gail says that the foamy cream on top wasn't suited to a catering environment, in that it just fell flat. True enough. The spit comment is brought up. The chefs are dismissed.
Deliberations, Part II. Grant would like to narrow the losers to the dessert-makers, but Ptom and Gail want to toss in Daniel's sloppily-executed potatoes as well. That leaves a pass for one of the dessert-makers, and happily, Carla claims it. Her cobbler wasn't outstanding, but it wasn't terrible. Jeff has natural leadership abilities, which is good, but the time he spent on organizing the team caused him to fall flat in his cooking, which is bad. The pumpkin mousse was a bad idea, but the spoonbread would have been fine if it hadn't been overcooked. Richard's s'mores didn't taste good, didn't look good, and weren't a good concept to begin with. Ouch. Ptom snipes that the chefs needn't have followed every instruction on the "rider", and before I can fully gear up to gripe that the chefs would have been reamed if they had ignored it, he deflates me by saying there were plenty of other things Richard could have done with bananas. Oh. That's true. The judges reach a decision.
As they sweat 'n' fret, Daniel and Jamie get into a pointless fight about peanut butter on the floor or some such idiocy. Jamie, the concert's over. You can take off that hippy-dippy headband now, okay, Princess Patchouli? Daniel makes a caveman comment about how Jamie must be on the rag or something, which prompts Panny to tell us how she got a memo at her new job about how the ladies of her company generally bake cookies for the guys at Christmas. Wow, her commute must be terrible. It takes a long time to drive to 1955.
Elimination. Eugene's pork was a high point of the entire meal. He's dismissed. Alex is still middle-of-the-road competent. So much so that I forget he exists when he's not on-screen. He's dismissed. Hey, who was that guy? Carla's dessert was the best of the three. She's dismissed. Ariane's turkey was excellent. She's dismissed. That leaves Jeff, Daniel, and Richard in the bottom three. Daniel's potatoes sucked. Jeff bit off more than he could chew. Richard's s'mores were a mess from top to bottom. Ptom throws it over to Padma for the chop. Richard. Please pack your knives and go. Aw. I don't disagree; he didn't make a single dish you wouldn't see at a Dierbergs Saturday Afternoon Cooking Class, but "aw" just the same. He cries in his final interview, and says he busted his ass for three seasons trying to get on the show. Well, look at the bright side, Richard. You made it on. He heads out the door, and Team Rainbow gets whittled down to Member Rainbow. No pressure, Jamie.
Overall Grade: B-
Previously on Top Chef: The contestants cooked lunch for people who aren't telegenic or sassy enough to be successful chefs. Jill made an ostrich egg taste like glue, while Ariane's dessert made Padma seize in disgust. Fabio won the challenge, Jill's incomprehensible rambling at Judges' Table got her chopped, and Ariane was pulled further into her whirlpool of despair. Fourteen chefs remain. Who will be eliminated tonight?
Opening credits. Drinking Game Rule #3: Take a drink any time a contestant reacts to a judges' criticism by sneering that they just don't get it.
Monday Morning Quarterback Session. Fabio - happy. Ariane - unhappy. Richard - King of Unnecessary Exposition. No big changes there. That dispensed with, the chefs head out for the day.
Quickfire Challenge. The chefs are met in the Kitchen by Padma and guest judge Grant Achatz. Padma wishes everyone a happy Thanksgiving. The fact that they always give warm, holiday greetings in what is probably the dead of August never stops being funny. Hosea is heartened to see a guest judge who has successfully battled cancer, as his father has just been diagnosed with it. Let's send a mind-melded batch of Get Well Soon his way. The chefs step forward to draw knives, each of which has a number on it. Those numbers turn out to correspond to page numbers in the Top Chef cookbook, which must not be selling well if they have to plug it like this. The chefs have an hour to put their own, personal spin on the recipe found on their chosen page number. Ready? Go!
Jeff has gotten a recipe of Howie's, though they neglected to include massive flop sweat on the ingredients list. Leah has gotten one of Hung's many tuna tartare dishes, which includes white asparagus. Shortly into the challenge, Padma re-enters, and almost hysterically yells for the chefs to stop what they're doing. Daniel recaps this in interview, which is a good chance to note how wildly his facial hair varies across this episode. It's clean-shaven, but for a soul patch! Now, it's scruffy! Now, it's that negative-space mustache again! Padma tells the chefs that the challenge is changing; now they must take the ingredients they've already started working with, and make a soup out of them. Product-placed broth has been provided. Leah, who was quite confident before this happened, now has to pull a raw tuna soup out of her ass, and do it using white asparagus, which she loathes. Ouch. Carla brings her special brand of kooky to her soup. I must admit that Carla, even with her spirit guides and those wacky interviews with her eyes bugging out of her head, is starting to worm her way into my heart.
Jamie, who knows her soups, doesn't think she'll have any trouble working with a recipe of Miguel's. Well, sure. I mean, it's Miguel. The best picture they could find to put in the cookbook makes him look like he wears a helmet to school. Padma comes in to give the five-minute warning. Chaotic cooking montage, followed by chaotic plating montage. It's a bit improbable to refer to filling bowls of soup as "plating", but I guess "bowling" is out, for obvious reasons. Pity. Padma and Grant go down the line. Stefan has made a scallop/shrimp burger into a Thai green curry with scallop dumplings on the side. Makes sense. Ariane, who had Dale's (that's adorable Dale, not obnoxious Dale) rack of lamb, which you'd think would be pretty easy to turn into some sort of stew. Ariane has combined diced lamb with eggplant, red pepper, and couscous. Grant finds it overcooked, and Ariane shakes her head, like "Well, someone hates my food. What else is new?". That doesn't count for the drinking game, though, so put those glasses down.
Daniel has thrown together a ham and egg soup, which sounds difficult. He's included mushrooms, corn, and cheese. Padma, who sounds stoned out of her gourd, says she's never had ham and egg soup before, but is able to slur that she likes it. Daniel is pleased in interview. Perhaps he's pleased that he's been able to grow a full beard in three seconds. Richard has a black bean and roasted pasilla pepper soup with rice. Grant says it needs acid, which Richard was going to include, but ran out of time. Melissa has made her version of an Italian wedding soup, which looks nothing like Italian wedding soup. But it's her version! She still needs to work on her version of a haircut.
Fabio got a recipe of Michael's, and if they included him in the cookbook, it's no wonder nobody's buying. I can't imagine there were too many people salivating for the chance to emulate the guy who made Cheeto shitbombs. This more successful recipe is a duo of salmon and trout, which Fabio has put into a mushroom and asparagus soup. Grant finds it flat. Carla had Lia's poached shrimp, which she's turned into shrimp, tomato, and coriander soup. Sounds good. Grant backs me up. Leah has made a chilled asparagus soup with tuna. Jamie has naturally turned Miguel's deconstructed falafel into chickpea soup. Padma and Grant love it.
Results. Perhaps in the spirit of the season, there are no challenge losers named. The top three are Jamie's chickpea soup, Leah's ability to work with the hated white asparagus, and Daniel's inventive ham and egg soup. Grant selects Leah as the winner. Her response is rather muted, but she perks up when she's reminded that she's immune from elimination in the next challenge. Speaking of which...
Elimination Challenge. The challenge will be to make Thanksgiving dinner for some very special clients. The chefs will be split into two teams, and as winner of the Quickfire, Leah gets to choose her team. She unsurprisingly selects Jamie, Hosea, Fabio, Stefan, Radhika, and Melissa. Padma plays a video message from the clients, who turn out to be the Foo Fighters. Hey, celebrity guests that I like! I don't think that's happened since Jennifer Coolidge. They claim to be big Top Chef fans, which I have trouble believing for some reason. The chefs will cook for the band and its entourage at their next venue. They've passed along a copy of their "rider" to make sure the chefs have plenty of traps to fall into. Padma outlines some examples of what they'll find, such as the band's love of chocolate-covered frozen bananas. Yeah, I think that was one of the things Squanto introduced to the Pilgrims. There will be eighteen vegetarians in the horde of diners, which Hosea thinks is no problem. He's from Colorado, which is apparently bursting with picky eaters. The winning team gets to attend the show, while the members of the losing one are not only ripe for elimination, but must clean up after the feast. Gordon Ramsay is already halfway to court to file a claim of copyright infringement.
Later, the chefs are driven out to an arena in Rochester, where they're met by a roadie. Fabio asks to see where the kitchen is (subtitled...DRINK!), and the roadie leads them...outside. Not only is it outside, but the only cooking equipment available is one burner and a bunch of microwaves and toasters. The chefs get fifteen minutes to try and think their way through this. Stefan is confident, while Jamie snaps over and over that they only have one burner, so a lot of grandiose ideas, like two gravys (gravies?) are implausible. Meanwhile, Jeff is putting his mad phat organizational skillz to work. Ariane is put in charge of the turkey, and she complains in interview that nobody on her team thinks she can handle it, simply because she's sucked in every challenge so far. She may have left that last clause off. In semi-accordance with the "rider", Richard will be making banana s'mores. Everyone heads out to shop for supplies.
At the store, we're given the team names. Leah's team has been christened Team Sexy Pants, which is dumb, but which will have delightful consequences. The other team is Team Cougar, named in part for Ariane's woman-of-a-certain-age hotness. Perhaps fortunately, she's not really sure what the term is all about. Everyone stocks up. Turkeys are piled into carts. Carla calls out a "Happy Thanksgiving!", no doubt confusing the hell out of all the other patrons who are buying watermelon for the weekend barbeque.
Back at whatever patio the poor chefs have been exiled to, Eugene shows us how with a chafing dish and some charcoal, he's built a little smoker to provide some extra cooking equipment. Genius! We get a peek at the menus, though with the Reliably Shitty Titles Department, it's anyone's guess what will actually show up on the plate. As you might expect, they're full of turkey, potatoes, stuffing, and desserts, though there is a curious lack of green vegetables. Jeff talks about making a pumpkin mousse, and we're forced to pause the show, as his title of chef at the "Dilido Beach Club" looks like something else. Something VERY else.
Tiffany: "He works at the Dildo Beach Club?"
Limecrete: "And all they serve is phallic-shaped food, with maybe some asses for variety."
LabRat: "I dunno. Getting in might be difficult."
Team Cougar harangues Ariane about making sure the turkey's cooking. She gets exasperated, which would be understandable if she hadn't been such an underperforming sad-sack since the word "go". Apparently, cooking outdoors with budget and menu constraints wasn't enough of a curveball, because Nature decides to get in on the act by raining. Panicky production assistants try to protect the food with flimsy patio tents, which works about as well as you'd expect. Fabio complains that there's no way he's going home because it's raining in his tiramisu. I always enjoy sentences that nobody will ever have use for ever again. Daniel gripes about getting the "goddamn" potatoes done, and I'm surprised, because I don't think I've ever heard that uttered on primetime basic cable without the "God" part bleeped. Not that I care that he said it; it's just interesting for cultural footnote purposes. The chefs realize that time is running out, and if the food's not on the tables inside when the clock stops, they can't serve it. A lot of mad dashes ensue. Carla wants to show that the kids that didn't get picked for kickball can win the challenge. Eugene says they got everything finished by the "skin of our ass". Nice. I'll have to steal that phrase.
The judges, Foos, and other diners enter and line up for service. Daniel tells us as much in interview (negative-space mustache) before dishing up his potatoes (stubble with soul patch). Team Cougar also starts off with spoonbread stuffing (with figs/cranberries/walnuts/onion), five-cheese mac and cheese with bacon (mmmm), roasted turkey with mushroom gravy, and maple-smoked pork loin. Jeff's stuffing isn't a big hit, as the Foos aren't into a lot of bells and whistles like the figs in their stuffing. Grant says that sometimes, you just have to execute the classics, as if the chefs wouldn't have been slammed for playing too safe if they had done just that. Alex's mac and cheese is popular, but Daniel's potatoes are undercooked. Both meats do well. Eugene gets points for MacGyvering out on the pork smoker, while Ariane's turkey earns her some much-needed redemption.
On to Team Sexy Pants' dinner. Turkey, vegan cornbread stuffing, sweet potatoes, and roasted corn salad. Fabio charms the pants off Padma. At least she wishes he would. The vegetables are lauded. The vegan stuffing was far better than the other team's, and Dave Grohl gives high praise for the burned marshmallows on the yams, as "you GOTTA burn the marshmallows, man". I have to agree. The turkey, on the other hand, does not compare to Ariane's. Everyone decides to move on to dessert. Richard flames. He also torches his s'mores. Zing! The judges' approach surprises Ariane, who's in the middle of a huge mouthful of food, which Jeff chides her over. Oh, let the woman wolf down a few bites. Fabio presents his roasted pumpkin/honey/cinnamon tiramisu and Hosea's peach and blueberry crisp with cinnamon cream. Ah yes, when I think of autumnal harvest flavors, peach and blueberry immediately spring to mind.
The judges also load up on Team Cougar's desserts. Jeff was expecting them to eat Team Sexy Pants' dessert and then come back, so things that were supposed to be hot had to be served lukewarm. He's disconcerted. Carla serves a peach and cherry cobbler (more autumnal goodness!), Jeff serves his pumpkin mousse tossed with fresh fruit, and Richard serves his banana s'mores with vanilla cream and chocolate ganache. The judges go back to the table to eat, and it is here that Team Sexy Pants' name comes in handy, as that is how all the austere judges must now refer to them. Fabio's tiramisu is popular, and Ptom likes that he merged an American tradition with his knowledge of Italian food. Sexy Pants gets a hearty thumbs up on dessert. Team Cougar gets off to a bad start with Jeff's pumpkin mousse. The Foos make an astute point in that combining things you chew (the fruit) with things you simply swallow (the mousse) can be irritating. It's true. That's why suspending things in Jello is against God and Nature. The s'mores also draw criticism, as the cream on top resembles a big wad of spit.
Deliberations, Part I. It's generally agreed upon that neither team blew the other out of the water. Team Cougar's turkey was much better, while Team Sexy Pants ruled dessert. Team Sexy Pants also had the vegan stuffing, but the Foo drummer says that more of Team Cougar's entrees were better, and that desserts aren't the most important part of the meal. In general, I'd agree. If I go out to eat and have a terrific dinner followed by a disappointing dessert, I'm still satisfied. If, on the other hand, dinner is awful and there's a delectable dessert, I'd be kind of pissed off. Still, dessert carries more weight at Thanksgiving dinner. Ever taken a bite of a truly wretched pumpkin pie? It's not fun. The judges and Foos approach the teams to render their decision.
Team Sexy Pants takes the challenge. They celebrate. Eugene grouses, while Carla offers Team Sexy Pants congratulations. The winning chefs attend the show, while the losing ones despondently clean up and go through a lot of rationalizing and anxiety. Richard hopes that Team Cougar won't resort to throwing each other under the bus. DRINK! Back at the Kitchen, the teams are reunited. Melissa shows she's just as good at being a gracious winner as she is at styling her bangs by breezing in and declaring how awesome the show was. Daniel flicks her off. Classless, yes. Undeserved, no.
The Cougars go in to face Judges' Table. Jeff says he's surprised the team lost. He thought they put out a good meal, given the curveballs the challenge contained. Ptom points out that the other team had the same obstacles. Asked if there was a team leader, Alex says that while they didn't assign one, Jeff emerged as one. Lest you think that means Jeff is being sold out, Alex and Richard go to great lengths to clarify that Jeff's organizational skills were tremendously handy, and if the team lost, it was on execution, which is everyone's responsibility. Nice. Ptom tells Jeff that he looks pretty pissed off, and if he's hoping to spark a tantrum, he'll be disappointed. Jeff simply says that he's upset that they lost, because everyone on the team was great, and he wouldn't trade any of them for anyone on the other team. It'd have been better if he'd stopped there, and not added the Baseball Movie Cliche of "they gotta lotta heart, sir" on the end, but I admire the sentiment.
Ptom says that Team Sexy Pants didn't clobber them by any means, and Gail jumps in to tell Ariane that her turkey was perfect, and much better than the other team's. Ariane grins in relief. She had to be thinking she was going home. Jeff's spoonbread was too dry. Daniel claims responsibility for the potatoes and the vegetarian stuffed mushrooms, about which we haven't heard a peep. Gail mentions that the potatoes were undercooked, and Daniel says that it was a time issue, so he combined the roasted potatoes with the cooked ones. I guess the latter were boiled? Ptom asks why he didn't just leave the undercooked ones out of the dish, and Daniel says that there wouldn't have been enough to serve. That's a reasonable response.
Team Cougar's real problem was dessert. Carla's cobbler was a fine concept, but was off in execution. Jeff's pumpkin mousse was imbalanced. Richard's s'mores weren't s'mores. There was no burnt sugar, and not enough chocolate to be classified as a s'more. I only wish Food Taxonomy had been offered at my university. Richard says that he wanted to offer chocolate-dipped frozen bananas, but obviously the challenge parameters put an end to that. He tried to do what he could to feature the banana over the chocolate. Another reasonable response. Gail says that the foamy cream on top wasn't suited to a catering environment, in that it just fell flat. True enough. The spit comment is brought up. The chefs are dismissed.
Deliberations, Part II. Grant would like to narrow the losers to the dessert-makers, but Ptom and Gail want to toss in Daniel's sloppily-executed potatoes as well. That leaves a pass for one of the dessert-makers, and happily, Carla claims it. Her cobbler wasn't outstanding, but it wasn't terrible. Jeff has natural leadership abilities, which is good, but the time he spent on organizing the team caused him to fall flat in his cooking, which is bad. The pumpkin mousse was a bad idea, but the spoonbread would have been fine if it hadn't been overcooked. Richard's s'mores didn't taste good, didn't look good, and weren't a good concept to begin with. Ouch. Ptom snipes that the chefs needn't have followed every instruction on the "rider", and before I can fully gear up to gripe that the chefs would have been reamed if they had ignored it, he deflates me by saying there were plenty of other things Richard could have done with bananas. Oh. That's true. The judges reach a decision.
As they sweat 'n' fret, Daniel and Jamie get into a pointless fight about peanut butter on the floor or some such idiocy. Jamie, the concert's over. You can take off that hippy-dippy headband now, okay, Princess Patchouli? Daniel makes a caveman comment about how Jamie must be on the rag or something, which prompts Panny to tell us how she got a memo at her new job about how the ladies of her company generally bake cookies for the guys at Christmas. Wow, her commute must be terrible. It takes a long time to drive to 1955.
Elimination. Eugene's pork was a high point of the entire meal. He's dismissed. Alex is still middle-of-the-road competent. So much so that I forget he exists when he's not on-screen. He's dismissed. Hey, who was that guy? Carla's dessert was the best of the three. She's dismissed. Ariane's turkey was excellent. She's dismissed. That leaves Jeff, Daniel, and Richard in the bottom three. Daniel's potatoes sucked. Jeff bit off more than he could chew. Richard's s'mores were a mess from top to bottom. Ptom throws it over to Padma for the chop. Richard. Please pack your knives and go. Aw. I don't disagree; he didn't make a single dish you wouldn't see at a Dierbergs Saturday Afternoon Cooking Class, but "aw" just the same. He cries in his final interview, and says he busted his ass for three seasons trying to get on the show. Well, look at the bright side, Richard. You made it on. He heads out the door, and Team Rainbow gets whittled down to Member Rainbow. No pressure, Jamie.
Overall Grade: B-
Sunday, November 30, 2008
You're Gonna Get Me Killed
The Amazing Race - Season 13, Episode 10
Figures. We finally get an episode with worthwhile tasks, and it ends like that. The teams stick to Moscow, first heading to a submarine sonar room to pick up a clue from a movie extra. OK, that's not what I meant by "worthwhile tasks". The clue directs teams to a park with leftover monuments to leaders of Russia's past, because like my dad, Russia never wants to throw anything away. Once there, a Roadblock forces the chosen team member to count statues of both Lenin and Stalin, then combine the number to give to a bookseller, who directs them to an address where the next clue awaits. Tricky! It trips up everyone but Nick, who powers through this and the rest of the leg with ruthless efficiency.
Upon getting the right answer, Tina passes it along to Dallas, which doesn't make Ken too happy when he hears about it. He needn't have worried, though, because upon arriving at the final address, Dallas leaves all the money and passports in his cab. That mistake is compounded when he and Toni deliberately disregard the clue's instruction to take a taxi because metro fare will be easier to beg for. They get sent back to take a taxi, which allows Andrew and Dan all the time they need to complete their Speed Bump, which involves dancing.
The Detour sends teams on either a complicated series of stops via metro, or a slightly less complicated series of stops via trolley bus. Nick and Starr choose the metro, and zoom through with no problem whatsoever. Tina/Ken/Andrew/Dan choose the trolley, and they have some initial issues, but work it out fairly quickly.
Toni and Dallas? Sigh. They just inch from stop to stop, begging for the necessary fare each time. In the end, Phil doesn't even wait for them to get to the mat, but just tracks them down and eliminates them where they stand. So the Fratties become the most incompetent team ever to stumble their way into the final three, and I officially don't give a good goddamn who wins this chore of a season. Hooray for everything!
Overall Grade: C
Figures. We finally get an episode with worthwhile tasks, and it ends like that. The teams stick to Moscow, first heading to a submarine sonar room to pick up a clue from a movie extra. OK, that's not what I meant by "worthwhile tasks". The clue directs teams to a park with leftover monuments to leaders of Russia's past, because like my dad, Russia never wants to throw anything away. Once there, a Roadblock forces the chosen team member to count statues of both Lenin and Stalin, then combine the number to give to a bookseller, who directs them to an address where the next clue awaits. Tricky! It trips up everyone but Nick, who powers through this and the rest of the leg with ruthless efficiency.
Upon getting the right answer, Tina passes it along to Dallas, which doesn't make Ken too happy when he hears about it. He needn't have worried, though, because upon arriving at the final address, Dallas leaves all the money and passports in his cab. That mistake is compounded when he and Toni deliberately disregard the clue's instruction to take a taxi because metro fare will be easier to beg for. They get sent back to take a taxi, which allows Andrew and Dan all the time they need to complete their Speed Bump, which involves dancing.
The Detour sends teams on either a complicated series of stops via metro, or a slightly less complicated series of stops via trolley bus. Nick and Starr choose the metro, and zoom through with no problem whatsoever. Tina/Ken/Andrew/Dan choose the trolley, and they have some initial issues, but work it out fairly quickly.
Toni and Dallas? Sigh. They just inch from stop to stop, begging for the necessary fare each time. In the end, Phil doesn't even wait for them to get to the mat, but just tracks them down and eliminates them where they stand. So the Fratties become the most incompetent team ever to stumble their way into the final three, and I officially don't give a good goddamn who wins this chore of a season. Hooray for everything!
Overall Grade: C
Monday, November 24, 2008
Bitter, Party of Fifty
Top Chef - Season 5, Episode 2
Previously on Top Chef: Seventeen people with dreams of fame and glory came to New York City, but they weren't those other four thousand people who come to New York City each day with dreams of fame and glory. Stefan won the Quickfire, while...Laura? Erin? Whoever it was, she got kicked off the show before her luggage arrived on the airport carousel. The three gay chefs coalesced into a clique, and though Ariane did her best to keep them together by making terrible farro risotto, the rainbow lost a chunk of its hues with the elimination of Patrick. Stefan won the Elimination Challenge, and flew all the flags of Europe proudly. His arms must be tired. Fifteen chefs remain. Who will be eliminated tonight?
Opening credits. Drinking Game Rule #2: Take a drink at any reference to being thrown under a bus.
The opening segment always seems to be a rehashing of what went wrong in the previous episode, so I'll just refer to it as the Monday Morning Quarterback session. Richard tells us that we started with seventeen chefs, and two have been eliminated, so now there's fifteen. I can see why that interview was so crucial. Ariane continues to beat herself up, talking about how old she is and how much experience the other chefs have. It looks like she's beginning to seriously regret signing up for this show. I don't blame her; it seems like such a degrading experience. Fabio is happy to let Stefan win individual challenges as long as Fabio himself wins the competition, drawing a comparison to dragon-killing and princess-snatching. The chefs head out for the day.
Quickfire Challenge. The chefs are met in the Kitchen by Padma and this week's guest judge, Donatella Someoneorother. I'd be happy to write out her last name, but the Bravo folks have seen fit to cover the title up with an annoying ad for an annoying show. Padma says that the Quickfire will be the preparation of a New York favorite, which turns out to be a hot dog. Some lady who makes hot dogs comes in with her cart, and there's some blah about the chefs' dogs being compared to hers. This turns out to have absolutely no bearing on the Quickfire whatsoever, so with all due respect to this lady and her wieners, I don't see the point of mentioning her again. Forty-five minutes. Immunity for the winner. Ready? Go!
Ariane beats herself up some more. Daniel has acquired an odd, negative-space mustache. Fabio says you can't out hot dog a hot dog, so he works with sausage. Stefan uses a mix of international ingredients from Italian sausage to Wisconsin cheese to Irish tartar sauce. Jill, showing a knack for identifying last season's pitfall of "Challenge Parameters Are Beneath Us!" recognizes that incorporating hot dogs into a dish isn't the same thing as making one. So she decides to go ahead and ignore the instinct, doing just that. Radhika, who you'll remember introduced herself last week by sniffing that the other chefs would just write her off as a chef that makes Indian food (right before making chutney), makes an Indian-style kabob dog. Hehehe. Hosea concentrates on his flavors, rather than presentation. Time runs out.
Padma and Donatella go down the line. As promised, Jill has just shoved hot dogs into a summer roll. Besides not adhering to the challenge parameters, it looks totally gross. Radhika's kabob dog includes lamb and pork, and looks tasty. Daniel's has horseradish and mustard. Eugene has made a maki roll with cheese. Donatella cannot keep her emotions off her face, so it's fairly easy to tell when she hates something, as with Eugene's. Hosea's is bacon and roasted peppers. Yum. Stefan presents his World Dog. Donatella takes a bite, and her face crumbles again. Bad sign. Carla is told that her lamb and pork with sauerkraut is very moist. Ariane's chicken dog has too much celery seed. Fabio has concocted a Mediterranean dog made up of andouille sausage, goat cheese, roasted bell peppers, and sun-dried tomatoes. I'm not a big sun-dried tomato fan, but the rest sounds good. Jamie has used pork, and let a bone slip in to her dog. I bet that's the first bone she's ever let slip in. Thank you! I'm here all week!
Results. The bottom two are Jill's store-bought hot dog crud, and Stefan, whose World Dog should be wiped off the map. He whines that there was nothing wrong with his dog. Ah, so Stefan has won the first Elimination Challenge, and now he's whining about how the guest judge has no taste. I guess he's on-track to win, after all. Donatella loved Radhika's dog, saying she's glad Radhika embraced the Indian theme. Well, don't get too used to it, Donatella. Radhika is NOT just an Indian chef. The fact that she's made Indian food in two of three challenges, and was forced into doing Jamaican for the third should not be used against her. Fabio also impressed Donatella, as did Hosea's bacon. Radhika winds up winning, and it makes her happy to redeem herself after her unimpressive Quickfire performance last week. Immunity helps, too.
Elimination Challenge. Padma tells the chefs that they'll be opening a restaurant, and a lot of them break into grins. Jeff knows enough to wait until the other shoe drops. The challenge will be to create a three-course New American lunch menu. New American is about the vaguest cuisine type ever, but Jamie gives it the old college try by saying a lot of it is about reinventing classic American dishes. Each chef is responsible for their own dish, so five will be on appetizers, five on entrees, and five on dessert. There's some yakking about how New Yorkers are tough to please, as if the rest of us are happy with whatever pig slop you throw on the plate. I can see that I'll have to keep a Big Apple Snobbery Alert on throughout the season, and not just when Tuskegee Joey is on-screen. At least this one's pretty mild; a violet on the Snobbery Alert chart.
As soon as Padma leaves, there's an explosion of dibs on certain courses. What's weird is that a lot of the clamoring is for dessert, because on every other season of this show, chefs fled from dessert courses in terror. Strange. Anyhow, Jeff manages to get everyone ordered and organized. I have to say, if he manages to shed the pretty-boy image, there's a person underneath I think I like. The chefs head off to Whole Foods with $2,500 and thirty minutes of shopping time. I'm assuming that $2,500 has to cover everybody, though I'd love to see what kind of meal would result if each chef got that. Hosea wants fresh crab meat, but has to settle for canned. Fabio stocks up on beef and olives. Jill likes the creativity of ostrich egg, and hoists one into her basket so she can make a quiche. Wait, Whole Foods has ostrich eggs, but they don't have fresh crab meat? Odd. Everyone checks out.
Back at the Kitchen, the chefs get started on their two hours of prep time. The groups have shaken out to be:
Appetizers: Fabio, Hosea, Jamie, Melissa, and Leah
Entrees: Stefan, Jeff, Eugene, Alex, and Jill
Desserts: Carla, Ariane, Daniel, Richard, and Radhika
Jamie gets started on a sweet corn soup, and somewhat disdains Jill's idea to use an ostrich egg. I think using the egg itself is fine; it's what she makes with it that will be the real deciding factor. That is, if she can make anything at all, because she has real problems even breaking into the shell. She finally cracks it with Fabio's help. Ariane begins making a lemon meringue martini, and beats up on herself yet again, because she's not a dessert expert. Ptom stops by to drop a bomb on the chefs. First of all, they'll be cooking in his restaurant. That's a big who cares, because it's not like members of the public will be strolling in. Second, all fifty of the diners at the luncheon will be New York chefs who tried out for the show, and didn't make it. Daaaaaaaaaamn! Kudos to whoever thought this up, because that is deliciously evil. I can't think of anyone on the planet who would be harder to win over than reality show wannabes denied their moment in the sun. Carla nails it in interview, saying that it'll be impossible to get their dishes "right" for a bunch of jealous, hypercritical diners.
Evening. Fabio drags out his dragon/princess metaphor again, and has to be subtitled. Drink! Then, in an extremely bizarre sequence of events, there's a short commercial break, then a show segment literally less than a minute long that features Leah and Hosea flirting, and then it goes back into commercials. Um. OK. I guess that budding romance was just too compelling to leave on the cutting room floor. When we get back to the show, it's a new day. The chefs make their way to Ptom's restaurant, and get set up. Jamie's in love with her soup, but Fabio dismisses it in interview as too simple. It certainly is compared to his dish, which involves chemically altering olive juice so that it forms a solid shell on the outside, while remaining liquid on the inside. Interesting.
Hosea seasons his crab. Jill rushes her quiche into the oven. Carla frets over her pie crust. Ariane shops her martini around to the others. Richard wants to be all competitive by not sharing his opinion that it's too sweet, but that doesn't really work out when a bunch of other chefs volunteer the same criticism. Ariane knows she has the option to remake it, but is clearly welcoming elimination with open arms at this point, and is like "Meh. Screw it." The fifty loser guests begin to stream in and get down to the business of getting acquainted with each other. In this case, that means bragging about their cooking credentials. Some of them don't even wait to taste the food, and begin ragging on the chefs' selections just based on reading the menu. Ptom and the real chef that does all the work at his restaurant come back to expedite all the food. He reminds the chefs not to stick a utensil they've just used to sample their food back into the dish.
LabRat: "Why does he need to tell them that?"
Time runs down. The diners choose their courses. They probably ordered what they figured they'd hate the most to ensure a nice amount of complaining. The judges enter, and get seated. The chefs plate up, and time runs out. Now, to the appetizers. Jamie has made a chilled, sweet corn soup with chili oil and mint. Amazingly, nobody has a bad thing to say about it. The judges love it, and even one of the diners finds it "amazing". Hosea sends out his cold crab salad with citrus vanilla dressing, accented by mango and avocado. The judges dislike the texture and muddied flavors, and one of the diners is able to discern that the crab came out of a can, as it had a metal-ish flavor. Ugh, I hate that. Leah sends out seared scallops with Yukon potato, chives, and pink peppercorns (though the Reliably Shitty Titles Department refers to them as green peppercorns). The diners disdain them (one says they're too sandy), and Padma gets an '80s feel from the dish, whatever that means. Fabio sends out beef carpaccio with arugula salad, slices of Parmesan cheese, and those spherical olives he described earlier. Donatella says that it's a perfect lunch dish. Melissa has made grilled avocado, and served it alongside white peaches and nectarines. Zzzzzz.
Several jealous losers in the dining room make general nitpicky comments that make me all too glad they and their dumb haircuts and hipster outfits didn't make it onto the show. The entrees start to go out. Jill has made an ostrich egg quiche with a rice-pecan crust, and served it with asparagus and cheese. Donatella's face crumbles again, and she hurriedly reaches for her wine, saying the quiche tastes like glue. Ouch. Eugene has made a deconstructed meatloaf sandwich with ciabatta break, gouda, and a mushroom ragout. I have to say, the diners may be overly critical, but a lot of these dishes are boring as hell. The judges aren't impressed. Stefan sends out his pan-seared halibut, which is topped with greens, pasta ravioli, a champagne sauce, and dill. It gets a favorable reaction in the dining room. Jeff has made honey mustard chicken and a chorizo corn bread. That sounds good. The diners agree. Even one of the annoying hipsters says he has no complaints at all. Alex sends out a grilled pork tenderloin over potatoes with mushroom, tomato, and a red beet demi-glace. It's not popular.
Desserts. Radhika has made a citrus-avocado mousse with chocolate wontons and a chocolate milk Kahlua shot. That's one of those things I can't judge unless I taste it. The avocado mousse sounds unappetizing, but I don't know. It's pretty, anyway. Gail says it's obvious Radhika has immunity, because she's essentially made sweet guacamole. Eeeeeeew. Daniel has made a ricotta poundcake with toasted pistachios, and a strawberry-lemon sauce. Not only does that sound good, but Daniel has refrained from the uber-pretentious pronunciation of ricotta, and for that, I thank him. It gets good reviews, though he's never made it before. Good for him. Ariane has put together her half-assed lemon meringue martini with vanilla cookie crumbles and some cherry on the bottom. She says she thinks it may be a little too sweet. That assumption is confirmed when Padma takes a bite, and:
Yeah. Not a big hit. Richard sends out his sandwich of banana nut bread, peanut butter, and banana brulee with grape gelato. Okay, I see what he's going for, and I'd probably like how it tastes, but as with last week's lamb burger, he tends to go for simplistic ideas that aren't going to win any sophistication points. The judges agree with me by calling it an "after school snack". Carla plates her rustic apple tart with ginger peach tea, an apple cider reduction, and some cheddar cheese. ME WANT. Though her cheese is unattractively plated, she's saved by the flavor of her tart. Service winds down. The jealous losers fill out comment cards and whine their way out the door. See ya never! Ptom tells the chefs he'll see them at Judges' Table, to which they weirdly applaud. He goes out to join the other judges, and they discuss how disappointed they are. Ptom is floored by the downslide in quality between last week and tonight.
Fret 'n' sweat. Ptom comes back to the Kitchen to let the chefs know that the service was great, but the food sucked. That said, he summons Jamie, Hosea, Ariane, Fabio, Carla, and Jill to Judges' Table. Padma reiterates that most of the food was terrible, but allows that there were some bright spots. First is Carla's pastry. Though she should have found a way to incorporate her cheese a little better, it was great, overall. Fabio's name is called, and he immediately springs into defensive mode, saying he serves hundreds of dishes just like the one he made today, and challenges the judges to tell him why he's at Judges' Table. "You're here because we liked your dish, [moron]," Padma says. The "moron" is not said, but it hangs palpably in the air. Once Fabio understands he's actually on the winning side, he calms down. His grilled lemon was Gail's favorite part, while Donatella loved the spherical olives. Jamie's soup incorporated seasonal ingredients, flavor, and texture. Donatella gets to announce the challenge's winner, and she selects Fabio. He jabbers happily in Italian. The three winning chefs are dismissed. Fabio continues celebrating back in the Kitchen, happy to have tied up Elimination Challenge wins with Stefan. Yes, but what was that about challenges not mattering and dragons and princesses and such? Ah, who am I to intrude on his joy?
Back at Judges' Table, the three losing chefs are dissected. Not literally. That would be quite a different show. Hosea is surprised he's there, and makes a rookie mistake by saying he thought he'd be included amongst the winning group. There are multiple complaints about his food, from off-putting crab to sweetness issues to not enough seasoning. In the end, the judges can't even peg what was so wrong with the food, but know enough that they didn't like it. Ariane's dessert was boring and violently sweet. Padma informs her that she had to spit it into her napkin. Jill took an extraordinary ingredient and made a dull quiche out of it. Gail says that beyond the dish's concept, it just didn't taste good. Jill babbles about the pressure of being in the competition and that she's not sure what's getting to her. Her brain desperately searches for any sort of coherent defense, but she can't come up with anything better than "I understand the mistakes I made today, but just the pressure of the time, I had the idea, and...tried to execute it the best I could." Oof. I can't be too hard on her, because how do you defend food that judges simply didn't like the taste of? I guess she could have said something like "I tried to be creative by using an off-kilter ingredient, but that obviously affected the resulting flavor. I'll know to correct for that in future." Something like that. Instead, she's like Heroes: Unfocused and just stabs out at whatever idea she can think of, hoping one of them is a winner.
The chefs are dismissed. Ariane is convinced she's toast. Deliberations. Ptom is surprised that Hosea admitted he was complacent. Er, when did Hosea ever say that? I guess it could have been edited out, but then why show this deliberation? Gail is surprised that she can't articulate what she found so objectionable about the dish. That, more than anything, probably works in Hosea's favor. Ariane's food was way, way too sweet. She beats herself up some more in the Kitchen. Her spiral into utter depression is becoming uncomfortable to watch. Jill's explanation of her food was the lamest defense in five seasons of the show. Donatella agrees with my opinion that she's unfocused by failing to find any sort of point of view in Jill's food. The judges reach a decision.
Elimination. Hosea admitted he was complacent, which NO HE DIDN'T. Ariane just kind of sucks. Jill had a good ingredient, but couldn't make anything distinguished out of it. Ptom throws it over to Padma for the chop. Jill. Please pack your knives and go. Ariane looks like she wants to stick her head in the oven. She is so ready to go home. Jill is disappointed, and a bit surprised that her lackluster food was deemed worse than Ariane's actively bad food. She sheds a tear or two, which is nothing compared to the wrenching sobs coming from Ariane. She moans that she doesn't deserve to still be there, and Carla says she does, and gives her a big, comforting hug. Aw. She semi-ruins it by saying that "there is no mistake in the universe", but it was still a sweet gesture. Please, just eliminate Ariane. I'm not saying she's a bad chef, but this is clearly not the right setting for her, and at this point, it's the merciful thing to do. Poor, boring, overshadowed Jill says she'll take some time off and figure out what the hell she wants to do. Good idea.
Overall Grade: B+
Previously on Top Chef: Seventeen people with dreams of fame and glory came to New York City, but they weren't those other four thousand people who come to New York City each day with dreams of fame and glory. Stefan won the Quickfire, while...Laura? Erin? Whoever it was, she got kicked off the show before her luggage arrived on the airport carousel. The three gay chefs coalesced into a clique, and though Ariane did her best to keep them together by making terrible farro risotto, the rainbow lost a chunk of its hues with the elimination of Patrick. Stefan won the Elimination Challenge, and flew all the flags of Europe proudly. His arms must be tired. Fifteen chefs remain. Who will be eliminated tonight?
Opening credits. Drinking Game Rule #2: Take a drink at any reference to being thrown under a bus.
The opening segment always seems to be a rehashing of what went wrong in the previous episode, so I'll just refer to it as the Monday Morning Quarterback session. Richard tells us that we started with seventeen chefs, and two have been eliminated, so now there's fifteen. I can see why that interview was so crucial. Ariane continues to beat herself up, talking about how old she is and how much experience the other chefs have. It looks like she's beginning to seriously regret signing up for this show. I don't blame her; it seems like such a degrading experience. Fabio is happy to let Stefan win individual challenges as long as Fabio himself wins the competition, drawing a comparison to dragon-killing and princess-snatching. The chefs head out for the day.
Quickfire Challenge. The chefs are met in the Kitchen by Padma and this week's guest judge, Donatella Someoneorother. I'd be happy to write out her last name, but the Bravo folks have seen fit to cover the title up with an annoying ad for an annoying show. Padma says that the Quickfire will be the preparation of a New York favorite, which turns out to be a hot dog. Some lady who makes hot dogs comes in with her cart, and there's some blah about the chefs' dogs being compared to hers. This turns out to have absolutely no bearing on the Quickfire whatsoever, so with all due respect to this lady and her wieners, I don't see the point of mentioning her again. Forty-five minutes. Immunity for the winner. Ready? Go!
Ariane beats herself up some more. Daniel has acquired an odd, negative-space mustache. Fabio says you can't out hot dog a hot dog, so he works with sausage. Stefan uses a mix of international ingredients from Italian sausage to Wisconsin cheese to Irish tartar sauce. Jill, showing a knack for identifying last season's pitfall of "Challenge Parameters Are Beneath Us!" recognizes that incorporating hot dogs into a dish isn't the same thing as making one. So she decides to go ahead and ignore the instinct, doing just that. Radhika, who you'll remember introduced herself last week by sniffing that the other chefs would just write her off as a chef that makes Indian food (right before making chutney), makes an Indian-style kabob dog. Hehehe. Hosea concentrates on his flavors, rather than presentation. Time runs out.
Padma and Donatella go down the line. As promised, Jill has just shoved hot dogs into a summer roll. Besides not adhering to the challenge parameters, it looks totally gross. Radhika's kabob dog includes lamb and pork, and looks tasty. Daniel's has horseradish and mustard. Eugene has made a maki roll with cheese. Donatella cannot keep her emotions off her face, so it's fairly easy to tell when she hates something, as with Eugene's. Hosea's is bacon and roasted peppers. Yum. Stefan presents his World Dog. Donatella takes a bite, and her face crumbles again. Bad sign. Carla is told that her lamb and pork with sauerkraut is very moist. Ariane's chicken dog has too much celery seed. Fabio has concocted a Mediterranean dog made up of andouille sausage, goat cheese, roasted bell peppers, and sun-dried tomatoes. I'm not a big sun-dried tomato fan, but the rest sounds good. Jamie has used pork, and let a bone slip in to her dog. I bet that's the first bone she's ever let slip in. Thank you! I'm here all week!
Results. The bottom two are Jill's store-bought hot dog crud, and Stefan, whose World Dog should be wiped off the map. He whines that there was nothing wrong with his dog. Ah, so Stefan has won the first Elimination Challenge, and now he's whining about how the guest judge has no taste. I guess he's on-track to win, after all. Donatella loved Radhika's dog, saying she's glad Radhika embraced the Indian theme. Well, don't get too used to it, Donatella. Radhika is NOT just an Indian chef. The fact that she's made Indian food in two of three challenges, and was forced into doing Jamaican for the third should not be used against her. Fabio also impressed Donatella, as did Hosea's bacon. Radhika winds up winning, and it makes her happy to redeem herself after her unimpressive Quickfire performance last week. Immunity helps, too.
Elimination Challenge. Padma tells the chefs that they'll be opening a restaurant, and a lot of them break into grins. Jeff knows enough to wait until the other shoe drops. The challenge will be to create a three-course New American lunch menu. New American is about the vaguest cuisine type ever, but Jamie gives it the old college try by saying a lot of it is about reinventing classic American dishes. Each chef is responsible for their own dish, so five will be on appetizers, five on entrees, and five on dessert. There's some yakking about how New Yorkers are tough to please, as if the rest of us are happy with whatever pig slop you throw on the plate. I can see that I'll have to keep a Big Apple Snobbery Alert on throughout the season, and not just when Tuskegee Joey is on-screen. At least this one's pretty mild; a violet on the Snobbery Alert chart.
As soon as Padma leaves, there's an explosion of dibs on certain courses. What's weird is that a lot of the clamoring is for dessert, because on every other season of this show, chefs fled from dessert courses in terror. Strange. Anyhow, Jeff manages to get everyone ordered and organized. I have to say, if he manages to shed the pretty-boy image, there's a person underneath I think I like. The chefs head off to Whole Foods with $2,500 and thirty minutes of shopping time. I'm assuming that $2,500 has to cover everybody, though I'd love to see what kind of meal would result if each chef got that. Hosea wants fresh crab meat, but has to settle for canned. Fabio stocks up on beef and olives. Jill likes the creativity of ostrich egg, and hoists one into her basket so she can make a quiche. Wait, Whole Foods has ostrich eggs, but they don't have fresh crab meat? Odd. Everyone checks out.
Back at the Kitchen, the chefs get started on their two hours of prep time. The groups have shaken out to be:
Appetizers: Fabio, Hosea, Jamie, Melissa, and Leah
Entrees: Stefan, Jeff, Eugene, Alex, and Jill
Desserts: Carla, Ariane, Daniel, Richard, and Radhika
Jamie gets started on a sweet corn soup, and somewhat disdains Jill's idea to use an ostrich egg. I think using the egg itself is fine; it's what she makes with it that will be the real deciding factor. That is, if she can make anything at all, because she has real problems even breaking into the shell. She finally cracks it with Fabio's help. Ariane begins making a lemon meringue martini, and beats up on herself yet again, because she's not a dessert expert. Ptom stops by to drop a bomb on the chefs. First of all, they'll be cooking in his restaurant. That's a big who cares, because it's not like members of the public will be strolling in. Second, all fifty of the diners at the luncheon will be New York chefs who tried out for the show, and didn't make it. Daaaaaaaaaamn! Kudos to whoever thought this up, because that is deliciously evil. I can't think of anyone on the planet who would be harder to win over than reality show wannabes denied their moment in the sun. Carla nails it in interview, saying that it'll be impossible to get their dishes "right" for a bunch of jealous, hypercritical diners.
Evening. Fabio drags out his dragon/princess metaphor again, and has to be subtitled. Drink! Then, in an extremely bizarre sequence of events, there's a short commercial break, then a show segment literally less than a minute long that features Leah and Hosea flirting, and then it goes back into commercials. Um. OK. I guess that budding romance was just too compelling to leave on the cutting room floor. When we get back to the show, it's a new day. The chefs make their way to Ptom's restaurant, and get set up. Jamie's in love with her soup, but Fabio dismisses it in interview as too simple. It certainly is compared to his dish, which involves chemically altering olive juice so that it forms a solid shell on the outside, while remaining liquid on the inside. Interesting.
Hosea seasons his crab. Jill rushes her quiche into the oven. Carla frets over her pie crust. Ariane shops her martini around to the others. Richard wants to be all competitive by not sharing his opinion that it's too sweet, but that doesn't really work out when a bunch of other chefs volunteer the same criticism. Ariane knows she has the option to remake it, but is clearly welcoming elimination with open arms at this point, and is like "Meh. Screw it." The fifty loser guests begin to stream in and get down to the business of getting acquainted with each other. In this case, that means bragging about their cooking credentials. Some of them don't even wait to taste the food, and begin ragging on the chefs' selections just based on reading the menu. Ptom and the real chef that does all the work at his restaurant come back to expedite all the food. He reminds the chefs not to stick a utensil they've just used to sample their food back into the dish.
LabRat: "Why does he need to tell them that?"
Time runs down. The diners choose their courses. They probably ordered what they figured they'd hate the most to ensure a nice amount of complaining. The judges enter, and get seated. The chefs plate up, and time runs out. Now, to the appetizers. Jamie has made a chilled, sweet corn soup with chili oil and mint. Amazingly, nobody has a bad thing to say about it. The judges love it, and even one of the diners finds it "amazing". Hosea sends out his cold crab salad with citrus vanilla dressing, accented by mango and avocado. The judges dislike the texture and muddied flavors, and one of the diners is able to discern that the crab came out of a can, as it had a metal-ish flavor. Ugh, I hate that. Leah sends out seared scallops with Yukon potato, chives, and pink peppercorns (though the Reliably Shitty Titles Department refers to them as green peppercorns). The diners disdain them (one says they're too sandy), and Padma gets an '80s feel from the dish, whatever that means. Fabio sends out beef carpaccio with arugula salad, slices of Parmesan cheese, and those spherical olives he described earlier. Donatella says that it's a perfect lunch dish. Melissa has made grilled avocado, and served it alongside white peaches and nectarines. Zzzzzz.
Several jealous losers in the dining room make general nitpicky comments that make me all too glad they and their dumb haircuts and hipster outfits didn't make it onto the show. The entrees start to go out. Jill has made an ostrich egg quiche with a rice-pecan crust, and served it with asparagus and cheese. Donatella's face crumbles again, and she hurriedly reaches for her wine, saying the quiche tastes like glue. Ouch. Eugene has made a deconstructed meatloaf sandwich with ciabatta break, gouda, and a mushroom ragout. I have to say, the diners may be overly critical, but a lot of these dishes are boring as hell. The judges aren't impressed. Stefan sends out his pan-seared halibut, which is topped with greens, pasta ravioli, a champagne sauce, and dill. It gets a favorable reaction in the dining room. Jeff has made honey mustard chicken and a chorizo corn bread. That sounds good. The diners agree. Even one of the annoying hipsters says he has no complaints at all. Alex sends out a grilled pork tenderloin over potatoes with mushroom, tomato, and a red beet demi-glace. It's not popular.
Desserts. Radhika has made a citrus-avocado mousse with chocolate wontons and a chocolate milk Kahlua shot. That's one of those things I can't judge unless I taste it. The avocado mousse sounds unappetizing, but I don't know. It's pretty, anyway. Gail says it's obvious Radhika has immunity, because she's essentially made sweet guacamole. Eeeeeeew. Daniel has made a ricotta poundcake with toasted pistachios, and a strawberry-lemon sauce. Not only does that sound good, but Daniel has refrained from the uber-pretentious pronunciation of ricotta, and for that, I thank him. It gets good reviews, though he's never made it before. Good for him. Ariane has put together her half-assed lemon meringue martini with vanilla cookie crumbles and some cherry on the bottom. She says she thinks it may be a little too sweet. That assumption is confirmed when Padma takes a bite, and:
Yeah. Not a big hit. Richard sends out his sandwich of banana nut bread, peanut butter, and banana brulee with grape gelato. Okay, I see what he's going for, and I'd probably like how it tastes, but as with last week's lamb burger, he tends to go for simplistic ideas that aren't going to win any sophistication points. The judges agree with me by calling it an "after school snack". Carla plates her rustic apple tart with ginger peach tea, an apple cider reduction, and some cheddar cheese. ME WANT. Though her cheese is unattractively plated, she's saved by the flavor of her tart. Service winds down. The jealous losers fill out comment cards and whine their way out the door. See ya never! Ptom tells the chefs he'll see them at Judges' Table, to which they weirdly applaud. He goes out to join the other judges, and they discuss how disappointed they are. Ptom is floored by the downslide in quality between last week and tonight.
Fret 'n' sweat. Ptom comes back to the Kitchen to let the chefs know that the service was great, but the food sucked. That said, he summons Jamie, Hosea, Ariane, Fabio, Carla, and Jill to Judges' Table. Padma reiterates that most of the food was terrible, but allows that there were some bright spots. First is Carla's pastry. Though she should have found a way to incorporate her cheese a little better, it was great, overall. Fabio's name is called, and he immediately springs into defensive mode, saying he serves hundreds of dishes just like the one he made today, and challenges the judges to tell him why he's at Judges' Table. "You're here because we liked your dish, [moron]," Padma says. The "moron" is not said, but it hangs palpably in the air. Once Fabio understands he's actually on the winning side, he calms down. His grilled lemon was Gail's favorite part, while Donatella loved the spherical olives. Jamie's soup incorporated seasonal ingredients, flavor, and texture. Donatella gets to announce the challenge's winner, and she selects Fabio. He jabbers happily in Italian. The three winning chefs are dismissed. Fabio continues celebrating back in the Kitchen, happy to have tied up Elimination Challenge wins with Stefan. Yes, but what was that about challenges not mattering and dragons and princesses and such? Ah, who am I to intrude on his joy?
Back at Judges' Table, the three losing chefs are dissected. Not literally. That would be quite a different show. Hosea is surprised he's there, and makes a rookie mistake by saying he thought he'd be included amongst the winning group. There are multiple complaints about his food, from off-putting crab to sweetness issues to not enough seasoning. In the end, the judges can't even peg what was so wrong with the food, but know enough that they didn't like it. Ariane's dessert was boring and violently sweet. Padma informs her that she had to spit it into her napkin. Jill took an extraordinary ingredient and made a dull quiche out of it. Gail says that beyond the dish's concept, it just didn't taste good. Jill babbles about the pressure of being in the competition and that she's not sure what's getting to her. Her brain desperately searches for any sort of coherent defense, but she can't come up with anything better than "I understand the mistakes I made today, but just the pressure of the time, I had the idea, and...tried to execute it the best I could." Oof. I can't be too hard on her, because how do you defend food that judges simply didn't like the taste of? I guess she could have said something like "I tried to be creative by using an off-kilter ingredient, but that obviously affected the resulting flavor. I'll know to correct for that in future." Something like that. Instead, she's like Heroes: Unfocused and just stabs out at whatever idea she can think of, hoping one of them is a winner.
The chefs are dismissed. Ariane is convinced she's toast. Deliberations. Ptom is surprised that Hosea admitted he was complacent. Er, when did Hosea ever say that? I guess it could have been edited out, but then why show this deliberation? Gail is surprised that she can't articulate what she found so objectionable about the dish. That, more than anything, probably works in Hosea's favor. Ariane's food was way, way too sweet. She beats herself up some more in the Kitchen. Her spiral into utter depression is becoming uncomfortable to watch. Jill's explanation of her food was the lamest defense in five seasons of the show. Donatella agrees with my opinion that she's unfocused by failing to find any sort of point of view in Jill's food. The judges reach a decision.
Elimination. Hosea admitted he was complacent, which NO HE DIDN'T. Ariane just kind of sucks. Jill had a good ingredient, but couldn't make anything distinguished out of it. Ptom throws it over to Padma for the chop. Jill. Please pack your knives and go. Ariane looks like she wants to stick her head in the oven. She is so ready to go home. Jill is disappointed, and a bit surprised that her lackluster food was deemed worse than Ariane's actively bad food. She sheds a tear or two, which is nothing compared to the wrenching sobs coming from Ariane. She moans that she doesn't deserve to still be there, and Carla says she does, and gives her a big, comforting hug. Aw. She semi-ruins it by saying that "there is no mistake in the universe", but it was still a sweet gesture. Please, just eliminate Ariane. I'm not saying she's a bad chef, but this is clearly not the right setting for her, and at this point, it's the merciful thing to do. Poor, boring, overshadowed Jill says she'll take some time off and figure out what the hell she wants to do. Good idea.
Overall Grade: B+
That is Studly
The Amazing Race - Season 13, Episode 9
No, it isn't. But first thing's first. The teams leave Kazakhstan for Moscow, Russia, which I'm surprised to learn is one of the most expensive cities in the world. There's more pointless flirting between Dallas and Starr. The Fratties go to an airport store and spend a good chunk of their available money on new shoes to replace the ones they idiotically left behind at the last Detour.
Once in Moscow, teams have to find a monastery and light a candle. Bo-ring! From there, they have to go to a military camp and dress in fatigues for the Detour. The choice is between doing a simple, synchronized march (Bo-ring!) or filling 75 bowls with some very runny borscht (Extremely Bo-ring!). Toni and Dallas get a good jump, and although Nick and Starr have a string of unhelpful taxi drivers, their bad luck cannot hope to compete against the Fratties' sheer incompetence. They screw up (well, Dan screws up) one of the easiest Detour tasks in the history of the show, then mistakenly strip off their fatigues to go do the other one. Sigh. From there, it would take some real work to lose to them.
Dan finally doesn't suck at something; in this case, the Roadblock, which involves hauling sacks of flour (Bo-ring! Though somewhat made up for by an awesome clue wrangler who yells at the contestants) into a bakery. Toni and Dallas finally score a first-place win, and must figure out how to spend a romantic trip for two together. The money that the Fratties wasted on buying shoes makes them too broke to pay off their taxi, and by the time they finally trudge to the pitstop, they're in dead last. So of course it's a non-elimination leg, and they live to suck another day.
Overall Grade: C-
No, it isn't. But first thing's first. The teams leave Kazakhstan for Moscow, Russia, which I'm surprised to learn is one of the most expensive cities in the world. There's more pointless flirting between Dallas and Starr. The Fratties go to an airport store and spend a good chunk of their available money on new shoes to replace the ones they idiotically left behind at the last Detour.
Once in Moscow, teams have to find a monastery and light a candle. Bo-ring! From there, they have to go to a military camp and dress in fatigues for the Detour. The choice is between doing a simple, synchronized march (Bo-ring!) or filling 75 bowls with some very runny borscht (Extremely Bo-ring!). Toni and Dallas get a good jump, and although Nick and Starr have a string of unhelpful taxi drivers, their bad luck cannot hope to compete against the Fratties' sheer incompetence. They screw up (well, Dan screws up) one of the easiest Detour tasks in the history of the show, then mistakenly strip off their fatigues to go do the other one. Sigh. From there, it would take some real work to lose to them.
Dan finally doesn't suck at something; in this case, the Roadblock, which involves hauling sacks of flour (Bo-ring! Though somewhat made up for by an awesome clue wrangler who yells at the contestants) into a bakery. Toni and Dallas finally score a first-place win, and must figure out how to spend a romantic trip for two together. The money that the Fratties wasted on buying shoes makes them too broke to pay off their taxi, and by the time they finally trudge to the pitstop, they're in dead last. So of course it's a non-elimination leg, and they live to suck another day.
Overall Grade: C-
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
McKey to My Heart
America's Next Top Model - Season 11, Episode 11
The last episode of America's Next Top Model is usually a big to-do of nerves, drama, and more often than not, the banishment of the season's Bitch. This season, however, just comes to a gentle stop. In the first half, the girls have to deliver a CoverGirl commercial with some Dutch lines. Analeigh is surprisingly bad, while McKey is surprisingly good. Samantha rides the middle, as she is wont to do. From there, it's on to those beauty shots that often come off as sort of creepy. Samantha's looks a bit wooden, while Analeigh continues being Blandy McWhitebread. McKey's is lovely, and she becomes a lock for the final two. That settled, the judges cut Analeigh, aware that if she won, America would fall asleep midway through her post-victory joy.
The second half is the traditional runway show, which is very uneventful. Neither McKey nor Samantha is that good or that bad, though it's nice to see Whitney again. Both girls are roundly complimented at panel, but McKey has clearly been stronger overall, and she takes the win. I must say, I wouldn't have called it when this season began, but I'm very pleased. With McKey, that is. The show, however? It's getting duller by the season. It just may be time to snip Tyra once and for all.
Overall Grade: B+
Overall Season Grade: C
The last episode of America's Next Top Model is usually a big to-do of nerves, drama, and more often than not, the banishment of the season's Bitch. This season, however, just comes to a gentle stop. In the first half, the girls have to deliver a CoverGirl commercial with some Dutch lines. Analeigh is surprisingly bad, while McKey is surprisingly good. Samantha rides the middle, as she is wont to do. From there, it's on to those beauty shots that often come off as sort of creepy. Samantha's looks a bit wooden, while Analeigh continues being Blandy McWhitebread. McKey's is lovely, and she becomes a lock for the final two. That settled, the judges cut Analeigh, aware that if she won, America would fall asleep midway through her post-victory joy.
The second half is the traditional runway show, which is very uneventful. Neither McKey nor Samantha is that good or that bad, though it's nice to see Whitney again. Both girls are roundly complimented at panel, but McKey has clearly been stronger overall, and she takes the win. I must say, I wouldn't have called it when this season began, but I'm very pleased. With McKey, that is. The show, however? It's getting duller by the season. It just may be time to snip Tyra once and for all.
Overall Grade: B+
Overall Season Grade: C
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
What?!?
Top Chef - Season 5, Episode 1
Previously on Top Chef: Fifteen chefs and one extremely irritating lady cooked their way through Chicago and Puerto Rico. Stephanie emerged victorious, proving once and for all that women can cook, and centuries of mothers, sisters, aunts, and grandmothers ruling the home kitchen wasn't just some enormous fluke. Limecrete had a job that allowed him time to write blow-by-blow recaps. Now, he doesn't, and must be content with medium-length entries like this one. Boo! Oh, and seventeen chefs are starting the competition process anew in New York City. I cannot believe that they haven't done a season in Reality Show Mecca until now, but there it is. Tiffany pauses the DVR and announces that she's betting that at some point during the season, those punny producers will be sure to wedge in a challenge about apples, as they're in the Big one. The show format is the same. The prizes are the same. I hope at least the challenges and contestants are interesting. The last thing we need is a cookie-cutter season.
Opening credits. It's helpful for matching faces with names, especially when there are this many people. I'm already ready to send a bunch of them home, just so we're left with a more manageable number. Top Chef is best enjoyed in a group setting, with plenty of alcohol present. And we all know the recipe for a good drinking game is to add wine to reality show cliche and bring to a low boil. So, let's get started. Every time someone's thick accent is so unintelligible that it warrants subtitles...DRINK!
New York City. I feel like I've just gotten back, and am already looking forward to my next trip there. Fun city. Contestants begin arriving at the airport. As with several other reality show wannabes, some are there for personal validation, and some are raging narcissists. A small handful actually seem to want to use this as a learning experience to help their careers. Weirdos! Radhika's parents are from India, but don't you dare pigeonhole her into Indian cuisine. Don't you dare! Lauren refuses to sit at home and waste time while her husband fights in Iraq. And as we all know, the only way to avoid wasting time is to get yourself on a television show. Meanwhile, through the miracle of science, Howie and Tuscaloosa Joey have managed to mate and create an adult baby named Daniel, who will be making his daddies proud by following in the family tradition of competing on this show. Lauren's heart leaps when she spies Patrick, as they went to school together. Patrick's still a student and "has a lot of passion". Stefan has moved all over Europe. Richard is a big, adorable queer.
The chefs get off a ferry to meet Padma and Ptom. They blah a bit about what a harsh environment the New York culinary scene is, as Ptom knows from experience. Padma takes us into the first Quickfire Challenge, but there's a twist. The chef who finishes the Quickfire last is out. On the plus side, the eliminated chef doesn't need to worry about unpacking all that luggage. The chefs don't appreciate that bright side, and look consternated. Lauren, who has apparently never seen a reality show in her life, says she knows one of the chef coats waiting in the Kitchen is hers, and she'll "be damned" if she goes home early. Fate laughs merrily and strings her bow. The Quickfire is split into three rounds. The first round will be to peel fifteen apples with a knife. Score one for Tiffany! The first nine to finish their apples to Ptom's satisfaction will be safe, and the eight remaining chefs will move on to Round 2. Ready? Go!
Richard immediately gouges himself with the knife and bleeds all over his apples. Yum! Stefan finishes first. Other chefs follow, including a woman whose bangs don't do her any favors. It would be incredibly juvenile and idiotic to point out her unfortunately masculine features by yelling "Man!" every time she appears on-screen. So pretend I didn't do that. Jamie finishes ninth, ending Round 1. Padma informs Stefan that as the first to finish, he'll be immune in the upcoming Elimination Challenge. He gives the Standard Speech. For Round 2, the remaining chefs must brunoise two cups of the apples they've just peeled. The first four to finish successfully will be safe, and the remaining four will continue into Round 3. Ready? Go!
When the dust settles, the four losing chefs are Leah, Radhika, Patrick, and Lauren. Round 3 will be to take the diced apples and cook something worthy of deserving a spot in the competition. The chefs will have twenty minutes, and some equipment and extra ingredients have been provided. Ready? Go! Radhika, who you'd better not pigeonhole as just an Indian chef, leaps onto the idea to make apple chutney, because Indian flavors are her strength. Oh, why must you make it so easy for viewers to mock you? We need a challenge! Leah sees Radhika using pork, and opts for scallops instead, because she doesn't want to use the same protein as someone else. May I ask why? I'm not being snide; I really want to know. Surely, there must be a thousand ways to prepare pork in twenty minutes, and it's not like anybody's going to accuse her of being a copycat when there are so few ingredients available, right? Right?
Lauren throws together some fruit, lettuce, nuts, and bacon for a salad. A salad. It's hard to judge Top Chef challenge entries from home, because it's not like we can reach through the screen and taste anything. However, a good rule of thumb is that if little ol' me can easily prepare whatever the chef is making, it's not impressive enough. Patrick doesn't hear me, and puts together a simple little apple salad with yogurt dressing. He says that he's a perfectionist, so he's more about quality than speed. OK, but you're making apple salad, not Peking duck. The chefs plate up, and time runs out. Lauren presents her salad, which seriously, I could make in five minutes. Patrick puts forth his apple slaw salad, which includes cinnamon, honey, and mint. Yuck. Lauren's was too easy, but at least it'd taste good. Radhika has pan-seared some pork and topped it with her apple chutney. But she's not just an Indian chef! Leah has put forth the most impressive effort, making an apple hash to top her scallops, and putting it all on a pool of vinegar and apple juice.
The Odd Asian music and its attendant gong come early this season. Padma asks for the good news first, and it's not hard to peg Leah and Radhika as safe. So, it comes down to the salads, as it should. Patrick and Lauren clutch hands. Patrick thinks it's sad, as he's just now getting a chance to reconnect with Lauren. Don't feel bad, Patrick. Perhaps the two of you won't be separated for as long as you think. After a commercial break, Ptom announces that Patrick has squeaked by. Padma tells Lauren to pack her knives and go. The other chefs give her pity applause as she does a walk of shame to the ferry. Good-bye, Karen! I'll never forget you!
Elimination Challenge. Padma brings out the knife block, and the chefs come one at a time to draw one. Each knife has an ethnic neighborhood of New York City printed on it, and as there are two of each neighborhood, the chefs are paired off as follows:
Patrick and Daniel: Chinatown (Chinese - duh)
Ariane and Stefan: Long Island City (Middle Eastern)
Radhika and Jill: Queens (Jamaican)
Fabio and Jeff: Ozone Park (Latin)
Hosea and Carla: Brighton Beach (Russian)
Leah and Melissa: Little Italy (Italian - duh)
Richard and Jamie: Astoria (Greek)
Alex and Eugene: Little India (Indian - duh)
The challenge is to create a dish inspired by the neighborhood each chef has drawn. The two dishes of each neighborhood will be served head-to-head. An ultimate winner will be chosen from the top eight, and one of the losing eight will meet up with Lorena at the airport. With that, the chefs are dismissed to go get settled in their apartment, which is swanky. Everyone admires the view. Richard, Patrick, and Jamie quickly bond together as the gay chefs, calling themselves Team Rainbow. I'm all for the gay bonding, but "Team Rainbow" is so fruity, it's dropping blueberries. That evening, Fabio talks about how much pasta he makes, and kids about how all other Europeans are jealous of Italians. He's subtitled. DRINK! Stefan picks a fight about how a vinaigrette is a vinaigrette. No arguments here. Oh, and he's subtitled. DRINK! In his argument about how vinaigrettes are not emulsions, Stefan tells Daniel to get a life. I'm sorry, but nobody involved in a fight about vinaigrette gets to tell anyone to get a life. Ever.
The next morning, after everyone gets up and fed, they split into their pairs to go shopping in their specific neighborhoods. They've got twenty minutes and $75 to shop. Hosea doesn't know much about Russian cuisine.
Panny: "It's all fucking beets."
He's in better shape than he thinks, because his competition is Carla, who is currently informing us (with her eyes bugging out of her sockets) that she's waiting to be led by her spirit guides. Oooooooookay. Ariane knows nothing about Middle Eastern cooking, but Jeff is confident in his Latin food abilities, coming from Miami. Leah far outmatches Melissa in Italian roots. Patrick is taking a course in Asian cuisine, so he's all good. Well, sure. I took a course in art history, so I can identify what dynasty a vase came from at thirty paces. He picks up some black rice noodles, which he's never worked with before, but "can't be too bad". Fate shakes her head in disgust and pulls out another arrow. Eugene has no Indian food experience, and when he sees that the store has some food cooked and ready to go, he intelligently asks for a sample of some to try and approximate later.
The Kitchen is big, bright, and clean, and has the Top Chef logo in mosaic on the wall, which makes it look like a subway stop. I mean that as a compliment. The chefs have two hours to get their dishes ready, so they get started. Fabio jabbers about the pork he's making. We yell the titular quote at the screen. Jeff says he's got all sorts of time, so he starts on some crispy plantain. Yum. I forgot how hungry watching this show makes me. Stefan tells us he's working with lamb. Ariane, who spent the morning telling us how shy she is, now says she can't compete with Stefan's confidence, because she always second-guesses herself. I'm like that too, so you know what I don't do? Sign up for televised contests. Carla hacks her smoked fish to mush, trying to get all the bones out. She wonders aloud what will happen if the judges find some, and Hosea's like "Um, that's why I bought filets, dumbass." Guess the spirit guides didn't pass that tip along. Richard talks to himself while he cooks, while Jamie withdraws into herself. That works out well for both of them.
With thirty minutes left, Alex tells us that he's incorporating his strength in Latin food into his Indian dish, because the flavors marry well. I don't see that at all, but who am I to stand in the way of his happiness? Ariane boils some farro, but doubts she has enough time to cook it through. The black rice noodles Patrick has never used before have a gummy texture he's not happy with. The course in Asian cuisine has failed him! He starts a new batch in the hopes that he can get some he's happy with. As time winds down, Jeff realizes that none of the gazillion components to his dish have been plated. He begins running around the Kitchen like a maniac. It doesn't work, and when time runs out, he's missing a lot of his food.
Guest judge Jean-George Vongerichten comes into the Kitchen with Ptom, Padma, and Gail. Hey, Ptom didn't have a chance to Ptimewaste tonight! Yay! Padma explains the whole challenge again. I'll assume you're up to speed. Ariane and Stefan are up first. She's made crusted rack of lamb, and some farro risotto with dates and chickpeas. Stefan has a meat duo, consisting of a lamb chop with tabouli salad and a beef/onion skewer, both of which look wonderful. Jean-George asks about the spices Stefan used with a thick accent and around a mouthful of food. That means subtitle, and that means...DRINK! Gail likes Ariane's lamb, but finds the risotto woefully undercooked. Jean-George roundly compliments Stefan's dish. At least that's what the subtitles would lead me to believe. DRINK! Ptom liked his use of cinnamon, and he's the clear winner of the duo.
Richard and Jamie come up for judging. Richard loses some points with me by rhapsodizing over how dreamy Ptom is. Bleh. He's not bad-looking, but his personality has long since invalidated his appearance. Richard has made a lamb burger and an orzo/feta pasta salad. Jamie has made a deconstructed Greek salad of eggplant puree, seared bass, and a small salad made with arugula and olives. There is an audible crunch when Ptom takes a bite of the burger. Ew. The judges don't like how Richard has overcooked the lamb, even if it was intentional. Jamie takes the round. Radhika and Jill approach with their Jamaican dishes. Jill has made plantain fritters crusted with macadamia nuts and jerk-spiced scallops. They are served on a bed of three colorful sauces, each of which form a circular pool. It's quite pretty. Radhika has made jerk-rubbed halibut and served it with mango salad on three bean rice. Yes, because rice is so very Jamaican. Not Indian at all! Don't pigeonhole her! Jean-George says (DRINK!) that Radhika's fish and rice are too soft to be served together, and Jill wins.
Jeff and Fabio. I'm not even going to attempt to decipher everything Fabio says, but the gist is that his Latin dish is a pork chop with a mango and jalapeno demi-glace, and a mushroom/avocado salad on the side. It looks awful. Jeff has made coffee-seared pork tenderloin, with smoke plantain, black beans, and rice on the side. Now that I could get into. Ptom prefers Fabio's dish, but he's outvoted by Jean-George (DRINK!) and Padma. I assume Gail went for Jeff's too. Hosea and Carla. Hosea, who I have to admit thinking is kind of hot, wins me over even further by presenting a trio of smoked fish and caviar I want to dive through the screen and devour. Carla has made smoked trout and wild salmon cake, and served them on top of potato latkes. Huh. I like all those things, but I wouldn't put them together. Hosea is told that he executed his dish with "culinary eloquence", and he takes the round.
Leah and Melissa. Like Ariane, Leah has made a farro risotto, but has served hers with red snapper and mushrooms. Melissa has seared rib eye steak on tomato sauce, and has dumped a bunch of arugula and fried mushrooms on top. It looks like bar food. The judges' issue is more that Melissa's lacked salt and pepper, and Leah wins. Daniel and Patrick. Daniel has whipped up a ginger-poached chicken salad with bok choy, shiitake mushrooms, and fried wontons. Well, that didn't take long. The subtitles of Daniel's dish gives us the season's first example of the Reliably Shitty Titles Department. I've taken the liberty of correcting their spelling here, which I generally have to do a lot. Like, embarrassingly so. Not just spelling. Their grammar and identification skills suck too.
Anyhoo, Daniel's food looks very tasty. Patrick has made seared salmon on bok choy with ginger/garlic scallion on a bed of the black rice noodles. I don't mean to harp on the simplicity of Patrick's dishes, but the fact that he's still a culinary student really stands out. He is completely out of his league here. His Quickfire was a basic salad, and this is fish on noodles. Anyone with a modicum of cooking skill could do this. The judges don't like the texture of the black rice noodles, and don't find a lot of Chinese flavors in the dish. Daniel's isn't very popular either, as it's messy and unoriginal. However, it was more flavorful than Patrick's, and that's enough to win the round. Alex and Eugene. Alex has grilled lamb chops, which are served alongside a spicy ragout and rest on a bed of basmati rice. The lamb looks overdone to me. Eugene has made rack of lamb rubbed with masala (a mixture of spices), served with basmati rice and tzatziki. I always thought of tzatziki as Greek, not Indian. Padma informs Eugene that he's accidentally created curds and rice, not tzatziki. Luckily for him, that is very Indian, and he's done it very well, so he wins the round.
Ptom thinks the overall level of the dishes was very good. I don't know, a lot of those looked either overly simple or were a glut of traditional ingredients thrown into a heap. That's understandable on the first challenge, but let's not pretend that things like a lamb burger are terribly exciting. Jean-George garbles something which is helpfully subtitled to indicate that he's pleased. DRINK! Nobody's dish was out-and-out awful, but Patrick's was certainly the work of an amateur, Radhika's textures were off, and Ariane's farro was raw. The judges reach an agreement. After the commercials, Padma summons Stefan, Eugene, Leah, Patrick, and Ariane to Judges' Table. The Odd Asian music and the gong have a union contract stating that after they show up in an episode, they can knock off for the day, and have gone home.
The judges start with the winners. Leah has captured the spirit of modern Italian cooking. Stefan has made a complicated dish look simple. Jean-George says something about lemon and couscous. What?!? I don't look at the television screen as I type, and he is just impossible without the subtitles. DRINK! Eugene has fallen backwards into a great Indian dish. Padma seriously intones the tradition that in all but one season (Season 3), the person who has won the first Elimination Challenge has won the whole season. The person under that pressure this time is... Stefan, who has taken the rare double win. Stefan says that it would be great for a European to win Top Chef, complaining that only Americans have won this game produced by Americans that takes place in America. It's times like these that I bemoan the lack of culinary opportunity in Europe. They just have no appreciation for food over there!
The winners leave Judges' Table. Ariane is asked how her dish came about, and she says she looked around the store, and just bought what there seemed to be the most of, guessing that those ingredients would be popular. That is a terrible answer. Her undercooked farro is brought up, and Ptom says that cooking grains properly is a basic skill chefs need to understand. Both Ariane and Patrick's dishes lacked inspiration. Patrick says he wanted to present clean flavors ("clean" is often code for "ridiculously easy"), and Ptom nails it by saying that his food was like a cliche of Chinese food, rather than actual food one would eat in Chinatown. Ptom says that both losing dishes prove that chefs need to get out of their comfort zones. That's all well and good, but you can't know everything. People need to specialize. Would you slam your dentist for not knowing how to deliver a baby? After some more grousing in this vein, Ariane loses her patience and points out that that's why people have cookbooks. Another terrible answer. True, but terrible. Ptom whines that people learn to cook through experience, not book-learning. Frankly, I think both are important.
Both chefs are asked why they should stay. Ariane has "a lot to give". Patrick is "driven by [his] passion". More terrible answers! Passion doesn't equate to talent. Wanting something is not the same as deserving it. Padma dismisses the chefs. Deliberations. Ptom says that Patrick is still a student, but the competition is a level playing field. Well, then maybe pitting a culinary student against executive chefs who have lived and worked in multiple countries wasn't the best idea. The judges say he lacked inspiration and doesn't have the ability to think on the fly. Patrick is busy telling the other chefs that he wants to share his passion with them and the world. All right, I feel bad for how badly this kid is outmatched. But enough with the friggin' passion, already. The judges say Ariane should have known better. Jean-George: "Bkelreljleryjhbje." What?!? Ptom thinks she lacks a basic cooking skill. The judges reach a decision.
Elimination. Ptom tries to find something good to say about an established chef being evenly matched against a relative upstart, and winds up insulting them both. Ariane's inspiration was good, but her technique was off. Patrick's was executed well, but had no inspiration. Ptom throws it over to Padma for the chopping. Patrick. Please pack your knives and go. Jeez, whoever taught him and Laurel needs to turn in their teaching certificate now. The judges wish him luck. This is kind of sad, and not in the emotional way. More of the discomfort-of-seeing-someone-so-clearly-set-up-to-fail way. He gets a group hug back in the Kitchen, and shrugs that he's got his whole career ahead of him. That's true. He had no chance of winning this, but that doesn't speak to a lack of skill; just a lack of experience. That's cheering.
This season on Top Chef: Cooking. Fire. Cursing. Fights. Tonight's hints of Stefan's arrogance and douchebaggery come to fruition. Martha Stewart. Crazy Carla. Bad food. Crying. So... Standard issue, I guess.
Overall Grade: B
Previously on Top Chef: Fifteen chefs and one extremely irritating lady cooked their way through Chicago and Puerto Rico. Stephanie emerged victorious, proving once and for all that women can cook, and centuries of mothers, sisters, aunts, and grandmothers ruling the home kitchen wasn't just some enormous fluke. Limecrete had a job that allowed him time to write blow-by-blow recaps. Now, he doesn't, and must be content with medium-length entries like this one. Boo! Oh, and seventeen chefs are starting the competition process anew in New York City. I cannot believe that they haven't done a season in Reality Show Mecca until now, but there it is. Tiffany pauses the DVR and announces that she's betting that at some point during the season, those punny producers will be sure to wedge in a challenge about apples, as they're in the Big one. The show format is the same. The prizes are the same. I hope at least the challenges and contestants are interesting. The last thing we need is a cookie-cutter season.
Opening credits. It's helpful for matching faces with names, especially when there are this many people. I'm already ready to send a bunch of them home, just so we're left with a more manageable number. Top Chef is best enjoyed in a group setting, with plenty of alcohol present. And we all know the recipe for a good drinking game is to add wine to reality show cliche and bring to a low boil. So, let's get started. Every time someone's thick accent is so unintelligible that it warrants subtitles...DRINK!
New York City. I feel like I've just gotten back, and am already looking forward to my next trip there. Fun city. Contestants begin arriving at the airport. As with several other reality show wannabes, some are there for personal validation, and some are raging narcissists. A small handful actually seem to want to use this as a learning experience to help their careers. Weirdos! Radhika's parents are from India, but don't you dare pigeonhole her into Indian cuisine. Don't you dare! Lauren refuses to sit at home and waste time while her husband fights in Iraq. And as we all know, the only way to avoid wasting time is to get yourself on a television show. Meanwhile, through the miracle of science, Howie and Tuscaloosa Joey have managed to mate and create an adult baby named Daniel, who will be making his daddies proud by following in the family tradition of competing on this show. Lauren's heart leaps when she spies Patrick, as they went to school together. Patrick's still a student and "has a lot of passion". Stefan has moved all over Europe. Richard is a big, adorable queer.
The chefs get off a ferry to meet Padma and Ptom. They blah a bit about what a harsh environment the New York culinary scene is, as Ptom knows from experience. Padma takes us into the first Quickfire Challenge, but there's a twist. The chef who finishes the Quickfire last is out. On the plus side, the eliminated chef doesn't need to worry about unpacking all that luggage. The chefs don't appreciate that bright side, and look consternated. Lauren, who has apparently never seen a reality show in her life, says she knows one of the chef coats waiting in the Kitchen is hers, and she'll "be damned" if she goes home early. Fate laughs merrily and strings her bow. The Quickfire is split into three rounds. The first round will be to peel fifteen apples with a knife. Score one for Tiffany! The first nine to finish their apples to Ptom's satisfaction will be safe, and the eight remaining chefs will move on to Round 2. Ready? Go!
Richard immediately gouges himself with the knife and bleeds all over his apples. Yum! Stefan finishes first. Other chefs follow, including a woman whose bangs don't do her any favors. It would be incredibly juvenile and idiotic to point out her unfortunately masculine features by yelling "Man!" every time she appears on-screen. So pretend I didn't do that. Jamie finishes ninth, ending Round 1. Padma informs Stefan that as the first to finish, he'll be immune in the upcoming Elimination Challenge. He gives the Standard Speech. For Round 2, the remaining chefs must brunoise two cups of the apples they've just peeled. The first four to finish successfully will be safe, and the remaining four will continue into Round 3. Ready? Go!
When the dust settles, the four losing chefs are Leah, Radhika, Patrick, and Lauren. Round 3 will be to take the diced apples and cook something worthy of deserving a spot in the competition. The chefs will have twenty minutes, and some equipment and extra ingredients have been provided. Ready? Go! Radhika, who you'd better not pigeonhole as just an Indian chef, leaps onto the idea to make apple chutney, because Indian flavors are her strength. Oh, why must you make it so easy for viewers to mock you? We need a challenge! Leah sees Radhika using pork, and opts for scallops instead, because she doesn't want to use the same protein as someone else. May I ask why? I'm not being snide; I really want to know. Surely, there must be a thousand ways to prepare pork in twenty minutes, and it's not like anybody's going to accuse her of being a copycat when there are so few ingredients available, right? Right?
Lauren throws together some fruit, lettuce, nuts, and bacon for a salad. A salad. It's hard to judge Top Chef challenge entries from home, because it's not like we can reach through the screen and taste anything. However, a good rule of thumb is that if little ol' me can easily prepare whatever the chef is making, it's not impressive enough. Patrick doesn't hear me, and puts together a simple little apple salad with yogurt dressing. He says that he's a perfectionist, so he's more about quality than speed. OK, but you're making apple salad, not Peking duck. The chefs plate up, and time runs out. Lauren presents her salad, which seriously, I could make in five minutes. Patrick puts forth his apple slaw salad, which includes cinnamon, honey, and mint. Yuck. Lauren's was too easy, but at least it'd taste good. Radhika has pan-seared some pork and topped it with her apple chutney. But she's not just an Indian chef! Leah has put forth the most impressive effort, making an apple hash to top her scallops, and putting it all on a pool of vinegar and apple juice.
The Odd Asian music and its attendant gong come early this season. Padma asks for the good news first, and it's not hard to peg Leah and Radhika as safe. So, it comes down to the salads, as it should. Patrick and Lauren clutch hands. Patrick thinks it's sad, as he's just now getting a chance to reconnect with Lauren. Don't feel bad, Patrick. Perhaps the two of you won't be separated for as long as you think. After a commercial break, Ptom announces that Patrick has squeaked by. Padma tells Lauren to pack her knives and go. The other chefs give her pity applause as she does a walk of shame to the ferry. Good-bye, Karen! I'll never forget you!
Elimination Challenge. Padma brings out the knife block, and the chefs come one at a time to draw one. Each knife has an ethnic neighborhood of New York City printed on it, and as there are two of each neighborhood, the chefs are paired off as follows:
Patrick and Daniel: Chinatown (Chinese - duh)
Ariane and Stefan: Long Island City (Middle Eastern)
Radhika and Jill: Queens (Jamaican)
Fabio and Jeff: Ozone Park (Latin)
Hosea and Carla: Brighton Beach (Russian)
Leah and Melissa: Little Italy (Italian - duh)
Richard and Jamie: Astoria (Greek)
Alex and Eugene: Little India (Indian - duh)
The challenge is to create a dish inspired by the neighborhood each chef has drawn. The two dishes of each neighborhood will be served head-to-head. An ultimate winner will be chosen from the top eight, and one of the losing eight will meet up with Lorena at the airport. With that, the chefs are dismissed to go get settled in their apartment, which is swanky. Everyone admires the view. Richard, Patrick, and Jamie quickly bond together as the gay chefs, calling themselves Team Rainbow. I'm all for the gay bonding, but "Team Rainbow" is so fruity, it's dropping blueberries. That evening, Fabio talks about how much pasta he makes, and kids about how all other Europeans are jealous of Italians. He's subtitled. DRINK! Stefan picks a fight about how a vinaigrette is a vinaigrette. No arguments here. Oh, and he's subtitled. DRINK! In his argument about how vinaigrettes are not emulsions, Stefan tells Daniel to get a life. I'm sorry, but nobody involved in a fight about vinaigrette gets to tell anyone to get a life. Ever.
The next morning, after everyone gets up and fed, they split into their pairs to go shopping in their specific neighborhoods. They've got twenty minutes and $75 to shop. Hosea doesn't know much about Russian cuisine.
Panny: "It's all fucking beets."
He's in better shape than he thinks, because his competition is Carla, who is currently informing us (with her eyes bugging out of her sockets) that she's waiting to be led by her spirit guides. Oooooooookay. Ariane knows nothing about Middle Eastern cooking, but Jeff is confident in his Latin food abilities, coming from Miami. Leah far outmatches Melissa in Italian roots. Patrick is taking a course in Asian cuisine, so he's all good. Well, sure. I took a course in art history, so I can identify what dynasty a vase came from at thirty paces. He picks up some black rice noodles, which he's never worked with before, but "can't be too bad". Fate shakes her head in disgust and pulls out another arrow. Eugene has no Indian food experience, and when he sees that the store has some food cooked and ready to go, he intelligently asks for a sample of some to try and approximate later.
The Kitchen is big, bright, and clean, and has the Top Chef logo in mosaic on the wall, which makes it look like a subway stop. I mean that as a compliment. The chefs have two hours to get their dishes ready, so they get started. Fabio jabbers about the pork he's making. We yell the titular quote at the screen. Jeff says he's got all sorts of time, so he starts on some crispy plantain. Yum. I forgot how hungry watching this show makes me. Stefan tells us he's working with lamb. Ariane, who spent the morning telling us how shy she is, now says she can't compete with Stefan's confidence, because she always second-guesses herself. I'm like that too, so you know what I don't do? Sign up for televised contests. Carla hacks her smoked fish to mush, trying to get all the bones out. She wonders aloud what will happen if the judges find some, and Hosea's like "Um, that's why I bought filets, dumbass." Guess the spirit guides didn't pass that tip along. Richard talks to himself while he cooks, while Jamie withdraws into herself. That works out well for both of them.
With thirty minutes left, Alex tells us that he's incorporating his strength in Latin food into his Indian dish, because the flavors marry well. I don't see that at all, but who am I to stand in the way of his happiness? Ariane boils some farro, but doubts she has enough time to cook it through. The black rice noodles Patrick has never used before have a gummy texture he's not happy with. The course in Asian cuisine has failed him! He starts a new batch in the hopes that he can get some he's happy with. As time winds down, Jeff realizes that none of the gazillion components to his dish have been plated. He begins running around the Kitchen like a maniac. It doesn't work, and when time runs out, he's missing a lot of his food.
Guest judge Jean-George Vongerichten comes into the Kitchen with Ptom, Padma, and Gail. Hey, Ptom didn't have a chance to Ptimewaste tonight! Yay! Padma explains the whole challenge again. I'll assume you're up to speed. Ariane and Stefan are up first. She's made crusted rack of lamb, and some farro risotto with dates and chickpeas. Stefan has a meat duo, consisting of a lamb chop with tabouli salad and a beef/onion skewer, both of which look wonderful. Jean-George asks about the spices Stefan used with a thick accent and around a mouthful of food. That means subtitle, and that means...DRINK! Gail likes Ariane's lamb, but finds the risotto woefully undercooked. Jean-George roundly compliments Stefan's dish. At least that's what the subtitles would lead me to believe. DRINK! Ptom liked his use of cinnamon, and he's the clear winner of the duo.
Richard and Jamie come up for judging. Richard loses some points with me by rhapsodizing over how dreamy Ptom is. Bleh. He's not bad-looking, but his personality has long since invalidated his appearance. Richard has made a lamb burger and an orzo/feta pasta salad. Jamie has made a deconstructed Greek salad of eggplant puree, seared bass, and a small salad made with arugula and olives. There is an audible crunch when Ptom takes a bite of the burger. Ew. The judges don't like how Richard has overcooked the lamb, even if it was intentional. Jamie takes the round. Radhika and Jill approach with their Jamaican dishes. Jill has made plantain fritters crusted with macadamia nuts and jerk-spiced scallops. They are served on a bed of three colorful sauces, each of which form a circular pool. It's quite pretty. Radhika has made jerk-rubbed halibut and served it with mango salad on three bean rice. Yes, because rice is so very Jamaican. Not Indian at all! Don't pigeonhole her! Jean-George says (DRINK!) that Radhika's fish and rice are too soft to be served together, and Jill wins.
Jeff and Fabio. I'm not even going to attempt to decipher everything Fabio says, but the gist is that his Latin dish is a pork chop with a mango and jalapeno demi-glace, and a mushroom/avocado salad on the side. It looks awful. Jeff has made coffee-seared pork tenderloin, with smoke plantain, black beans, and rice on the side. Now that I could get into. Ptom prefers Fabio's dish, but he's outvoted by Jean-George (DRINK!) and Padma. I assume Gail went for Jeff's too. Hosea and Carla. Hosea, who I have to admit thinking is kind of hot, wins me over even further by presenting a trio of smoked fish and caviar I want to dive through the screen and devour. Carla has made smoked trout and wild salmon cake, and served them on top of potato latkes. Huh. I like all those things, but I wouldn't put them together. Hosea is told that he executed his dish with "culinary eloquence", and he takes the round.
Leah and Melissa. Like Ariane, Leah has made a farro risotto, but has served hers with red snapper and mushrooms. Melissa has seared rib eye steak on tomato sauce, and has dumped a bunch of arugula and fried mushrooms on top. It looks like bar food. The judges' issue is more that Melissa's lacked salt and pepper, and Leah wins. Daniel and Patrick. Daniel has whipped up a ginger-poached chicken salad with bok choy, shiitake mushrooms, and fried wontons. Well, that didn't take long. The subtitles of Daniel's dish gives us the season's first example of the Reliably Shitty Titles Department. I've taken the liberty of correcting their spelling here, which I generally have to do a lot. Like, embarrassingly so. Not just spelling. Their grammar and identification skills suck too.
Anyhoo, Daniel's food looks very tasty. Patrick has made seared salmon on bok choy with ginger/garlic scallion on a bed of the black rice noodles. I don't mean to harp on the simplicity of Patrick's dishes, but the fact that he's still a culinary student really stands out. He is completely out of his league here. His Quickfire was a basic salad, and this is fish on noodles. Anyone with a modicum of cooking skill could do this. The judges don't like the texture of the black rice noodles, and don't find a lot of Chinese flavors in the dish. Daniel's isn't very popular either, as it's messy and unoriginal. However, it was more flavorful than Patrick's, and that's enough to win the round. Alex and Eugene. Alex has grilled lamb chops, which are served alongside a spicy ragout and rest on a bed of basmati rice. The lamb looks overdone to me. Eugene has made rack of lamb rubbed with masala (a mixture of spices), served with basmati rice and tzatziki. I always thought of tzatziki as Greek, not Indian. Padma informs Eugene that he's accidentally created curds and rice, not tzatziki. Luckily for him, that is very Indian, and he's done it very well, so he wins the round.
Ptom thinks the overall level of the dishes was very good. I don't know, a lot of those looked either overly simple or were a glut of traditional ingredients thrown into a heap. That's understandable on the first challenge, but let's not pretend that things like a lamb burger are terribly exciting. Jean-George garbles something which is helpfully subtitled to indicate that he's pleased. DRINK! Nobody's dish was out-and-out awful, but Patrick's was certainly the work of an amateur, Radhika's textures were off, and Ariane's farro was raw. The judges reach an agreement. After the commercials, Padma summons Stefan, Eugene, Leah, Patrick, and Ariane to Judges' Table. The Odd Asian music and the gong have a union contract stating that after they show up in an episode, they can knock off for the day, and have gone home.
The judges start with the winners. Leah has captured the spirit of modern Italian cooking. Stefan has made a complicated dish look simple. Jean-George says something about lemon and couscous. What?!? I don't look at the television screen as I type, and he is just impossible without the subtitles. DRINK! Eugene has fallen backwards into a great Indian dish. Padma seriously intones the tradition that in all but one season (Season 3), the person who has won the first Elimination Challenge has won the whole season. The person under that pressure this time is... Stefan, who has taken the rare double win. Stefan says that it would be great for a European to win Top Chef, complaining that only Americans have won this game produced by Americans that takes place in America. It's times like these that I bemoan the lack of culinary opportunity in Europe. They just have no appreciation for food over there!
The winners leave Judges' Table. Ariane is asked how her dish came about, and she says she looked around the store, and just bought what there seemed to be the most of, guessing that those ingredients would be popular. That is a terrible answer. Her undercooked farro is brought up, and Ptom says that cooking grains properly is a basic skill chefs need to understand. Both Ariane and Patrick's dishes lacked inspiration. Patrick says he wanted to present clean flavors ("clean" is often code for "ridiculously easy"), and Ptom nails it by saying that his food was like a cliche of Chinese food, rather than actual food one would eat in Chinatown. Ptom says that both losing dishes prove that chefs need to get out of their comfort zones. That's all well and good, but you can't know everything. People need to specialize. Would you slam your dentist for not knowing how to deliver a baby? After some more grousing in this vein, Ariane loses her patience and points out that that's why people have cookbooks. Another terrible answer. True, but terrible. Ptom whines that people learn to cook through experience, not book-learning. Frankly, I think both are important.
Both chefs are asked why they should stay. Ariane has "a lot to give". Patrick is "driven by [his] passion". More terrible answers! Passion doesn't equate to talent. Wanting something is not the same as deserving it. Padma dismisses the chefs. Deliberations. Ptom says that Patrick is still a student, but the competition is a level playing field. Well, then maybe pitting a culinary student against executive chefs who have lived and worked in multiple countries wasn't the best idea. The judges say he lacked inspiration and doesn't have the ability to think on the fly. Patrick is busy telling the other chefs that he wants to share his passion with them and the world. All right, I feel bad for how badly this kid is outmatched. But enough with the friggin' passion, already. The judges say Ariane should have known better. Jean-George: "Bkelreljleryjhbje." What?!? Ptom thinks she lacks a basic cooking skill. The judges reach a decision.
Elimination. Ptom tries to find something good to say about an established chef being evenly matched against a relative upstart, and winds up insulting them both. Ariane's inspiration was good, but her technique was off. Patrick's was executed well, but had no inspiration. Ptom throws it over to Padma for the chopping. Patrick. Please pack your knives and go. Jeez, whoever taught him and Laurel needs to turn in their teaching certificate now. The judges wish him luck. This is kind of sad, and not in the emotional way. More of the discomfort-of-seeing-someone-so-clearly-set-up-to-fail way. He gets a group hug back in the Kitchen, and shrugs that he's got his whole career ahead of him. That's true. He had no chance of winning this, but that doesn't speak to a lack of skill; just a lack of experience. That's cheering.
This season on Top Chef: Cooking. Fire. Cursing. Fights. Tonight's hints of Stefan's arrogance and douchebaggery come to fruition. Martha Stewart. Crazy Carla. Bad food. Crying. So... Standard issue, I guess.
Overall Grade: B
Sunday, November 16, 2008
I'm Like an Angry Cow
The Amazing Race - Season 13, Episode 8
Tonight, the teams jet out of India, and connect in oddly out of the way cities to get to Almaty, Kazakhstan. Though they do their best to play up the airport ticket-buying drama, along with more off-putting flirting between Dallas and Starr, all the flights get into Almaty in the middle of the night, where they'll obviously be equalized by hours of operation somewhere. So everyone's tied again going into the Roadblock, which requires the chosen team member to find a golden egg hidden somewhere in a vast sea of chickens. Nobody seems to get that they could find one in about two seconds if they just gave the hens a good scare, and treat them more politely than they generally treat taxi drivers. The second Fast Forward is also located here, and both Nick/Starr and Terence/Sarah go for it, over Sarah's objections. The task is to eat a bowl of meat and butt fat, which is nowhere near as extreme as previous Fast Forward tasks, but it manages to kick Terence's vegetarian ass. So, Terence and Sarah have to drag themselves back to the Roadblock, firmly ensconced in last place.
From the chicken coop, teams direct a crane truck to the Koktobe Arch to meet up with a Mongol warrior. Why a crane truck? I have no earthly idea. It doesn't figure into the episode at all. Once at the warrior, a hawk flies in with the next clue, which is super-cool. The Detour asks teams to decide between learning how to play local musical instruments or dressing up like a cow. You can guess which one becomes the unanimous choice with this crew. Dallas and Toni easily moo through in great spirits to come into the mat as team number two, behind the Fast Forwarded Nick and Starr. Ken and Tina lose some time because they refuse to read their clue carefully, and thus screw up the Detour. Luckily for them, the Fratties are reliably incompetent. After having the gall to indulge in a nasty bit of Ugly Americanism by being angry with people who insist on speaking their native language in their native country, the Fratties have an issue with their own native tongue. Though the clue says to make their way to the pitstop on foot, they grab a cab. Phil sends them back to walk it, and Dan -- surprise!! -- whines that he can't believe that he may get eliminated for something so stupid. I guess all the beer at those frat parties has atrophied his memory.
Despite their Detour issues, Ken and Tina manage a third-place finish, and though the Fratties continue to flail, they also continue to make it in just under the wire. The human anchor that is Terence has dragged Sarah down for the last time, and the couple is eliminated, whereupon Sarah says that the race has done wonders for their relationship. I really hope what she means by that is she's realized she can do a lot better.
Overall Grade: B-
Tonight, the teams jet out of India, and connect in oddly out of the way cities to get to Almaty, Kazakhstan. Though they do their best to play up the airport ticket-buying drama, along with more off-putting flirting between Dallas and Starr, all the flights get into Almaty in the middle of the night, where they'll obviously be equalized by hours of operation somewhere. So everyone's tied again going into the Roadblock, which requires the chosen team member to find a golden egg hidden somewhere in a vast sea of chickens. Nobody seems to get that they could find one in about two seconds if they just gave the hens a good scare, and treat them more politely than they generally treat taxi drivers. The second Fast Forward is also located here, and both Nick/Starr and Terence/Sarah go for it, over Sarah's objections. The task is to eat a bowl of meat and butt fat, which is nowhere near as extreme as previous Fast Forward tasks, but it manages to kick Terence's vegetarian ass. So, Terence and Sarah have to drag themselves back to the Roadblock, firmly ensconced in last place.
From the chicken coop, teams direct a crane truck to the Koktobe Arch to meet up with a Mongol warrior. Why a crane truck? I have no earthly idea. It doesn't figure into the episode at all. Once at the warrior, a hawk flies in with the next clue, which is super-cool. The Detour asks teams to decide between learning how to play local musical instruments or dressing up like a cow. You can guess which one becomes the unanimous choice with this crew. Dallas and Toni easily moo through in great spirits to come into the mat as team number two, behind the Fast Forwarded Nick and Starr. Ken and Tina lose some time because they refuse to read their clue carefully, and thus screw up the Detour. Luckily for them, the Fratties are reliably incompetent. After having the gall to indulge in a nasty bit of Ugly Americanism by being angry with people who insist on speaking their native language in their native country, the Fratties have an issue with their own native tongue. Though the clue says to make their way to the pitstop on foot, they grab a cab. Phil sends them back to walk it, and Dan -- surprise!! -- whines that he can't believe that he may get eliminated for something so stupid. I guess all the beer at those frat parties has atrophied his memory.
Despite their Detour issues, Ken and Tina manage a third-place finish, and though the Fratties continue to flail, they also continue to make it in just under the wire. The human anchor that is Terence has dragged Sarah down for the last time, and the couple is eliminated, whereupon Sarah says that the race has done wonders for their relationship. I really hope what she means by that is she's realized she can do a lot better.
Overall Grade: B-
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
In Vino Veri-ta-tas
America's Next Top Model - Season 11, Episode 10
Marjorie, heavy with the knowledge that the judges have had it up to their ugly bling with her nerve fits, vows to relax and enjoy every moment from here on out. Unfortunately, the only way she can relax is by getting blitzed.
First, though, Paulina gives a teach about wordless acting, which is an unusually pertinent topic to cover for this show, but is also boring as shit to watch. It's set up for the later challenge, in which the girls must silently run on a treadmill while flirting with a male model, then kiss him and run away. Paulina and some other random judge nod solemnly through all the performances, even though all the girls' acting faces the audience (us), and the judges just see the back of their heads. In any event, all four of them do better than expected, with Marjorie taking the prize for her natural demeanor. She and Analeigh split a shopping spree at a bland store that the show unsuccessfully tries to play up as trendy.
Back at the pad, the girls invite the guys who drove their boats around to the go-sees up for a party. Marjorie gets wasted and hops in the tub with one of them (fully-clothed), and Analeigh acts like Marjorie's one step away from doing a bump of coke off his ass and jumping out the window. The party becomes unfun in a hurry, and Samantha and McKey display some more awesomeness by kicking the guys out.
The photo shoot is boring, and just features the girls looking like replicants, standing in front of a windmill. McKey is reliably good, and Analeigh continues doing quite well while simultaneously putting me to sleep. Samantha starts off extremely rocky, but manages to pull it together for her last frames. Marjorie is terrible. In her determination to hold her nerves in check, she winds up looking stiff and awkward. Though Tyra would dearly love to eliminate Samantha, the judges simply can't overlook the fact that her photo is so superior to Marjorie's, and Marjorie gets the boot. Guess she should have stuck with her nerve meltdowns, after all.
Overall Grade: B-
Marjorie, heavy with the knowledge that the judges have had it up to their ugly bling with her nerve fits, vows to relax and enjoy every moment from here on out. Unfortunately, the only way she can relax is by getting blitzed.
First, though, Paulina gives a teach about wordless acting, which is an unusually pertinent topic to cover for this show, but is also boring as shit to watch. It's set up for the later challenge, in which the girls must silently run on a treadmill while flirting with a male model, then kiss him and run away. Paulina and some other random judge nod solemnly through all the performances, even though all the girls' acting faces the audience (us), and the judges just see the back of their heads. In any event, all four of them do better than expected, with Marjorie taking the prize for her natural demeanor. She and Analeigh split a shopping spree at a bland store that the show unsuccessfully tries to play up as trendy.
Back at the pad, the girls invite the guys who drove their boats around to the go-sees up for a party. Marjorie gets wasted and hops in the tub with one of them (fully-clothed), and Analeigh acts like Marjorie's one step away from doing a bump of coke off his ass and jumping out the window. The party becomes unfun in a hurry, and Samantha and McKey display some more awesomeness by kicking the guys out.
The photo shoot is boring, and just features the girls looking like replicants, standing in front of a windmill. McKey is reliably good, and Analeigh continues doing quite well while simultaneously putting me to sleep. Samantha starts off extremely rocky, but manages to pull it together for her last frames. Marjorie is terrible. In her determination to hold her nerves in check, she winds up looking stiff and awkward. Though Tyra would dearly love to eliminate Samantha, the judges simply can't overlook the fact that her photo is so superior to Marjorie's, and Marjorie gets the boot. Guess she should have stuck with her nerve meltdowns, after all.
Overall Grade: B-
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