elakin wrote:y'know...i'm not against cleavage, but this show's supposed to be about food and cooking. and gail's cleavage is all soft and flabby looking, even when she tries to cram it into a pushup bra like she did for last night's episode. you can just tell she's a pampered child of privilege who landed her job because she was in the right sorority and knew the right people and who's never worked a real job for a day in her life. i would wager that she cannot cook even the simplest of things, but she's probably got this pristine manhattan kitchen with a pro-style range that she never even turns on.

she's a freakin' phony.

So tell us how you REALLY feel.

Dmnkly wrote: but how do you allow a guy to continue who's flat-out delusional?

Boy, does that ever sound like last week in IL....

mhill95149 wrote:

Dmnkly wrote: but how do you allow a guy to continue who's flat-out delusional?

Boy, does that ever sound like last week in IL....

Altho the above-mentioned delusional character probably has a future career as a short-order cook. . . Maybe in about 10 years?

Maybe in about 10 years?

Maybe someone should send him a DVD of that Chef Jeff Project where he goes to train convicts on cooking.

Talk about lack of credibility to judge a food show, what about the oh-so-gorgeous Padma? I mean, she's a freakin' model, for God's sakes! Anyone who starves for a living automatically doesn't qualify to judge on a food show!

Am I right or am I right?

You aren't right.

I think her comments are pretty good. She's also written two cookbooks and had other cooking-related shows.

marias23 wrote:Talk about lack of credibility to judge a food show, what about the oh-so-gorgeous Padma? I mean, she's a freakin' model, for God's sakes! Anyone who starves for a living automatically doesn't qualify to judge on a food show!

Am I right or am I right?

Heh... I'm guessing you didn't watch season one with the (truly) incomparable Katie Lee Joel

(Though to be fair, I don't believe her blandness judged on top of hosting... but it's been a while and I've tried desperately to forget.)

She's also written two cookbooks and had other cooking-related shows.

before she started on top chef? or after?

i actually agree that padma's comments are usually pretty good. she's smart and seems to know a lot about food. that said, she's a spokesmodel and that's what she was hired to be.

her comments are genius, however, compared with gail's moronic blurtings, which are usually along the lines of "it was icky".

elakin wrote:before she started on top chef? or after?

Well before.

elakin wrote:y'know...i'm not against cleavage, but this show's supposed to be about food and cooking. and gail's cleavage is all soft and flabby looking, even when she tries to cram it into a pushup bra like she did for last night's episode. you can just tell she's a pampered child of privilege who landed her job because she was in the right sorority and knew the right people and who's never worked a real job for a day in her life. i would wager that she cannot cook even the simplest of things, but she's probably got this pristine manhattan kitchen with a pro-style range that she never even turns on.

the fact that they have her on there judging food is what annoys me. her comments are so freakin' inane. she has zero ability to actually describe what's wrong with a dish, so she compensates by immediately agreeing with every criticism that everyone else says, but then ratcheting it up by exaggerating it beyond belief. if something was undercooked, and tom says it was undercooked, gail will then go on about how it was "raw" and make faces to indicate that she was utterly appalled and offended by being presented with "raw" whatever.

she's a freakin' phony.

Actually, Gail has pretty strong credentials. She was originally a food journalist, but decided she needed culinary training. She went to cooking school, and worked at Le Cirque and Vong in New York. Then she was Jeffrey Steingarten's assistant, before getting into event promotions (which is what she does at Food and Wine).

Also, the show is heavily edited. You really can't get a good sense of what the judges are really like from the small snippets on the show.

Wait - Toby Young (author of the incredibly annoying and virtually unreadable "How to Lose Friends and Alienate People") is being touted as Ted Allen's permanent replacement? Egad. Talk about a deal-breaker. I can't imagine listening to this pompous gasbag's opinions about anything, let alone food. Horrible choice. How terribly disappointing!

yeah, i saw the promos, but didn't know who that guy was. why is ted allen being replaced? i thought he was one of the better judges.

the show last night was boring. again. i'm starting to not really care about any of these people. last season's group was so much better.

even with the problem of a cooler going down and two contestants losing their proteins, last night's episode was a snooze-fest. sitting here trying to write about it, i'm having trouble even remembering what the challenge was or who the celeb guests were. and i watched it twice.

i'm also really disliking watching their holiday theme shows, since everyone seems to know it was taped months ago anyway. watching padma talk about how "this time of year blah blah blah..." seems so forced and insincere.

michelle bernstein came off as very negative and generally unlikable. at some points she seemed very angry, at others she seemed like she was about to cry. weird. they threw in that actress as a judge for no apparent reason (i guess martha couldn't stay), the food was generally boring and unappealing, and the contestants (besides fabio, jamie, and stefan) are pretty uninteresting and don't seem like very good cooks.

granted, i only watch the edited shows, so i can't possibly form a worthwhile opinion about any of these people, since the shows are so heavily edited.

regardless, i'm gonna come out and say it--this season of top chef is a dud.

elakin wrote:yeah, i saw the promos, but didn't know who that guy was. why is ted allen being replaced? i thought he was one of the better judges.

In addition to judging stints on Iron Chef America, Ted now has two shows of his own on Food Network. The guy's plate is full, something had to go, and he (understandably) chose to focus on his own shows.

I think the worst part of yesterday's episode was that silly "holiday spirit" decision not to give anyone the axe. The show gets so much more enjoyable when there are fewer contestants, and do we really need another week with Eugene, who just doesn't get it? Cornstarch to thicken your soup? Then defend it as a practice that "housewives in America use all the time"? You have to be kidding.

elakin wrote:regardless, i'm gonna come out and say it--this season of top chef is a dud.

My thoughts exactly. There longer it goes on, the less I am interested in any of the contestants. Last nights episode was really boring, I thought the fridge problems would lead to some excitement but it didn't.

I will probably keep watching, but I cannot come up with much to say about it.

Dmnkly wrote:

elakin wrote:yeah, i saw the promos, but didn't know who that guy was. why is ted allen being replaced? i thought he was one of the better judges.

In addition to judging stints on Iron Chef America, Ted now has two shows of his own on Food Network. The guy's plate is full, something had to go, and he (understandably) chose to focus on his own shows.

I'm going to come out and say this:

Food Detectives sucks. Why does Ted Allen talk in that bizarre, ultra-enunciated voice? It's like a bad science film strip from the 50s or 60s. The food science parts of Good Eats are generally great, why can't they just stretch that to 30 minutes and get an Alton Brown knockoff to host?

gleam wrote:I'm going to come out and say this:

Food Detectives sucks. Why does Ted Allen talk in that bizarre, ultra-enunciated voice? It's like a bad science film strip from the 50s or 60s. The food science parts of Good Eats are generally great, why can't they just stretch that to 30 minutes and get an Alton Brown knockoff to host?

Agreed. Based on the couple episodes I've seen of Ted's show, he'd have been better off sticking with TC.

Although I can't blame his decision to man his own vessel, I expected more. It looks cheap.

I really like Ted, I agree, what's with that weird voice.

As for Top Chef, I really don't like any one chefstestant, I try to be kind to Radhika because she's from Chicago but she has a personality that is odd to read. Her cooking seems pretty focused but there doesn't seem like much emotion there. Maybe that's good.

From HuffPo:

Why Top Chef isn't Genius.

Basically, Tom needs to be gayer? So sayeth Mark Blankenship, the writer. (Among other things.)

whiskeybent wrote:From HuffPo:

Why Top Chef isn't Genius.

Basically, Tom needs to be gayer? So sayeth Mark Blankenship, the writer. (Among other things.)

So I read the article, and I have to mostly agree with Blankenship. While I don't agree that Tom needs to be "gayer" (whatever that means), but as a host, Tom is supremely stern, to the extent that I think he inspires robotic dorkiness from the contestants because they're afraid that if they're not totally "on board" with every aspect of the competition, Tom will give them the smackdown. Take last night's episode -- that choir was a real low point for the entire show. I don't mean any disrespect to the choir personally; I'm sure they're very talented and work hard at what they do, but really -- why were they there?? I mean, why would a gospel choir meander into a kitchen on a TV set singing a Christmas song in July? Did they get lost on the way to practice?

Anyway, you'd think the whole thing would have elicited a snicker or the ironic smirk from at least one or two of the contestants; instead, they're moving along to the music, smiling and "getting goosebumps" and overall, just pretending to ignore the ridiculousness of the whole thing. And Tom just rides them to take things seriously, and more seriously, they're not taking things seriously enough, etc.

Maybe it's just a testament to Tim Gunn's superior hosting and leadership abilities. I love -- LOVE -- when Gunn introduces a product on Project Runway with a slightly smart-alecky tone -- as if to communicate to both the viewer and the contestants -- isn't it crazy we have to do this? And even Heidi Klum has a certain lightness about her -- when she doesn't like someone's designs she usually expresses it in a humorous simile. Project Runway had what could have been an absolute disaster if taken seriously when the producers had the contestants design wrestling outfits for the female WWE wrestlers -- I mean, come on, wrestling outfits?! Although the contestants took it seriously, there certainly was a lot of levity in the activity, and when the female wrestlers "modeled" the designs using their cheeseball suggestive moves, Michael Kors practically fell over laughing. If that was Top Chef, Tom would have been poker-faced, talked up how important this challenge was, judged sternly and then said how the contestants didn't take the challenge seriously enough.

I dunno, I'm not being terribly coherent here, but there is something a little more campy about the other shows that I enjoy more.

aschie30 wrote:Anyway, you'd think the whole thing would have elicited a snicker or the ironic smirk from at least one or two of the contestants; instead, they're moving along to the music, smiling and "getting goosebumps" and overall, just pretending to ignore the ridiculousness of the whole thing.

Actually, I thought they were, for the most part, sitting there like deer in headlights, waiting for the smackdown. A couple seemed to get into it, but for the rest, the applause struck me as obligatory and in sharp contrast to their facial expressions.

Of course, it's always hard to tell from the edit.

i think a concise way of saying it is:

none of the current crop of chef-testants has any balls.

I, for one, am not ready to call this season a dud, boring or soulless. In fact, I think it's fraught with potential. Besides a few mercy killings waiting to happen, any one in the field could take this thing. You could view this as a statement of mediocrity, but I just think no leader has stepped up yet.

Annoying personalities aside (the ones we love to hate), I watch this show for the cooking, not the people. I don't care if I like any of the cheftestants. Harold may have been one of the least interesting members of his season. I certainly don't need to see more TV time with him. I enjoyed watching him win, because he cooked well and performed consistently.

TC seems to lack the tete-a-tete meltdowns and screaming matches that we have seen in other seasons. Does that make this one undramatic and boring? Or maybe these contestants aren't interested in the sideshow.

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.

That's all the drama I need.

So, you don't win by making deviled eggs, but you do win by achieving such culinary feats as cooking lamb and filet properly?

Whatever. I'm rooting for Stefan. He seems to know what he's doing and I actually find him entertaining (in an "I'm glad I don't have to actually work with him" kind of way).

Stefan is guaranteed to be one of the final two, not only by the fact that he actually has skills, but because he's being made out as the Eurovillain, like Drago in Rocky IV or Coach Hans in The Mighty Ducks.

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

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.

there's no one doing anything innovative this season. no one with any *ideas*. i'm not even just talking about the molecular gastronomy stuff, either, i'm talking about combining things in an interesting, fresh way, like stephanie did last season. something. anything.

the only ones who show even a glimmer of this are stefan, jeff and fabio.

Not understanding the love for Fabio. In the last 3 episodes, we've gotten seared ahi tuna, duck breast and polenta, crab cakes and sea bass. And two call-outs for being among the worst performers.

I agree that Jeff and Stefan have shown flashes. As has Jamie - although she was teetering yesterday and her totally unrepentant arms-crossed attitude at judges' table and unapologetic response to criticism was winning her no favors. Eugene too. Forget previous seasons, did they learn nothing from Danny's exit one contest prior?

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

Fabio vs. Stefan in the battle of the Eurochefs will make a strong finale.