Happy Meals

Top Chef - Season 7, Episode 2

Previously on Top Chef: Seventeen chefs invaded the nation's capital, intent on making their views on foreign policy and financial reform known. What's that? Oh. Sorry, I was misinformed. Seventeen chefs invaded the nation's capital so they could win the title of Top Chef. Tiffany wanted to score for the sisters. Angelo racked up $20,000 in the Quickfire and won the Elimination Challenge on top of it, but was acutely aware that Kenny will always be nipping at his heels. The judges were completely turned off by the unappetizing mess that John presented. And that was just his hair. His food failed, too, and he became the first chef punted home. Sixteen chefs remain. Who will be eliminated tonight?

Opening menu. A bunch of local restaurants are presenting three courses for $25 right now, and it seemed a good opportunity to try someplace new. I didn't realize that I ordered gulf shrimp as the appetizer until after I finished it. Here's hoping I didn't just suck down a mouthful of crude. The wine was good, though. Speaking of which... Rule #2: Take a drink whenever someone says "It is what it is," or "At the end of the day..." Really, you could apply this rule to daily life as well, but you'd be too plastered to hold down a job.

Monday Morning Quarterback session. Nobody really cares about John's elimination much. Ed feels a little bad for him, but wants to win, so "it is what it is". DRINK! Andrea robustly approves of Jacqueline throwing a mass of butter into a pan of whatever she's cooking, and interviews that she's ready to take Angelo down.

Quickfire Challenge. The chefs are met in the Kitchen by Padma and this week's guest judge, Sam Kass, who is an assistant chef at the White House. Nice! Plus, he's kind of dreamy. Padma tells everyone that a well-run government is bipartisan. Once the laughter subsides, she explains the rules of this week's Quickfire. The chefs will be paired up to make a sandwich together in half an hour, with the winning team getting immunity. Tamesha is suspicious, because no sandwich should take thirty minutes to make, unless you're Dagwood Bumstead. The chefs pull knives to determine their teammates:

-Kenny/Ed
-Angelo/Tracey
-Arnold/Kelly
-Amanda/Tamesha
-Lynne/Tiffany
-Stephen/Jacqueline
-Tim/Alex
-Kevin/Andrea

Once everyone is paired up, Padma tells them there will be a twist, which nobody is surprised by in the least. They probably didn't expect this development, though. The chefs will be yoked together by a double-wide apron, and each of them will only be able to use one arm. Tim wonders what kind of ganja the challenge designers are passing around. Padma starts the clock, and the chefs raid the apron box.

Tiffany: "They're all thinking about how happy they are that they don't have to be tethered to that guy with the dreadlocks."

Kenny and Ed are happy to discover that they can both use their dominant hands. Tracey couldn't be more pleased to ride Angelo's coattails. Amanda offers to roshambo Tamesha for the right-side position. Hahahaha! Looks like she loses that particular challenge, though happily, nobody got punched in the baby makers. Alex is petrified that Tim is about to chop off his fingers. Stephen and Jacqueline pound their chicken. Ew, not like that, you filthy bugger. Everyone gets into a groove, and makes good progress on their sandwiches. Time runs out, and Padma and Sam go down the line.

Angelo and Tracey's sandwich has flounder that has been steeped in fish sauce, with pickled red onions, some herbs, and a Sriracha mayonnaise. Sounds good. Andrea and Kevin have a Philly-style Cuban sandwich, with roasted pork, whole grain mustard, pickle, and Gruyere cheese. WANT. "I like that pickle in there," Sam approves.

Viewing Party: "That's what she said."

Amanda and Tamesha have a grilled sandwich with prosciutto, Swiss cheese, Dijon mustard, and a pepper salsa. Tim and Alex have both had classic French training, so they've done a variation on a croque-madame, with ground lamb, Mornay sauce, and egg. There's a piece of bread on the plate, which is the only way I can fathom this being even slightly related to a "sandwich":

Stephen and Jacqueline have a chicken sandwich with saba vinegar onions, California avocado, and some rosemary stalks acting as toothpicks to hold everything together. Kenny and Ed have made a Korean chili-rubbed ahi tuna, with a cucumber and mango slaw, on a slice of multi-grain bread. Again, let's take a look in wonderment at how this can be called a "sandwich":

Kelly and Arnold have a curry-rubbed grilled chicken with honey and sambal, topped with cucumber, mint, dill, and cilantro. Lynne and Tiffany have made a flatbread saltimbocca, with goat cheese, artichokes, peppers, and white asparagus. Sam complains that it's too difficult to pick up. Yes, this...

...is a real chore, while Kenny and Ed's fairly leaps into one's mouth. Not that I'm ever going to accuse anyone of bending over backwards to reward or excuse Kenny based on the fact that he'll make for good television this season. Perish the thought.

Results. The bottom chefs are Stephen/Jacqueline, who were both in the bottom of last week's Elimination Challenge as well. The other chefs must sense blood in the water. Sam didn't like their lack of creativity, because they just used white bread. That's it? No problem with the flavors, but they're at the bottom of the entire heap because they used a non-exotic bread? Joining them in the bottom are Lynne and Tiffany, because a sandwich should never be something SANDWICHED between two slices of bread; they should all be open-faced platters of stuff, like Kenny's! Sheesh. It's a good thing Sam is cute, because he's not very good at this whole judge thing. Speaking of which, Kenny/Ed and Angelo/Tracey are the two top sandwiches, because the producers asked for them to be. I'm sorry, because they were really good. The ultimate winner of the challenge and immunity is... Angelo and Tracey. Wow, three in a row for Angelo! This is shaping up to be quite a seazzzz.....

Elimination Challenge. Padma tells the chefs that they'll be taking on an important issue. Sam explains that the chefs will be making a school lunch in order to bring light to the childhood obesity epidemic sweeping the nation. Well, "sweeping" is too fast. Lazily dragging itself across the nation. Public schools have a very restrictive budget, and the chefs will have it no easier. They'll get $2.60 per student, and will have to feed fifty students. Not only that, but the meal can't be standard school fare, meaning fat, fat, starch, and sugar. The chefs will have to incorporate fruits and vegetables into a main dish, a couple of sides, and dessert. Oh, and it has to be good. Unless you're Kenny. Sorry, am I getting ahead of myself? The already-partnered chefs will coalesce into four teams of four, and have two and half hours to prep before heading to the school, where they're allowed another hour to get everything ready. Everyone is responsible for creating at least one dish; no Jenc-style supervising allowed.

As winners of the Quickfire, Angelo and Tracey get to choose the other two chefs they'll work with. They're no fools, and quickly team up with Kenny and Ed. Not only do they acquire someone they know to be a good competitor, but if something goes south, Kenny has a much better chance of being eliminated. Kenny, himself recognizes this, saying that being on a losing team would increase his chances of going home from 25% to 50%. Unless of course, he were protected by forces outside of the challenge rules. But that would never happen. Everyone else forms teams, which turn out to be:

Angelo/Tracey/Ed/Kenny
Lynne/Tiffany/Kelly/Arnold
Andrea/Kevin/Alex/Tim
Amanda/Tamesha/Jacqueline/Stephen

Menu planning begins. The Andrea/Kevin/Alex/Tim team seems fairly confident, since three of them have kids, and know what they like. Tracey wants to take known kid favorites, like chicken nuggets, and healthy them up. They seem to be on the right track, right up until three seconds later when they declare celery with peanut butter in it to be a healthy vegetable. I honestly don't even know how they deluded themselves into that one. Speaking of ridiculously bad ideas, Amanda is trying to sell sherry-braised chicken thighs to her team. Because sherry is so 1) cheap and 2) appropriate for middle schoolers. She then slams Tamesha's gnocchi idea, because it would look weird. Tamesha is displeased. Jacqueline agrees to take on dessert, saying she'll make a chocolate banana pudding. Amanda, knowing how people who make desserts tend to wind up on this show, is thrilled to pass the buck. Jacqueline tearfully recalls having to take on the majority of childcare for her sister after her parents' divorce. That seemed a little tangential and wedged into the episode, but I certainly admire her for that sacrifice.

Tim wants to work with mac and cheese, while Kevin volunteers to make a melon dessert. Kelly is telling her team that "kids fucking love tacos". No argument here, plus it gives me something eminently quotable to spout for the next week. Kelly is really on a brainstorming roll, and Tiffany isn't so happy about it, interviewing that Kelly is trying to take control of the entire team. From what we've heard, all Kelly was talking about was her own contribution, so I really don't see some kind of Napoleonic takeover here.

Shopping. Amanda hilariously roams the aisles, calling out for someone to help her find the alcohol. When the teams approach the cashiers, they discover to their horror that they're heavily overbudget. Many ingredients have to be abandoned, though Amanda clings to her cooking sherry, so Jacqueline is forced to give up her chocolate. Andrea shrugs that this situation must occur in every school every day, so it's not an unreasonable challenge. I agree; I like the restrictions on this one.

Back at the Kitchen, the chefs get started on their prep time. Kelly's team still doesn't like that she's taking all the credit for her pork tacos, and I still don't really understand the animosity. Yes, she's being excessively me-me-me about it, but they were her idea, she's cooking them, and she's the only one getting judged on them. Andrea/Tim/Kevin/Alex are working together much more harmoniously. Kenny worries about the nutritional content of his team's menu. A little late to be grousing about it now. Where was this during the planning session? Amanda braises her chicken in the precious sherry. Jacqueline discovers that the bananas she's purchased are starchy, and decides that the best way to break down that starch is by adding a sackful of sugar. Amanda ignores Tamesha's suggestion that she use tomato paste in her chicken dish, and Tamesha interviews that she's also unhappy with Amanda's use of alcohol, hoping it doesn't land the team in the bottom four. Again, this is a concern that should have been raised in the planning session, and not now that it's far too late to do anything about it. Arnold is still pissed that Kelly is taking too much credit for her own dish. Time runs out.

That night, Kelly and Tracey sit outside and talk about how important it is that we teach kids healthy eating habits. They discuss this as they drink wine and smoke. Just sayin'. Tracey realizes that she's really going to have to nip her family's fast food habit in the bud. Read Fast Food Nation, Tracey. That's what pushed me over the edge. Meanwhile, the rest of Kelly's team is working up the courage to confront her over her pseudo-takeover. When she comes in from her smoke break, Arnold tells her that the menu was the entire team's idea, and that they all made contributions, so she should stop prefacing every description of the pork tacos with "I" statements. I still haven't seen any evidence that the tacos weren't completely her idea and her work, but that's not to say there isn't any. Kelly points out in interview that everyone has to stand in front of the judges and defend a single dish, but seems to get that she needs to make peace in the meantime. We get to more of the motive behind the spat when Arnold jabbers that he helped prep other things after his quick salsa was done, and is worried that the judges won't think he's done enough. Ah, the mask falls off. He probably wouldn't care at all about Kelly's tacos if he'd had a more work-intensive course.

The next day, the chefs head for the middle school for their last hour of prep time. There's not much space for sixteen chefs to run around preparing sixteen courses at the same time. Go figure. Angelo finds that the valve on his foam gun is broken, so he can't apply his peanut butter mousse to the celery. He goes to ask Kevin for use of his. Kevin brings up this request to his team. "No," Andrea says, and immediately turns to finish her work. I cannot do justice to the awesomeness of that "No". It was so free of venom, yet completely dismissive. It was a this-isn't-worth-even-a-moment-of-my-time response, and I kind of love Andrea for it. Ptom drops by to Ptimewaste, telling us that he's very sympathetic to schools' plight to serve affordable, nutritious meals. Which is why a side of French fries at his restaurant is twelve dollars.

Kelly's team is still passive-aggressively trying to position themselves, with Kelly making sure to tell Ptom that she's responsible for the pork tacos, and Arnold making sure to tell him that he's been a big overall helper. Ptom moves on to Kenny's team, reminding Kenny that should the team lose, Kenny's got a 50% chance of going home. You will be forgiven for noting that this is the second time that Kenny's precise mathematical odds of being eliminated have been mentioned aloud, and for putting a little bookmark in this moment. Stephen joins the ranks of the I Have An Idea Now That It's Too Late Club by disdaining Amanda's sherry, and wondering if they should change the name of the dish to mask its use of alcohol. Angelo is very proud of himself for lightening up his peanut butter mousse by putting milk in it and for using a piping bag instead of a foam gun. Wow, what a genius. Time runs out.

Students flood in for lunch. The judges soon follow, and walk up to the first team's table. "Chocolate milk, please!" Gail says in a trilling, innocent voice. She really is the best judge. I've said it all along. The first team is Andrea/Alex/Kevin/Tim, who have made cole slaw (with yogurt subbing for most of the mayonnaise), skinless barbecued chicken (with apple cider sweetening the sauce instead of sugar), a skim-milk, whole-wheat-crust, low-fat-cheese mac and cheese, and a melon dessert with whipped yogurt. Looks great. The judges have nothing but positive things to say about the meal, though the mac and cheese isn't as big a hit as the other courses.

Angelo/Kenny/Tracey/Ed have a chicken burger with rice. One of the sides is the peanut butter mousse in a tuile cracker with a tiny bit of celery on top. This is what they're calling their vegetable course?! Their other side is a sweet potato puree with cinnamon, and there's an apple bread pudding with cinnamon yogurt for dessert. The judges settle in to eat, Padma yanking the wrapping off of the regulation school spork. Ed's sweet potato puree is way too peppery. Kenny and Tracey's dishes are meh, while Angelo's would be fine if it weren't serving as the vegetable. Overall, the flavors were acceptable, but the menu as a whole was terrible.

The judges go up to Kelly/Lynne/Tiffany/Arnold next, and since credit is so important to this group, let's make sure we attribute the dishes correctly. Lynne made a black bean cake with crispy sweet potatoes. Kelly's got the braised pork carnitas tacos on an oatmeal tortilla with pickled onions and cilantro. Arnold made a roasted corn salad with tomatoes, cilantro lime vinaigrette, and some chili oil. Tiffany took on dessert, making sugar-free caramelized sweet potatoes and a light chocolate sherbet. The judges really like the entire meal, though Lynne's cake might be a little too spicy.

Finally, we have Amanda/Tamesha/Stephen/Jacqueline. Amanda happily presents her chicken thigh braised in sherry jus. Stephen has thrown together an extremely unimpressive rice with a few mixed vegetables stirred in. He mistakenly tells the judges that it has 165 grams of fat in it, before correcting himself to 165 calories. Heh. Tamesha has put together a bean and tomato salad with pickled red onions and an apple cider vinaigrette. Jacqueline's banana pudding was made with skim milk and has strawberries in it. The judges dig in. Gail is immediately surprised that a middle school lunch menu has sherry in it. Tamesha's salad is good, but Jacqueline's pudding is too starchy and too sweet. Both the judges and kids are as unimpressed with Stephen's rice as I am.

Lunch winds down. All the chefs seem secure in their own dishes. Kelly's still got a death grip on her taco idea, and I'm still mostly on her side. Padma talks to the kids about eating healthier. One of the girls is aghast to learn that she just ate pickled red onions. Padma doles out hugs to the star-struck girls and hormonally-infused guys. Back at Judges' Table, the chefs settle in for the fret 'n sweat. It doesn't take long for Kevin to doze off, and the others fall silent as he gently snores. He jerks awake, and everyone has a good laugh. Padma comes in, and asks to see Angelo/Kenny/Ed/Tracey and Amanda/Tamesha/Jacqueline/Stephen. The teams left behind are concerned, because everybody knows that the winning chefs are always called first. But, finally! Show history is made seven seasons in, as the losing chefs are the ones in front of the judges first tonight. Stephen's expectant smile is wiped away. Amanda is slack-jawed in horror.

Stephen wanted to put more vegetables in his rice, but had to sacrifice creativity to come in on budget. Similarly, Jacqueline had to pump two pounds of sugar into her pudding to break up the starch of the bananas, because the team couldn't afford the ingredients she wanted. The judges point out that having to work within a strict budget was the point of the challenge, and the team did not meet that challenge well. If there's money for sherry, there should be money for vegetables. Amanda is finally starting to understand that she had a less than stellar concept for her dish. Ed's sweet potato was way too spicy. Sam says that avoiding starch and sugar is a big part of trying to overhaul the health of school lunches, and the Kenny/Angelo/Tracey/Ed team really fell down on this aspect. Kenny tries to explain away the lack of vegetables by pointing out the roasted tomato on their burger, and Sam responds that tomato is a fruit. Rather than reigniting that old chestnut of a debate, I'll say that even if tomato were a vegetable, slapping one on a burger does not a vegetable course make.

We veer into more interesting territory when Ptom asks Angelo if he'd have slapped together a bit of celery as a vegetable course if he didn't have immunity. "I can't answer that right now," Angelo says. I really don't know what he means by that, whether it's something along the lines of "Yes, but I'm not going to confess," or "No, but I'm not going to sell my teammates out." It could go either way. Ptom attempts to clarify by saying that he's not suggesting Angelo sabotaged the team on purpose, but Angelo wriggles out of that line of conversation, saying that he would have happily done more of a vegetable had someone suggested it. Um, how about when the judges suggested it - or rather directly told you to include it? Not enough of a push? Kenny says he did think of adding more nutritious food, but was overruled.

Stephen, who has no business being part of this conversation, jumps in to twist the screw, saying that Kenny letting the vegetable issue slide is inexcusable. I don't know if I'm more pissed that Stephen is being such a dick or impressed that someone who strikes me as rather gutless had the balls to do that. Kenny turns it around by saying that at least his team's dessert didn't have a sack of sugar dumped into it, implying that nutrition might not be the hill on which Stephen wants to plant his flag. Amanda leaps into the fray, deflecting the sugar point by saying that no matter how light Kenny's dessert was, the vegetable course was pumped full of processed sugar in the form of peanut butter. A fair point, so the ball is lobbed over to the other team, where Ed slams it back by asking why sherry needs to be served to middle schoolers. Amanda says that it's not like she was serving it in glasses for the kids to sip. Still. I mean, I know sherry-braised chicken isn't going to have the children stumbling back to class drunk, but what a weird ingredient to insist on including. Gail picks up on that, asking why Amanda found it so important to use. Amanda says that she personally enjoys it. Gail: "I like it, too. There's a lot of things I like. I love vodka; I'm not cooking with it." Hahahaha! Best judge. You heard it here, first. The chefs are dismissed.

Well, that team war was not the classiest thing I've ever seen, but I've got to say, everyone made pretty good points. The judges deliberate. Angelo/Tracey/Kenny/Ed had the worst menu of the day. It completely lacked the nutrition called for by the challenge, and Kenny had the opportunity to fix that, but didn't. Ed's dish would be fine for a restaurant, but not for a middle school. The judges wonder if Angelo threw the challenge. I don't believe he did. Sure, he picked Kenny on purpose to give him a better shot of getting eliminated (except...well, you'll see), but I don't see him purposely making crappy food on the off chance that would happen. That is to say, he took out the insurance policy, but didn't burn down the house. Back in the Kitchen, Angelo is whispering to Tracey that he doesn't like Kenny. Ooh, what a shock. And speaking of middle school, how nice to see that immature backstabbing leaking back into the show, because Season 2 was so great.

The other team earned their way to Losers' Table with Amanda's chicken and Jacqueline's dessert. Even setting aside the sherry issue, Amanda's chicken was wholly unappealing. Ptom shocks the viewing party by saying that her dish struck the children the same as if she'd plopped a big turd on the table. Tiffany insists he's saying "tarragon", but I don't think so. Wow, I've never heard Ptom react to a dish with such vulgarity. I'm not offended or anything, just surprised, because he's never said something designed to be so gross about any dish, ever. Jacqueline's pudding had an unconscionable amount of sugar in it. Back in the Kitchen, Jacqueline tries to comfort herself by saying that at least her team had fruits and vegetables. Yes, but you lack something very important. You can't be set up against Angelo in a television-friendly clash of the titans. Not that that has anything to do with a cooking competition, right? Right?

The judges deliberate about the winning teams. Kelly's tacos were far healthier than regular tacos, and were fantastic to boot. The rest of the team's dishes were similarly impressive. The Andrea/Kevin/Tim/Alex team has a lot going for it, as well. The chicken was good, and cut out a lot of the unhealthy elements it usually has. The same goes for the cole slaw. The judges decide on a winner, and Padma goes back to summon Lynne, Tiffany, Kelly, and Arnold to the table. They're told they had the best lunch, and each chef describes what he or she made. Every one of them is roundly complimented before Padma asks Sam to announce the individual winner, who turns out to be... Kelly. Well, I'm all for it, though I doubt the rest of her team would agree with me. She admits in interview that her team was helpful, but is happy with her win nonetheless. She gets applause back in the Kitchen before passing along the message that judges want to see Kenny, Ed, Amanda, and Jacqueline again.

Hold it! Take another look at that list. Since statistics have featured so heavily in this episode, why don't we analyze it a bit more deeply than the producers would like us to? These four aren't one losing team; they're the two worst (or at least elimination-eligible) performers from two teams. So essentially, the team structure meant nothing. Hell, why not pull in weak performers from winning teams while you're at it? We've heard -- not once, but twice -- that if Kenny's team came up short, he'd have a 50% chance of being eliminated. And here he is, one of four chefs up for elimination. Why, his chance of being eliminated has just been halved! What possible reason could there be for that? Could it be that the tension between Kenny and Angelo, the two undeniable top dogs of the competition, must be preserved at any cost? Could it be that Ed didn't commit enough of a culinary sin to be eliminated, so a sacrificial lamb had to be scraped up from another team so that Kenny could be spared? Nah. That would never take place in this, a cooking competition, where food is all that matters. This is why I can never take very seriously those occasional comments I get about how I can't pass judgment on these contestants whose food I've never tasted. Once again, and do please try to remember this time...

One part cooking competition. Nine parts television.

So, let's get this charade over with. Kenny should have been more assertive in suggesting nutritious components. Ed had the same problem. Amanda's chicken was simply unappealing. Jacqueline's pudding was grainy and loaded with sugar. Jacqueline, since you are the designated scapegoat, please pack your knives and go. Two episodes. Two dessert eliminations. I wouldn't blame the chefs if they refused to ever touch that course again. In her final interview, Jacqueline says she wishes she had fought harder for more than 10% of the budget. She appreciates the challenge that sent her home, though, because it reminds her of what she should strive for. In the end, she takes her loss gracefully, saying that one has to live with the choices he or she makes. Don't worry yourself, Jacqueline. No matter how disappointing your dessert, it seems clear that your biggest mistake was not being Kenny.

Overall Grade: C-