Farm Team

Top Chef - Season 7, Episode 5

Note to readers: The following is a short summary of the episode that will be replaced by a full recap later in the week. Tune in again before the next episode!

After Arnold and Lynne's eliminations, the remaining chefs cling to each other for companionship at home, with a couple raging cases of Jungle Fever sweeping the premises. Ed and Tiffany spend a lot of time hanging out in private (well, as private as you can get with a camera guy in your face and microphones strapped to your ass), while Angelo flirts with and coaches Tamesha.

The Quickfire is close to my heart, and tasks the chefs with preparing crab dishes. Various acts of crustacean murder occur that will no doubt bring members of PETA out into the streets with obnoxious protest signs. When the shell settles, an extremely creepy guest judge places Andrea, Amanda, and Kevin at the bottom, and Ed, Kenny, and Angelo at the top. Ed's dish is named King Crab, and he wins immunity for the rest of the round.

The Elimination Challenge throws all the chefs into one big team, forcing them to cooperate on preparing a half dozen dishes out of organic ingredients at a local farm. Even in this admittedly temporary situation in which everyone should be pulling together, egos and cliques soon render most discussion of the menu useless. Most of the power struggles come -- of course -- from Kenny and Angelo, who should just save us all a lot of time and whip out their dicks for measurement now. After a bunch of bickering, everyone just decides to work in the same teams they were in last week, which actually settles things quite nicely.

Prepping at the farm throws some people for a loop. Andrea is cold, Kelly has to haggle for vegetables, and Stephen can't figure out an efficient way to split a hard-boiled egg. No, really. The close quarters are a whir of activity, and some jostling elbows (or an errant wind) sends a bowl of cauliflower tumbling to the ground. Despite Angelo's insistence that they just go ahead and use the grass-stained mush that is now probably crawling with bugs, Kevin refuses, and opts to run for less feces-tainted fare.

At Judges' Table, Kevin, Kenny, Andrea, and Kelly are given high marks, with Kenny taking the individual win. On the other end, Tim, Amanda, and Stephen sink to the bottom. Even though Stephen has practically rented a room at Losers' Table, and even though all he did was make a simple salad that he still managed to fuck up, the judges axe Tim, breaking up the Tim/Tiffany dream team that our viewing party was getting such a kick out of. Dang.