Top Chef - S7E2 Postmortem

Does anybody else think this season is full of some serious overachievers? I mean, it's only episode two, and they're already sniping at a midseason level! Somehow I don't see this group getting less contentious. Could be an ugly season. Cripes, even the winners are at each other's throats.

On the bright side, nothing like getting the top and bottom to lessen the sting of a rough first week. Thank you, Kelly and Jacqueline.

I'll echo the sentiment of some comments I've already seen. This episode basically managed to cram in every traditional Top Chef annoyance possible. Here's hoping that gets the silliness out of the way for a while. But I'm... uh... not holding my breath.

Rankings Monday. Looks like they'll still be pretty volatile. Gonna need one more good episode before things start to solidify a bit, I think.

Discuss!

Comments

[Diane]

You nailed this one....almost scary. Where's the crystal ball located?

[Bart]

Interesting how the two losing teams commented on each other's dishes. That made for a fun and dramatic Judge's Table. And I knew they were going to be the losers. The judges HAD to change up the routine once in a while to keep them on their toes.

I like this season. Not as fun as New York and not as technically skilled as Las Vegas - it seems to be more like the Chicago season, and I'm OK with that.

We're starting to see some clear leaders emerge. Despite Kenny and Angelo's stumble, I still think they merit a top showing.

My Jersey Boy Kevin is doing all right.

Dom, good luck ranking the contestants. I think you'll find at least three or four of them tough to sort out, but at least we're starting to see a clearer pattern.

[Bart]

Also - I think we can consider the winner of this elimination challenge (I believe it was Lynn, the culinary school teacher, but I forget already) a credible challenger to the top five.

[JJH2]

Wow. This was kind of an unpleasant episode to watch. The highlight (surprisingly) was the sandwich challenge. Did they really call it something as lame as the "bipartisHAND" challenge? Because ick. It was fun watching Angelo and Kenny dragging their challenge-mates to the top with them, and then to see Kenny's frustration as Angelo took it again.

But then it was all downhill from there. The IC had just about every gimmick that I dislike rolled into one -- a really preachy "message" (even if I agree with it), cooking for kids, a severely limited budget, and mass quantities. You know there's something wrong with a challenge when Gail says that Stephen made a "good restaurant dish" but got severely dinged because it wouldn't please a kid's palette. Most of the food looked incredibly uninspired, and there wasn't anything I would go out of my way to taste.

Then to follow a bad challenge, endless preachifying from the guest judge and ridiculous sniping from the contestants about whose dish was least healthy. Stephen and Amanda in particular, STFU. Amanda's incredulous bitchface when she was on the attack about processed peanut butter... so aggravating! And she's right! But I can't stop hating her anyway.

And to top it all off, the Angelo sandbagging scandal! Maybe the Magical Elves just worked really hard editing that scene together, but how could you not believe he completely tossed the challenge after his stuttering, ineffectual defense?

Please let's get back to some interesting food next week??

[paula]

It was a "bipartisandwich." And i didn't mind that; it was supposed to be over-the-top cheesy, I think. (I hope.)

But putting Kenny in the bottom was such a bullshit call. I know they like to put people there sometimes just to send a message, but that was utter crap on so many levels.

[TxGriff]

@ Bart- the winner tonight was Kelly. Lynn made the black bean cake w/ sweet potato topping.

I'm not surpised Jacqueline went home, they seemed to like her dish the least, but I really think it should have been Amanda. She was completely selfish, insisted on buying a relatively expensive ingredient that is inappropriate for the challenge, and in the end compromised other people's dishes for a plate that wasn't well-received. It makes me wonder where her sense of entitlement comes from. I have no issue with arrogance as long as it's backed with talent (Susur Lee, Mike V, Stefan, Dale T). However, so far Amanda has given us a bloody palm, poorly seasoned raw fish, and alcoholic lunchroom chicken. I hope she gets placed near/in the basement next week where she belongs...Dom seems to have a magical ability to send his bottom-dwellers home week after week :).

Other than that, I liked the episode quite a bit actually, even though it was a team challenge. I can't even imagine what the rankings are going to look like next week!

[Johnny]

Thanks for giving my least favorite contestant immunity, Angelo! Also, I hope they are getting all of the catering type challenges out of the way early, as they do not excite me. I'd much rather see more more restaurant type line cooking challenges.

[AGG]

Re Angelo deliberately trying to lose - Tom's blog is up on the bravo site and he certainly thinks its possible. If so, that would make him one of the poorest competitors ever...I hope it comes back to bite him in a later challenge.

[zsparks]

Don't repeat this - I don't like Angelo!

[Lou]

If I had a kid in school I'd be more upset about alcohol in the cooking than sugar content. Just that ingredient should end that chef's run in this challenge.

I like the idea of a "healthy" challenge but I like to see them budget calories/fat/protein/fiber etc. rather than dollars.

[Dreamboat]

Angelo made celery with peanut butter? Huh?? I cannot believe no one on his team challenged him on that! WTF?? None of the 4 Horsemen from last season would have dumbed down their dish just because they had immunity.

And the other losing team, their plate of food looked a lot like they crap they really do serve in school lunchrooms. Chicken in a nasty looking sauce with a side of rice and pudding. Where is the inspiration in that? The only thing that looked good was the tomato-bean salad (made by Tiffany I think).

ugh

Oh, and Leahv2 is irritating me as much as Leah did. I am just waiting for her hair flip...

[gilmore]

I was turned off when Tom was walking through the kitchen and the one team (can't remember who) was ass-kissing for what they did, how they helped, etc. Just like school kids.

Glad the finally swapped and called the worst in first.

Jacqueline had to go based on last week too, but sherry in a kids meal? and a budget buster to boot.

Kenny vs. Angelo will pick up more steam.

I liked the intra-team fighting at judges table. Not from a not acting professional perspective, but for good TV.

[Daniel]

I found tonight extremely frustrating on several levels:

One was the almost willful ignorance spread around between contestants who, in the seventh season now, still don't seem to get how challenges work: Over and over and over again, in season after season after season, it has been stressed that even in 'team' challenges, you still live and die by the merits and faults of your own dish...these aren't really 'teams' in the truest sense of the word, they are more collaborations. On the part of the judges...if you are going to judge based on nutrition, you should know something about it: sweet potatoes are packed with massive amount of nutrition; corn is not. Fruit or not, tomato beats the crap out of corn. (No insult intended to Arnold)

Secondly, the amount of backbiting and just outright nastiness: Kelly understood the individual nature of the challenge, but didn't seem to understand how to assert herself without being shrill, entitled, and obnoxious. Amanda's, Stephen and Ed going to town on one another was also just off-putting. And while there is really no proof either way, the mere fact that it's so plausible that Angelo threw the challenge is pretty telling as to how people perceive his character.

I'll be much happier towards the tail end of mid-season when a lot of the clueless and incompetent have been weeded out and they start easing off the gimmicks.

[Danielle]

*Are* all successful governments bipartisan?

I kept wishing oh, if you the producers/judges make the rules, you can change them... I so wanted them to retract the immunity.

[KinderJ]

Dom- you nailed it this time!

Throwing the challenge is a vicious move, one I personally would not use, but I take the view that it is a legit tactic. Angelo identified a strong competitor and tried to ice him. A lot of people go on shows and say that they are there not to make friends, but to win. Well, this is what that mindset really looks like in practice. Ugly, brutal, degrading- but pretty damn effective. I have not read the Bravo blogs yet, but it sounds like the bullet juuuuuust missed Kenny. The thing is, its basically a no risk move for Angelo. The only thing he has to worry about is a) cooking good food and b) someone else pulling the same crap to eliminate him. I can't see him loosing sleep over that.

As for the cost and nutrition restrictions, I disagree with JJH2. Granted, the catering challenges are not my favorite. What hard restrictions do is force people to become creative. We saw some teams really do that and demonstrate that school lunches do not have to be miserable horrors. And they did it on the same budget as a public school. Preachy? Sure. But the guest judge was cheerful, Tom brought a lot of energy and enthusiasm, and the kids looked like they were having a ball. So, you know, pretty good stuff there.

I thought the format at the judges table was... interesting. I don't know how much of the cross talk between the teams was planned or if the judges just went with it. I can see how it could get very tiresome, but it was illuminating. The judges clearly thought so too.

Lastly, Leah 2.0? Yeesh. How much of the cooking budget did you torpedo there? Poor bloody Jacqueline got 10% of the budget for 25% of the dish? No wonder the pudding was a nightmare. I am with Gale on this. Lots of stuff I like is not for all audiences. Would you serve BLT's and shrimp cocktail at an Orthodox Jewish wedding? For that matter would you serve sherry poached chicken at an AA convention? Sure all the alcohol has cooked off. You think that's going to make it ok? Well, actually I don't know the answer to that last question. But I still would not gamble on it.

[Lou]

On the Angelo "throwing the challenge'" idea - I think he did play the team a bit and was caught on it. If he made the peanut butter or what was caught in the peanut butter mousse he might have had a defensible idea if it was the dessert dish.
If the elves try to trip up the chefs, throwing curves into the challenges why is it so bad if a chef tries a little gamesmanship? I don't like it but if they get challenges and then gimmicks tossed in by the elves just maybe a chef (with immunity) trying to force his main competition to step up their game a bit or be more analytical isn't it reasonable as long as sabotage isn't employed. Kenny is just as caught up in the rivalry as Angelo - I don't find either of them appealing because of the smug nature each has but it works for the drama - on the other hand they can't dump Amanda soon enough for me.

[Lon]

I, for one, am glad they got the obligatory school/kids challenge out of the way early. For awhile I was afraid we would see a repeat of season 3 where a favorite bombed early on due to the nature of the challenge.

Overall, I didn't like this episode. Some other challengers did fare better, but I certainly did not like the gamesmanship going on. Obvious to the point of being reprehensible.

[Daniel]

@Lou - I see what you are saying, but I would address that point by saying that deliberately throwing a team challenge, especially when you have immunity is sabotage, not gamesmanship.

Gamesmanship would be like, screwing people on a choice of protein, not lending a piece of equipment, or taking someone else's favored ingredient...or even taking advantage of their abject stupidity and incompetence by taking much, much, much more than your fair share of a limited budget. But deliberately throwing a team challenge goes a step further, and is really no different than screwing with someone's oven.

Leaving morality and ethics completely out of it, the reason I object to 'sabotage' (my characterization) of this nature is because if it became the rule, it would completely destroy all team and partner challenges in these kinds of competitions, and I'd much rather see team challenges where people are trying (and failing) to do their best rather than team challenges where the main goal is to try to out-screw your partner.

[Lou]

@Daniel - I agree that deliberately throwing a challenge is wrong and unethical. Kenny is the one who called Angelo's work peanut butter mousse and we only got a fleeting view (sort of appealing presentation) of it - a mousse on a toile cookie with a garnish of celery - it looked more like a dessert meant to compete with Kenny's apple bread pudding (generally heavy and fattening). So I don't think Angelo skirted that much - but saying it is good for drama.

Two lbs. of sugar in 50 or so dessert portions is beyond ridiculous but alcohol is worse.

[Daniel]

One easy 'fix' they could make would be to not offer immunity on team challenges - as Kenny pointed out, it's not like immunity normally helps people all that much anyways - the folks most likely to win it are the ones least likely to need it - and deliberately throwing a team challenge becomes a much, much less attractive prospect when your ass isn't safely off the line.

Either way, the whole 'immunity' thing has been a long standing issue in team challenges over many seasons, and while I've never seen it cause quite this much angst, it does seem to cause a hell of a lot more trouble than it is worth.

Pity they couldn't get rid of both Amanda *and* Kelly.

One other thing that confuses the hell out of me about the contestants on Top Chef: why on earth aren't they all amazing at prep? I mean, prep-work is such a basic and critical skill to have...just about every challenge and quickfire involves a rather strict and unforgiving time constraint, and prep skills can be developed, trained and practiced...You kind of have to wonder why so many of the folks each season seem to hamstring themselves from the get-go by not working the knife skills.

[dach]

This episode was all about cheftestant fighting like the gradeschoolers they where serving. Made for great TV. I loved it, I like to root for TV villains, since my young days of rooting for heels on pro-wrestling

Ridiculous QF for contestants. But fun as hell to watch. Noted in mixed gender pairs, the male always takes charge. I don't mean just here, every reality show.

Amanda is a character. She is a very pretty villain. <3<3<3 She getting me hooottt. *nsfw fantasy* ;)

Why did Arnold jump on Kelly the night before? There seem no reason to object to Kelly taking charge when she has experience planning and prepping healthy school meals on budget. They are all in charge of their own kitchens and should understand groups always work better with 1 leader. My cynical thought, Arnold was trying to get airtime by stirring drama. Also wondered why 50+ yo professor Lynne did not intervene and provide conflict resolution. I guess I'm thinking of her like a elementry school teacher because of the schoolyard type bickering.

I wish they show Kenny trying to take charge. His whole stated reason for coming on the show was to "bring leadership to TC". In his bio vid he says he is an expert kitchen manager as well as cook. Kenny, this was your chance to take charge, what happened? Fumble.

Lots of villains this episode. The only frazzled hero was Kelly.

[Sweet Sue]

Top Chef Master has changed the whole game for me, it's so much better.

[timothy]

I just have this holistic, willfully naive view that being a douche in public (or in private) is not going to serve a person well. Angelo may have been playing the game shrewdly but there aren't that many Top Chef successes who are consistently unlikable. If he chooses to be consistently petty and mean, he won't succeed in the long run, and if he does succeed long term, he will find a way to make his obnoxiousness endearing, like Stefan did.

[Nsam]

Did Angelo go so far as to actually throw the challenge? Of course it's difficult to prove definitively, but a strong circumstantial case certainly seems to be there. Is it a "legit" tactic? I don't know how much I can add to that discussion, but I will say that in my eyes Kenny and Ed would now be justified in waging TOTAL war on Angelo, doing anything they possibly can, short of anything that would get them thrown off the show, to make things difficult for him. And I'm thinking that recruiting others in the house to their anti-Angelo efforts may not be at all difficult. (See the chilly reactions of his fellow cheftestants when he won the Quickfire, which Sam Kass even commented on. See the After the Knife video on the Bravo site, in which Jacqueline says that Angelo completely ignored her and didn't deign to speak to her even once for the entire week that they were living in the house together.) Of course, this might be more of a distraction for them then it's worth. Moreover, revenge of this sort would be problematic (as it maddeningly generally is in dealing with such vicious, amoral behavior) because it brings you down to that low level, too, and makes you look as bad as the original perpetrator.

I do believe that this is relevant to a discussion of Angelo. Others may say that common decency and good manners are irrelevant in a made-for-TV competition, and even in the wider professional world as one competes for success. But I think that position is, at the very least, shortsighted. The bigger picture, including the competition outside of this competition, is that burning bridges and making enemies unnecessarily doesn't serve Angelo's interests, nor does behaving like a villain on a show watched by millions. I mean, when I go to a restaurant I guess I don't care if the chef is a saint, but I know that I'd avoid a place helmed by someone I detest.

[Nsam]

Re. Timothy's comment -- me too. And further to my previous post, I'm trying to keep an open mind about Angelo. At this point in the New York season I didn't like Stefan, but he did grow on me.

But boy, I think I'd really enjoy seeing him get a shiv (or two, or three) in the back as the season progresses. Just to see that smug look wiped right off his face.

[gilmore]

Timothy - Nsam - Remember, Stefan always was helping the others - tasting food, giving advice. A true competitor wants to win against the best on a level playing field, not slide in the back door. I think this will backfire on Angelo. Hung never went out of his way to help anyone, but neither did he sabotage anyone.

[PerryMB]

If Kenny and Ed are mad at anyone it should be themselves. They should of told Angelo and Tracy that they were calling shots since the two of them had immunity, instead they let Angelo dictate to them what the menu should be.

[paula]

Daniel: I was thinking the same thing about the nutritional value of the vegetables/fruits. Sweet potatoes have a lot going for them. Corn and celery? Not so much. And who cares if tomatoes are technically a fruit? For nutritional value, it was a good idea for Kenny to make sure they worked that into the meal to offset Angelo's sad-ass celery thing. I'm still pissed he got called out in losers' row. Didn't Tom say he liked Kenny's dessert while he was eating it? And Kenny was the only one on his team (according to the edit) who even raised the issue of, hey, this isn't nutritious enough--but because he didn't somehow force Angelo to make something else, he's on the chopping block? The rest of them didn't even question the nutritional value, but they get a pass. Grr.

[Anon man]

Celery with Peanut Butter? Remember a couple seasons ago when someone with immunity phoned it in and the judges hinted that they might take it away. Angelo warranted that treatment. I don't mind the gamesmanship, but celery with peanut butter is a joke on many levels.

That said, I think I will be much happier when Angelo and his smarmy smile are gone. If we could drop his culinary skill into a more pleasant creature, it would be easier to watch.

[dach]

rewatched it. I'll correct my initial QF observation where I said "Noted in mixed gender pairs, the male always takes charge. I don't mean just here, every reality show."

Arnold and Kelly where a QF pair, with Kelly on the right, and I assume in charge. But then Arnold gives the presentation to padma and the guest judge. I think the friction between Arnold and Kelly started in the QF that later blew up at the house. Or Arnold is just a total attention whore.

If the producers wanted to stir up drama, which they clearly do, it was quite a genius move to first do QF pairing, then moving QF pairing on to EC teams, giving twice as much time for friction and bad chemistry to develop. After ep3 there is already as much bad blood as whole of all last season.

This episode the food came a distant 2nd to the drama.

I am curious to know more about how kelly kept to budget and "seemed to have so much more food," and her winning EC pork carnita dish. We only get shown it for 1/2 second.

I'm fine with one or two drama heavy episodes, but very much hope the others more food centric.

[Bart]

@TxGriff - Thanks for correcting me. It was Kelly, not Lynne, who won the challenge. I meant to say that I think *Kelly* has some potential. I think she might warrant a showing in the top 5. She oozes competence.

Other chefs, we can peg as goners (e.g. Arnold, Tracy - although I like them both, they're really fun to watch), but Kelly might stick around for a while.

[nomnomnom]

Only thing that can be gained from that episode is the comfort that the stupid QF/EC of the year is gone. A one handed sammich challenge, and a .70cent/plate kiddo challenge together.

Very little came out of it except they have lucked into a double villain edit.

They are also getting the weber grill challenge out of the way early this year as well next week it would seem.

[minettegirl]

Is it just me, or...Tracey and Rosie O'Donnell - separated at birth?

[Lou]

Angelo is not Mr Nice Guy... he won the first 2 QFs and the first EC - when was the last time that was done - how often does a chef win 3 challenges in a row??? And as for sabotage when Angelo's equipment failed he went to another chef who had 3 - of course he didn't get the use of the extra. This was followed by a good shared laugh on recounting the story. Angelo found a work around for the problem to produce his dish. Slam the dish and chef - but he delivered what he said he would do - no one claimed he didn't over coming an obstacle.
Angelo may be smug and a bit of a gamer but the others (Kenny and Ed) weren't stepping up and the others just have a petty jealousy and willingness to, well, sabotage Angelo given the chance. I may not like Angelo but he delivers and all he tried to do was make the main competition work harder than they would have had to in another group.

[Joe S]

I'm on team Kenny here.

[Polybus]

I think it's going to be a fun season. I laughed through most of this last episode and that's always a good sign.

[Polybus]

Biggest problem with sabotage is that it often backfires. Remember Spike in the Police Academy episode? Talk about smarmy. Everyone knew what he was up to and it was his last hurrah (or raspberry).

[matthew]

I thought the QF was kind of silly, but that's to be expected early in the season.

As for the rest of the show, I really tire of hearing all the "this is why I'm here" stories. If you were only interested in making delicious, nutritious meals for kids, you wouldn't have signed up for Top Chef, in all likelihood (unless you had some background hopes of using the show as a platform...which doesn't serve you well when you suck.)

Anywho...the whole Kenny/Angelo drama makes for good television (I guess), but I'm not biting. Angelo's sidebar "I don't like Kenny" shows, to me, a lack of character and insecurity. I'm not saying you have to like everyone, but it's all too convenient for Angelo to suddenly not like what looks to be his fiercest competitor. Come on now. This coming from a guy who's established himself as the contemptible ass.

Truth be told, I loathe guys like Angelo. I don't have any problem with a chef being confident, but I lose interest when he is an egomaniac.

I know alcohol cooks off, but it is unbelievable that Amanda thought cooking with sherry in a school cafeteria environment was a good idea. Jacqueline, however, takes the prize for dumping two pounds of sugar into that gritty pudding. Ugh!

All the bickering and fussing on Kelly's team was annoying. Arnold needs to worry about Arnold, and take off the Diva tiara...or have a Snickers.

Oh...is it just me, or is Tiffany just a little loud/shrill? Her voice was wearing me down.

Oh, on an aside from a DC resident - I was a little put off that TC went to Alice Deal Middle School. Deal is in a very affluent area of Upper Northwest DC. It doesn't really represent the challenges many of the other schools in DC have, in terms of facilities and resources. A lot of kids at Deal come from families that have the means to expose their children to fresh fruits and vegetables. (It's also well known that Deal parents pay money for extra staff and services at the school.) In my opinion, it would have been better to go into a school in a more economically-challenged area of DC so kids could be exposed to fresh, creative food as well as been inspired by the chefs.

[paula]

Good point, Matthew, but giving them the benefit of the doubt, I have to assume that there were many practical factors going into the choice of school: Size of the kitchen, how camera-friendly the space would be and--most important--approval from the school itself and all the families of the children.

[Cheryl]

Minette girl - totally agree! I was thinking she was Rosie's long lost sister or something!
On the Peanut butter controversey - what shocked me initially about that plan is that so many schools are nut free because of food allergies. I don't have kids but am aware enough to know to stay away from the nuts when you are dealing with kids. Not to mention the whole lack of creativity - he had immunity and phoned it in.

[matthew]

Thanks Paula. Deal recently completed a new addition to the school. So, to your point, the facilities were probably the most ideal for shooting. Also, DC schools may not have wanted to approve a school that did not paint the system in a good light.

Not to belabor the issue, but I think showing the stark reality of the poor facilities a lot of food services workers face in DC schools, coupled with a miserable budget, would have driven home the point and challenged the contestants more, which I would have found more interesting to see how they overcome hurdles.

[Bart]

Matthew - Not only that, but the $2.60 per child budget was wildly generous, too. I found this like via Gawker:

http://www.grist.org/article/top-chef-flunks-school-food-math/

Apparently, the writers at "Top Chef" failed to do their homework where school meal finances are concerned. Only a fraction of that $2.68 federal subsidy actually goes toward purchasing food. The majority is eaten up by labor and overhead costs. What schools actually spend on the food component of the average lunch is more like $1 per kid -- or less. And the average school loses 35 cents on every meal it serves.

That's tough. You hit a certain point, cost-wise, where you're forced into making certain things not because you want to, but that's because that's all you can afford. At this level, you're reduced to wrapping Wonder Bread around Slim Jims and calling it a hot dog.

[Anon Man]

Matthew, as a DC resident as well, I see your point, that maybe serving a school in Ward 8 more fit the bill. But, the troubles schools face from a budget standpoint was shown at the check-out line where they were putting stuff back and way, way over budget.

[louc]

Long-term reader, infrequent poster.

I think the "gamesmanship" has already bit Angelo in the ass. If he weren't so arrogant, the other team would have lent him the equipment. No one's going to help him with plating or anything else so as the show goes on, it really could fry him.

And was anyone else rooting for Tiffany to get the win with her carmelized sweet potato and sorbet dessert? Yum.

[matthew]

Bart and Anon Man - Good points. Thanks!

[gilmore]

To the food - they bought their food at a store - albeit a warehouse type store.

Schools buy food in mass quantity and via the bid process they should have set price points for their weekly/monthly purchases. They don't go to Costco or Sam's for the weekly shopping trip.

The $2.60 or whatever they were left with may have overstated the food component over the labor component, but they spent a lot more for chicken, pork, etc. than a school system would.

[paula]

YOu know, you can hide a whole host of veggies in macaroni and cheese, make a decently low-fat version of it that still tastes good, and it's cheap to make. I'm surprised there was only one group that went that route (and even then, did they hide pureed veggies in it?). That's a good trick straight from the mom handbook, and someone missed an opportunity to be really clever and put a high-falutin' but kid-friendly twist on it--like that one chef did with the fruit kabobs with yogurt foam.

[Tom]

Never commented before, but there's a first time for everything!

I felt this challenge really showed the occasionally ridiculous double standards of Top Chef's judging. On one hand, Tom says that it's an individual challenge, judged on individual merit. And yet, here we have Kenny, who's in the bottom 4. He made a good (at worst, passable) dessert. He's there because...he didn't order Angelo to make something else. He suggested it. He brought it up. At some point, you have to think, "This guy has won 3 challenges in a row. He knows what he's doing. I don't agree, but I made my point of view known that it's a bad idea, and I'm just going to make a good dish myself."

I mean, what more did they expect of him? To order a guy who's won every challenge to cook differently? If it's truly them being judged on their own merits, why would this matter?

[dach]

I thought the EC criteria was that one person from the worst team would be up for elimination. Even Tom muses during kitchen walkthrough that kenny has a 50/50 shot of getting elim if his team is at the bottom. But it seems the judges and producers last minute maneuvered to keep ed and kenny from elimination once they decided Angelo sabotaged his team. If so Jacqueline has a legitimate beef that she should never have been up for elimination consideration, as her team was not the worst.

[ROBO-PUNTER]

Angelo definitely looks like a huge jerk. That doesn't really bother me, though. His being a jerk will be punished by the other contestants refusing to help and/or going out of their way to hose him. Going out of his way to sabotage his team in the hopes of knocking off someone he choose to be his teammate, though? That's just rotten. This isn't Survivor. "Gamesmanship" isn't the point of the entire show - cooking is.

Having said that, Arnold actually annoyed me about twice as much as Angelo does. His passive-aggressive whining didn't help the team at all and speaks just as poorly on his character as Angelo's machinations do on his. Do what you do as well as you can. Help your teammates. Take credit for what you did. Don't try and take credit away from other people as if some portion of it will rebound back to you.

[JJ]

Okay, so I guess I'm alone on this but here goes: I'm having a hard time believing that Angelo's strategy was to be the bottom team so that there was a 50-50 chance he'd get rid of Kenny (whereas it makes a lot of sense to me that Angelo and his partner would pick the other pair they thought were the strongest since Angelo's express goal was to *win every challenge* and he had already succeeded with the first two QFs and first Elimination). I might have believed it more if he had been shown shooting down other people's ideas/suggestions or spending a large portion of the budget on his own ingredients – like Amanda, who seems to me to be a much more obvious candidate for saboteur (she really should have been eliminated). I'm also a bit surprised that no one has really commented on Kenny's strange passivity. He wasn't very "alpha male" around Angelo was he? You would think that he would insist on taking charge of the team since two of them had immunity. Not only did he not do so, but he didn't even object to the lack of healthy items on the menu – indeed, he contributed to the general lack of nutritional value with his bread pudding. I realize that Angelo rubs people the wrong way but there seems very little (rational) evidence that this was all a part of some nefarious plan. The editing of the final scenes suggested too that the producers were trying to make things look a lot more suspicious than they were. Just sayin'.

[Anon man]

"But it seems the judges and producers last minute maneuvered to keep ed and kenny from elimination once they decided Angelo sabotaged his team. If so Jacqueline has a legitimate beef that she should never have been up for elimination consideration, as her team was not the worst."

I'm not sure of that. The chicken and the dessert were bad, I think they commented on the rice being salty. And, didn't Gail suggest that the vegetable salad was a little too straight on vegetables for kids? So, I'm not sure that the "Power" team actually had the worst meal. No veggies, yes, but worst? I'm not sure.

[timothy]

@JJ- well, when Angelo first picked Kenny, I thought to myself that he was picking the strongest chef so that their team would kick ass. It wasn't until Tom confronted him at Judges' Table that I realized Angelo might have been setting Kenny up. I can't remember exactly what words Tom used, but didn't he pretty much ask Angelo directly if he was playing games with the immunity? And didn't Angelo say, "I can't answer that"? After that exchange it is hard to see anything other than "gamesmanship" involved.

[dach]

After reading more comments and thinking on it, now I think ed and kenny deserve far more blame than angelo. Angelo more likely just shut it down and phoned the challenge in than actively sabotaged. He's entitled to do that with immunity. Someone without immunity needs to take control of the situation and tell him what to make. Kenny just making noise about general lack of vegetables is not taking leadership. If, after being told, Angelo refuses to change his recipe then he would be sabotaging the team. As Colicchio said on show, if your teammates have immunity you have to work even harder.

And Ed really crashed and burned, I now have him at Stephen level in the rankings, scraping bottom. Pureed spicy sweet potatoes? What are you thinking!? Why didn't Ed take the main dish instead of Tracey, who had immunity? Especially seeing what Ed ended up producing.

[Danielle]

A couple additional minor notes:

- Could Jacqueline have browned/roasted/sautéed the bananas to bring out more sweetness without adding as much sugar, and then made some other dessert with them besides pudding?

- How many elementary schools allow peanut anything in the building nowadays?

[rab01]

One of my son's classmates has peanut allergies and there's no way that school would ever let peanut butter be served by the cafeteria.

I think it's right that Angelo's team was called out as the absolute worst but that Kenny was in no real danger of going home. Colicchio emphasized that each chef was responsible for one dish. Angelo had the vegetable and instead served an inappropriate dessert-like peanut butter mousse with celery. Kenny made a perfectly reasonable bread-pudding dessert. Kenny had no authority or responsibility to force Angelo to change his dish.

[bryanD]

"I mean, it's only episode two, and they're already sniping at a midseason level!"---skilletdoux

Thank gawd! Because episode 1 was drier than a coyote fossil.

So we're happily back on track, ie. Since we can't taste the food, we can indulge in motivations which is what the show is based on. Like an opera set in the royal pantry.

Good ep! And Angelo's a booger! That cellulose gambit was wicked!

[TxGriff]

I'm a little surprised that people keep calling Kenny out for not changing Angelo's dish. It has always been emphasized that you ultimately have to claim your individual dish, even in a team challenge. Angelo's dish was supposed to be the vegetable dish, although it was a combination "veggie"/dessert dish, and Kenny was responsible for dessert. Kenny ackowledged the lack of veggies in the overall meal, brought it up, but ultimately he can't force his teamates to change their dishes. Ed could have amended his sweet potato dish when it was clear than Angelo was only going to serve celery, but even then, sweet potatoes are actually very nutritious.

Sure, Ed or Kenny should have realized that they were on the line because half of their team had immunity, but at some point you have to realize there is only so much you can change about your competitor's dishes and just put your best effort forth. Kenny in particular made an apparently well-received dessert that satisfied the criteria of the challenge, yet he is at fault because he *should have* put more effort into changing Angelo's dish? Sorry, I'm not buying it...

[JJH2]

In Ed's defense... there's no indication that his spicy sweet potato puree was bad! Gail even called it "a good restaurant dish." And the sweet potato is a vegetable -- a root vegetable!

[Pants McCracky]

I absolutely cannot believe Amanda was allowed by the producers to go ahead with an alcohol-based dish for young children. The belief that alcohol cooks away completely during cooking is actually not entirely true. Unless Amanda cooked that chicken for 3 or more hours, there was very likely still a significant amount of alcohol left in that dish.

That dish should have been an automatic PPYKAG for Amanda. Bravo is lucky they haven't been sued by the parents of those kids.

[natmicstef]

I knew I had read somewhere that it's a fallacy that alcohol cooks off...and thanks to google found several studies to prove, as Pants says, that even food cooked for 2.5 hours retains 5% of alcohol. Amanda should have gone in this episode as I believe hers was the bigger sin.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooking_with_alcohol

[JJH2]

I honestly can't get all worked up over kids being served food with minute amounts of alcohol in it. Sherry is only 10-15% alcohol by volume. If say, ten percent of that was left after the cooking process, and distributed throughout the entire chicken dish... meh. It's a trace amount.

[ecooper2]

Just as a point of chemical clarification, while I agree that Sherry is "only" 10-15% alcohol by volume, beer's concentration of alcohol hovers around 5%... Essentially, Sherry is double or even triple the alcoholic concentration of beer, and a non-trivial fraction does not evaporate during cooking.

Would her dish lead to inebriated children? Seriously doubtful. Still, Amanda required small livers to process alcohol in a manner which is unhealthy, monetarily inefficient, unnecessary, and ultimately, according to the judges, not particularly tasty.

[ROBO-PUNTER]

After watching this episode again on recording, something is screwy with this editing. Obviously we kind of expect that, but it seems like the producers went above and beyond to confuse what actually happened.

From the comments, the contestants actually did very well with this competition. Both of the "winning" teams received compliments from the judges on most if not all of their dishes. Then we have the losing teams. It's clear that one of those teams put out a meal that failed (badly) to meet the objectives of the challenge but that was pretty tasty. The chicken burger got good reviews, the sweet potatoes got good reviews with the "kids wouldn't like this" proviso, the bread pudding got the Colicchio seal of approval, and all the sound and fury around Angelo's celery thing referred to how unhealthy (or nonhealthy) it was, not how it tasted bad.

The other team made a meal that not only had major issues with the challenge parameters but just wasn't good. The chicken was universally panned, not just for not making sense in a cafeteria but also for tasting bad, being unappealing, and so on. The rice got guarded compliments, the bean salad was hardly mentioned either way, and the pudding was evidently quite bad. Now, the kerfuffle about TWO ENTIRE POUNDS of sugar going into 50 servings of pudding (which comes out to maybe 100 calories from sugar per serving) seems a little bit silly to me, but it was clearly still a failure of imagination and/or skill to dump it in.

But the judges tell us straight-up that Angelo's team lost, despite making better food. Evidently they flunked the challenge so badly that making superior food became irrelevant. That is something of a departure from previous seasons where you could get away with stretching the rules quite a bit as long as your food tasted good. I think the judges really felt as though they had some skin in the game on this one. Tom wrote several pages about the ills of crop subsidies and then threw in a bare few sentences about the show; Gail also wrote at length about the difficulty and importance of getting schoolkids healthy meals. This was just a bad challenge to choose to mess around with the rules. But then they turned around and eliminated someone from the not-worst team. It's just weird that all of a sudden they reversed their usual judging patterns.

Having said all that, did Angelo sabotage his team? The judges' uncertainty regarding this question appears to have at least influenced their decision to eliminate from the other team. The editors are making us think yes. We have his terse "I can't answer that right now" and his Survivor-esque scheming with Tracey. We have his quickly moving to bury Kenny - "where is this coming from," this bizarre insistence on needing vegetables. But that seems like ass-covering on his own behalf as much as trying to kill off a teammate. Angelo said day one that his goal was to win every challenge. Picking Kenny and Ed is absolutely commensurate with that goal. Doing a fancy, high-end version of ants on a log is also consistent with that goal if you assume that Angelo had no *%$^&ing clue about the priorities of this challenge (which he clearly didn't).

So I don't think Angelo sabotaged his team, and I don't really think he phoned it in or anything like that, either. I think he just completely misunderstood what the challenge was about and is, in general, a jerk. The judges gave up trying to puzzle out the game theory of it all and choose to send home the creator of the dish that tasted bad and failed the nutrition test.

[suzanne]

I disagree with what seems to be the general sentiment that the judges felt Angelo's team had the overall worst meal.

We only heard the guest judge say that -- we weren't told what the other judges thought. I think this was deliberate on the editor's part, to make it seem like Kenny really was at risk for going home.

[jh]

Whether Angelo sabotaged the team, played a bit of gamesmanship, or just phoned it in, the fact that the viewers and judges are questioning his character and integrity in the second episode is not a smart play for Angelo. If the judges are questioning his motives now, it could, perhaps, color their judgment in future challenges. If Angelo continues to make great food, then fine, he'll be safe. But if his dish is on the line and there's a he-said-she-said argument, his past actions could subconsciously affect the outcome.

In addition, who knows how Angelo's TC appearance will help/hurt him in the future. Cooking great food and being well liked the public can really boost your career (Harold, Blais, and Kevin, as great examples). But those who squander the opportunity, fail to maximize the benefits (personal opinion, but I have no desire to eat a restaurant run by Lisa or Hosea). If he continues his ways, Angelo will drift into the latter category for me.

[ally]

some worst-case-scenario math:

2 pounds of sugar for 50 servings is 3.84 teaspoons of sugar.

1 quart of 15% sherry braised for 2 hours (10% of original 15% alcohol remains according to the link provided above) for 8 servings is 0.36 teaspoons pure alcohol.

That said, 10% remaining depends on *being stirred into a mixture*. Since it was a "jus" it's more likely that 45% of the alcohol per 25 minutes is lost, which works out to 0.07 teaspoons.

:)

[dach]

I don't remember Amanda's chicken criticism on taste, only failing to meet the challenge multitude other egregious ways from appearance to the use of sherry. Jacquelyn exit interview she says she defended Amanda's chicken as prepared perfectly... which helped lead to her own demise.

[JJH2]

"

Just as a point of chemical clarification, while I agree that Sherry is "only" 10-15% alcohol by volume, beer's concentration of alcohol hovers around 5%... Essentially, Sherry is double or even triple the alcoholic concentration of beer, and a non-trivial fraction does not evaporate during cooking.

Would her dish lead to inebriated children? Seriously doubtful. Still, Amanda required small livers to process alcohol in a manner which is unhealthy, monetarily inefficient, unnecessary, and ultimately, according to the judges, not particularly tasty."

I mean, honestly, this is alcohol alarmism. There is absolutely no evidence that I'm aware of that the ingestion of minute amounts of alcohol poses any health risks for children. Yes, sherry has more ABV than beer, but when 10% of the alcohol is left in a product that is 15% ABV, that doesn't mean the product is 10% alcohol by volume. 10% of 15% is 1.5%. And that's 1.5% of a tiny amount of jus, not anywhere near a beer bottle's worth. Plus, not only was the liquid simmering for two hours, but it was further reduced. It's just a silly argument. There is no health issue. That doesn't mean that parents won't take issue with it, but just because someone makes something an issue, doesn't mean they have good reason to.

[ecooper2]

JJH2,
Completely agree with you...I was only attempting to make the point that 10-15% alcohol is not a trivial fraction. Combine that with the disproportionate fraction of a limited budget it consumed and it becomes obvious decision to cook with sherry was comically ill-thought, especially given the fact that parents would almost certainly object (albeit irrationally) to such ingredients being served to their children!

[timothy]

Yeah. I have cooked spaghetti sauce with red wine in it and served it to a large group, kids included, and I have cooked chili with beer in it and served it to a large group, kids included. I make a Guinness chocolate cake that I have taken to neighborhood potlucks. I don't think those choices were wrong and I don't think the sherry chicken choice would have been wrong in certain contexts. I do think the choice is somewhat revealing. At this point the chefs seem to be looking for ways to cook what they already know. I don't think Amanda thought Sherry Chicken was the best cafeteria food. I think she thought it was one of her specialties and she was trying to shoehorn her specialty into the challenge. That works on TC for a while in some cases, but in order to go far in this competition, a chef has to think in flexible and creative ways. At this point Amanda has not shown that she can do that. I predict she goes home in the next 2 or 3 weeks.

[SorchaRei]

Washington DC is a fairly diverse community. There is a difference between taking a Guiness cake to a potluck, where theree are presumably other thing to eat and where special needs of friends can be taken into account, and serving something with alcohol to school children who have to eat what they are given. Forget whether it is rational. Focus on the fact that some religious groups do not consume alcohol at all. In a situation where a child has to eat what is put in front of him, you would, in my view, want to err on the side of caution. It was a supremely tone deaf choice,regardless of whether there was any significant alcohol content in what the children ate.

[TxGriff]

I don't think the issue here is whether or not Amanda served a dish that had arbitrary traces of alcohol in it. The issue is whether or not it's a wise choice to serve a dish prepared with alcohol when the parameters of the challenge are to cater the dish specifically to school-age chilren. There are many braising liquids she could have used, yet the one she found most appropriate was one containing alcohol? Even if 100% of it burns off (which it doesn't), it still seems strange to prepare a plate for a child where the use of alcohol is advertised as prominitely as the chicken (sherry jus chicken). I think serving a pasta sauce containing red wine for a large group is different because children might eat it, but the food wasn't particularly designed for them. Same situation with a pot luck. Now, would you have made the guiness cake specifically for a young child's birthday party knowing there was going to be no other dessert to choose from? Or, even if you would be fine with your own child eating it, do you not think another parent might have an issue with it? I think that is where Amanda lacked discernment, and as I said, it's not as if she *had* to pick sherry. Plus, as it's already been mentioned, it's a relatively expensive ingredient that most likely compromised some of the other dishes on her team. If Amanda can't learn to adapt to the challenges, she is going home sooner rather than later.

[timothy]

TxGriff, SorchaRei,
You're right. It would be dumb to make Guinness cake for a kid birthday party, and it would be dumb to make Sherry Chicken for a school lunch challenge. It was a dumb move.

[Mann of Sandd]

FWIW, if you watch the extended judges table comments on Bravo's site (oh how I hate the layout of that site), it appears Amanda's dish did taste much better than the edit made it appear. Not that it made her decision any wiser, but at least it apparently tasted good.

[Dreamboat]

Eric Ripert's blog for episode 2. I am not sure how long this has been up -- I just saw it today.

http://www.bravotv.com/top-chef/videos/getting-recognized