Michael Skarn shoots first and asks questions later

The Quickfire Challenge featured lots of yummy looking desserts, like a pineapple and rum souffle, fresh young coconut, and something called a walla seed from Australia. Richard became immune and immortal, with his recipe for scallop bananas with guacamole ending up in the Top Chef cook book. You may recall that I called him for my pick for winner starting on day 1. Maybe that's not a big accomplishment, considering some of the competition.
Take Lisa, for example. Her grease collection with a few strands of hair in it is beginning to burn into my retinas in a way that does not flatter. But if she was in any way attractive, she would make up for it completely with her flat tire personality.
When the chefs went to the improv house, we were waiting for an appearance of Michael Skarn. It's always funny how surprised the chefs are when their 'leisure' activities turn out to actually be precursors to the elimination challenge.
The self-selection process allowed the hip hoppers, Spike and Andrew, to work together. They were forced to improvise while fulfilling Spike's missed opportunity to make a squash soup, due to the electrical equipment disappearing. Mark and Nikki formed the 70's shades team, which I must admit, I have an awesome pair of as well.
Judge Tom dropped the bomb by sending them packing from the kitchen to the chef's house in the middle of prep. OK, we get it, improv is the theme.
Anyway, Richard and Dale won with their purple perplexed tofu, which came as a surprise to no one.
I was routing for Lisa to get kicked off, if you couldn't have already guessed that. But instead, Jenn, who was doing it for Zoi, joined her. I guess the lesbian angle didn't inspire Bravo to keep her anymore now that her girlfriend was gone.
There was a neverending stream of innuendo during this episode, that I'm sure David Dust will quote ad nauseum.
Anyway, I have to say that this blogging thing has gotten a little cumbersome ever since the Nazis at Adsense kicked us off. I wonder how long we'll keep this up...I'm sure that the world would lament losing a great contribution to humanity if we gave this up.

A close call

We had a special guest with us as we watched Padma and the crew shamelessly sporting Bears jersies at the tailgate outside of Soldier Field (I didn't realize that there was such a lag between filming and airing of these shows). Yes, we welcomed our favorite third wheel foodie, Ms. Jessica Sum, who delivered me some bangin' goodies from DiBruno Brothers: Some Calamata olives, mole sausage (made by Mario Battali's father!), and a block of chocolate tinged cheese. Forgive me, Jess, for the bad description and the third wheel comment, I was just joking!

So, the chefs were back in lowbrow cooking mode with the tailgate theme for the elimination challenge. The quickfire was more interesting again, because the challenge was to pair a dish with a beer. There a lot of discussion taking place at casa de Steve'nDes, so we missed a lot, and consequently we don't have as much to say about this episode.

But here are a few excepts from our conversation:

Des: "Either Nikki is always raising her eyebrows, or she plucked them wierdly."
Steve: "Why would they have 'touch yourself'' as an option on the poll question, but not 'touch Gail?'"
Jess: "Well at least Steve warned me that his boring ass was going to be on the computer blogging the whole time."
Tom Colicchio: "Sausage is a religion."

Some of those were paraphrased.

It was a real knuckle clencher wit my man Mark on the chopping block, but he made it, as did Jess and Des's favorite person to bash, Nikki. David Dust will have a little more on the show.

The Ardmorons Top Chef Archives

I got my birthday wish!

Rewatching the end of last week's Top Chef, I'm again impressed with the class and dignity that Manuel departed with. A lot of time those humble speeches sound fake and full of rhetoric, but his show of humility and accountability was admirable.

This week's quickfire challenge examined once again the concept of the The Pepsi Challenge. Even trained palettes cannot always identify the best ingredients from a mere taste, since the quality of many products are based on reasonable consumption, not small doses.

Zoi got rightfully sent home, fulfilling my birthday wish...and yet she and Jenn never faced the truth that she was only on the show because of the television value of featuring a lesbian couple. I agree that it is a nice twist, but I'm sure there are plenty of better ones out there in the talent pool.

The post-elimination outburst may have been the classic moment of Top Chef. Here's the play-by-play: Spike tore into immune Antonia because she talked their team out of making a soup, leading to their loss. Jenn then tore into Spike because her lover Zoi got the axe, as if it wasn't well deserved and long overdue. Dale threw in his two cents on Spike's behalf, Lisa yapped like a little dog, and Dale lit her up. Can't wait to watch it again next week!

Top Chef Archives

Now, onto more important things...the kittens got me a blue polo shirt for my birthday. Des got two little cakes for us, and she got me with the old trick candle! First time for that, and it was kind of cool. We split an Avery Pale Ale and a Dock Street Amber we've been saving from Total Wine in Delaware. Both were excellent. I'm a lucky guy! Thanks to everybody, friends and family, who sent birthday wishes!

-S

Oompa Loompa

Pre-show text message that pretty much sums up my sentiments of this season:
Jess: Here's to Nikki getting voted off tonight!
Des: And to Lisa washing her hair!

The bad news is that a nice guy left, and neither of those two did...nor did my least favorite, drama queen Zoi. It's going to be so much fun to watch the whining when the couple gets broken up.

The good news:

We finally got a chance to see some actual culinary technique, after a few weeks of mac n' cheese and corn-dogs. During the quickfire, the chefs had to use 3 classical culinary techniques on vegetables...have the producers been listening to us about too much lowbrow cooking? Dale's nifty knife techniques got him immunity for the round. (By the way, i gotta get one of those cool scallion crowners!)

Lots of love was thrown around for my boy Richard...looks like I'm not the only one who thinks he's the guy to beat.

The movie themed dishes from the elimination challenge looked good overall. I think a few of the movie references were stretching it a bit, but the interesting techniques from Andrew's winning team were worth the price of admission. I was surprised not to see Mark in the finalists for that round, I thought his team did a nice job of combining Asian cuisine and Christmas flavors to get to A Christmas Story.

I'm feeling pretty good about my prediction. Richard all the way.

-S


The Ardmorons Top Chef Archive

Sexy Drinks and Home Invasions

This week's Top Chef episode wasn't any good.

It started out with a good idea - invading homes to find what you can. Steve and I actually already had this idea for a show, but Top Chef really messed it up. In our version, each chef would pick a house and cook some sort of gourmet entree based on what was there, be it a foodie kitchen or not. Of course I'm sure the judges would make sure that something could be made in each kitchen, but in this episode I got the impression that Top Chef gave each house money to stock up before the raid. What fun is that? You need to work with what the people really have on hand.

While we're on the subject, my other cooking show idea: me, Steve, Jess Sum, and Danny-Boy try to recreate cooking show meals using a regular kitchen and without having much, if any, training. I think it would be interesting to see if real people in a real, non-studio, kitchen could pull off the recipes. So Bravo or Food Network, if you are reading this, let me know and we'll talk.

So besides the botched idea, the block party concept was also no good. I don't watch this to see pasta salad and mini-hamburgers. I know they have to vary the episodes so we're not seeing the same things every time, but I don't see how picnic food is relevant to winning $100,000 from the Glad family of products toward opening your own restaurant and the title of Top Chef (by the way, that prize sucks! $100,000?!).

Two final points. First, for Jess Mac - Mark wore Hyde glasses! Second, Nikki needs to go. I am sick of her stupid hats and excuses for her ruined dishes (mac & cheese dried out and turd-like mushrooms).

-D

My early prediction looked good again as Richard won immunity during quickfire for his jicama taco, but I was disappointed not to see much of the kiwi this week.

The show was kind of boring until the end when the very confident red team found out they lost the elimination challenge. The tensions and bravado flared up like the match in the old hemorhoid commercials. Sadly, I think we all saw Erik's departure coming from a mile a way. All his food looked like crap, even if I am a little nervous that he'll seek me out and kill me for saying so. Zoe would have left, I'm sure, if Bravo didn't have the disclaimer at the end of the show that allows elimination decisions to be governed by the network-breaking up the lesbian couple so soon wouldn't be good for the ratings.

The funny thing about Stephanie picking up her second win was that when she described her contribution to the team, it sounded like she was an appendix.

I think the show needs some work right now. Part of the problem is that there are no awards for winning the elimination challenges as there had been in the past. The quick fire provides more of an incentive because the winner gets immunity. In the elimination challenge, all you have to do is not come in last place.

-S

The Ardmorons Top Chef Archive

Top Chef goes to the Zoo!

Edits: For spelling and grammar because JSum is a nag.

Much jubilation in this camp as our kiwi favorite Mark won immunity during the quick-fire despite leaving his lettuce at the market. Maybe it was his sideburns. The quick fire challenge itself seemed a little uninspired this week. A visit to the farmers market had a lot of potential, but the rules limited each dish to five ingredients without any other guidelines to shape the outcome.
The chefs next faced a zoologically themed elimination challenge, which combined two of my favorite things, zoos and food. Teams of three were each given an unlikely animal totem (vultures, penguins) to emulate the diet as they catered hor doeuvres for the Chicago Zoo staff. I think Chef Collicio came up with the challenge concept considering his beaming inquiry of how the chefs enjoyed it.
Desiree's favorite spaz Andrew won the elimination challenge with a penguin-themed squid dish (although he got caught cheating during the quickfire). Somehow, an anchovy dish almost gave Mark his second victory of the episode, making converts of everyone's favorite judges, Padma and Gayle. (Well, they're my favorite judges.)
Valeri, who we didn't see or hear enough of to care much about, took the long hike after making blinis 24 hours ahead of service, but it looked like there were others just as worthy to go with her. It looks like tensions are beginning to build with some teams close to implosion by service time.
My early pick, Richard, had a lackluster performance (I had high hopes for the eucalyptus) even with a fellow student of molecular gastronomy as a guest judge. I still stand by my prognostication.

The Ardmorons Top Chef Archive

S

Top Chef Chicago

The cable is working again (at least for now) and not a moment too soon...Top Chef Chicago debuted tonight.

Let's see what Des has to say about it:

First of all, I liked the commercials. Finally, an ad for boxed wine! It was Fish Eye, though, which I have never had and don't think I'd ever buy. But boxed wine is great - if you get something other than White Zinfindel or Franzia, it will be good. Try Pinot Evil, a good boxed pinot noir, or the Black Box Shiraz or Cab. Last season some of the commercial products were featured on the show - who knows, maybe they'll use boxed wine!

I don't have too much to say about the episode. I don't like Lisa - I don't like the way she looks or how she reacted to being told that she poached her egg better than the other guy - she acted like she was so superior just for poaching an egg better. Now, poaching an egg well can be hard - too short of a cook time and the white part is slimy, too long of a cook time and the yolk isn't runny (Steve sometimes has problems with poaching eggs; my dad is good at it if I remember correctly). But still.

The two people I do like are Mark and Andrew.

Mark is from New Zealand, so I'm getting my New Zealand fix until Flight of the Concords is back and I can listen to Bret and Jemaine. And Andrew seems like a tool, but I like him anyway. ("Yo, casa motherf***s, like fatness." - he's like the celebrities from the Geico commercials.) He reminds me of Adam Goldberg in his intense, spastic, and hyped up on cocaine way. Although it seems like he may be a jerk and co-contenstants will not like him, he will be entertaining.

I'm glad Nimma went home.

Now lets see what Steve has to say:

It seemed like the judges (Tom, Padma, and guests Rocco DiSpirito and Anthony Bourdain) were really impressed with the four finalists from the elimination challenge. Stephanie ultimately won with her duck a l'orange. On the other side of the challenge, Des and I held our breath as our favorite, New Zealander Mark, faced elimination for his own duck a l'orange, but ultimately Nimma's oversalted shrimp scampi flan-kenstein sent her home.

Two things I noticed with Bravo's positioning strategy: It seems that they made a point to bring in more corrosive personalities than before...I think it took at least a few weeks for people to start hating Howie last season, but I think I already see a few smacked-asses. Also, the product placement and brand plugs appear to be saturated into the programming more than ever before, following the general trend of the industry.

One last point. I have a feeling the lesbian couple situation won't end well, but we'll all enjoy watching the train wreck.

All in all, it looks like the Top Chef formula is still working, it will be interesting to see what they do to keep things fresh. My early pick for this season's winner: Richard, whose smoked crab cake wowed Chef Colicchio.