that's true. i exaggerated. there are plenty of chefs that go to markets and some that even do their own shopping at places like jetro.

whiskeybent wrote:

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 just saw a promo for Ted Allen's new Top Chef Rip-Off called "Chopped" that will be running on the Food Network starting in January. When a chef gets kicked off, his signature line is, "Please pack your knives. You've been chopped."

elakin wrote: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.

Well, presumably they base the food budget on the prices that the contestants pay at Whole Foods, and also take into account what the chefs have available in the Top Chef pantry. If they had them shop at a cheaper store, presumably they'd also cut their budget.

elakin wrote: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.

Unrealistic of what? It's a cooking competition and the "run through the store" is part of the competition, just as the run through the fabric store is part of the clothing design competition "Project Runway".

unrealistic in that chefs don't really do that.

elakin wrote:unrealistic in that chefs don't really do that.

Nor do they cook Thanksgiving dinner for rock stars in July, have sauce tasting tournaments or open restaurants overnight. Any aspect of the show may or may not help to make it a better competition that better tests their chefly skills, but even setting all details aside, they're already sequestered in a house with 16 other chefs, no outside contact and they're constantly on camera and being judged in a competition to win money. Where does realism figure into the equation?

Dmnkly wrote:

elakin wrote:unrealistic in that chefs don't really do that.

Nor do they cook Thanksgiving dinner for rock stars in July, have sauce tasting tournaments or open restaurants overnight. Any aspect of the show may or may not help to make it a better competition that better tests their chefly skills, but even setting all details aside, they're already sequestered in a house with 16 other chefs, no outside contact and they're constantly on camera and being judged in a competition to win money. Where does realism figure into the equation?

Wait! Do you mean to say that reality tv isn't truly reality?! Next thing, you'll be telling me that Santa Claus doesn't really exist.

=R=

ronnie_suburban wrote:Wait! Do you mean to say that reality tv isn't truly reality?! Next thing, you'll be telling me that Santa Claus doesn't really exist.

=R=

If only The Bachelor were true reality. 40 gorgeous single women living together, each with a sole purpose in life: to figure out how to make themselves most attractive to me. Unfortunately, I'm way more likely to encounter a bunch of cooks running through the aisles at Whole Foods.

i actually think that most of the food-prep-related aspects of the show are a pretty accurate test of what real-world chefs need to do to succeed.

being sequestered in a house and the time-compression aspects are an apparently necessary aspect of reality tv, i suppose.

but i get it--the shopping thing is all about getting product placement for whoever's giving them free food and, i assume, money for sponsorship. i just think it's dumb.

elakin wrote:
but i get it--the shopping thing is all about getting product placement for whoever's giving them free food and, i assume, money for sponsorship. i just think it's dumb.

Without the product placement the show would not be economically viable. It is, afterall, the Entertainment Business

not economically viable w/o product placement? doubtful.

reality shows are far cheaper to produce than dramas or comedies, with their expensive writers and actors, yet they somehow manage to survive without product placement. it's not like TC doesn't also have commercials.

could they really not manage to make any money if they just limited the sponsorships to advertising during commercials and something at the end saying "food furnished by whole foods, storage by glad, blah blah blah...."?

i don't begrudge TC the product placement, but it does bother me when the actual content of the show seems contrived to get the products more airtime, like the thing where they had to cook everything on the "calphalon family of small appliances".

i'm sorry, but that is just lame.

i don't begrudge TC the product placement, but it does bother me when the actual content of the show seems contrived to get the products more airtime, like the thing where they had to cook everything on the "calphalon family of small appliances".

I think it's hilarious when product placement comes back and bites Bravo in the ass, as has happened twice with kitchen heavy equipment - Kenmore stoves in Season One, and GE Monogram fridges in this past ep. Perhaps they should get in touch with Wolf/Sub-Zero for a serious upgrade on product placement - heck, they donated the equipment for the Chicago Botanic Garden outdoor kitchen, so why not? Bravo should give them a shot. They sure aren't doing GE any favors!

sundevilpeg wrote: Bravo should give them a shot. They sure aren't doing GE any favors!

Bravo is owned by NBC/Universal, which is owned by GE, so there might be some pressure to keep using GE products

Bravo is owned by NBC/Universal, which is owned by GE, so there might be some pressure to keep using GE products

But, as I said, they aren't exactly doing GE any favors at present. Additionally, I wonder why they allowed Leeann Wong to post precisely what happened in her Bravo blog, given the corporate umbrella under which she stands - revealing that the bulk of the show was sham-tastic and that the presumably brand-new GE fridge plain flat failed under less than ideal conditions can't have pleased the PTB. Hmmm. Given that she was the one who narc'ed on Kenmore's substandard stoves, too, I wonder how long they'll keep her on the payroll. . .

Not that it matters to me much at this point - I am not going to waste one further fraction of a second listening to new judge/Ted Allen replacement Toby Young. As that cute young Season 1 culinary student once said of fellow Season 1 chef-testant Stephen, he's a tool and a douchebag - and evidently mighty proud of it. Dreadful, mean-spirited little man - a class-D version of Tony Bourdain, without the talent.

sundevilpeg wrote:Bravo should give them a shot. They sure aren't doing GE any favors!

You do know that GE owns Bravo, don't you? I think the chances of non GE kitchen appliances are slim to none.

elakin wrote:not economically viable w/o product placement? doubtful.

reality shows are far cheaper to produce than dramas or comedies, with their expensive writers and actors, yet they somehow manage to survive without product placement. it's not like TC doesn't also have commercials.

could they really not manage to make any money if they just limited the sponsorships to advertising during commercials and something at the end saying "food furnished by whole foods, storage by glad, blah blah blah...."?

i don't begrudge TC the product placement, but it does bother me when the actual content of the show seems contrived to get the products more airtime, like the thing where they had to cook everything on the "calphalon family of small appliances".

i'm sorry, but that is just lame.

While reality TV is far less expensive to produce than say a sit-com, production and post costs are high. You have a huge crew typically woking massive overtime.

Actually the producers don't make money on commercial time. The production company makes it's money by selling the program to the station. The station makes it's money by selling air time.

JLenart wrote:Actually the producers don't make money on commercial time. The production company makes it's money by selling the program to the station. The station makes it's money by selling air time.

I think the producers get the product placement money, too.

You do know that GE owns Bravo, don't you? I think the chances of non GE kitchen appliances are slim to none.

See the post above mine - that issue has already been addressed. Also, as noted, 'Top Chef" used Kenmore stoves - incorporating prominent product placement - for at least Season 1 and possibly in one subsequent season.

stevez wrote:

JLenart wrote:Actually the producers don't make money on commercial time. The production company makes it's money by selling the program to the station. The station makes it's money by selling air time.

I think the producers get the product placement money, too.

Yes, that's my point. Sorry for not being more clear.

Speaking of product placement...

So how egregious was the Diet D** P***** (no plug here!) placement in this week's quickfire? Connection to the QF theme hung by a thread, and it didn't appear that anyone even used the product (though I could be wrong about that). At least during the beer-sponsored QF last season, everyone used a different kind of M******* brew.

Inre: Toby Young - not as terrible as I thought he'd be. The other side of that coin is: Not as good as I'd hoped he might be. A poor man's Bourdain in terms of "I can be a jerk too!" But I agree with Toby when he writes this:

The blind tasting was a great way to be introduced to the contestants - by their dishes you shall know them -- and I felt honoured that this week's challenge was dreamt up for my benefit. I was a little harsh about some of the dishes, but in general I was very impressed by the standard of the cooking.

Wouldn't it be great if every challenge was a blind tasting? Nothing in the way but the food? Too bad there's no "drama" in that. Alas.

On a side note: Is reading the blogs for this season driving you crazy? It's like they took everything good about the websites for the last couple seasons and chucked them out the window.

whiskeybent wrote:So how egregious was the Diet D** P***** (no plug here!) placement in this week's quickfire? Connection to the QF theme hung by a thread, and it didn't appear that anyone even used the product (though I could be wrong about that).

I think Ariane used the product, but if I were Dr. P, I'd ask for my money back because nothing about the placement showcased or educated the viewer about the product.

Overall, I thought Toby was pretty benign and that his "witty" comments were way too long-winded. I'm glad that Melissa (underconfident) and Eugene (overconfident) were made redundant, although they had me thinking for a second that it might be Carla who would pack her knives.

Now that the pack is thinning . . . Radhika is holding up better than I thought, Jamie may be a contender, Fabio is slowing, Leah still doesn't impress me, Hosea may be a dark horse, Ariane still surprises by continuing to pull out top-ranked dishes, and Stefan is still strong.

P.S. I cracked up during the quickfire -- did anyone else think Stefan was totally screwing with the stick-up-his-arse judge by claiming in French that mousse is Finnish?

Edited to correct name of contestant . . . what can I say . . . Melissa looks like a "Jill" to me.

Let Stefan's cabbage be a lesson (of course who am I talking to?). That's exactly what Tom wants/likes: classic, basic dishes, done exceedingly and exactly right.

I think the Dr. Pepper thing is a sponsorship not a placement, like the doritos half-time report or "the sports is brought to you by..." Like I've said before, would you rather watch commercials?

Like I've said before, would you rather watch commercials?

I sincerely doubt that the inclusion of product in the program reduces from the spotload that the network requires. I'm assuming that all that cash goes directly to the producers, if not shared partially with Bravo.

Every time Melissa came on the screen, I said "Who are you? Oh, you're a cheftestant too." My early-show prediction (say, 9:10pm) that they were giving her more screen time to set the field for her ouster was spot-on. Go me.

I'm glad to see the cheftestants are less whiny when being let go than previous seasons -- none of this, "You're wrong, my food is good" stuff we've heard in the past. On the other hand, the "I really learned something" stuff is a bit cloying too.

Eugene I won't miss -- he doesn't seem to have it all together. An ironic "fettucine pomodoro" with raw daikon, tomato, basil, fish sauce, ginger/galangal and lime would have been a great salad alongside a fish (although probably even better with an oilier fish).

Melissa -- Really, did the fish smell? If so, raw was not the way to use it, and it shouldn't have been selected at all. She's been one of the "weakest links" a couple times now.

Carla initially looked strong: she talks a very, very good game. Her food doesn't match her personal presentation, though. Arianne is the exact opposite: She seems almost shy and unassuming, perhaps even a little sloppy, but her food is solid.

Vital Information wrote:Like I've said before, would you rather watch commercials?

I certainly don't see commercials and product placement as an either/or proposition, rather, just another way for the show to generate more dollars by placing the product into the show. Product placement, IMHO, is much more intrusive and therefore more annoying than a commercial or even a pre- or post-show sponsorship ("This program was sponsored by Geritol . . .") because it interrupts the flow of the show by, at a minimum, introducing the product and then featuring the product via multiple and numerous close-ups, all during the show. It's all kind of distracting for me.

whiskeybent wrote:Every time Melissa came on the screen, I said "Who are you? Oh, you're a cheftestant too." My early-show prediction (say, 9:10pm) that they were giving her more screen time to set the field for her ouster was spot-on. Go me.

I find that the cheftestant who's later ousted utters the "money line" in the beginning of the show which foreshadows their ouster. It's usually something along the lines of, "I really want to win today," or "I came to NYC to win Top Chef." And, of course, they don't win because they're later ousted.

OK, I say this with absolutely no evidence or proof or anything but TV producers and network exectuves and most importantly ad buyers are not blind. They see that more and more TV is being watched via DVR/Tivo. They know that eyes are not seeing their ads as much. This would seem to me, guessing, that less can be charged for advertisements meaning the money has to be picked up somewhere else.

And yes, the ad time sold by Bravo is not the same thing as the money coming from product placement fees, but my hunch is still hunching and it tells me these are all related.

I could be totally wrong

Vital Information wrote:OK, I say this with absolutely no evidence or proof or anything but TV producers and network exectuves and most importantly ad buyers are not blind. They see that more and more TV is being watched via DVR/Tivo. They know that eyes are not seeing their ads as much. This would seem to me, guessing, that less can be charged for advertisements meaning the money has to be picked up somewhere else.

And yes, the ad time sold by Bravo is not the same thing as the money coming from product placement fees, but my hunch is still hunching and it tells me these are all related.

I could be totally wrong

that's exactly it. It's well documented, going back years. "The Apprentice" was always the worst, the WORST, I tells ya.

http://www.theinternetpatrol.com/tivo-b ... sion-shows
http://www.productplacement.biz/2007072 ... eting.html
http://money.cnn.com/2006/09/15/technol ... /index.htm
http://blogs.sfweekly.com/shookdown/200 ... uct_pl.php

Re: the show .... I think Toby was an arse, to put it in his native tongue. His little quips are "funny" but could be used to describe any dish. "Weapons of mass destruction" referring to a soup doesn't make sense. Perhaps Tom could have used that one for the nuclear-powered habanero shrimp from a few eps back.

Product placement, IMHO, is much more intrusive and therefore more annoying than a commercial or even a pre- or post-show sponsorship

Probably so, but get used to it. I've learned that complaining about product placement on Top Chef is like complaining about winter in Minneapolis; it's been part and parcel of the property since day-one, and whether it's GE or Weber Grill or Bertolli Pasta, the amount of air time and the intensity of the intrusion is probably dependent on nothing more than the amount of $$ changing hands.

did that new judge really say "the bland leading the bland" without a hint of irony?

tem wrote:Re: the show .... I think Toby was an arse, to put it in his native tongue. His little quips are "funny" but could be used to describe any dish. "Weapons of mass destruction" referring to a soup doesn't make sense. Perhaps Tom could have used that one for the nuclear-powered habanero shrimp from a few eps back.

Yep - being an arse is clearly Toby's schtick. He'll come in each week with a few prefabricated, witty barbs and spring them when he dislikes a dish. Meh. Whiskeybent's description of him as a poor man's Tony B. was spot on.

That said, I give the judges credit for getting it right on last night's episode. Eugene and Melissa were clearly the ones that had to go. Daikon fettuccine? Yuck.

Bravo. (Pun intended.)

Eugene I won't miss -- he doesn't seem to have it all together. An ironic "fettucine pomodoro" with raw daikon, tomato, basil, fish sauce, ginger/galangal and lime would have been a great salad alongside a fish (although probably even better with an oilier fish).

At the beginning of this thread I said, I hope he wins. Maybe it was b/c his first dish was very good, I believe he won the quick fire challenge (maybe?) and well I like the underdog, the fact that he has no formal training but worked his way up through the kitchen. But, by last night's episode, I completely changed my mind.