Master Chef:Gordon Ramsay, Joe Bastianich and Graham Elliott

Hi,

I threw cable out of the house in the earlier 90's as the great dark hole time waster. Occasionally I regret this decision, though not enough to do anything about it. However, you cannot come between my internet connection and I without releasing some powerful forces!

Most of my television watching is broadcast, which has improved with digital, DVDs and videos.

Dinner time and a broadcast of Master Chef coincided a few weeks ago. Home cooks were preparing their signature dishes with a 60-minute window. They presented the final product to judges Gordon Ramsay, Joe Bastianich and Graham Elliott. My Dad, who was casually interested, remarked, "You could do this."

Watching this parade of people, there were many here who would have passed this first round.

One contestant made a dish with chorizo, which impressed the judges when this chorizo was made from scratch within the 60 minute window. He went on explain he makes everything he can himself, which reminded me of many people here.

Another contestant had a fondness for pumpkin. His signature ingredient was deep fried pumpkin strands used as a garnish. He marinated his meat in pumpkin beer he made himself.

There were representatives of the BBQ brotherhood amongst the contestants. Unassuming guys who knew their food and how to prepare it exceptionally well. One was truck driver from Grant Park, IL, whose fish cooking skills really impressed the judges. Once he left the room, they all converged on what was left of the fish.

While these people got in, an organic farmer did not. While the farmer advocated growing his own food with fertilizer from a local chicken coop. Does he prepare a meal from his tenderly raised vegetables? No, he is searing fish for a tropical themed meal quite divorced from his organic farmer personna.

The judging panel consists of Gordon Ramsay, who acts as host. Graham Elliott more often than not plays good cop and offers constructive comments. Joe Bastianich, Lidia's son, plays bad cop who often gives contestants a hostile eye and appears baffled by what is presented. I can only imagine many a contestant's blood running cold as Joe walks away shaking his head.

Once Master Chef was past these preliminaries, they began a contest of skills: peeling and slicing apples as a demonstration of knife skills. No peelers, just paring knifes, a Chef's knife and cutting board. Some contestants were quickly eliminated or approved. Others peeled, cored and sliced forever with quite a pile of apples accumulating at their workspace. Gordon, Joe and Graham combed through the entire pile of apple slices. If one seed or other debris was found, this contestant was eliminated.

Knife skills is such a fundamental skill, I thought this was a reasonable sorting of the contestants.

The next skill challenge was preparing a chicken dish within a one hour window with a vast amount of ingredients, spices, herbs and condiments available to them. Some people attempted chicken dishes requiring braising, which was not a suitable choice for the time available.

One contestant offering a preparation using a very small fraction of the three-pound chicken offered to them. The kind of dish you receive at a fine dining establishment, where your mental dialogue comments, "That's it?" but you smile and fend appreciation for this delicious morsel. Graham Elliott was pretty direct, "You made that from a three-pound chicken? What a waste!" (or something to that effect). Boink, another contestant hits the road.

Of course, there are contestants with sad, tragic backstories or surprising career transitions.

The one personality I am following is an 18-year-old trust fund baby whose parents are divorced. His parents took him to a vast array of restaurants. He would return home, then try to replicate these meals. He is confident to overconfident, though he delivers the goods with well executed dishes.

What I like about this show is how easily I can envision people here competing. That's good enough for me.

Regards,

I refuse to watch this garbage. Its use of the title Master Chef is an insult to the real master chefs who have earned this title. And they didn't earn theirs simply by going on tv.

Peeling apples? Please. 8 days of being put through the paces is more like it.

The real master chef exam: http://acfchefs.org/Content/NavigationM ... efault.htm

Evil Ronnie

Ronnie,

How many people call themselves chef? More than really deserve the title, I am sure you would agree.

When I was a volunteer at the University of Illinois Extension, by passing a 60-hour course I was granted the title of 'Master Gardner.' I cringed frequently, because the public sometimes had grandiose expectations of our knowledge. Part of the reason for the title was simply to get people off the back of the paid Extension specialist. If we were Gardner Trainee or Gardner First Class, people would know they needed to pierce the veil to find the Boss.

When I have time, I will watch the garbage so you won't have to.

Regards,

So I think we can all agree that the term "Master Chef" is probably used too loosely with respect to this show. Fair enough. Turns out, "reality" has also been used too loosely: http://www.avclub.com/articles/foxs-mas ... lar,57984/

Sure, it's just the opening credits but, jeez, really? I have noticed (so far at least) that there has been less audio that was obviously over-dubbed (such as in 24-Hour Restaurant Battle) and I thought that was a good sign. This just kind of cheapens the whole show (and there wasn't much there to begin with, really).

I have been watching - last season I watched an episode or two - and I must say I like a cooking related reality show where most of the time the contestants actually cook ...

I think it's too bad that Max got eliminated. He was a great high-wire act. He could either be brilliant or completely terrible, and it was fun watching him try to be a reality TV villain. Oh well.

it finally dawned on me last week. Max was a dead ringer for Tom Brady.

Joe is an a-hole. I did find it amusing that when one of the contestants made something topped with truffle oil, the judges went nuts, saying that that was a severe transgression. They still allowed her through though. Since then I've seen two upscale restaurants bragging about some dish that's topped with truffle oil!

Here's what a cursory search on truffle oil turned up:

"Truffle oil is often used as a lower cost and convenient substitute for truffles, to provide flavouring or to enhance the flavour and aroma of truffles in cooking. Most "truffle oil," however, does not contain any truffles.[25] The vast majority is olive oil which has been artificially flavoured using a synthetic agent such as 2,4-dithiapentane.[25] Daniel Patterson reported in the New York Times that "even now, you will find chefs who are surprised to hear that truffle oil does not actually come from real truffles."

Now I don't know if the culinary world considers the use of truffle oil improper, but Joe does own a couple dozen topnotch Italian restaurants, so I'll defer to him. That said, he's apparently been cast as the bad cop on this bad show.

little500 wrote:Here's what a cursory search on truffle oil turned up:

"Truffle oil is often used as a lower cost and convenient substitute for truffles, to provide flavouring or to enhance the flavour and aroma of truffles in cooking. Most "truffle oil," however, does not contain any truffles.[25] The vast majority is olive oil which has been artificially flavoured using a synthetic agent such as 2,4-dithiapentane.[25] Daniel Patterson reported in the New York Times that "even now, you will find chefs who are surprised to hear that truffle oil does not actually come from real truffles."

Now I don't know if the culinary world considers the use of truffle oil improper, but Joe does own a couple dozen topnotch Italian restaurants, so I'll defer to him. That said, he's apparently been cast as the bad cop on this bad show.

It was Gordon Ramsay who started the pummeling regarding the truffle oil, the other two piled on. Seeing as how Joe is not a chef, it wouldn't surprise me if that was the first time he ever heard that truffle oil was a no-no. Apparently, there are a good number of restaurant chefs who don't know this also. For the record, I agree with Ramsay, truffle oil = bad.

I thought GE served truffled popcorn in his restaurant?

mhill95149 wrote:I thought GE served truffled popcorn in his restaurant?

His truffled popcorn is tossed with black truffle butter.

Does anyone want to hazard a guess as to how the fries at DMK are done?

bean wrote:Does anyone want to hazard a guess as to how the fries at DMK are done?

Has Michael Kornick ever come out as vehemently anti-truffle oil?

Anyway, I thought that truffle oil bit was a bit of trumped up drama (this is a reality show after all). Personally I think Joe is hilarious. I don't know if it's schtick or not, but he consistently cracks me up.

Unlike say the awful judges on AMNGR, I get a kick out of these three - and the contestants knew the drill going in since they played the same roles last season as well ...

The Nick D Show 09-14-12 (Part 1 - Suzy Singh's Bacon Number?)
First, Suzy joins us to talk about MasterChef and all the cool stuff she has going on. Then, Nick tests out the new google search for Bacon Numbers! Wondering if Suzy has a Bacon Number? Yes, she does and it is 4: Suzy Singh and Gordon Ramsay appeared in MasterChef Gordon Ramsay and Dougray Scott appeared in No Ordinary Trifle. Dougray Scott and John Lithgow appeared in Princess Caraboo. John Lithgow and Kevin Bacon appeared in Footloose.

http://www.wgnradio.com/shows/nickd/wgn ... 16.mp3file

Hi- Has anybody been watching the Junior Master Chef on Fox tonight? The kids I believe range from 9 to 12 years old. It is amazing how much they know about cooking. The judges seem to be easier on the kids too. I wonder how many shows Gordon Ramsey has now? He is also on Hell's Kitchen, Master Chef, Kitchen Nightmare and the hotel show that I know of for sure.

I watched it and thought it was cute.
I liked the way they offered constructive yet gentle criticism. I can understand a temptation to pander to the kids so as not to hurt any feelings but I personally don't think that's constructive and in my experience kids are a lot smarter and tougher than they generally get credit for. I think the show is trying to hit a good balance of encouragement and honest critique.

Hi,

Watched MasterChef Junior Edition on Friday night and caught up with last week's episode just now.

What an impressive group of kids, who clearly grew up watching a steady diet of food tv, visited a broad range of restaurants and were allowed to cook at a tender age. They were a pretty confident lot as well, because Joe Bastianich questioning whether your dessert is restaurant quality could cause many adult quake. Yep, the pretty girl who made the lime-mint cupcakes did pronounce her dessert restaurant quality, which Joe affirmed.

The oldest participating child is 13, the youngest is eight. There is a trophy and $100,000 prize money to the victor.

I will certainly be following this show.

Regards,

Hi- It is just amazing what kids that age can do. ll these kids have way better knife skills than I do. I read that Gordon Ramsay is treating the contestants as in if there were his own kids.

Hi,

A link to the final episode of MasterChef Junior. You may not be interested in the outcome, though you will be interested in the dishes and execution by these 12 and 13 year old kids.

Regards,

Count me as another fan of this show. Though my husband considers me to be naive- he thinks it's completely staged- I don't care. It was great to see those kids working. And for once, we observed some mature behavior on the part of the competitors, who also cheered each other on and comforted each other on failures. I really got tired of Krissy-generated drama in the last season of the adult show, just as Bobby Flay's antics in the Iron Chef battles with Morimoto annoyed me (what an A$$!). I think there's enough interest in watching the cooking itself. I'd be interested to hear more about how the contestants come up with their menus when they do the freestyle cooking segments. There's more to be plumbed that the format misses out on.

I don't watch the show and I've hated Ramsay's restaurants, the few I have tried, but I did see one episode and read this thread. It says a lot good about him and the whole show that in 2013 a reality program about precocious kids is not a revolting freakshow and exercise in exploitation. Or maybe it just highlights the obvious about every other reality show, ever, I guess. Anything that makes our own local "rock n roll bad boy" chef Boy Friday (whose place I do like!) look like Ned Flanders is obviously geared toward the gentler side of things.

I watched the season. I found it to be very engaging and entertaining. I loved when Chef Ramsay called Alexander the "long lost grandson of Julia Child." The veal chop presented during the finale looked heavenly.

Had lunch at Ramsay's restaurant Aubergine three times between 1993 and 1996 and they were some of the best meals I've had.
couldn't afford to go for dinner but the lunches were grand. I still remember the Mushroom Cappuccino 20 years later...

Well, I went to his place at the London in NY for big business dinners a few times in the past few years, and it sucked. He shouldn't risk his good name.

Hi,

MasterChef Junior begins next week with a contestant from Highland Park: Levi Eirinberg.

I was planning to watch, though a local angle is just more appealing.

Regards,