And it’s not the three I wanted to see.
ALERT: HERE BE SPOILERS. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.
At the start of the show, we see our four semi-finalists preparing to meet up for the last showdown before the big pretty finale. Jennifer says she’s doing this for her mom. Kevin says that the Voltaggio brothers are awesome. The Voltaggio brothers agree.
I don’t know how to feel. I have wanted Eli and his whiny, blame-placing self gone for most of the season, and now that’s he’s gone, I gotta say it was a little hard. Everyone was so sad, because they all respect each other and like each other. He was a pretty good chef.
Then again, he was still a whiny, blame-placing punk who calls Inigo Montoya “Indigo Montota.” Stop using “Princess Bride” references wrong, Sonny. Somebody had to go. So it’s a little OK.
This week’s theme is the Bocuse D’or, a big Olympics-of-food competition that people apparently react to as if they were culinary soccer hooligans. It looks awesome. Gavin Kaysen, the Quickfire host, seems awesome, but awesome enough to distract me from that weird part in Padma’s hair. What is that? And in the previews next week, she’s got bangs. What in the world are they doing to her? It’s a plot, girl! They’re jealous!
It took almost a whole hour, but Fabio Viviani, everybody’s favorite charming Italian from “Top Chef,” said something in last night’s “Top Chef Reunion Dinner Special” that should be made into a T-shirt for anyone who ever enters a reality show contest…a reality show anything, actually.
“Nobody twist your arm to be here,” he said in his trademark sweetly mangled English, to a table-full of some off his fellow former cheftestants from various seasons of the Bravo show. “Next time they ask you to do something, you say no.”
First of all…YAY!
Michael Isabella has been my least favorite chef this season, from the beginning, because of his arrogance and his constant slagging of contestants he believes are beneath him, particularly Robin. His exit interview, in which he, at least in the edited version, focuses on her supposed suckage rather than his shortcomings, demonstrates the difference between him and my favorite, Jennifer.
Last week on “Top Chef: Las Vegas” : Robin and Eli threw down in a psuedo-maternal/man-child battle of words, recriminations and basically taking their toys and going home. Oh yeah…and Ash went home.
This week: Everyone seems to be sad that Ash went home. Laurine, in her bathing suit, is happy she’s still here. Why is that again? Kevin’s particularly sad, because the Voltaggio brothers are fighting and won’t shut up. Hmm. Foreshadowing much?
Anyone who’s ever lived in a college dorm has learned a truth that’s very applicable to “Top Chef” – You’re just not supposed to be friends with everyone. I mean, you’re supposed to be cordial and professional and not hog the bathroom or smoke in the room and make all your roommate’s jeans smell like Happy Hour. But there are some people that you click with more than others, and that you’re supposed to be buddies with, and some that are just supposed to be casual work “How was your weekend?” friends with.
Reality shows, of course, put you in close proximity with both types of people, and then pit you against one another for cash and prizes and turn on a camera to catch every tense, competitive moment. And the person that, in a normal office situation, would just be in the next cubicle for 7 and a half hours is now your roommate or teammate. This is what’s happening to Robin, the chatty-chatty cancer survivor Pilates queen and Eli, the living-at-home-with-Mommy manchild. They’re both on each other’s nerves, and in a normal situation probably wouldn’t even know each other that well. But that’s why we like reality shows, right?
Yesterday’s show was all about wine pairings with pork – I’m all about the wine, but am not a partaker of the swine, which doesn’t mean that the food didn’t look delicious. I could almost smell some of that stuff through the TV.
What I love about this show is that the judging process is a lot like life – you don’t get clipped just because you suck. Robin, for instance, wound up in the bottom three not because her food wasn’t good, but because she didn’t make enough of it and didn’t pair it well with the wine. But Laurine, whose food sounded like it just wasn’t great, somehow escaped the boot, and Ash got sent home. I’m not going to miss Ash much, honestly, but then I’m sort of personally meh about so many of the cheftestants this year. That’s sort of a good thing – there aren’t a lot of people to root against or who seem to stink as people. Some are just better than others.
Which can be sometimes boring, so it’s good they give you food to lust after.
I dedicate this post to two of my Northeast friends, who have nothing in common except that they both know me and they both have the flu – at least one of them has come down with the N1H1 virus, and the jury’s still out on the other one.
Drat. Just as I was beginning to love Mattin, or, as I call him, Bob’s French Big Boy, he gets sent home. He deserved it, because his campfire ceviche made Tom Collichio hurl. Nobody makes my Tom hurl and gets away with it. And nobody gets out of here without singing the blues (Yes, that was an unauthorized “Adventures In Babysitting” reference. I love those.)
Mattin started the episode singing the blues, because he’d almost gotten bounced during the French chef challenge, which would have been all sorts of painful, him being French and all. But he almost won the Quickfire, which was to create a cactus dish. Having never worked with cactus, he did very well, but not enough to beat Mike Isabella. Read the full story
'Top Chef' contestant Carla Hall (AP)
Wind Creek Casino & Hotel in Atmore, Ala., cooked up quite a grand opening recently for its state-of-the-art Cooking Studio, and celebrity chef Carla Hall of Top Chef: New York was a key ingredient.
Designed to enhance learning, the Cooking Studio comprises seating for 40 to 50 participants, a spacious open kitchen with five large flatscreen TVs overhead, three along the front and two on the sides. Then, to the right, there is another spacious kitchen and large dining table for smaller groups and hands-on experimentation.
Hall — who became a household name as she made her way to the finals in the fifth season of Bravo’s popular culinary competition — joined Wind Creek’s corporate chef Stafford DeCambra in the teaching kitchen to share their love of food as well as offer tips on recreating the dishes at home.
DeCambra said, “These are simple items. We just went into the icebox, brought it out and said, ‘Let’s create some elegance with simplicity.’”
Read the full story
Bad news: Hector, whose attitude and enthusiasm we’ve come to enjoy, is gone from “Top Chef,” our favorite eating-by-proxy show.
Good news: We can now finally say that we understand why people would want to eat snails.
I have thoroughly enjoyed this season on “Top Chef,” mostly because everyone’s so competent and talented and, except in Michael “He-Man Women Hater’s Club” Isabella’s case, seem to be more about the cooking than the trash-talking. Also, the food just looks so good!
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