Thursday, May 29, 2008

Foodie Night and Top Chef

We had our first foodie book club meeting at Jess's place last night, and I was the only guy. I probably should have seen that coming. I got to enjoy some fine company with some lovely ladies and dine on African cuisine from The Soul of a New Cuisine: A Discovery of the Foods and Flavors of Africa by Marcus Samuelsson.

Our spread consisted of the following:

Vegetable samosas, spicy okra, spicy tilapia stew, callaloo (a creamed spinach-like soup from Trinidad and Tobago).
Des and I brought yellow rice and red lamb curry (to which we forgot to add yogurt, but it still turned out well).
Finally, we had yummy fried banana fritters for dessert.

Everything turned out really well, the only problem was that we all kind of went in the same spicy direction, so there was little to balance the spiciness from dish to dish.

-S

The foodie book club meeting was a success, I think! It was fun to be able to try 7 or 8 different things from one cookbook, when usually it would take a long time to get through that many recipes on your own. And I liked the cookbook - there are 10-15 pages of different rubs and seasonings that I want to try out - berbere, ras-al-hanout, etc.


As for Top Chef: I cannot believe Lisa didn't go home again!! Spike was sent home instead of her. This has happened two or three weeks in a row, where Lisa and someone else are up on the chopping block, and Lisa stays. And she's been staying not for the food, but because of some technicality that the other person supposedly messed up (last week, not enough leadership; this week, didn't send back the scallops when they didn't look so great - but how could Spike have known that he COULD send back the scallops? If he would have tried, they probably would have faulted him for that, too!). Ridiculousness.

Anyway, left are "Greasa"-Lisa, Stephanie, Richard, and Antonia. Of course no one is rooting for Greasa, but I'm rooting for Antonia, and Steve is for Richard. If Lisa makes it to the Top 3 and one of the others is sent home, I may have to stop watching or send some sort of nasty email to Tom Colicchio.

-D

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Foodie night was fun! Thanks for coming out. I can't wait for the next one.

Ok, we all feel the same way about this week's episode, so no comment about that. However, I just read Tom Collichio's blog, and you need to read the last page. He addresses the issue of Dale getting eliminated...oh snap.

http://www.bravotv.com/Top_Chef/season/4/blogs/index.php?blog=tom_colicchio&article=2008/05/so_much_at_steak&page=6

Los said...

I think this week Spike was rightfully kicked off ... but Lisa should've been gone long ago.

Love the idea about the "cookbook club!"

Anonymous said...

Steve - Not sure your really a guy!

Steve Wilfong said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

Don't worry, Steve. Only real men (and women) know the proper times to use "your" versus "you're". But I would love to see the post that you apparently deleted...

schue said...

Cookbook Club?!? That's a great idea. I got the Top Chef cookbook for my birthday, I love it.

Seriousy, Lisa is still there? cmon.