mhill95149 wrote:Jamie started her Judges table with her hands in her pockets
the dude was arm crossed and the girl with the bangs had her hands behind her back

check the tape

She started that way, but as she was getting her criticism she switched to the same defensive arms-crossed pose Eugene was in.

I can't think of one thing this season I've either been interested in tasting or making myself.

That's funny - I was just looking at the recipe for Jamie's sweet corn soup with chili oil. I hate corn, and I thought it looked pretty good.

The editors seem to want to make Fabio out to be a good cook, but I find his recipes severely lacking. In that breakfast quickfire, he made a thick, gooey very heavy custard drink that was thickened with flour. Why you need to thicken a drink with flour is beyond me, though it doesn't sound like it would be all that appealing without the flour either. To complain about the heaviness of American breakfast and then serve that leaden crap is hypocritical to say the least. And that sesame crusted tuna with boring vegetables nonsense was amateurish at best. That's easier, and an even poorer measure of culinary skill, than Ariane's deviled eggs.

Maybe part of the problem is the recipes are written on the Bravo site. I don't know if the cheftestants or Bravo's writers are responsible, but who could make any sense out of Fabio's recipe here for mushroom soup with salmon:

1. Clean and blanche the mushrooms.
2. Saute the shallots with the garlic julienne and cook with butter.
3. Add broth, cream, salt, and pepper, and reduce on medium heat.
4. Blanch the asparagus, blend with a cup of asparagus water, and strain and season with salt, pepper, and lemon juice.
5. Do same process with olives, but put the algimate (3.5 GR in the asparagus)
6. Blend and strain the mushrooms, leaving some for garnish, in 17 oz of water and garlic. If asparagus is too runny, add xanthan gum.
7. Sear the fish and cut into 1x1 inch squares and place on top of soup.
8. Drop in asparagus with a spoon and let rest for 6-10 min.

I have no clue what most of that is supposed to mean, but it sounds like crap anyway.

Kennyz wrote:That's easier, and an even poorer measure of culinary skill, than Ariane's devliled eggs

Oh, that Ariane is sly as a fox . . . she had immunity, so she made deviled eggs. I'm sure tarted-up weenie dogs also flew threw her mind. Very subversive.

For some reason, I'm starting to root for her. Her and Stefan. Stefan because he's a total jerk but one of those jerks that actually can back up his ego. (As jesteinf said above, I wouldn't want to work with him either, although I might find him amusing from time to time.) Fabio is just a nut -- look at the crazed look in his eyes.

Here's a bit from LeAnn's blog on Bravo.com that is pretty interesting:

The fridges had been overloaded with hot food the night before and one of them broke down. The problem was with Radhika, Hosea, and Melissa's food. After speaking with Liz, one of the exec producers, we saw that technically we could still give them 2 hours to do something before they had to get in a van to come to the ballroom. I told Angie that Radhika should use the leftover duck legs in the fridge, but Radhika didn't want to use the legs. I told her that the closest grocery store would probably only have chicken breasts, which she agreed to, so Angie and Peder ran out and came back with 20 lbs of chicken breast and 2 whole pork loins. It was the best they could do in Bushwick at the last minute. By the time they got back the duck legs were already being cooked (thank goodness). I had spoken with Bengt and heard that all of the contestants were pitching in to help so we were confident they would be able to get it done in time. At this point the producers already knew they couldn't send anyone home because of the fridge incident (it unlevels the playing field, therefore we can't eliminate anyone), but the chefs didn't know this.

Kennyz wrote:The editors seem to want to make Fabio out to be a good cook, but I find his recipes severely lacking. In that breakfast quickfire, he made a thick, gooey very heavy custard drink that was thickened with flour. Why you need to thicken a drink with flour is beyond me, though it doesn't sound like it would be all that appealing without the flour either. To complain about the heaviness of American breakfast and then serve that leaden crap is hypocritical to say the least. And that sesame crusted tuna with boring vegetables nonsense was amateurish at best. That's easier, and an even poorer measure of culinary skill, than Ariane's devliled eggs

I agree. Fabio seems under-skilled. Ariane seems like a good line cook but without a creative bone in her body.

I've enjoyed this season, even if this most recent episode sucked: Prep a dish for 300 people in three hours and it's gotta be awesome and you can only use what you find for retail dollars at WF. It's a challenge that's designed for "survival" and not for "success".

I'm looking forward to next week. In the promo they mentioned a "no restraints" challenge (although I'd imagine they're budgeted on time and money to some degree).

I have no clue what most of that is supposed to mean, but it sounds like crap anyway.

But say eet in Fabio's ahksent and eet's sharming.

elakin wrote:

Annoying personalities aside (the ones we love to hate), I watch this show for the cooking, not the people.

but the cooking has been utterly forgettable this season. this season's winners have all done non-creative standards and just executed them well. that appears to be good enough this season. compare what these guys are doing to what hung or richard blaise or that dweeby marcel guy were doing. not even in the same league.

This is not the first season where it's been observed that everyone's cooking, not to win but to not go home. At this stage of the game, that is actually a sensible strategy. If you just don't screw up badly, someone will usually be worse.

What they need to do is make the Elimination Challenge win worth more that a cookbook or a set of pots and pans or Rocco's favorite kitchen gadgets. Or maybe you get immunity in the next challenge while the quickfire just gives you some advantage in the EC. Then you might see people try to win rather than trying not to lose.

rickster wrote:What they need to do is make the Elimination Challenge win worth more that a cookbook or a set of pots and pans or Rocco's favorite kitchen gadgets. Or maybe you get immunity in the next challenge while the quickfire just gives you some advantage in the EC. Then you might see people try to win rather than trying not to lose.

In past years, the winner of the EC received incredibly valuable prizes - vacations, major appliances, etc. My vague recollection is that these prizes came later in the show.

I apologize if this was covered above, but in addition to the prizes in the Elimination Challenge being uninspiring, so are the challenges themselves. Catering to [fill in the blank], be it Amfar, the Foo Fighters, etc. isn't exactly inspiring to the contestants and/or would demonstrate that a chef has a skill level that exceeds everyone else. I mean, if you're catering a charity event, and part of your "score" is how many people at the event liked your food, you're not going to get incredibly creative. If you do, you *may* impress the judges, but risk turning off the attendees who mostly just want to eat and socialize. Ditto for the Foo Fighters, or Gail's Wedding shower etc. It seems like the so-called Elimination "Challenges" aren't necessarily challenges to the chefs, but rather, geared towards using their labor to promote someone or some institution that may or may not be giving kickbacks to the show. I'm sure that is very limiting to the chefs.

I miss the real food-specific Elimination Challenges, such as the use of the exotic proteins, as in Episode 1 of Season 3. Even somewhat "sillier" sponsor-driven challenges, such as airplane food and pre-made frozen food, were at least interesting in that it took the chefs out of their comfort zones. But "cater food for 250 people," or "make food for a bridal shower," is not likely to produce a whole lot of creative food and/or prove to be a test of the chef's skills.

I think catering a large event is a challenge in and of itself.

Yes, you can argue (and it has) that there are too many catering challenges (if I hear "top caterer" one more time...). That's fine.

I do think there is value in having a record of the number of guests that liked each dish. In general, these counts don't determine the winner. But it's valuable to the chefs to know that not only did Tom and Padma dislike your dish, but few guests did either. Most of these chefs are overconfident and sometimes data helps them (and the viewer) know that other dishes were preferred a lot more.

Finally, there is always a tension between food that will please the Tom, Padma, Gail and judges with more sophisticated tastes, and food that will please "the masses". The very best chefs are able to do both at the same time. It is wrong to think that pleasing only one type is more important.

If you remember the "Ravenswood Manor" episode from last season, some of the chefs underestimated the tastes of the block party guests.

aschie30 wrote:I miss the real food-specific Elimination Challenges, such as the use of the exotic proteins, as in Episode 1 of Season 3. Even somewhat "sillier" sponsor-driven challenges, such as airplane food and pre-made frozen food, were at least interesting in that it took the chefs out of their comfort zones. But "cater food for 250 people," or "make food for a bridal shower," is not likely to produce a whole lot of creative food and/or prove to be a test of the chef's skills.

If I heard correctly in the coming attractions, next time the chefs are going to be able to cook a signature dish without any of the constraints of a large catering event. This is something I've been waiting to see. A challenge like that should separate the wheat from the wannabes (although many of the wannabes are already apparent).

Darren72 wrote:If you remember the "Ravenswood Manor" episode from last season, some of the chefs underestimated the tastes of the block party guests.

Yes, and of course, some of the chefs underestimated the block party participants' tastes in the most obnoxious and condescending manner.

I'm not saying so much that there is a problem per se with the cooking food that would appeal to the masses -- if this food actually does appeal to the masses -- my guess is that what the chefs made for this charity event wouldn't appeal to your average Applebee's crowd. None of the food (except arguably Ariane's deviled eggs) was unsophisticated; it was sleek and elegant, and even some questionable choices for catering (such as Jamie's scallop) were still sophisticated, so it's not necessarily what I'd dub as "food for the masses." So, for me, the problem is inherent in these catering challenges. It's that the challenges are the same -- you have to please a great number of people, you can't do anything too crazy, you have to do something that can keep for awhile, etc. But the major limitation is that anyone who is actually catering to people must limit their food to items that just aren't terribly exciting. Not that there's anything wrong with the food specifically, but if you're attempting to judge the chefs' skill level or gauge their creativity, there's not a whole lot to mine with catering-type challenges.

And I agree that if they are catering to real folks at a real event, those folks should have a say. And I agree that 250 people is a challenge, but it's shouldn't be so much of a challenge for proficient chefs.

(Darren- I tried to avoid using the "top c_terer" moniker for your benefit. )

I agree with all of that. I think the biggest hurdle in doing the catering challenges (besides making good food in general) is figuring out how to do things ahead of time, store them, and serve them appropriately. I think we were all pretty shocked last year at the Ravenswood Manor challenge that someone served fried food -- pre-fried, then stored, then soggy...

My wife and I spent a lot of time talking to caterers as we planned our wedding about how they prepared the food. Just as there's a big difference between home cooking and restaurant cooking, we were surprised at how different catering is from restaurant cooking.

Darren72 wrote:I agree with all of that. I think the biggest hurdle in doing the catering challenges (besides making good food in general) is figuring out how to do things ahead of time, store them, and serve them appropriately. I think we were all pretty shocked last year at the Ravenswood Manor challenge that someone served fried food -- pre-fried, then stored, then soggy...

But, this is the kind of stuff that any good chef should know, even if they're never going to cater a party. If you have a dining room that seats 100 and you have 4 different specials, plus your regular menu, you're gonna have to know a lot about what you can cook ahead of time, what can be prepared to order, how to store different components of a dish, and how long it should take to prepare a dish.

It seems to me that the biggest constraint of catering is the fact that you won't have your whole kitchen with you when you serve.

By this reasoning, I think these catering challenges go a long way towards separating a good chef from someone who knows how to cook. I can cook some damn good dishes but there's no way I have the skills to cook it dozens of times in the same evening. Prep, storage, and service management are professional skills that are required to be a chef.

eatchicago wrote:Prep, storage, and service management are professional skills that are required to be a chef.

Okay, setting aside for the moment whether catering and restaurant cooking are different (as I think they are), isn't focusing on the skills described above kind of like going about determining who is "Top Doctor" by seeing if they know how to take your temperature and listen to your heart (skills any doctor hopefully has just by showing up to class)? While I agree that all of those attributes are required to be a chef, can't we just assume that a top chef has those skills and start at, say, "level 4" and move up from there to thin the crowds?

It seems to me that the biggest constraint of catering is the fact that you won't have your whole kitchen with you when you serve.

Right - that's a huge constraint and really changes what you can do, and how you do it. I think you are right that a catering challenge or two, as part of a broader competition, really showcases those with a broader knowledge (or, more common sense - come on, who makes premade fried food!).

By contrast, Iron Chef really is a competition for being the most creative, higher-end chef. I happen not to watch it, but I like that concept also and wish that Top Chef had a little more of it. But I also like that Top Chef focuses on a very broad array of cooking-related skills. A fair number of contestants have catering backgrounds and I'm sure a very large share of professional chefs work in catering.

I think the key lesson is that it is clear that a lot of the contestants don't have all of these skills - the management, prep, storage, leadership, etc. skills. The judges have noted these things a few times, especially the idea that to win the competition you need to demonstrate leadership skills in the team challenges.

Aschie30, I think your doctor example would be something like a "Top Doctor" show that included things like setting up a practice, working in a remote village in Africa where you don't have a full set of tools, as well as performing state of the art surgery.

It's important to bear in mind that the catering challenges serve a very specific television purpose, too... they get the chefs out of the kitchen and help to provide some variety to the backdrop of every episode. Not from a cooking standpoint, necessarily, but just from a visual and thematic standpoint. Personally speaking, I don't like the number of catering challenges. But if I'm on a production crew trying to figure out how to keep a show visually interesting over 16 episodes, I'm scared to death of never seeing the outside of the Top Chef kitchen. And moving offsite means more catering.

Darren72 wrote:Aschie30, I think your doctor example would be something like a "Top Doctor" show that included things like setting up a practice, working in a remote village in Africa where you don't have a full set of tools, as well as performing state of the art surgery.

Agreed. Prep and storage are not simple skills. In fact, I doubt that they're things you can adequately learn in school, but really master by being a "top chef".

I've known software engineers who are technically proficient and hold high academic degrees, but when the "rubber hits the road" and they need to apply their skills to the real world of execution and delivery, they fall apart.

I like that Top Chef tries to balance testing someone's cooking ability and the skill of actually trying to cook for people in real-world scenarios. Does watching catering get a little boring? Yes. But the 2nd half of the season will focus much more on individual cooking skills.

That all being said, the part of this season that is *compelling* is the fact that the judges are unhappy. Tom just sat 'em down and let them have it. After seeing the winner of the Quickfire serve deviled eggs with half a dozen toppings, I can understand why. He exhorted them to bring it. I am interested to see how they respond, how they cook their way into contention or off the show.

This is not the first season where it's been observed that everyone's cooking, not to win but to not go home. At this stage of the game, that is actually a sensible strategy. If you just don't screw up badly, someone will usually be worse.

I find this to be the greatest flaw of the show. Until the last episode, you do not have to prove you are the Top Chef, but one notch above the worst chef. I know it would make for difficult episode planning, however if 3 or 4 dishes are truly terrible, all the chefs should be asked to leave. Having only one chef eliminated per episode hurts the quality of the contestants throughout the season. The other flaw I find is that each competition is is technically judged individually, and not compared to previous challenges, leading to bad contestants remaining on the show way too long throughout the season.

Dmnkly wrote:But if I'm on a production crew trying to figure out how to keep a show visually interesting over 16 episodes, I'm scared to death of never seeing the outside of the Top Chef kitchen. And moving offsite means more catering.

And, of course, it plays into the ubiquitous sponsorship and product placement goals of the show as well. How much of a write off do you think the producers got for catering the AIDS event, for example?

Nice thread.

I'll add a few thoughts, related and not, some said in past seasons:

- I'm willing to live with gross product placements as the price of my DVR. Take away product placements and those best/brightest software engineers that Michael knows would be working their dickens off figuring a way out of thwarting DVRs.

- Any one with half a brain, would know not to cook Tom anything the least bit spicy let alone anything that has habenero in it.

- Tom has two books published. His culinary philosophy is pretty plain to see (besides don't use habanero's). He likes chef-y food; that is food that seems simple until you have to do all the necessary components. How hard is it for the cheftestants to "Think Like a Chef."

- The Top Caterer thing bugs me a lot, but I'm swayed by Michael's arguments. Where Michael has to convince me, is what the heck do they expect the Chefs to do with Whole Foods quality food. No offense to Whole Foods, I buy stuff there, but I don't want my Top Chefs buying there. Perhaps, Jamie's scallop dish would have come out a bit better if she used the type of diver scallop I bet she's used to using. We all have our pet issues, obviously, me being a locavore and all, I see the enormous difference that raw materials make. How can you expect these guys to make fine food if they do not start out with fine materials.

Where Michael has to convince me, is what the heck do they expect the Chefs to do with Whole Foods quality food. No offense to Whole Foods, I buy stuff there, but I don't want my Top Chefs buying there.

I see this argument but I would say most of the fatal screwups so far have hinged on something much more fundamental than the difference between a grocery store scallop and the best scallop in New York.

In the preview to next week show, one of the contestants commented that Jamie seemed to be competing on "Top Scallop" instead of Top Chef....

Where Michael has to convince me, is what the heck do they expect the Chefs to do with Whole Foods quality food. No offense to Whole Foods, I buy stuff there, but I don't want my Top Chefs buying there. Perhaps, Jamie's scallop dish would have come out a bit better if she used the type of diver scallop I bet she's used to using. We all have our pet issues, obviously, me being a locavore and all, I see the enormous difference that raw materials make. How can you expect these guys to make fine food if they do not start out with fine materials.

I think the issue is less with the quality of Whole Foods than with the pretty limited range of raw materials they carry. I'm thinking of ethnic ingredients, fish and produce especially. I think this is a real problem when they are given some of the more "creative challenges.

rickster wrote:I think the issue is less with the quality of Whole Foods than with the pretty limited range of raw materials they carry. I'm thinking of ethnic ingredients, fish and produce especially. I think this is a real problem when they are given some of the more "creative challenges.

Remember, the show allows contestants to bring their own ingredients from home. Richard brought equipment last year, Jamie brought her herb for the carrot puree this year. It's not clear how much the chefs are allowed to bring or how often they use them. So this is one way they can anticipate the selection issues from a retail grocer as well as having product on hand that suit their cooking styles.

rickster wrote:I think the issue is less with the quality of Whole Foods than with the pretty limited range of raw materials they carry. I'm thinking of ethnic ingredients, fish and produce especially. I think this is a real problem when they are given some of the more "creative challenges.

I don't think this is an issue. The truth is that most chefs (and most of the contestants at on Top Chef) use pretty standard ingredients that can be found at most grocery stores, and WF has a relatively good selection.

imo, the problem with using whole foods isn't the quality or the selection, it's the price. they often make the chefs work on a pretty tight budget, and then to make them pay retail at a very expensive store is ridiculous. restaurants pay about a buck a pound for chicken breasts, but i bet they're eight bucks or so at WF.

it's stupid, and imo, the whole 'run through the grocery store madly planning and frantically searching for ingredients' is utterly moronic and unrealistic. chefs order their ingredients and they're delivered. that's how it works.

i disagree with the 'top caterer' criticism. catering is a skill set that chefs need to possess. the best chefs can thrive in a restaurant, each plate cooked to order one by one setting, or running a banquet for 500. accomplished chefs often need to do both. sometimes on the same night. and what do they call the people running the banquet kitchens at the ritz-carlton or four seasons? are they called "caterers"? nope. they're chefs.

y'all have gotten too caught up in the mystique of the celeb chef with the eponymous restaurant, imo. some of the best and most accomplished chefs in the world are running catering operations.


oh, and the scallop critique is legitimate. even though they've been a disaster on this show in the past, scallops are a cop-out. they're easy to cook well and go with almost everything. jamie needs to step outside her comfort zone.

elakin wrote: chefs order their ingredients and they're delivered. that's how it works.

that's a substantial overstatement. They don't go to Whole Foods, but there are a whole lot of excellent chefs that do their own shopping at local markets of various kinds.