Top Chef - S6E5 Power Rankings

Of course, the season six cast would feature seafood on a desert ranch.

Seriously, this is getting a little absurd. Our chefs have now produced 128 dishes, 47 of them have been seafood, and that's including the escargot and cactus challenges. Of those 47 seafood dishes, 14 have been ceviches/tartares/crudos, and this episode featured half of them. Makes you wonder if the judges are going to sit up and take notice at some point.

I'm feeling a bit of vindication on the judge front this week. Tom's blog dropped a little nugget that made me very, very happy:

"We also just take note of whether, as with all great chefs, a personal style is emerging in a consistent way, or whether they’re just all over the place. Often we’ve seen a chef come in with a particular style and then, part-way through the competition, begin mimicking everyone else. These chefs tend to flame out; they don’t make it to the final four, and, frankly, they’re not yet secure and mature enough as chefs to be there. We do look at originality, as with Bryan’s winning take on chips and guacamole in Episode Two, or Kevin’s bacon jam, which was utterly original, different, and very, very good. I knew exactly where Bryan’s dish for Joel Robuchon came from – he adapted a dish from Thomas Keller – but he did make it his own."

I've been saying for two seasons now that flavor and execution isn't enough. When you get past the technical, when you get past the tasty, and when the judges are trying to separate the real winners, what they're looking for is a chef who articulates a mature, personal style -- whatever that style may be. I don't believe any of them have ever said it so plainly before, but it's nice to see.

Also, hooray for the return of Lee Anne! Better late than never, though she does drop the incredibly troubling news that this season will be her last. The challenges took on a markedly more mature tone when she came aboard, and I hope she's taught them enough over the past few seasons that they can either continue her fantastic work or choose her replacement very carefully. Also interesting is that she obviously shares everybody's enthusiasm for season six, making it sounds as though she going out in a blaze of glory with the field reaching the kind of heights she'd only dreamed of:

"Yes, Vegas would be hard. But it would be spectacular!!!! Look at the judges we have this season! We’re making food television history!!! Wait’ll you see the last episode before finale! Jeebus, yes, I can leave in peace, knowing the show has finally reached a pinnacle level this season. It’s what I’ve always wanted for it, and I am very proud of TC...

...The talent this season is scary. I can’t tell you just how excited I was to try some of the food this time around! As you can see by now, we have some pretty bad-ass contenders, far and away the best I’ve ever seen on the show. The food porn didn’t last long, that’s for sure."

So there you have it. It's not your imagination, folks. There's something special about the season six crew.

Sadly, this particular episode was kind of a throwaway for me. I dig the quickfire just fine, but my knowledge of cacti is borderline nil, so that pretty much killed my enjoyment thereof. And the elimination resurrected what I've long thought was Top Chef's greatest challenge sin: "Plan and shop to cook a dish, but for all you know you're going to be cooking with a bic lighter and a spork!" I don't understand what's so wrong with just telling them that it's going to be a cookout and they're going to have campfires and a bunch of cast iron. I bet the food they ended up with would have been more appropriate. Is the shocking reveal of teepees and fire pits so critical that it's worth borking the challenge to get it? So we end up with two ceviches, which were wildly inappropriate, but how can I blame Mattin and Ron for thinking -- as they reach for that succulent raw pork -- that with a mystery heat source, perhaps it would be best to pick something that can be prepared with nothing more than a knife and a bowl? And then it turns out that the "fire pits" are really rustic-looking gas grills, which makes the entire thing a farce to begin with. It could have been a fun, straightforward challenge where we see how they handle an upscale cookout. Instead, we're debating ceviches and refrigeration. I don't see how that's a good thing, even if it's in the name of "seeing how the chefs adapt".

Upshot, though, hey, a little interest in the rankings this week! Just when this season was starting to look like a snoozer for the TCPR, we get to shake things up a little bit, starting at the top...

The power rankings are not purely a prediction of who is most likely to win, or an assessment of last episode's dishes, or a reflection of the contestants' historical performance, but rather a nebulous amalgam of all three, combined with a little bit of gut feeling, to provide a relative measure of current awesomeness.

Wins

Top

Bottom

1 Bryan Quickfires 0 1 1 Last Week: 4 Eliminations 3 3 0 It's a big jump, but how do you keep Bryan out of the top spot now? It was easy to maintain the status quo when the top tier all had the same number of wins, but now Bryan's taken home two consecutive elimination wins, not to mention three of five. And the exclamation point is that he did it very simply this week, with a dish that completely bypassed his usual whiz-bang style. He was up to his usual tricks with the quickfire, a halibut and cactus ceviche cured in lime, jalapeno, ginger and cilantro, served with cactus tempura and a coconut pudding sorbet. But that elimination dish was straight-up seared pork loin, marinated with paprika, cumin, garlic, thyme, rosemary and shallot, served atop a very basic polenta enriched with butter and mascarpone, served with some dandelion greens softened with butter, onion and lemon zest, some roasted mushrooms and rutabaga glazed with chicken stock, vinegar, sherry, honey and butter. There's a lot of depth going on, but it's a very simple prep with very harmonious flavors. I still worry that Bryan's style is most vulnerable to a sudden, unexpected flameout, but hopefully the fact that his wild techniques are underpinned by classic flavor combinations will give him a bit of a buffer should he get himself into trouble at some point. Regardless, he's earned the top spot for now.

2 Michael V. Quickfires 1 1 1 Last Week: 1 Eliminations 1 4 0 Voltaggio the younger, however, went a completely different direction. He got himself into a little trouble in the quickfire, dressing diced cactus and poblano peppers with lime and coconut, rolling them in avocado and topping them with fried vegetable chips and a coulis made with cactus fruit, orange and vanilla. With the elimination, however, he took the cookout and freaking bent it to his will. He was supposed to adapt. He refused. And he won, turning out a restaurant dish completely incongruous with the surroundings that still rocked the house. It's a funky little dish, too, that throws seared, miso-cured cod on top of a brick of lime-marinated watermelon, and the whole thing is topped with a chilled dashi that's perked up with ginger, shiitake, orange, lemon, lime, scallion and tomato. Let's review: miso cod, watermelon, citrus and tomato. And the judges loved it. This is one of the most intriguing dishes I've seen all season. He seems to have gotten a little pissy about this week's challenges, which is unfortunate, but he sure responded well.

3 Jennifer Quickfires 2 4 0 Last Week: 2 Eliminations 0 2 0 A quiet week for Jennifer who, with some chorizo in her nopales and a touch of duck confit hiding under her snapper, is edging closer and closer to cooking that elusive chunk of meat. Her salad of fried cactus and chorizo with a chorizo vinaigrette seasoned with garlic, shallots and sherry vinegar escaped official notice, as did her elimination snapper over a slaw made of daikon, carrot, bok choy, scallions, mint and duck confit, dressed with a soy vinaigrette and sauced with spicy tomato water, even if the latter dish got some on-air compliments. I know it started as a joke, but the lack of an actual piece of meat is actually starting to get a little odd at this point. Can we maybe make this a midseason goal, Jennifer?

4 Kevin Quickfires 1 2 0 Last Week: 3 Eliminations 1 2 0 Kevin keeps doing his thing, and also has a quiet week. His quickfire was a simple smoked pork loin and corn cream with some not-so-simple treatments of cactus. First there was a relish of sorts, nopales braised with figs, chiles, tomato paste and veal stock. Then he topped it with a cactus marmalade made with sugar, lime zest and juice reduced until syrupy. His elimination dish got a lot of nice comments, and folks were surprised it didn't make the top three. Seared duck and tequila-marinated lime were paired with a mole of anchos, cocoa, banana, garlic, onion, figs and raising. Then the whole thing was topped with pumpkin and sunflower seeds. Sounds like a nice dish, good comments -- must've just missed.

5 Michael I. Quickfires 1 2 0 Last Week: 5 Eliminations 0 2 1 Some people are really down on Michael I, and I just don't get it. Personality-wise? Okay, I get it. But food-wise? There are a lot of people who seem to feel that he should currently be near the bottom and I just don't see it. So let's address this a bit. First off, can we agree to set aside that Greek salad? It was so out of bounds as compared to the rest of his food that I think it's safe to call it a goofy aberration. So looking at the rest, we know he's a good cook. Whoever's calling the shots, he's turning out crisp food. So the argument basically boils down to whether or not he's a good chef, with some saying he's shown very little creativity and has been riding others' coattails. For starters, he now has three top mentions -- one of them a win -- while cooking solo (in fact, he's the only one other than the top four to win anything). What's more, who's to say that the top four are all cooking their own food? With the exception of Kevin, they've all worked with some serious big-time chefs. Who's to say some of their biggest successes aren't dishes they've simply banged out on the line hundreds of times and dusted off one more time when it seemed appropriate? (See UPDATE, below.) Heck, many believe that's exactly how Ilan won season two. I agree, Mike I. isn't top tier. But he's met with more success -- both co-op and solo -- than everybody I have below him, he's made some crisp-looking food, and he has a pretty clear personal style. I don't see how I could justify putting him much lower. Yeah, the gyro was a little uninspired, but it was safe and, as mentioned, I'm having a hard time dinging people for that. Meanwhile, he busted out a really interesting cactus and tuna ceviche with a cactus fruit puree and a pipian sauce made with garlic, shallot, jalapeno, cilantro, parsley, lime and pumpkin seeds. Salt-curing the cactus was a really neat approach, and he seemed to be one of the very, very few people present who could handle the ingredient. Can we give the guy some credit, here?

6 Eli Quickfires 0 0 1 Last Week: 6 Eliminations 0 2 0 Quiet week from Eli, so he stays put. Even when he isn't gaining recognition, I find his work interesting. He was the only chef to take the cactus in an Asian direction, making a scallop ceviche with lime, fish sauce, ginger, garlic, sambal, cilantro, mint, Thai basil, carrot, onion and cashews. His elimination was a real snoozer, I guess -- seared tuna on toast with sun-dried tomato mayo, pickled shallots and radishes, onion and romaine. But as mentioned, I'm kind of handing out passes for this week's elimination.

7 Ashley Quickfires 0 1 1 Last Week: 8 Eliminations 0 1 2 Finally, Ashley makes a little noise. I know a number of you were with me in thinking that she was capable of breaking out, so it's nice to see that perceived potential fulfilled. She's still too close to that double-bottom episode, so I'm not bumping her that much, but consider the groundwork laid for improvement. I LOVE that she stuffed doughnuts with cactus fruit jelly and was disappointed that it didn't catch any recognition. And her elimination dish looked really nice. Avocado mousse, crispy lardons, wilted romaine with cherry tomatoes, corn, lime juice and butter, topped with a perfectly seared piece of halibut? Classic flavors, new package, appropriate to the surroundings. Good call, well-executed. Most telling, however, was the fact that the judges were emphatic that this was her best dish of the competition to date. In short, Bryan just absorbed her best shot (so far) without flinching. Surprising? No. But noteworthy. I hope she can build on this, but nobody get carried away.

8 Laurine Quickfires 0 1 0 Last Week: 11 Eliminations 0 1 1 The middle-of-the-packers continue to be a consternating mess, but even though it means a three position jump, I'm going to go out on a limb and bump Laurine to the top of the pack this week. The pasta salad debacle is quickly fading into a distant memory, and she had a strong week, pulling down top mention in both challenges. Though the cactus wasn't as featured as he would have liked, Tim Love seemed rather enamored of her pork chop, which was marinated with onion, garlic, achiote, ancho chile and orange juice, grilled and set over a sweet potato puree with sour cream, and topped with a salad of grilled cactus, apple and corn with jicama, cilantro, lime and tequila. Love seemed similarly enthused about her elimination, sautéed arctic char with a simple tomatillo salsa, potato and sort of a grilled Southwestern succotash. I said last week that I wanted to see something out of her, and she delivered. So we'll go with the hot hand and move her to the top of the MOTPers.

9 Ash Quickfires 0 1 1 Last Week: 7 Eliminations 0 0 1 Technically speaking, Ash is moving down two spaces, but it's more a function of people moving around him than anything he's done. That said, it wasn't exactly a strong week for him. His cactus "grilled cheese" didn't sit well with Love, but in Ash's defense, he was deep into his recipe before realizing that he had no tortilla press to work with, and that hurt him. His elimination dish was boring, but I'm sure it tasted fine -- a grilled chicken paillard with vegetable succotash. I'd elaborate, but it won't make it sound any more interesting. Trust me. Still, he's been competent. We'll keep him out of the basement.

10 Robin Quickfires 0 0 1 Last Week: 9 Eliminations 0 0 1 Robin, however, has now been on the block two weeks in a row. I don't think that's an entirely fair assessment of her abilities, but I can't gloss over it, either. Last week it was making one of the least-strong escargot dishes (and I phrase it that way because Tom didn't seem particularly offended by any of them). This week, it was partially for a muddled dish, but mostly, it seems, for serving turned shrimp that she never bothered to taste. (Taste. Your. Food. Do we have to tattoo it on the backs of your freaking eyelids, people?) Still, some of her recipes have looked interesting to me and for reasons I can't quantify she seems slightly less worthy than Ron when it comes to this week's elimination bait. Which I guess puts her in the MOTMOTP (sorry).

11 Ron Quickfires 0 0 2 Last Week: 10 Eliminations 0 1 1 Ron ends up on the bottom twice this week, and is looking like the odds-on favorite for the next elimination. What strikes me about Ron is that a number of his dishes seem weirdly incomplete -- a few ingredients thrown together but not especially integrated. Take this week's quickfire. Chunk of swordfish seared with ancho. Salad of avocado, mango and crab with salt and pepper. Simmered cactus juice with butter. Components served side-by-side. There just isn't a dish here. It's a collection of ingredients. Admittedly, this phenomenon seems to manifest mostly in quickfires, so maybe he just has issues with time. And he isn't in any danger when it comes to quickfires. But all the same, while in seasons past he could have hung on for a while like this, right now he's feeling like the weak link (even if his tuna tartare with coconut milk, cilantro, jalapeno, cumin and Chinese five spice does sound kinda interesting).

12 Mattin Quickfires 0 2 0 Last Week: 12 Eliminations 0 0 2 It was time. Amusingly, his cactus dish was the first interesting thing he's done. But the Basque chef who never cooked anything Basque (shades of Lisa and her Asian focus) made a ceviche dish that was worse than you think. Gail's blog confirmed what I mentioned in the comments last week. When it comes to a ceviche, if your knifework isn't consistent some pieces cook while others are left raw. It's a very basic thing that's embarrassing for a chef to overlook. But more surprisingly, this was a pseudo-trio. Yes, there were three fishes. And yes, each was finished with a different garnish. But the cure itself? The same lime juice, olive oil, salt and pepper -- and that's it -- for all three. Just trying that is grounds for elimination, as far as I'm concerned. That's not failing by overreaching and trying to do too much. It's expecting to impress just because you're plating three of something. Bad, bad call.

UPDATE : So I finish the Power Rankings, I go to warm up a bottle for the littlest one, I'm standing in the kitchen waiting for the warmer to beep, and as my eyes cross my copy of Eric Ripert's new book, On The Line, my thoughts go back to what I just said about Michael I. and how much originality is really cruising around. So I flip to the recipes section. What's the very first recipe listed? Wild Alaskan and Smoked Salmon with Apple, Celery and Baby Watercress and Jalapeno Emulsion. Sound familiar? That'd be Jennifer's top quickfire from episode two. Its creator? One of Ripert's cooks, Soa Davies. First, I'm not suggesting there's anything wrong with this in the least. Second, I think most if not all of the contestants do this to some extent. You're in a competition, you have to think quickly, you know of a dish that suits the challenge, you're fighting for survival... of course you're going to bust it out. Third, this is the only recipe I could find that resembled anything Jennifer has made (though she's been very mussel and clam heavy and there's none of that in this particular book), and it could be the only one that isn't her dish. But the point I make is that you can never really be sure. Doesn't make it any easier to evaluate where these people stand, but that's how it is. Hopefully, over the course of the season, those who rise to the top can only lean on established favorites so much. And if anything, this only illustrates the importance of keeping them off-balance a bit. All I'm saying is that if you call out Michael I. for riding coattails, bear in mind that other favorite contenders may be silently doing the exact same thing at times.

And looking forward to next week...

WARNING : MINOR EPISODE SIX SPOILERS AHEAD

Penn and Teller! Okay, I'm jazzed. I've loved Penn & Teller since I was a kid. In fact, as far as I'm concerned, the only thing that sucks about Penn & Teller is that they develop their tricks so slooooooooooowly that their show's practically the same now as it was when I first saw them as a kid. A great show it is, though.

Sorry, I'm done. Actually, thematically speaking, they're perfect guests. We aren't shown anything about the quickfire, but the elimination apparently involves deconstruction, and it appears that the chefs don't get to choose the dish they're deconstructing (or perhaps they choose from a limited list). This is a really interesting challenge for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that "deconstructed" has become a dirty word in culinary circles. Anybody can take a dish apart. And for a while, everybody did. But to do so in a way that's meaningful is no small feat. The line between bringing a new angle to a dish and simply breaking it down into its components is a fine one. The Voltaggios should do well. Even though it isn't Kevin's thing, he seems to be a pretty cerebral fellow who puts a lot of thought into the construction of his dishes and articulates it well, so I bet he'll do something interesting. Here's hoping the "Jennifer In Trouble" trailer is a total red herring (my guess). And having now seen the trailers, I feel pretty good about having Ron in the basement. Half of his dishes are already deconstructed!

Discuss!!!

Comments

[Naomi]

A cup of coffee and TCPR. Great way to start a gray Wednesday. Thanks, Dom. Can't quibble with anything you've written. Wonderful as always.

[dan]

I've seen everybody's comments about Jennifer not doing meat, but I have to wonder--if the situation were reversed, would people still be asking this same question? She hasn't just done fish, she's been all over the aquatic kingdom, from fish, to shellfish, and even octopus. Let's say that another chef prepared meat in every dish--a range of beef, pork, and lamb. Would there be comments along the lines of "it's nice that he can do meat, but let's see a little seafood on his plate?" If Jennifer were producing just scallops, for example, I could see the comments, but she really has worked--successfully--a full range of sea proteins. I'm happier to see her doing food that she's apparently comfortable with and doing it very well than showing range just for the sake of showing range.

[aaalex]

not much (for me) to add or, really, to say. i'm not sure about eli. i can't tell just how good he is, really. his lobster was, by french accounts, pretty mediocre, so is he really above ashley and laurine? maybe/maybe not, but you couldn't argue with him being up in the middle and where you have him feels okay to me. aside from that, the only thing i wish is that there were a way to put money on your streak continuing.

at some point, this season, you're going to be wrong about who's most likely to go (i mean, i assume that, at some point, you're going to be wrong), and it'd be fun to have an office pool, two dollars a jump, winner take the pot set up.

[Anne]

But if it is a red herring, Jennifer will be able to cook it.

[aaalex]

dan: i think the trouble with jennifer doing so many sea proteins is that, as she's worked at le bernardin under eric ripert, seafood would seem to be well within her comfort zone. she's a great chef who's had lots of experience doing what she's doing. dominic's discovery that one of her dishes was very like one in ripert's cookbook isn't troubling, but it suggests someone who's relying exclusively on what she knows. since the point of the show is, to some extent, to push the chefs out of their comfort zones, you could say that, so far, where jennifer is concerned, it hasn't really worked. you'd like to see her do lamb, just to see if she can bring her skill to that, to get a sense of her range. everybody else has done meat, poultry, seafood. chorizo is as close as she's gotten - if you don't count the rabbit done with her sauce chasseur.

[Skillet Doux]

"I've seen everybody's comments about Jennifer not doing meat, but I have to wonder--if the situation were reversed, would people still be asking this same question?"

It's a fair question. I'm honestly not sure. But I know I'd consider it much less noteworthy if it weren't for the fact that Tom is such a well-cooked piece of meat kind of guy. I agree, I'm okay with her being a seafood specialist. It's kind of refreshing. But if it stands out to some of us, it probably stands out to some of the judges, too. Plus, it isn't that I feel she needs to go there to win, it's just that the absence is so conspicuous at this point it almost makes you wonder how she'll handle it when she does. I mean, I'm mostly making talk. But it IS kind of a curiosity, isn't it?

[mar]

I have to disagree with you to some extent on the coattails issue, Dom. I have no doubt that all the chef use recipes they have done before, whether their own or created by others. But they still have to remember the recipe and execute it well. The difference I see with Michael I. is that twice he relied on chefs in the kitchen with him (instead of in his head) without contributing meaningfully enough to the dish, and expected to win based on that. Under different circumstances maybe he would have created something excellent on his own, but we didn't see that. We saw something of an attitude instead. That being said, I don't disagree about where he is placed in the rankings.

[jw]

From Anne: "But if it is a red herring, Jennifer will be able to cook it."

That made me laugh. Thanks.

[Nicole]

Hate to make folks jealous, but I'm eating at 10 Arts tonight (Jen's restaurant), and apparently they have a TC viewing party. I'll let you know how it goes!

[John Coctostan]

Dan, you make a good point. Jen's proteins *have* come from a bunch of different sources. Getting on her for "only doing seafood" would kind of be like deriding someone for "only doing Asian." I'm' sure she'll show her range eventually, though.

[Jon Olsen]

Re: Deconstruction. I have gone on at length—perhaps too pedantically, even—in my livejournal about this subject. Since that's what's coming, I'm going to post some of that here:

Look back to the French Masters episode: Robuchon tasted that "deconstructed bernaise" and was praising it. But he used the word "décomposée" for the sauce. It would seem that the French, who know a thing or two about Deconstruction (a Frenchman having invented the concept), use the phrase "décomposée" to refer to the action American chefs call "deconstruction."

Bryan and Mike I. did a wonderful job on the "deconstruction." But what Everyone Else calls "deconstruction" the Chef of the Century calls "décomposée." This should Not be overlooked!

It is a significant reframing: chefs are Not performing deconstruction, because Deconstruction is a literary and philosophical movement, not a culinary one!

Deconstruction concerns itself with identifying the logocentric nature of texts (and granted they extend "text" to all corners so that a recipe Could be a text) and shearing the words off from each other as the dominant center becomes alienated from the peripheral Others.

Decomposée on the other hand does almost the Opposite of deconstruction because while it identifies a center—in the earlier episode's case Bernaise sauce—its intent is to actually reify that center through the constituent parts. Décomposée as performed by chefs reaffirms the primacy of a recipe and invokes its core emotional impact through the reframing of its ingredients. Deconstruction deliberately sets out to imbalance and overthrow the center, and is, as currently used by many cooks, inappropriate for culinary context.

I've never been able to put my finger on why "deconstructed" has felt like such an inadequate—inaccurate!—term in the mouths of chefs. Until Robuchon showed me the way by his fundamentally more accurate description using the term "décomposée."

I believe I lack the cooking skills to conceptualize how one might deconstruct a dish the way one might a literary text. I mean I barely understand basic concepts of literary deconstruction! But it would be an exercise worth considering. I'd like to eat some more foods done décomposée, but I'd also like to see someone take the dare of trying actual deconstruction, as in a chef's answer to Derrida.

Perhaps for starters it would be very difficult to do properly in a fine dining context because once you start the deconstruction process, you're going to rapidly run into the cultural price paid to enjoy the surroundings . . .

[EdT.]

@Jon Olsen - maybe the reason we use "deconstruction" is because the french "décomposée" looks too much like "decompose", which ironically enough is probably how those shrimp were "prepared". Ewww.

BTW, I think I will start a pool on from which judge - and in which episode - we hear those immortal words, "Where's the Beef?"

~EdT.

[SR]

I don't recall Ron making anything other than seafood (except for the frog legs - but he didn't have a choice in that case). I think as a top contender Jen is just under more scrutiny.

[Kirs]

re: Jen's 2nd quickfire dish. I can attest to how awesome that dish is. I made it for a dinner party and it was freaking amazing. I immediately recognized it, and kinda dinged her for it. In theory, I guess I am okay with the chef's using recipes they are familiar with, but if it's a dish I've done? It's harder to look at it and say, "Wow, that's novel and neat!"

[Bart]

I think Laurine has potential to move up a few more notches if she keeps performing well. Could be early-season jitters.

[anon man]

Two comments:
1) As bad as Ron is, the fact that as Dom correcty notes everything is deconstructed already, might work in his favor. Does this mean Dom's streak will end? Ahem, watch what happens. (sorry) I'll be honest, if either Ron or Robin goes home, I'll be perfectly happy. Since, I don't think either of them has a chance to go very far. Ash, Ashley and Laurine might have some more tricks up their sleeves, but quiet quality isn't going to last forever. On the challenge tonight, I would be a bit worried about Laurine. Catering isn't the kind of thing where you roll out deconstructed dishes regularly. Too many buffets, passed canapes, etc., to do that kind of thing. Just a hunch.

2) Let's talk fish. Maybe part of the heavy fish this year is that they are in Vegas (landlocked issues aside) and its 10000 degrees outside. After spending the day at the house or running inside WF in the heat, what strikes you as more appropriate? A large hunk of braised meat or a lighter fish dish? Sure, many of the chefs ignore that and bang out meat all the time, but why risk having Tom complain that its too hot for your dish (like clam chowder). (Related topic: Is this going to be on around Thanksgiving? Are they going to have to do Turkey in the desert summer? Ugh.)

[babyarm]

Nobody has pointed out that Jen is cooking a deconstructed (decomposed sounds, how do I say it, morbid?) MEAT Lasagna tonight. And it's funny that she's struggling with it. Or at least that's the preview edit.

Looks like Ash has decomposed Tuscan Omelet? Other than that the dishes are not clear.

Last week I made a stab at what to do with an escargot, and that was blown out of the water when they said "do something new". Oh well.

Anyway a stab at deconstructed lasagna.

The main components would be simple

Beef and/or Pork (gasp!)
Pasta
Cheese
Heavy portion of Herbs
Tomatoes

Why not just execute a NY strip cut into thin-ish slices Execute a chimichurri sauce with Italian herbs on top and do a side of something like orzo pasta with a tomato sauce and cheese. If you are cute make up some handmade pasta. Done. There's no need to aspire to much here. Think like Hosea. Someone WILL screw up let them hang themselves.

[anon man]

Jon, I think you posted while I was writing. But, you raise some great points to which I want to respond.

I think you're too hung up with the linguistics here. In cooking here in the States, the tradition as to what language we use in describing a dish or an element, is, in my mind, a bit of marketing. Take "gelee", essentially a gelatinous preparation of something. If you call it gelatin or jelly, people will assume its sweet, when it might not be, since both are traditionally sweet in the English speaking world. So, gelee gets the nod on menus. But "decomposee" sounds, well, needlessly affected, and to the extent that you are trying to articulate on the menu what's there, "deconstruction" fits the bill. Further, for the non-Francophone, it could read like "decompose", as in rotten, and who wants to eat decomposed food?

I think Robuchon's choice of word is strictly linguistic. He's speaking Fench and using the French terminology. I could be wrong here, but it just seems like an needless distinction.

[zsparks]

Adios Ron, though I thought I wold be Robin.

Meanwhile, could you all tell me why you love Restaurant Wars, and why the contestants love it? I hate that challenge. It feels as if they trim the crowd to the cream of the crop and then make a bunch of talented professionals play house on TV. I always have the sensation that I'm watching my daughters and their friends play in the backyard. It embarrasses me.

[Independent George]

Bad deconstructions seems to be a pet peeve of Colicchio's that ranks right up there with badly cooked meat. I can't say I blame him; a good decontruction has a purpose, and enhances the dish by allowing you to explore individual flavors without losing the composition as a whole. Bad deconstructions seems to be the norm - they're usually just a jumbled mass of stuff on a plate with no rhyme or reason. They actually make the dish taste worse, because the diner never gets the full complement of flavors. To be fair, I had what I thought was a bad deconstruction at Graham Elliot a while back, so it's something that even the masters are guilty of from time to time.

As to Jennifer and seafood, I'm not as bothered by it as some for the simple reason that I find fish a lot more challenging than meats, and the methods she used in prep are a lot more varied than the differences between pork, chicken, and beef. Aside from this last challenge, none of her fish dishes seemed inappropriate to the challenge.

Finally, with regard to using existing recipes: Dale T explicitly mentioned having a halo-halo recipe memorized for his quickfire; in a pinch, Richard Blais pulled out his banana scallops (three times, I might add). Casey and Fabio both went rode to the top on the backs of their grandmothers' chicken recipes. As long as that's not all they do, I don't think there's anything wrong with an existing base, particularly on a quickfire. Given that Jennifer is at the head of 10 Arts, I'm pretty confident that what we're seeing is truly hers. Ilan was different, because his menu in the finals was apparently cribbed from Mario Batali; that's something else entirely.

I participate in a lot of education debates, and one of my greatest irritations is the prevailing notion within the ed schools that the only true knowledge is "constructed" knowledge - that is, the idea that the only genuine learning occurs when a student discovers for himself through experimentation, rather than explicit instruction. In my opinion, it results in a lot of wasted resources, and a lot of bad results as students "discover" completely wrong things which requires teachers to spend loads of time correcting later on - often unsuccessfully.

I'm in the fundamentalist camp - I believe that all knowledge depends on mastery of a fundamental base, and that creativity is a function of applying, adapting, and adding to that base. That's the dynamic that seems to be at play here.

[Independent George]

Whoah, why do I have a little blue square thingy at the start of my post?

[Jon Olsen]

Fine, I'm perfectly aware I'm being pedantic. (It's pronounced day-compo-zay, by the by, how's that? sounds a lot less like dee-com-pohsed to me LOL!)

However, my point remains: these dishes are NOT deconstructed, and I stand by the reasons I've already stated: deconstruction is about undoing the oppositions that found a text (or a recipe if you like) and that deconstruction eventually brings us to a moment of aporia. I challenge a chef to do that.

Instead, they are resetting dishes, recomposing them in order to uphold the central meaning or theme of the dish. That is not deconstruction! I don't mind if everyone's uncomfortable about the word decompose and all that that implies, fine. Maybe everyone be happier with "recomposed", which sounds nicer.

But I'm excited about the possibilities that open up for cooks who might reconsider what is so casually called deconstruction.

What if we could have a new way of cooking that actually does do deconstruction? Regardless of how pedantic or linguistically "hung up" I am, wouldn't that be of interest to anyone??

[anon man]

Jon,

Yes, I know how its pronounced, but I talking about a menu. "Honey, do you know what 'De-camp-OZ-eh" means?" "No, but it sounds like its been outside too long."

I get your points and they are well taken. Decomposed does not mean throwing the elements on a plate and telling someone to mix them up and do it themselves. It means, as you point out, breaking down food to its elements and rethinking it from the ground up. MG, for all of its whiz-bang elements is on the same line of thinking. I remember the Foo Fighters challenge when Grant started talking about smores as being all about the "ratio" of chocolate to marshmallow. That's thinking about food in the right way for this kind of challenge. So, a "deconstructed" smore with banana could be, as an example, a pool of chocolate or chocolate soup, with a fried graham cracker covered banana floating on top, or something like that. (Yes, I forgot the marshmallow, I guess I'll be at judges table.)

And, yes, "recomposed" is a better term, agreed.

[Esther]

Jon, I think you raise some really insightful points. Semantics aside, these chefs succeed not by pulling apart a dish, but by pulling it apart and then reassembling it into something that evokes the core of the original dish while reinterpreting it in a deep and counterintuitive way. It'll be interesting to see which chefs really understand that, and which ones thing that "deconstruction" in cooking means "serve the different components of the dish as separate piles on a big plate."

Deconstruction in a literary sense, applied to cooking, would often be unappealing -- looking at a plate of fish and chips, and saying "well, at its core, this is about giving people an excuse to have crunchy fried batter, made interesting with salt and vinegar; by placing 'fish' in its title, it emphasizes the most expensive and healthy part of the dish, justifying people's consumption. So I'm going to do a savory funnel cake with powdered vinegar on top instead of powdered sugar, leaving the single remaining trace of 'fish' as the title of the dish."

(Okay, come to think of it, that might be yummy. But almost certainly wouldn't win.)

[Anne]

@Jon, that was hot.

[Shelly]

@Jon, EdT nailed it. This is merely a question of correct translation for the use to which the word is intended. To decompose means not only to separate into parts, but to rot. To deconstruct simply means to separate into parts. Which do you think is the better option when discussing food? Obviously deconstruction. Yes, it's a literary movement, but it was a word meaning decomposee long before that.

[Jon Olsen]

When I first read that I saw "savory fennel cake" and I definitely got excited. I still love funnel cake (don't eat it so much these days) but hey, how about a savory fennel funnel cake? Yes! Then with your vinegar powder, use a lighter, milder vinegar like a rice vinegar mixed with fish sauce powder? or use fleur de sel?

No no you're right, the text fundamentally deconstructs itself and the fish must be absent, because I think there's a point to your analysis: in the original text the différance is as you described, and the presence of cheap fish is in tension with the absence of "virtue"—the différance of the guilty pleasure.

The fennel funnel cake may serve the same function—fennel in a state fair confection? Call it fish & chips and highlight the absence of both with the presence of vinegar (in solid form).

Serve with a live fish in a water decanter, a la Toulouse Lautrec, and you might win. I'd vote for you anyway.

Anne, should I post my phone number?
(I kid I kid!! I'm happily married!)

[Independent George]

Jon, I think you might have put your finger on why I despise literary deconstruction even more than I hate the apparent culinary equivalent. What I'd described as bad deconstruction seems to be what you describe as true decostruction - the denial of the 'center' - and what I describe as good deconstruction seems to be what you would term reconstruction.

I'm very much against postmodernism, and the disasters of culinary deconstruction offers a tangible example of what I hate about Literary deconstruction. By denying a 'center', you destroy the fundamental aesthetics of art. The postmodernists would call this a good thing, as they regard aesthetics as superficial; I find it horrifying beyond words, as I view the aesthetics as the fundamental core of art. The bad culinary deconstructions I hate are the ones where you lose all sense of the original dish, and end up with an intricately plated pile of disparate ingredients. Literary deconstructions are about denying or disparaging the original intent of the author, and fitting the text into a the reviewer's view of the world. The end result is the same - a dense, pretentious pile of crap of no use to anyone other than pretentious academics completely disengaged from the world.

[Jon Olsen]

Hey, IG, don't blame me I'm not French. Plus, it doesn't deny the center, it overthrows it, a significantly different action. Or even better, the fundamental incoherence of the center-margin contradiction within the text overthrows itself.

But I stand firm: call it a pile of crap or not, I don't care, it's not what is happening when chefs "deconstruct" dishes on the plate.

Deconstruction's object is to demonstrate what the text already does—the aporia within the text deconstructs itself. Literary critics are at heart the friends of the author—um, didn't you see Ratatouille? Anton Ego's monologue applies to critics who approach artists of any kind, including chefs & authors!

We're all allies here, baby. We want good things on our plates and in our book covers. Our eatings/readings may appear do something to the art, it didn't just come from within us like some invading force. It was baked in, too and r/eating doesn't change the fact that if good food goes into that box, good food should come out of that box...

[doktarr]

I would just add my voice to those who note there's nothing wrong with executing a dish that's not originally yours. Quoting Colicchio from the week before:

A note about the winning dish: remember how I said that the fish seemed simple, but I knew it involved a far more complex preparation than it seemed to? You can find out about a similar preparation of that fish in Thomas Keller’s book, Under Pressure: Cooking Sous Vide (2008), on page 88. Bryan took the two top fillets, placed a thin layer of prosciutto between them, used a powder called Ajinomoto RM Transglutaminase (affectionately called “meat glue”) to glue them together, and sous-vide them, cryovac-ing them. The flavors remain pure and the texture delicate. Bryan did this perfectly. While both leading dishes were excellent, we all just kept coming back to that fish in our discussions. It was simply the most memorable item we sampled in the whole challenge, and this is why it garnered Bryan the win.

I actually checked out the book, and the recipie is, indeed, very similar. This didn't bother Colicchio, and for good reason - the dish also incorporated other creative elements (the deconstructed Bernaise) and because it clearly bore the signature of Bryan's style of cooking.

[Jon Olsen]

@Shelly, EdT, et al:

Guys, I don't care! Do. not. care. I don't care if I'm over-reading the semantics of it. I want someone to try to apply capital-D Deconstruction to cooking some time, and the fact is I don't think I have the culinary skills to do it myself. It would be a noteworthy experiment. Is that so much to ask? Jeebus.

[timothy]

What an awesome comment thread on an awesome blog. This really makes me eager for the TC literary critic challenge. They would have to feed a bunch of professors but they would not be allowed to use food. Only words. Or perhaps they would have to turn food into words and turn cooking into writing and eating into reading.

[georgekaplan]

Literary scholars are to great writers as dieticians/nutritionists are to great chefs.

The first uses of "deconstruct" applied to food may have come with the literary version in mind, but I think it's unfortunate and inaccurate.

[Jon Olsen]

Pffft. Whatevs. Come on, you freakin' killjoys, get in the spirit of things here!

[Independent George]

Jon - actually, I think apple cider vinegar would be even better. It's both a fruit (a healthy counterpoint to the unhealthy fried food of the original), and it's something that has fermented. More than that - it's fermented improperly, such that something intended as sweet (cider) has turned sour (vinegar), but done intentionally, highlighting the inherent contradiction.

It's a meta-commentary on the entire dish - You're taking a healthy fish, deep-frying it until it's unhealthy, then removing the fish. You're seasoning it with what started as an apple, processed into cider, processed further into vinegar, then processed even further to a powder. It exposes the fundamental contradiction between supposedly wholesome apple with the false consciousness of the over-processed, post-industrial world, while providing ironic counterpoint to the biblical fruit of knowledge: in knowing the genesis of the dish, we poison its fundamental expression.

[Esther]

George, I like your direction. I do miss the inclusion of the malt vinegar, though: Americans almost never consume it with anything but fish and chips, so it adds an aura of exoticism to the dish, differentiating it from more "American" fish sticks. Perhaps the new dish could be served on folded sheets of the Sun (a British tabloid)?

[Independent George]

Esther - what if they served it with a bottle of malt liquor served in a brown paper bag? I originally thought of accompanying it with wine, both to highlight the contradiction between the high and low culture inherent to an upscale fish & chips, and as a counterpoint to the powdered vinegar, but the malt liquor highlights the class envy of bourgeois culture. I think a true deconstruction would have the dish served on a made from the pages of Playboy, to serve as commentary on the vulgar voyeuristic pleasures of watching top chef, and of the patriarchal view of feminine beauty. We hold forth an idealized woman whose figure would be made impossible by the continued consumption of the very dish we are presenting.

[Naomi]

As to the issue of relying on previously used recipes or finding inspiration in someone else's dish, I believe the point is being missed here. I don't think anyone has a problem with Jennifer using someone else's recipe in a quickfire, Bryan rethinking Thomas Keller's dish, Dale T relying on memorized Halo Halo etc...

The question Dom is asking is whether this is any different from what Mike I. has done. Is he riding coattails or relying on other's inspiration?

[Skillet Doux]

"The question Dom is asking is whether this is any different from what Mike I. has done. Is he riding coattails or relying on other's inspiration? "

Thank you, Naomi :-)

Precisely. Though Mike I's "borrowing" may have been more obvious and immediate from a television standpoint, is it fundamentally any different?

[Jon Olsen]

Well, done right, we should probably just serve it nyotaimori on Padma.

The judge becomes the serving dish, the servility of the chef to the diner inverted, and the whole underlying mechanism of dining is as exposed as the naked flesh of the putative hostess.

[Tinuviel]

@doktarr
Well stated.
I often change or alter a recipe to give the dish my point of view. I enjoy TC because it's interesting to see what these chefs create under extreme circumstances. I just want to see some variety--Lee Anne's blog states the season 6 cheftestants are working with the best equipment available, so I'm looking forward to some non cerviche entrees/quickfire from my favorite contenders.

[Independent George]

Well, done right, we should probably just serve it nyotaimori on Padma.

I'm completely in favor of this idea.

[KinderJ]

There are times I thank god I was a history major and not Lit. That being said, how the Helsinki do you balance a funnel cake on Padma? I ask purely for reasons of scientific interest.

On the Mike I thing, remember the quickfires are solo challenges, and he has done ok in those (one once, top at least one other time). That suggests at least some creativity and should be paired with a consistently demonstrated ability to execute. I would say that right now he is coasting a bit, feeling confident and that the Votaggios have his back. I don't know how far they DO have his back, but I can see him thinking that way.

Lastly, I see why malt vinegar in a brown paper bag works, but surely champaign vinegar works better- further inversions. 'Sides. Nothing but best bubbly for the Padma.

[aaalex]

uhm, not sure about the nyotaimori on padma if only because, for the sake of fairness, someone's going to demand the same but with tom colicchio as the nude surface.

i know tom c is a bear icon and all, but i have to wash my eyes out for even thinking this thought.

[Jon Olsen]

That would be nantaimori, and since the tradition is the person is shaved, I would gladly eat fennel funnel cakes off Tom Colicchio's chest.

[aaalex]

jon: i'm really very grateful to learn the new word - nantaimori! who knew? - but now you've made me imagine shaving tom c's body hair off and eating food off his hairless chest. this is like a top chef blog in the twilight zone.

[jh]

You have now taken food porn to a whole new level.

[anon man]

Where this is heading, I sense a good Jennifer Norris and Mike I joke coming.... I kid, I kid.

[mar]

Dom wrote: "Precisely. Though Mike I's "borrowing" may have been more obvious and immediate from a television standpoint, is it fundamentally any different?"

It FEELS different, though I'm having trouble articulating why. Which maybe means it's not. When chefs use a recipe they've used before, or borrowed from others, for a good chef this should still reflect their own food style - what or how they like to cook, what they find sexy about food. As a body of work over the season, these dishes should not be distinguishable style-wise from ones the chef puts together out of the blue. Part of the trouble with the "coattails" charge against Michael I. is that the two times he was paired up with other chef with strong and distinct styles and that is what came out in the end. There wasn't anything that obviously said "Mike I." about the dishes (except the awful salad), nor did it seem in the second case that he was taking the lead on the Bearnaise sauce.

The other thing about this is that he was not relying on recipes from other chef/locations/jobs/whatever, he was relying on his COMPETITORS. Using a recipe from someone not in the competition feels different to me than going along with a strong chef in the competition because you are pretty sure you won't go home.

[Maxx]

Has anyone else noticed that so many of the bottom dishes are because of badly prepared shrimp??? I mean, look at all of them. There's Eve in the first challenge, I'm pretty sure there was a bad shrimp one in the bachelor/bachelerette party, there was Micheal I. in the Army challenge, and there's Robin in this challenge. There may be one or two more, but this should be enough to prove my point: Why do the people in season six keeping getting knocked for making lousy shrimp??????? When will Jennifer make some shrimp and show them how it's done???

[suzanne]

Maxx: "I'm pretty sure there was a bad shrimp one in the bachelor/bachelerette party"

Yes, and it was Eve's as well.

[SorchaRei]

Precisely. Though Mike I's "borrowing" may have been more obvious and immediate from a television standpoint, is it fundamentally any different?

I think it is different, for more than one reason.

First, when Jen used a recipe from her job, she was using a recipe from her job. I know that sounds obvious, but what it means is that she walked into that kitchen with a head full of experience and style and so on, and when faced with a challenge, she pulled out something from her own repertoire that fit. When Mike used Bryan's techniques on the sauce, he did something that he could not have done without the help of someone right then and there. He wasn't using the resources he's built up over his lifetime of experience -- he was using someone else's resources.

Second, while Bryan used Keller's technique on the fish, he still put his own spin on it, something that Colicchio is careful to mention in his blog about it. When Mike used Bryan's sauce, he used Bryan's sauce. He didn't take what Bryan had to offer and go off and turn it into his own thing. He basically executed something Bryan knew how to do.

Before I get to the third reason, I just want to emphasize that it is precisely the sauce that makes me think that Mike I might be simply a very good cook and not a very good chef as well. (Although this week did move me closer to thinking, yeh, that's a chef. His handling of the cactus was impressive, not only in the result that Tim Love liked, but in his obvious knowledge about the ingredient and his ability to use that knowledge to produce something quickly.) In the case of the sauce, Mike had an idea, but he did not know how to execute that idea (we know this from Bryan's comment reprising what happened). Bryan told him how to do it, and he did it. Any line cook who works for Bryan could do the same. It was am impressive technical feat, and I'll even give Mike I. props for thinking "Let's take the sauce apart", but it wasn't something he knew how to do or could figure out on their timeline.

As to the third reason, mar nailed it. He's riding along with strong chefs in order to avoid going home. What he produces when he works with them is their style of food, not his. If he were teaming with the same people and producing food that was clearly expressing his vision, I'd have a different take on that (see: Kevin and Eli at the AF Base).

Overall, I assess Mike I. as a very good cook and a bit of a bonehead (the salad was a ridiculous move, and I'm not impressed with the gyro). He's produced two top-notch dishes. The sauce I don't think was his, and his ability to pull it off without inventing it or transforming it into his own seems to come down on the side of "a great cook, but not a great chef". The cactus QF showed mastery of oth the ingredient and the flavors, and suggests that he does have a chef inside. If only he'd calm down, stop making bonehead moves, and start trying to articulate his own vision in the food, I'd be a lot more interested in watching him.

[TokenOmnivore]

Wasn't it Mike I that was the one that laid out the cheftestant pairing idea for the army challenge? While I agree that I think he's been riding a little on other's coattails, that moves him up away from just a line cook for me. Even if the pairing plan wasn't his original idea (it was hard to tell where the idea came from--he just said that some people had been kicking it around), he gets props from me for being the spokesman for it.

That said, his over-the-top Jersey persona, real or not, makes me so glad we moved away from Jersey when I was young.

[SorchaRei]

I'd give him more props for that pairing idea if not for two facts.

First, he tried to use it to turn Jen into a tournant, not an executive chef. It was she who took his insulting suggestion and turned it into the excellent idea of having her run the kitchen.

Second, he decided that since the chefs had made teams, then they would be judged as teams. This was a foolish (at best) assumption to make. Then he arranged it so that his "team" actually made two dishes, pretty much each working solo, and he biffed his. As far as I can tell, he biffed it because he didn't bother to care about it, thinking that he would be judged on Mike V's work instead.

So fine, he articulated a teamwork idea that did make the challenge easier (by cutting down the number of dishes being made in the military kitchen), but he blew it two ways in doing so.

[Bawdy George]

A George divided cannot stand.

[ally]

I read the first sentence as "seafood six cast" instead of "season six cast". :)

I would love it if a bored statistician would do a per-capita seafood dish analysis for the last few seasons and see if this indeed is an outlier season for seafood. I wonder if the contestants have noticed some kind of winning dish-seafood connection that hasn't been clear before, but I don't think so. These chefs just don't seem like a "nice piece of well-cooked meat" kind of crowd. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

[mar]

@SorchaRei: Thank you! You've written what I've been trying to clarify for myself in my sleep-deprived, children-addled brain. Now I can stop thinking about chefs and coattails and start hoping Jen doesn't get booted this episode. One hour til showtime!

[anon man]

uh-oh. Immunity becomes an issue...

[Independent George]

Was anyone else thinking about fennel funnel cake while watching Laurine prepare her fish & chips?

[aaalex]

almost spooky accuracy from the skillet doux gods. i'm starting to think some form of ritual is necessary to appease the dom. i mean: mr dom, sir.

[Scott]

I feel so sad for Robin, do the editors have to make it so everybody seems to hate her?

[KinderJ]

Seriously folks, we need to name this phenominon. And yeah, I did think the fish and chips were lame after all the discussion here. Good ep in some ways, though.

[Independent George]

So... Dom reprises his role as Guybrush Threepwood, and suddenly the Power Rankings have the power of a Voodoo Curse behind them. Coincidence? I think not.

[mena]

Hi, I just recently found this blog and have been enjoying all the discussions. Thanks, Dom!

re: the "borrowing" issue
Has anyone else noticed that Michael Voltaggio has "borrowed" dishes from Jose Andres, his former boss? The nitro gazpacho that Michael won $15K with is from The Bazaar, Jose's restaurant in LA. And tonight, Michael's deconstructed caesar salad looks exactly like the caesar salad that Jose serves at a few of his restaurants. I dunno - it bugs.

Also, after reading about the deconstruction possibilities it was disappointing to see mostly reconstructions.

[natmicstef]

Not to jump on the Robyn bandwagon, though I guess I am...was her QF dish really better than everyone else's? or at least better than the other 2? This is the first result I have trouble believing.