Matt-

yeah...it seemed like a done deal regardless of anything else going on...

---

Talk about bad beer!

Landshark???
Michelob Amber Bock?

I understand it's all product placement, but come on...

and what's up with cooks being unfamiliar with the taste of beer(or beer pairing)?

maybe if there's a religious or medical issue...but isn't that a glaring blindspot in general food/beverage knowledge?

Christopher Gordon wrote:and what's up with cooks being unfamiliar with the taste of beer(or beer pairing)?

I thought that was really lame myself . . . but I think that there *exists* a real snobbery toward anything but wine in the culinary world and I've personally witnessed that type of attitude on the part of some chefs. Having said that, I was a little surprised to see it displayed by chefs as young as Spike, who I would think would be a little more open-minded and modern in their thinking.

I think a couple of the Chefs just didn't like beer, not to be confused with turning their noses upwards at beer. If you don't enjoy drinking something, why would you know how to cook food that goes good with it?

Just recently have a I found a few beers that I enjoy drinking, and it has taken years of trying, and putting some actual effort into it. For me, it's not a beverage that I just loved right away, I guess I'm just a hard liquor person.

brandon_w wrote:I think a couple of the Chefs just didn't like beer, not to be confused with turning their noses upwards at beer. If you don't enjoy drinking something, why would you know how to cook food that goes good with it?

Just recently have a I found a few beers that I enjoy drinking, and it has taken years of trying, and putting some actual effort into it. For me, it's not a beverage that I just loved right away, I guess I'm just a hard liquor person.

I'm the same way. There are a few I've come to enjoy, but I'm not much of a beer guy, and it's not due to any lack of respect for the art of the beverage -- just a matter of personal preference. The right one with the right food can really hit the spot, but it's not something I drink with any frequency.

I think there's a feeling among some fans of the show that all of the chefs should know everything about everything. That's just not realistic. They have their favorites and their areas of expertise and their strengths and weaknesses just like everybody else. Of course there are some things that every chef should know (*ahem* -- mayonnaise), but I don't think it's ridiculous that some of them don't know beer inside and out.

One question for those in the food biz -- what is up with referring to others by the honorific "Chef"? Is this a relatively new development? I guess I can kind of understand it in a kitchen setting as addressed to a superior or perhaps more generally to a chef held in high esteem, but it seems to be perhaps a bit overused and pretentious. I can see referring to judges as "judge" (even outside of the courtroom), to military officers by their rank, to physicians as doctors, etc. All of those seem to be based to some extent in more long-standing historical practice. But when Padma says "Thank you, Chef" after sending one of the contestants home, it just bothers me for some reason.

Matt wrote:One question for those in the food biz -- what is up with referring to others by the honorific "Chef"? Is this a relatively new development? I guess I can kind of understand it in a kitchen setting as addressed to a superior or perhaps more generally to a chef held in high esteem, but it seems to be perhaps a bit overused and pretentious. I can see referring to judges as "judge" (even outside of the courtroom), to military officers by their rank, to physicians as doctors, etc. All of those seem to be based to some extent in more long-standing historical practice. But when Padma says "Thank you, Chef" after sending one of the contestants home, it just bothers me for some reason.

Correct me if I'm wrong: in the classical hierarchy of a professional kitchen there used to be one "chef." All others were delineated within that hierarchy and/or were referred to as "cooks." Julia Child famously referred to herself as a cook. Thomas Keller(and others I imagine) initiated the trend wherein all cooks are referred to as "chef." I don't have any dogs in this linguistic race, destratification of the old school kitchen hierarchy may or may not be a move forward especially as it applies to the traditionally professionally culinarily disenfranchised(that's a mouthful!): women cooks, queer cooks...

Christopher Gordon wrote:Correct me if I'm wrong: in the classical hierarchy of a professional kitchen there used to be one "chef." All others were delineated within that hierarchy and/or were referred to as "cooks."

Yeah, that bugs me too. You can have more than one, sort of lieutenants to the captain: "Sous chef," sure, "executive chef," definitely, "chef de cuisine" absolutely. But at least one of the contestants on Top Chef is listed as "Line Chef" (cough sputter). What next: chef plongeurique? (pardon my mangling of French).

JoelF wrote:

Christopher Gordon wrote:Correct me if I'm wrong: in the classical hierarchy of a professional kitchen there used to be one "chef." All others were delineated within that hierarchy and/or were referred to as "cooks."

Yeah, that bugs me too. You can have more than one, sort of lieutenants to the captain: "Sous chef," sure, "executive chef," definitely, "chef de cuisine" absolutely. But at least one of the contestants on Top Chef is listed as "Line Chef" (cough sputter). What next: chef plongeurique? (pardon my mangling of French).

or they could just refer to them as "Donkeys" or "Donuts" the way Gordon Ramsey does on "Hell's Kitchen"

I do think the "yes, Chef !" stuff is still de-rigour in real kitchens. After all, Chef = Chief. Top Chef (duh) overuses it because what are they gonna say "Pack Your Knives And Go, you lowly freaking line cook !"

Regarding Ryan,
Nobody else was bothered by the fact the he didn't seem to care what he was cooking for (or maybe too dense to understand what tailgating was all about)?
Was he that completely out of touch with the rest of us that he couldn't figure out what a Chicago Bears crowd might like? This was almost by definition of meat and potato audience. This was not the Alinea crowd. You cook to your clients.
He made it pretty clear that he was going to cook the food that he wanted to cook, and if it didn't fit the situation, too bad for everyone.
He was given an assignment and he chose to do something else altogether. They were right to give him the boot.

DML wrote:Regarding Ryan,
(or maybe too dense to understand what tailgating was all about)?

I think you hit the nail on the head right there.

so where are all the plaudits for having TWO Chicago chefs on as judges ? And two that are pretty much unknown nationally as well. Kahan is certainly respected but he's no Bayless or Trotter (whom I cannot imagine not being a judge at some point) and doesn't have a cookbook or anything. That other woman was dull as dishwater.

Regarding Ryan,
Nobody else was bothered by the fact the he didn't seem to care what he was cooking for (or maybe too dense to understand what tailgating was all about)?
Was he that completely out of touch with the rest of us that he couldn't figure out what a Chicago Bears crowd might like? This was almost by definition of meat and potato audience. This was not the Alinea crowd. You cook to your clients.
He made it pretty clear that he was going to cook the food that he wanted to cook, and if it didn't fit the situation, too bad for everyone.
He was given an assignment and he chose to do something else altogether. They were right to give him the boot.

However, were't all the chefs criticized a couple of weeks ago in the block party episode for cooking to their clients, or at least to what they thought their clients would like? I wonder if Ryan had this in mind when he chose to go in a different direction. Which is not to say he made a good choice of dishes.

I thought it was awesome to have the avec/blackbird doubleteam. They struck me as a little bland in terms of TV presence (which is probably why Top Chef keeps coming back to Rocco and Ming and Rick Bayless and other people who have lots of TV experience), but fantastic from a food point of view.

Also, I was actually a little impressed with how subtle the Anheuser-Busch promotion was, compared to their normal ones (in the same episode, there was an obvious overdub with Padma saying "and pack as much into GladWare(tm) as you can" or something). Including the foreign beers that A-B brews instead of making it all michelob-budweiser was smart, and it gave the cooks a lot more flexibility.

Funniest line of the tailgating episode: Richard Dent asking "Quinoa tobouleh? Is it safe to eat? It sounds like the name of a gorilla." Or pretty close to that.

rickster wrote:

Regarding Ryan,
Nobody else was bothered by the fact the he didn't seem to care what he was cooking for (or maybe too dense to understand what tailgating was all about)?
Was he that completely out of touch with the rest of us that he couldn't figure out what a Chicago Bears crowd might like? This was almost by definition of meat and potato audience. This was not the Alinea crowd. You cook to your clients.
He made it pretty clear that he was going to cook the food that he wanted to cook, and if it didn't fit the situation, too bad for everyone.
He was given an assignment and he chose to do something else altogether. They were right to give him the boot.

However, were't all the chefs criticized a couple of weeks ago in the block party episode for cooking to their clients, or at least to what they thought their clients would like? I wonder if Ryan had this in mind when he chose to go in a different direction. Which is not to say he made a good choice of dishes.

It's a balancing act, I think. On one hand, you have to consider your audience and do something appropriate to the event (Ryan didn't), but on the other hand, you can't take "cooking for the masses" (an awful phrase that keeps popping up) as an excuse to be lazy and not make good, creative food, which is what was going on with a lot of chefs at the block party.

brandon_w wrote:I think a couple of the Chefs just didn't like beer, not to be confused with turning their noses upwards at beer. If you don't enjoy drinking something, why would you know how to cook food that goes good with it?

I applaud Stephanie for bee-lining straight to the Belgian beer, since the Belgians make beer styles which are meant to go with food. As for A-B brands...sheesh, they are usually bland enough to just drink, not compliment a dish.

As for knowing how to cook, any chef worth their salt in these modern times should know how to pair food with beer as well as wine. Even if the chefs aren't in their element, the best ones should choose beers with "flavor" like the wit or the darker beers.

earthlydesire wrote:Nikki is so overdue for the boot. It seems to me (if I recall correctly) that she has skated through several elimination rounds despite not really doing that much. She always seems to take the easy way out (like not making her own sausage -- which, frankly folks, really doesn't take that much time) -- and she has this annoying habit of always including a "little drink" to dress up her messes.

I think our final three will be Stephanie, Richard and Dale. Spike needs to be drug off by the hat police as soon as possible but Nikki...Nikki needs to go already. She's not doing the work. How could you NOT have enough peppers and onions for the judges? That's a rookie mistake, fit for a first elimination round. And I've had that WF sausage -- it's decent at best -- certainly not worthy of a show to find out who is the best chef in all the land. Nikki just strikes me as always being a day late and a dollar short on things -- she miscalculates (the mushrooms that looked like dog turds, the mac and cheese that was drier than the Sahara on a hot summer day, etc.) And i can't stand her hairdo.

But that's beside the point.

Go Stephanie!

Shananon

I agree on all accounts, Shananon! Nikki doesn't have the brains, Spike's hats are f'ing annoying, and Stephanie will win. They need a woman to win with men winning each of the last seasons. She's got the mettle and she will best Richard, Dale and the others in the long run!

DML wrote:Regarding Ryan,
Nobody else was bothered by the fact the he didn't seem to care what he was cooking for (or maybe too dense to understand what tailgating was all about)?
Was he that completely out of touch with the rest of us that he couldn't figure out what a Chicago Bears crowd might like? This was almost by definition of meat and potato audience. This was not the Alinea crowd. You cook to your clients.
He made it pretty clear that he was going to cook the food that he wanted to cook, and if it didn't fit the situation, too bad for everyone.
He was given an assignment and he chose to do something else altogether. They were right to give him the boot.

He was kicked off. It's clear the judges were bothered by this. No one on this board seems to be disagreeing.

I have no problem with Ryan getting the axe, but it absolutely amazes me that Nikki is still cooking. She is this season's Mikey, only moreso. Nikki has been HORRIBLE in three of the six elimination challenges so far. If she lasts more than another week or two, I'll be stunned.

jaybo wrote:I have no problem with Ryan getting the axe, but it absolutely amazes me that Nikki is still cooking. She is this season's Mikey, only moreso. Nikki has been HORRIBLE in three of the six elimination challenges so far. If she lasts more than another week or two, I'll be stunned.

Hey... the Mikey formula could work for Nikki for weeks to come. All she needs is strong teammates, or to be better than just one other person in any given week

(Despite this reality, I will find every passing week that she's still on the show as maddening as you do.)

jaybo wrote:I have no problem with Ryan getting the axe...

I've got to say: I saw Ryan at the start, and said, "Who's Ryan?" It was a "Nikki and Paulo" moment for me, I couldn't remember seeing him on any of the previous episodes.

Mark and Nikki got off easy... but I'm really starting to learn the rules to the Top Chef game:
1) Follow the instructions: when they tell you to do a fine dining version of something, tailgating, etc., you must do it. This is the biggest factor I've seen.
2) Know your basics, and if you name something a kind of food, it had better be clearly ironic if it isn't that (souffle, paella, no. faux caviar, yes)
3) Season pretty heavily: Tom C may have a serious salt deficiency
4) Use bacon

After this last episode, I'm really rooting heavily against Jennifer winning anything at all from this point forward. Why? Because if I hear her say that she's "doing this for Zoi" one more time, I'm going to puke.

the sleeve wrote:After this last episode, I'm really rooting heavily against Jennifer winning anything at all from this point forward. Why? Because if I hear her say that she's "doing this for Zoi" one more time, I'm going to puke.

In her defense, I believe she said it just once, and the editors and promo people have shown it to us at least 400 times

Dmnkly, love your blog! LMFAO when I got to #10 on your recent rankings. I believe the Slacker King has found his Queen!

I've been saying from the start that Bravo wants to keep the male/female ratio fairly even, considering what happened last year (at the halfway point, there were 6 men and 2 women left). I'll go with Stephanie, Antonia and Dale as the final three. Richard is still the favorite by most to win, but when has the favorite (Lee Anne, Sam and Tre) actually taken the title? Never!

BTW, in her blog entry this week, Lee Anne mentions that ALL OF THE ELIMINATED CHEFS were at the game as well, grilling standard hot dogs and hamburgers. Since Zoi was still around at that time, Jennifer's whining kind of pisses me off.

jaybo wrote:I've been saying from the start that Bravo wants to keep the male/female ratio fairly even, considering what happened last year (at the halfway point, there were 6 men and 2 women left).

I realize I'm always in the non-conspiracy corner, but FWIW, Ted Allen recently said -- don't remember if it was his official Top Chef blog or the blog on his website -- that Bravo does, indeed, reserve the right to alter their decisions whenever and however they see fit, but Allen swears up and down that they haven't -- NOT ONCE, he emphasizes -- ever exercised that right in even the most subtle way. I stand by the theory that they have far more to lose than to gain by messing with the judging, now that the show is a hit, and that they wouldn't be stupid enough to risk killing the golden goose like that.

jaybo wrote:BTW, in her blog entry this week, Lee Anne mentions that ALL OF THE ELIMINATED CHEFS were at the game as well, grilling standard hot dogs and hamburgers. Since Zoi was still around at that time, Jennifer's whining kind of pisses me off.

Yeah, I caught that, but she also made the crack about Zoi being able to go home sooner and feed the cats, so I'm not sure what to make of that. Did they fly them in just for the Bears game? Plus, I've seen it suggested elsewhere that maybe they're sequestering all of the eliminated contestants and bringing them along on the shopping trips and everything. I find that difficult to believe -- first because that would just be a nightmare for the cameramen and editors, having to be so careful about not getting eliminated contestants in frame with current contestants, and secondly because I would think the need to keep them segregated would defeat whatever misdirection they were attempting to work in the first place. Just seems odd. But yeah, she says quite clearly that there was a dummy table. Maybe they flew the eliminated chefs in just for that challenge since it was so high-profile and so many people would see it? Just a thought.

jaybo wrote:Richard is still the favorite by most to win, but when has the favorite (Lee Anne, Sam and Tre) actually taken the title? Never!

As a trailing thought, I don't know that I agree with this. It's hard to remember what you thought of each chef at a specific point in the season, but at roughly the midway mark of their respective seasons, I remember having Harold and Hung pegged as favorites.

So I guess what I'm saying is, maybe your favorites never win

Dmnkly wrote:I realize I'm always in the non-conspiracy corner, but FWIW, Ted Allen recently said -- don't remember if it was his official Top Chef blog or the blog on his website -- that Bravo does, indeed, reserve the right to alter their decisions whenever and however they see fit, but Allen swears up and down that they haven't -- NOT ONCE, he emphasizes -- ever exercised that right in even the most subtle way. I stand by the theory that they have far more to lose than to gain by messing with the judging, now that the show is a hit, and that they wouldn't be stupid enough to risk killing the golden goose like that.

Maybe not Bravo directly; perhaps in conjunction with the producers of the show. For instance, don't you think Zoi should have gotten the boot after that pasta salad?! As bad as Erik's corn dogs seemed to be, Zoi's salad seemed far worse. But then that would have meant 3 women eliminated right off the bat. Also, scales on a piece of fish is a much greater sin than an underseasoned carpaccio, IMO. Even Richard himself thought he was a goner. I find the judging this season notably more suspicious.

jaybo wrote:BTW, in her blog entry this week, Lee Anne mentions that ALL OF THE ELIMINATED CHEFS were at the game as well, grilling standard hot dogs and hamburgers. Since Zoi was still around at that time, Jennifer's whining kind of pisses me off.

Dmnkly wrote:Maybe they flew the eliminated chefs in just for that challenge since it was so high-profile and so many people would see it? Just a thought.

I'm of the belief that all the chefs are to be present and accounted for at all situations regardless of when they were eliminated, to reduce the possibility of spoilers getting out. After all, even though the time elapsed so far to the viewers is six weeks, those six episodes were probably filmed within a 2-3 week window. I'd bet that the eliminated chefs were moved to another apartment close by and were to be with the others on shopping trips, etc., where they could be seen in public. It wouldn't be that hard to not put them on camera. After all, they weren't REALLY shopping.

Dmnkly wrote:As a trailing thought, I don't know that I agree with this. It's hard to remember what you thought of each chef at a specific point in the season, but at roughly the midway mark of their respective seasons, I remember having Harold and Hung pegged as favorites.

So I guess what I'm saying is, maybe your favorites never win

Yeah, Harold and Hung were my picks for their seasons, too. I really did think Sam was going to win Season 2, though. A shame.

My money is on Stephanie this season, with Dale runner up.

jaybo wrote:

Dmnkly wrote:I realize I'm always in the non-conspiracy corner, but FWIW, Ted Allen recently said -- don't remember if it was his official Top Chef blog or the blog on his website -- that Bravo does, indeed, reserve the right to alter their decisions whenever and however they see fit, but Allen swears up and down that they haven't -- NOT ONCE, he emphasizes -- ever exercised that right in even the most subtle way. I stand by the theory that they have far more to lose than to gain by messing with the judging, now that the show is a hit, and that they wouldn't be stupid enough to risk killing the golden goose like that.

Maybe not Bravo directly; perhaps in conjunction with the producers of the show. For instance, don't you think Zoi should have gotten the boot after that pasta salad?! As bad as Erik's corn dogs seemed to be, Zoi's salad seemed far worse. But then that would have meant 3 women eliminated right off the bat. Also, scales on a piece of fish is a much greater sin than an underseasoned carpaccio, IMO. Even Richard himself thought he was a goner. I find the judging this season notably more suspicious.

Eh... I think people see conspiracy where they want to. It's easy to say that so-and-so clearly should have gotten the axe instead, but how can we clearly know anything without even having tasted the food? Speaking to Zoi and Erik specifically, I have no idea. I didn't taste the corn dogs or the pasta salad. Did you?

Add to this the fact that if you cruise the forums, what's clear to one person isn't at all clear to another -- the viewers can't even agree on who the show is conspiring against. And then consider that if these decisions are being rigged, then the guests chefs are in on it too. There have been plenty of times where "suspicious" eliminations have been backed up strongly by single episode guest chefs, and if you buy the theory that Bravo or the producers are influencing decisions, it's one thing for the 2-3 regular judges who are under season-long contracts to flat-out lie about it (a stretch in and of itself, I think -- they're not avoiding the subject, they're saying repeatedly and firmly that it has never happened), but then you also have to believe that they're similarly enlisting all of these guest judges for the con as well.

This week with Ryan was a prime example. You read forums and there are people screaming that it clearly should have been Nikki, but they didn't want to eliminate another woman, and people screaming that it clearly should have been Mark, but they didn't want to eliminate the interesting New Zealander. And when interviewed, Kahan insisted that regardless of how it may have looked, it wasn't close at all. Ryan's food was just bad.

The thing is, the show's a hit. By tampering with the judging, all the producers do is risk that word will get out and kill the viewership. I could buy the argument, even if I didn't agree with it, when it was a fledgling show fighting for recognition. But for them to do that now would just be phenomenally stupid, especially for something so trivial as trying to maintain an even male/female ratio.

jaybo wrote:Also, scales on a piece of fish is a much greater sin than an underseasoned carpaccio, IMO. Even Richard himself thought he was a goner.

Sorry... trailing thought I missed earlier...

Did you miss that the benefit-goers voted the carpaccio the worst dish of the evening?

Of course, that's just one thing (albeit, a big one) the judges take into consideration, but how can it be an obvious choice to eliminate Richard when his dish wasn't even the least favorite of the night?

When it comes to team challenges, though the judges have all talked about how they don't have strict RULES they go by, they've been very consistent about first choosing a losing team, and then making their elimination selection from that team. This is, incidentally, the only reason Nikki's still around. Suppose they concluded that the fish was a marginally better dish than the carpaccio, which, given the survey comments makes sense. Then if they eliminate Richard, it's a conspiracy because they've always chosen a loser off the losing team!

The one universal truth of the show is that the judges lose -- always.