Black and White and Red All Over

Top Chef: Just Desserts - Season 1, Episode 6

Previously on Just Desserts: Zac, Gidget, and Heatherh coalesced into an annoying, Mean Girls clique. The chefs made edible fashion, which delighted some and devastated others. Heatherh continued to pitch a one-sided battle against her sworn enemy Morgan. Her cause wasn't helped when he picked up the challenge win and the prize money that came with it, but it sure was nice to see the Plastics suck their collective lemon. Meanwhile, Heatherc made a sad, vegetative garment which got her sent on her merry way. Again. Seven chefs remain. Who will be eliminated tonight?

Opening menu. In the weeks leading up to Halloween, I've been auditioning new candy. Thumbs up to Butterfinger Crisp. Thumbs down to the Wonka Exceptionals Scrumdiddlyumptious Bar. The only "exceptional" thing about it was the price.

Monday Morning Quarterback session. Danielle is frustrated and confused by her situation. She tends to like her own dishes, but often winds up in the bottom three, so she doesn't know how to progress. Yeah, that would be sucky. The Plastics amuse themselves at the expense of the others. Heatherh wants Morgan to be eliminated because he doesn't "play fair". Read: Heatherh wants Morgan to be eliminated because she doesn't like him. Note that those two things have little to no relation to one another.

Quickfire Challenge. The chefs are met in the Kitchen by Gail and this week's guest judge, Michael Laiskonis, who will spend the entire episode looking like he desperately needs to go to the bathroom:

The counter is stacked high with ingredients, but not ones you'd normally see in a pastry kitchen. It's all things like chicken, bacon, and vegetables. Gail and Michael tell the chefs that more and more pastry chefs are using savory ingredients to push their desserts further, and for today's challenge, the contestants will be doing the same. They have one hour to create a dessert that strikes a good balance between sweet and savory flavors. In order to make it even more challenging, the only cooking equipment the chefs are allowed to use is a single pot, though they're free to wash it as many times as they wish. Winner gets immunity. Ready? Go!

The chefs make a mad dash for the ingredients, with everyone grabbing at the pile at once. In the melee, Morgan bumps Heatherh in the lips. I must report that even though we see the grabbing, we never see the bumping, so you'll have to take Heatherh's word for it; I have no reason to disbelieve her. Assuming that it did happen, it was clearly unintentional, and fortunately, she's not hurt. So of course, she immediately milks it for all its worth, whining to the other Plastics about how horrible and abusive Morgan is. Honestly, if she hadn't been spending the last few episodes trying to pin everything but the world's financial collapse on Morgan, I'd have a lot more sympathy for her. As it is, I frankly don't give a shit. Funny how that works.

Zac runs daintily back and forth. Gidget, who has swiped the entire supply of bacon, hides it under his station so that only he and the other Plastics can use it. Erika sees this, and interviews that she's tired of the Plastics' bullshit. Sweet, gentle Erika. See, Heatherh? Not to beat a dead horse, but it's a point worth pressing that if you're going to gleefully form a cabal of bullies, you don't get to go crying for support when bad things happen to you. Gidget describes his family background. I don't care enough about him to transcribe any of it. Morgan hopes to make a successful sorbet with liquid nitrogen, even though he's never used it before. Time winds down, and Gail and Michael go down the line.

Zac has made a steamed beet cake, with sweet goat cheese cream, and a lemon thyme gremolata. Eric wants to evoke a sweet and savory breakfast, and has made couscous with milk, and an apricot and fig compote with prosciutto. That doesn't sound either breakfast-like or dessert-like to me. He admits to the judges that he never works with savory ingredients. Danielle has tossed avocado with honey and candied tomatoes, with a basil anglaise and caramelized corn. Morgan's got a sweet potato risotto, with a golden beet sorbet and fried ginger-infused carrots. Shot of Heatherh holding a compress to her lip as if she'd been smashed in the face with a golf club. Bid for sympathy...DENIED. Gidget has made a chocolate cremeux with bacon fat, and some caramelized foie gras garnished with sea salt. It's extremely unattractive, but I have to admit, that flavor combination intrigues me mightily. Heatherh has a sour cream corn custard, with a roasted beet and berry compote, and some mascarpone cream. That sounds like it would be good if you took the beet out.

Results. The bottom three starts off with Danielle, whose dessert wasn't sweet enough, thanks to almost raw corn. Eric's dessert was the least dessert-like, and his prosciutto was an afterthought. Heatherh layered her dessert in such a way as to obliterate the bacon flavor, and her beets were undercooked. Now, to the top three. Morgan took a big risk with liquid nitrogen that paid off. Zac's cake was warm and moist, and had rich beet flavor. Gidget's plate was a bold combination of ingredients that worked in his favor. The winner of the Quickfire and immunity is... Zac. "Finally!" he says, following up with comparisons to bridesmaids and Susan Lucci in a way he thinks is charming. It is not. In a new little wrinkle, Gail offers him some cash in exchange for his immunity. That's a clever idea. They haggle for a bit until he agrees to trade in the immunity for five thousand dollars. I wonder how high Gail would have gone. Zac immediately has buyer's remorse, but can't do anything but steel himself for the upcoming challenge.

Elimination Challenge. Gail explains that the Los Angeles Times is throwing a party to celebrate their 128th year. I guess they'd better party while the getting's good. Tick tock, print media. The chefs will be providing desserts for the party, the theme of which is "Black & White". They'll have to serve two-hundred plates, and the desserts themselves must be solely black and white. This announcement causes more stir than "Make clothes out of food" ever did. Weird. The pastry chefs explain that they're used to working with color, but there's any amount of dark chocolate and white creams that would fit the bill, so I'm not understanding the panic. The chefs have a $500 budget, thirty minutes to shop, four hours of Kitchen prep, and one hour of final prep at the event. Shopping. The chefs trudge around as if the challenge called for desserts made out of human fetuses.

Back in the Kitchen, the chefs get started on their four hours of prep. A lot of the footage is description of the desserts they're making, which we'll get to later. Zac says that he'll be deep-frying whoopie pies to order, which will be exciting for the party-goers. Yeah, I could get into that as a guest. As a side note, what's with the plethora of whoopie pies? Someone seems to make them -- or at least want to make them -- every week. Are they that alluring? Eric realizes he doesn't have enough egg yolk in his batter. He has to add more, so he's slow in getting out of the industrial mixer, which leaves Erika in the lurch. He feels terrible about the situation, but there isn't much to be done about it.

Johnny drops by to Ptimewaste. Erika's blackberries are more purple than black, but she figures the final product will be dark enough to pass muster. Eric hopes to impress the judges with more sophisticated plating than he's used to doing. Heatherh is incorporating cranberries and pomegranate juice, both of which are blood red. Johnny points this out, and Heatherh assumes that the final product will be dark enough to overcome the hit from not following instructions. This truly is a season of ignoring inconvenient challenge parameters and blindly hoping things will magically turn out all right. You'd think the chefs would learn their history. Morgan wants his dessert to have some architecture, specifically the blocks and columns suggested by a newspaper. Erika worries about her blackberries' color, but takes solace in the fact that her ice cream will be amazing, interviewing that she's known for awesome ice cream back home. Time runs out.

After a little clip of the Plastics annoying the hell out of their roommates, it's time to set up at the party. As promised, everything in the room is black and white. The chefs jog in, and start their hour of prep. Heatherh marvels at the decor and decides that now is the time to start worrying about the color of her dessert. Sigh. Zac hurries to get his frying oil hot and his pies ready for immersion. Morgan discovers that the syrup he's poured on his cake has not soaked in, and chunks of it are now falling off. He tries to salvage it by soaking it with some backup syrup he's brought along. Gidget's dessert has a lot of components, and he rushes to assemble everything, accidentally overcooking his compote because his attention is split in twenty different directions. In short, everyone is working down to the wire to finish on time.

Heatherh cannot find a sheet pan of white chocolate Rice Krispie treats. She concludes that Morgan stole or sabotaged them, because... Because... Because he's Morgan, and Morgan is responsible for all the evil in the world, including apartheid. She whines in interview about how talented people can play fair, and still come out on top. Oh, shut the fuck up, lady. The rest of the viewing party tends to see Morgan as kind of a tool, and they wonder why I keep defending him. I pointed out that even if someone isn't the most gracious gentleman on the planet, the fastest way to get me in his corner is for a group of obnoxious bullies to gang up on him. If Heatherh weren't being so douchey about Morgan, chances are I'd dislike him as much as she does. But until she can come up with better reasoning than "I've concluded that he cheats, based on the fact that I don't like him," I'll be over here waving the Morgan banner proudly.

Time runs out, and the guests stream in. The room is a sea of black and white outfits. Erika scoops her ice cream to order, and explains that her blackberries have been soaking in vodka overnight. Ooh, nice. The judges come in. Dannielle is back on the panel this week, along with Gail, Johnny, and Michael. They head for Gidget's table first. He's made a chocolate cake with white chocolate mousse, a berry compote, and an almond milk ice cream. The cake is stacked with layers of other goodies, like dark chocolate squares and tea ganache. Erika has lemon-poppyseed ice cream, with a white chocolate pave (mounted cookies in rich condensed and heavy cream sauce), and blackberry creme brulee. The blackberry layer has come out a lot more purple than black. She explains to the judges that she didn't want to lose the berry flavor in service of the challenge parameters. Well, I'm sure it'll work out okay, just like it did for Zac's souffle, Seth's wedding cake, and Heatherc's penny candy dish. All of those may have sunk their creators to the bottom, but this time, it'll totally score the win. Tasting. Gidget's compote is a bit thick and gummy, but his overall plate is very creative, and he sure packed a lot of flavor into it. Erika's ice cream tastes of soapy glue. Yikes.

Zac has deep-fried whoopie pies, with a passion fruit cream and some Asian pear. He loudly sings its praises to the guests and judges. Morgan snarks in interview about how annoying Zac's attention-seeking Julie Andrews act is. As one of Zac's sisters under the skin, I feel like I should defend him, but truth is, hanging out with drama queens is genuinely exhausting. Not everything in life needs to be a Sex and the City episode. All that said, the judges like the tropical components he's infused into his plate, though the overall flavor is intensely sweet. Morgan's blocks-and-columns idea has worked out nicely, giving his plates a very Art Deco effect. He's made a chocolate date cake, with banana anise cream, and a coffee Kahlua jelly. And there we have Limecrete's Pick of the Week. Really, anything with bananas gets a headstart on winning that honor. Heatherh has a dark chocolate gingerbread torte, with a frozen creme anglaise, and blackberry compote with candied ginger. Ooh, we're getting into gingerbread season, aren't we? Yay!

Tasting. Morgan's plating is lovely, and he did a good job balancing the sweetness with other flavors, though Gail finds his cake dry. I guess that syrup never soaked in properly. Heatherh, even more so than Erika, has ignored the black and white parameters of the challenge. There is red fruit and juice all over the plate. Everyone does enjoy the gingerbread, as well they should. Eric has done a play on Mississippi Mud Cake by topping it with Earl Grey whipped cream and hot fudge sauce. It looks fucking delicious. Gail compliments him on how far his plating skills have progressed, and he enthusiastically thanks her, and interviews about how thrilling he found the praise. Once the judges dig into his dessert, they agree that his pastry skills are really starting to blossom. Danielle has made three little desserts, shaped into the numerals 128. The "1" is a lemongrass ginger truffle with a little coconut in it. DRINK! The "2" is a baked meringue, with white peppercorns and cocoa nibs, and the "8" is a cream-filled chocolate sandwich cookie. Zac interviews that Danielle's dessert is more of a petit four plate than a composed dish. The judges agree. Service winds down.

Interstitial. The Plastics amuse themselves, and nobody else.

Fret 'n sweat. Gidget tries to start some shit by passive-aggressively wondering if anyone else had things go missing, other than Heatherh's Rice Krispie treats. Nobody did, and Gidget calls the situation shocking. Morgan doesn't rise to the bait, but just nods his head in mock sympathy, which is hilarious. Gail enters, and asks to see Heatherh, Erika, and Danielle at Judges' Table. The ladies head out with smiles on their faces. They don't stay happy for long, because the judges have thankfully mixed things up a bit, and called the bottom three out first this week. All three of the chefs have different facial responses, from consternation to horror to fury. Heatherh liked the dessert she put forth, and Dannielle points out that she had the least black and white dessert. I truly wonder when this batch of people will stumble across the fact that if the challenge is to make a great brownie, and they go on to make the best lobster bisque ever known to man, they've still failed the challenge. Michael liked Heatherh's gingerbread, but wonders if she just stuck to her guns because she didn't feel like adapting to the actual challenge. Thank you!

Tim (as the judges): "You've fallen to the bottom because you didn't have any Rice Krispie treats."

Erika admits that her blackberry creme brulee wasn't as dark as she would have liked it, but enjoyed her ice cream. Unfortunately, the ice cream is the main reason she's wound up on the bottom. Johnny tells her he didn't get any lemon flavor out of it, and Dannielle reports that it actually had a soapy flavor. I know Dawn is sponsoring the season, but I hope we haven't reached the point that the chefs are tossing it into their dishes. Erika's flavor issues don't end with the ice cream. Gail says she didn't get any blackberry flavor out of the creme brulee layer of her cake. Danielle is at a loss, because she liked the desserts she made, and felt like she stuck to the theme well. Dannielle tells her that the meringue was kind of flavorless, and Michael says that the three desserts didn't meld well with each other, making it more of a sampler plate than a composed dish. Johnny tells her she should have thought about the best way to offer the individual desserts, and then instructed the guests how best to enjoy it. This after he explicitly told Seth that his role is not to educate the public. Make up your mind. Don't morph into Ptom. The bottom three are dismissed, and Gail asks them to send out all four of the guys. That's new.

Tiffany (coming back into the room): "So they switched it?"
Limecrete: "Yeah, the four guys are all on top."
Tiffany: "Um, these guys are not all tops."

The guys are back in the Kitchen feeling sorry for themselves, and the women reveal nothing when they come back, only telling the others that the judges want to see all of them. Once they're gone, Erika addresses the camera (not in interview, but right there in the Kitchen), and denies that any of her food ever tasted like soap, so Dannielle can eat it. Daaaaamn. Heatherh grouses that she doesn't want the men to dominate the competition. I write a quick note to her that reads "Have you noticed that the more you obsess over other people, the worse your food gets?" and pop it into a time machine to send back to a point when it would have done any good. Out at Judges' Table, the guys are extremely relieved to be the top four. Zac's plate was creative, and embraced the theme well. His ice cream was fantastic. Morgan's plate was delicious and well-constructed. Eric layered his textures well, and presented his best dessert to date. Gidget packed a ton of flavors into his little plate. Michael gets to announce the winner, which is... Gidget. He's happy to win, and promises we'll see him in the final three. Don't you threaten me.

Deliberations. Danielle didn't think about her final product enough, and her desserts were rather flavorless. Danielle is shouting back in the Kitchen that she has no idea how to cook for a palate other than her own, and doesn't know how to make the judges happy. My guess is that she can't, and we'll be saying good-bye soon. Erika included blackberry in multiple components, but it never came through, and her ice cream sucked rocks. Erika tells the other chefs that she's made ice cream for her entire career, and has never had this problem. I wonder if it has something to do with the machine she made it in. We'll never know. Heatherh relied too heavily on her technical skill, and ignored the challenge at hand. Michael senses that she's stubborn, and gets fixated on what she wants to do, discarding any instruction she finds inconvenient. Gail says her gingerbread was good, but not particularly inventive. The judges reach a decision.

Elimination. Danielle is in the bottom three all the time. That's seriously all Johnny can find to say to her. Heatherh has good skill, but sabotaged herself. I half expect a thought bubble to pop out of her head that describes her plan to blame this all on Morgan somehow. Erika's star component tasted bad. Gail winds up to deliver the bad news. Erika. Your dessert just didn't measure up. Please pack your tools and go. She thanks the judges and heads back to the Kitchen. In her final interview, she tells us that she put everything she had into these desserts. Her heart, her soul, passion, love, and soap. Okay, she didn't mention that last one. She's proud of what she's done, and I have to say, based on the sight and descriptions of her plates over the course of the competition, she didn't get a lot of the credit she deserved. She'll miss the other chefs, and has realized that she's a lot stronger than she realized. Aw. It's a shame to see someone so nice and grounded go. It's time to weed out some jerkholes.

Overall Grade: C+