Top Chef - S8E10 Postmortem

If you thought this one hurt, gird your loins. What do you think the odds are that Mike and Tiffany lose the next two episodes?

Ugh... it really is a bummer. But I'm glad to see the judges sticking to their guns when it comes to judging the challenge at hand rather than making the easy elimination based on history. I'm sure it will be promptly forgotten by the conspiracy theorists.

Bummer of a follow-up to one of the most enjoyable quickfires ever. Muppets rule.

Discuss!

Comments

[Scott]

Sigh...

...

Sigh...

[Kyle]

WOW. Well this sure wasn't based on cumulative results!

Loved Padma's comment to Mike about the fresh coconut milk.

[Bart]

1. This was the greatest quickfire in the history of all quickfires. Even better than Hung's Smurf Village. I love the Muppets. They are so adorable.

2. "This looks like pigeon s--t" had me laughing for minutes on end.

3. Sigh indeed. Once I heard the judges talk about the dish, I...sigh, I knew. I really felt like he could have won it all, too.

Overall, I enjoyed the episode, but what a bummer for an ending.

[aaalex]

and that's why "logical" systems and trying to rate according to who might do best in the finale makes no sense at all. impossible to tell who'll actually get to the finale.

i'm very disappointed - i really liked angelo - but, at the same time, kind of intrigued. the longer tiffany stays the longer it feels like another lisa fernandes moment. she makes the finale, cooks something from texas and who knows ...

[TxGriff]

Angelo!! This is the first elimination that upset me, Angelo really grew on me. I can't blame the judges for their decision, although it sounds like Tiffany dodged a bullet.

[Dreamboat]

I echo....sigh...

Angelo has really grown on me. He is so quirky that it is actually cute.

Sadly, he knew. When they returned to the stew room, he knew that salt would send him home.

...sigh...

Not to take anything away from Dale! He has rocketed back to the top after a couple of bad weeks. And I have to say that I love this new Dale that has emerged from Angry Dale. I call him Amused Dale. ;D

[Redpoint]

Nooooooooooooooo

[Karen B]

anybody think Mike Isabella either accidentally or purposely wreaked havoc on Angelo? Also I wish that the gimmicky stuff was earlier in the season, as others have stated. Really sorry to see a superior chef go home over Tiffany or Mike I, especially Mike I.

[Independent George]

1. Le sigh.
2. As soon as he said he was adding bacon AND salt, I knew he was in trouble; I've made that mistake plenty of times, and it's really hard to recover from.
3. I like Dale, and I know I didn't taste his food, but I admit having a problem with him winning this one. Richard & Antonia got points for degree of difficulty in my book; they at least attempted to do something elevated.
4. I'm guessing that charcoal was completely out of the question due to carbon monoxide, but I'm surprised nobody made a grab for a gas grill.
5. Near heart attack for Carla. Hopefully that is her last brain freeze.
6. The muppets made for great television. I can't be objective about the QF on account of the awesomeness of the moment. I felt like a kid again.

[Trillium]

Wow; I feel numb. My two favorite guys gone one week after the other. All the best Angelo!

I've had it with challenges where sleep deprivation plays a factor. effing B.S!

[KinderJ]

Sorry to see Angelo go- I am always intrigued by people who create tastes I cannot imagine. You could see the exact moment Angelo did himself in. Mike I said it was salty and Angelo thought it needed more salt. Brutal. Just brutal. 3 am did in Angelo, not any lack of skill.

Incidentally, Dale racked up $30k in two back to back challenges- one with the first cookie he ever made, the other with broke stoner food. I feel like we need to start giving him anime style special effects when he starts cooking. Flames shooting off of him, light shining from his eyes, that sort of thing. I mean, I know his family is not from Japan, but still. What a beast.

Richard did really well too- was he the only one who skipped soup? Solid episode for something that I thought would be rubbish.

[paula]

Quickfire: Adorable.
EC: Awful for about a thousand reasons.

Very annoyed SIGH.

[Anon man]

Three quick comments, and more later.

1. Always read the eyes of the interviews. It gives the end away. I knew he was done when it was clear he was upset at about minute 20.

2. Carla, I love watching you, but WTF were you thinking shopping for crap?

3. For those about to hang themselves before next week, read the comments on this recipe first, and feel better. You are not alone, it gets better, etc.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/english-peas-recipe/index.html

[nic]

somthing has to be said for the absolute season 4 ownage at the moment. the last 4 QF's, 3 of the last 4 EC's and all to top performers this week.

[JoeS]

This can't be said enough - What a terrible challenge. I don't think I will step foot in to a Target again.

[Anon man]

Oh, and I forgot the most important comment: Dom, on the Antonia v. Dale debate, I concede defeat.

[garik16]

I can't believe Mike wasn't on the bottom....wasn't he the one whose coconut soup they hated?

[Independent George]

Karen - I don't think so. I think he and Angelo were sincere in talking about how close they were, and it's perfectly plausible to me that exhaustion could have played tricks on both of their taste buds. I know I have trouble tasting things when I'm tired; it's not so much a matter of your palate, as it is about your brain processing what's coming in.

[Independent George]

Did Dale actually make his own tomato soup, or was it just from a can? I saw he had the stockpot set up, but I don't recall him talking about how he made the soup.

[Danielle]

@Dreamboat Bemused Dale?

- Tiffany. I have the memory of a twig, so correct me if this isn't accurate all through the season, but judging from the last two episodes... the problem isn't that her take on a dish is too far afield. The problem is that she makes an actual dish that exists independently in the world and calls it a take on dish A. What was her "jambalaya" this time? And last week the judges said well, this sure ain't chicken and dumplings but if you'd been asked to make tortilla pie it would've worked.

- The Bravo mobile site is surprisingly terrible. Judging from the weird URL, I'm guessing they use one of those "we'll make your site mobile" services and the new web content doesn't immediately get ported over? Unless the blogs went up in the last seven minutes.

[Independent George]

Ummm. Surprisingly terrible? You were expecting an improvement on the website? Or did you just think it couldn't be worse?

[Kathy from Austin]

Over tired, over salted, it was a set up for failure. Here was a challenge made for an upset. Carla is lucky that she didn't get the ax. Why on earth wouldn't you get your soup stewing and THEN find the decoration? She dodged a bullet. She well could have lost and rightfully so.

It seems to me Angelo --perhaps in his exhaustion--fell prey to Dale's salt lick last week. Dale had tested each item individually, then added the pretzel buns which pushed it over the edge. When I heard that Angelo was adding two salts to his soup at one time, bacon and salt that it was a bad idea. Add one or the other, not both. All of us have been ruined over salting the pork, the broth, etc. Result is a salt ball.

Unfortunate for him and the viewer. But sounded like he deserved it. Also a big insight that it appears to be indeed "what have you done for me lately."

Sigh. Loss for Angelo and the viewer but when the said the words "inedible" that was it.

[Kathy from Austin]

Over tired, over salted, it was a set up for failure. Here was a challenge made for an upset. Carla is lucky that she didn't get the ax. Why on earth wouldn't you get your soup stewing and THEN find the decoration? She dodged a bullet. She well could have lost and rightfully so.

It seems to me Angelo --perhaps in his exhaustion--fell prey to Dale's salt lick last week. Dale had tested each item individually, then added the pretzel buns which pushed it over the edge. When I heard that Angelo was adding two salts to his soup at one time, bacon and salt that it was a bad idea. Add one or the other, not both. All of us have been ruined over salting the pork, the broth, etc. Result is a salt ball.

Unfortunate for him and the viewer. But sounded like he deserved it. Also a big insight that it appears to be indeed "what have you done for me lately."

Sigh. Loss for Angelo and the viewer but when the said the words "inedible" that was it.

[lb]

Gosh this is what I feared when I heard of this challenge. This type of challenge usually knocks out someone who is otherwise pretty flawless.

This is also one thing I'm never quite comfortable with on this show - but I understand it - the ability to ignore past performance in a decision. Angelo's had such a good record in elimination challenges. He's really inventive and interesting and dedicated to food (some would say too much so). A lot of people give Richard the title of genius but I think Angelo has merited that in some respects too. But past performance is simply not a factor and it never sits right with me but as I said, I understand it.

Anyway, I'm going to be a little petty since he's my favorite and say that winning Top Chef ultimately means little more than winning money if you go by how some past winners are doing. That said, I hope Carla now kicks ass and takes names.

[Steve]

Devastating. Angelo should have been in the final. Hoping they have a wild card slot just as they did in New Orleans.

Really time for Tiffany and Mike to go.

Carla got too into the prep...but I guess if they wanted to push the chefs' limits, having them shop, prep and cook for everything at 3am in the morning will do it.

Not sure I like an endurance test at this phase of the competition.

[matthew]

@KinderJ - Antonia and Tiffany did something other than soup (eggs and rice dish, respectively)

Whew! I don't understand why Carla spent so much time running around looking for ambience items instead of focusing on her dish. She mentioned that she wanted salmon and I seem to recall one of the judges saying the soup would have been a nice complement to salmon (or some other protein). Ugh! Carla is beside herself. Based on the preview for next week, things don't look good -- again! [sigh]

Just as Independent George stated, I knew as soon as Angelo said he was adding bacon and salt, I was screaming Don't Do It! Bacon is salty as it is. Perhaps he was thinking that the potatoes would absorb/accept the salt, but clearly it reduced, because there was complaints about the consistency, too. It's a shame, because he seems like a good guy, and is clearly a talented chef. I wonder if this stir up, or reignite, the discussion about salt. Two chefs go down for salt, and one survives. Apparently, the dishes made Jen and Angelo must have been really salty. I heard inedible used to describe their dishes, where as Dale's cheese steak was very salty, but not inedible. *shrug*

As I said in the comments running up to this episode, I feared that it was going to be a race to the bottom. Kudos to Dale, though I actually thought Richard or Antonia would win this challenge. Even though Mike took a hit about the coconut, I thought it was pretty clearly that he was in the middle.

[Redpoint]

--rolling on the floor over cinnamon and cardamom coming from the same place as TMI.

--Padma seemed so uptight and wooden with those muppets

--loved the play with the stuffed dogs

[lb]

If you go by last weeks comments, one of the judges said they couldn't make it to a third bite for Dale's. It's all what you're up against in any given week. And Dale was lucky that in his week he had an Italian who never made a burger before and a woman who, in trying to be creative, did not make chicken and dumplings.

Angelo...not quite so lucky.

[Anon man]

@matthew, someday, somewhere, I would love to hear the answer to the why so much running around question. I'm sure Carla can handle the stick of butter challenge next week.

Also: funniest moment ever in Top Chef history is now the Elmo "TMI!" comment. That probably won't ever be beaten.

[mar]

@IG: Probably no propane for the gas grills, if there were even grills in the store. Not sure I've ever seen a Target selling propane.

Not that I'm accusing the judges of consistency, but Angelo had to be sent home if his dish was truly inedible due to the salt. That's been the one thing the judges have been pretty clear on this season.

And how do you fix an overly salted dish? Seems like one of the judges will always say "it's an easy fix" - but is it? You can dilute it, there was a shot of Angelo pouring more water(?) into his soup after the salt addition, but that will wreck the flavors too, right? I just wonder how it might have been saved.

Sad to see Angelo go. Sadder to see less interesting chefs remaining.

[matthew]

@Anon Man - Carla said it wasn't that bad, but she did waste too much time shopping for things other than her food.

As for next week, I'm concerned. Just as with the Italian challenge, Carla and Tiffany will be expected to shine. That's usually when something bad happens. I'm hoping for the best, and eyeballing Carla for cues. She really should play in the WSOP. She's got the best poker face I've ever seen.

[Independent George]

Mar - yes, you definitely wreck the other flavors & textures, especially with a potato soup which requires time & heat for the starch to thicken. The best he could have done would have been to first discard some of his soup, and then add the water and maybe some of his ingredients. I might even suggest using boxed potato flakes to replace some of the potato - yes, they're terrible, but it's faster than adding raw potato to replace the amount he would have discarded. It would have diluted the flavors, but by removing and then adding, he would have been replacing a smaller volume of water and reduced the cooking time vs just adding the water.

Milk instead of water might also have worked, as the sugars in milk would help cover rather than merely dilute the salt, but would have also clashed with the existing flavors rather than merely diluting them.

[JimD]

Count me in as one of those who would much rather see this challenge early in the season. Aren't the chefs exhausted enough by this point in the season without adding in yet another sleep-deprivation challenge? Or why not close Target early the next evening?

It's too bad Angelo didn't go with his sandwich shop strengths when he saw everyone else doing soup. I'll bet he could've come up with some nice and safe, yet tasty bites that would've kept him out of trouble.

Who saw 'amused Dale' - he was cocky and entirely unlikeable tonight. And did he even bake those cookies?

[bryanD]

It's official. I'm Carla'd out! (Sorry, Matthew, and God bless you all.) M-m-moving on...!

Curse those muppet-things. They made me laugh. Out loud.

Curse Bourdain for throwing his child ("parent-teacher conference") under the wheels of his critics. Stereotypical frog. (As 1/16 Leveque, I resent this regression to the mean.)

Tiffany stealing a hat reminded me of Katrina.

Angelo being sent home with all his aptitude is a Top Chef aficionado's tragedy.

Despite all this, the episode itself, as a package, was pretty good. The "bonus" TC site preview was a heartless spoiler. I fear for next season short of major production staff firings.

My power rankings:

1) Dale
2) Richard
3) Antonia
...and the rest!...here on Andy Cohen's Isle!

[matthew]

@bryanD - Don't apologize to me. You like you like. The Tiffany/Katrina comment was a but much, though.

[matthew]

"like WHO you like" I meant to say.

[matthew]

For the record, Carla told me that the contestants could use and wear anything in the store, they just couldn't take anything with them. So, Tiffany did not steal the hat. She merely donned it for the challenge. With or without that clarification, I'll say it again - the Katrina comment is (presumably) an attempt at humor that didn't go well, and is, quite honestly, offensive.

[Karen B]

Tiffany stealing a hat reminded me of Katrina.

umm, Bryan D what does that mean? I'm sure you don't mean what first comes to mind??????
Re: Mike,I withdraw my thought about his impact on Angelo-although it was weird to me how much Angelo was doing for him.

[Joanna]

I kind of saw it coming, but I'm still really, really sad to see Angelo go. I would love to see what he could come up in a finale when he's healthy!

And I really thought Antonia was going to win, and possibly deserved to do so. Obviously I couldn't taste the food, but to make 100 eggs on unfamiliar/nontraditional equipment at 3am and have them all come out perfectly? That is really an incredible achievement.

Anyway, Anon man, I think you just made my night. Seriously LOL-ing over here. "I substituted Velveeta for the butter and jalapenos for the peas and poured it over tortilla chips. I call it English Nachos." "The peas tasted like aluminum can and butter. "

[bryanD]

(WHEW! Good thing I didn't crash-out in a booze-soaked pile of dirty clothes before checking back here! Yikes.)

@Matthew: I cannot ignore your excruciatingly low-key reasonableness. (Are you a lawyer?)I apologize to you and yours for my dilly riff at Tiffany's expense. Tiffany in no way resembles the NOPD scum of Katrina days and so I apologize to her here, too. I'm sorry twice, at least.

Carla-Love reviving...reviving...

@Karen B: stuff it.

[Scott]

I know everybody thinks it's fine, but it bothers me when you have "top chef allstars" and the last three elimination wins are:

Mussels in white wine sauce
Chicken Pot Pie
Grilled Cheese and Tomato soup

It seems more like a chef making a mistake is losing instead of a chef creating great food and winning. I guess hoping for a recreation of season 6 and the latter half of season 7 was asking for way too much.

And I'm sure they all tasted like heaven on earth, but this is NOT what I am watching Top Chef to see. I want to see some insane ingredients, I want to see some great creativity. I love target, but there is no way in hell you can elevate a good meal out of Target ingredients. This challenge was way too open ended and I have no idea what being fatigued has to do with being a great chef. They have done this twice already this season! I don't want my top chef tired when they cook my food.

Now that I think about it, the first fatigue challenge eliminated Jen and now it eliminates Angelo when they both have lapse in judgement. This is really not what I watch Top Chef for. I am extremely disappointed.

Taking nothing away from Dale/Carla/Antonia though, they deserved their wins.

[Neil]

Extremely sad to see Angelo go as well. As Mike I said earlier in the episode, it really does seem like he's genuinely a good guy. Great exit interview also, and reminded me this season was shot right after his last one ended, where he was competing until the very end. I think he said he was away from home for something like 4 months. Add in a 3 am challenge in the peak of the grind (completely unnecessary) and its got to take its toll.

Other than that, I agree with some of the earlier comments that while it's fine to make great tasting comforting food, Top Chef (particularly All Stars) should merit more. I think a good amount of viewers watch the show to expose themselves to food that they would never be able to otherwise and that they can't see anywhere else on television. Here's hoping to see a final stretch similar to the ones the past two seasons have produced.

[Steve]

Angelo's departure is the only one that has hurt this season. He's been in the top more than anyone else so far.

I do hope Tiffany goes. She's due. Mike too. Unfair if the others don't make it.

[Nsam]

Apparently, the culinary producer of the show is now Sandee Birdsong, an also-ran from Season 3 (or also-also-ran. Or is that unfair of me? I don't know, that was before I watched TC regularly.)

[rab01]

Why in God's name did they have to start that challenge at Midnight to serve after 3:00 a.m.? Simply cooking gourmet food for 100 people out of the individual and family size cooking equipment you can find in Target was too easy? Starting the challenge at 9:00 to serve at midnight would have been too fair?

What's with this season and building sleep deprivation into the challenge? The only other time I can remember was wedding wars in season 4 so why the obsession with it for all-stars?

[EdT.]

Line of the night: when one of the judges (Bourdain? Ming Tsai?) asked if Dale was trying out to become an "Iron Chef".

Other line of the night, of course, being "TMI."

~EdT.

[Bart]

I don't understand why some of the contestants went to such lengths to make their tables look nice. The show mentioned Thomas O'Brien (or whatever his name was) and I thought there'd be a design component to the challenge... but that never materialized.

And I was shocked that Dale won. I mean, good for him, but I thought Richard or Antonia had it in the bag. And hey, season 4 represent in that EC.

[Nsam]

I've been paying attention to the cheftestants' tweets this season (although I haven't commented here about them at all, because it's VERY possible to glean spoilers from them if you read between the lines a little.)

Anyway a random thing I just noticed is that Thomas Keller has a Twitter account and he follows just 2 people: Grant Achatz and (drumroll, please)... Tom Colicchio.

Surprising, to me at least, because they're very different chefs and I'm not aware that they're close pals or anything like that. Moreover, I gather that Keller isn't an avid, avid TC booster or participant like Boulud or Dufresne have been, for example. Although he did finally appear during the Vegas season (even if in a truncated, non-JT appearance.)

Random observation, I know. Muppets and Tarjay didn't really do it for me, so I thought I'd just throw this observation out there...

[redpoint]

Richard claims he's not afraid of baking, but he didn't make a cookie, he had to do another insta-freeze. In this case, it was obviously not a good idea. It's getting really, really old. Somebody (else) should call him on it. (and Dale's was a cookie, even though it wasn't baked).

Loved Telly eating the tablecloth.

[paula]

Dale wins with a grilled cheese sammie and soup. Not only that, he wins $25K for it. I'm flabbergasted. (He didn't use canned soup, but he did used canned tomatoes. Nothing wrong with that, but seriously, making a good tomato soup is about as easy as it gets.) If anyone tries to tell me that's no different than chicken pot pie, I'll slug 'em. (Though it might not be more difficult than the mussels dish.)

Hey, at least he strayed beyond his comfort zone, right? No, wait...Asian food and stoner food. That's his comfort zone, so never mind.

Eh. I don't dislike Dale, but wow, this late in the game, and under those circumstances, it's hard not to feel like Antonia and Richard got hosed.

[Nsam]

Okay, what the heck, here's more. Here's a parlor game I like and maybe others will, too: who are the biggest names in the culinary world who have yet to make an appearance on the show? Meaning Americans, or people (is Robuchon a resident/citizen of the U.S.? I really don't know) who have ventures in the U.S. and thus have an interest in promoting themselves in the American media market (like Robuchon.)

I'm not talking about any of the Food Network people because am I correct that they are (or at least used to be) contractually prevented from showing up on competing shows? Yes, I know TC broke the cherry with Emeril S5, and now we have, ugh, Paula Deen, but like I said, I'm not getting into the rest of them.

TC finally got Robuchon and Keller (the 2 biggest gets they hadn't gotten yet(?)) for the Vegas season. And Jacques Pepin, my hero, the season before that. So the remaining holdouts are... Charlie Trotter? Alice Waters? Ducasse?

Also, as far as restaurateurs go, Danny Meyer is a pretty obvious omission, esp. now that we've had 2 seasons filmed in New York. But I gather that he's not likely to ever be on the show, because of his history with Colicchio.

Personally, I'd love to see Mark Bittman or maybe even Eric Schlosser.

Does anyone else muse about this kind of thing in the downtime between episodes?

[paula]

Just read Bourdain's blog, and it doesn't make me feel any better about Dale's win. But I do like this line: "Dick Cheney would blanche at some of the awful things we do these chefs."

And the video of Richard's Cookie Monster impression is well worth the price of admission. :)

Nsam, I'd love to see Alice Waters.

[timothy]

Alice Waters and Anthony Bourdain seem to have a fair amount of antipathy built up between them so maybe that's not going to happen. Hasn't he called her a fascist?

[Mnkygrl]

@Nsam

My memory is that Charlie Trotter judged a quickfire in Season six. Apparently both Voltaggio brothers have worked for him. Not sure about Ducasse...

[Erik N]

Charlie Trotter was on for the 'Pig & Pinot' challenge in Season Six. My wife's favorite episode ever.

[matthew]

@bryanD - How'd you guess (about being a lawyer, though I'm trying to make photography my full-time gig)? I tend to be very literal. I also have a degree in literature, so I probably read for implicit and explicit metaphors more than others might. Nevertheless, I have come to embrace my rather methodical, analytical approach to most things. I guess it does help that I'm pretty low-key.

@Bart - Carla is careful not to discuss some of the behind-the-scenes stuff, but I get the sense that there was some element of table presentation that was part of the challenge, but it appears to have fallen off. You can clearly see that some of the contestants went for presentation, even though they were told a designer would involved. This is purely conjecture on my part, but I wonder if the contestants thought they would be judged by O'Brien on their table presentation. Something appears to have shifted in the course of shooting. Maybe the producers didn't realize or account for how long it would take for the contestants to run around getting cooking equipment and food, and let the presentation component slide. I say this, because O'Brien's appearance on the show seemed a little out of place. Why else would they have brought in Ming, unless they were looking for judges on food and presentation? Just pondering.

Richards Cookie Monster impression (playfully taking a shot at some other contestants) was funny. We do get a window into Richard's mindset though. It's as if he expects to be on the top in every challenge, and gets worked up when he's not. It seems like Richard takes it personally when one of creations is not received well. I'm not criticizing, though, because I tend to process critical evaluation of my work in much the same way -- particularly my photography.

I would love to see Alice Waters, too!

[MCWolfe]

@Mnkygrl and Erik N, that was Charlie Palmer.

Personally, I like seeing the big names when they have some connection to the challenge, like the restaurant challenge early on where we had Wylie Dufresne, etc. I couldn't quite figure out why Ming Tsai was there last night.

I'm not a big Angelo fan but felt he went out with grace. As a proud member of the Hootie Nation, I fear for Carla next week but the elves fooled us this week so I'm hoping for the best.

[Independent George]

That was Charlie Palmer in S6, not Trotter. Trotter is in Chicago.

I'm personally not a fan of Alice Waters (I'm 100% with Bourdain on this one), but she does have the gravitas and would make sense.

[Anon Man]

Regarding Richard's QF, my recollection is that he's by and large used the Liquid Nitrogen and other gagetry more in QFs than in the ECs this season. Its as if he fiugres he'll try something zany when the stakes are relatviely low, and if it works, it works and collect the cash or immunity. If not, oh well, he'll just bang out something solid in EC. Black ice cream, frozen fondue and no bake cookie come to mind, and I know there are others. I'm trying to remember all the ECs, but seared/braised pork, straight up Ramen, breaded pancetta, RW (clever but not LN), fish challenge, etc. I seem to recall him using LN in one of the ECs, but by and large, he's not doing it there. So, I don't think its fair to say that he ALWAYS does LN, unless its to say he almost always uses them in the QFs. Like I said, my memory isn't complete, so if someone wants to point out some LN examples in the ECs, great.

@joanna, I'm glad someone else found that as funny as I did. There's an even better one for an idiotic Rachel Ray microwaved bacon "recipe".

@matthew, regarding the challenge, I got the sense that presentation was and then wasn't part of it as well. Weird, since it appeared the judges didn't even look at their tables. I don't get it. Could be bad editing, bad concept, or both. Carla survived, so we'll just put it behind us.

[nomnomnom]

Yeah, I'm not sure exactly why Dale got a free pass for salt and Angelo didn't. Also not sure what Blais had to do to win that one. Need to read the blogs to see what happened there.

This makes the 4 finalist choices a little more interesting at least.

[Joanna]

Re: Dale's winning cookie - I know one of the other chefs complained that he didn't bake anything, but he referred to his cookies as shortbread, which definitely implies they were baked. So I suffered through the awfulness of Bravo's site to find the recipe:
http://www.bravotv.com/foodies/recipes/pretzel-amp-potato-chip-shortbread-cookie-with-salted-caramel-chocolate-ganache

And it turns out he did bake his cookies after all, which makes me feel a little better about the fact that Richard was dinged for not really making cookies while Dale seemed to slide by. However, I do have to wonder how much his cookie idea was inspired by the compost cookie at Momofuku Milk Bar, which is a chocolate chip cookie with crushed pretzels and potato chips in the dough. I mean, it's delicious, and worth emulating, but perhaps not a completely original idea on Dale's part.

Either way, I have much more respect for what you do now, Dom. Just finding these recipes on the site each week seems to require a heroic effort, let alone trying to parse and analyze them!

[paula]

Anon man: I read the Paula Deen link and the Rachael Ray one, too. Hilarious stuff!

On the Waters vs. Bourdain thing, I wasn't aware of that. I just did a *brief* internet search, and I found where he quoted her as wanting to close all the McDonald's or whatever, but I didn't find an actual quote from Waters on that subject. I just found that Waters is working to improve school lunches and such, and of course she's an advocate for farm-to-table eating in general.

So is Bourdain against her advocacy for healthy school lunches, or am I missing something bigger?

[paula]

...and if Bourdain has any pull in whether someone as important and influential as Alice Waters appears on Top Chef, once again, imma gonna slug someone.

[Independent George]

nom(x3): Dale's seemed to be a bit too salty, but still tasty and edible. Angelo's was apparently salted like the fields of Carthage.

I feel bad for him, because I've made the exact same mistake on many occasions. I think everyone who cooks, whether professionals or home cooks, have done the same. You taste something, decide it needs something extra, and forget about the salt that's already in there. When you add bacon to anything, you have to plan on the salt from the beginning; you can't just throw it in at the end.

[Bill G]

Glad to see the degree-of-difficulty crowd in the forum is being consistent in their posts from week to week.
Happy to see Ming back.
Sorry to see Angelo go but no quarrel with the decision.
Dreading Paula Deen.

[matthew]

LOL @ Independent George's "fields of Carthage" quip! I'm on the floor.

The English Peas "recipe" is definitely making me shake my head.

[nomnomnom]

AB's issue with Waters is that her ideal of locavore actually can be counter productive for a large number of reasons. His new book covers this in detail and is worth picking up for that reason alone.

[paula]

Thx, nom. I'll have to check that out. I haven't read any of bourdain's books and I don't watch his show (I tried once, but I found his intro/voiceover kind of annoying), but this topic interests me a great deal.

[Peggasus]

God, I hated this entire episode. I hate the muppets (they are SOOO much more shrill and Disney-ish now than when my kids were little), and seriously? Like others have said, tomato soup and grilled cheese? Yeah, that's what my Mom made on Fridays during Lent in the '60s.

On another note, who doesn't know how to make a COOKIE? Sorry, but I think that's just some 'male chef' BS. Any young girl who was taught by her mother how to cook (REALLY COOK, ANYTHING) knows cookies. I can still make chocolate chips by heart, 40 years later. Sheesh.

[Bart]

@Peggasus: How dare you knock the Muppets. Them's fightin' words, pardner. *spits into spittoon*

[Independent George]

Blasphemer!

[Independent George]

Muppets make everything better. I'm in the office, staring at spreadsheets and VBA code. I can't help but think this would be so much easier muppets were involved.

[paula]

I think muppets could have done a better job writing this article I'm editing right now.

[Skillet Doux]

Peggasus... I agree that the Muppets haven't quite had the same magic since Jim Henson passed away (*snif*), but they're still pretty flippin' hilarious. And the energy and shrillness was, I think, entirely appropriate for the chaos of a quickfire.

Hooray for the Muppets!

[TxGriff]

I could be wrong about this, but wasn't the prize for the S6 Bocuse D'Or challenge $30,000 (in addition to being able to compete for a spot on the team)? So, that would mean the $25,000 prize last night was not the largest cash giveaway for a single challenge, correct?. I thought it was strange when Padma said that last night, but again, my memory could be failing me.

[Peggasus]

Ha, settle down now, boys! Thomas the Tank engine used to be better back then, too!

So there! (Shrill. Disney-ish. Too, too cutesy. Over-marketed. Muppet Babies? Seriously? I stand by my assessment.)

[TxGriff]

Ok, from Wikipedia:

Elimination Challenge: The chefs must prepare a presentation platter for the Bocuse d'Or with one protein (Atlantic salmon or lamb) and two garnishes.
WINNER: Kevin (Poached Lamb Loin, Sherry-glazed Golden Beets and Asparagus in Sunchoke Cream)
ELIMINATED: Eli (Sausage-wrapped Lamb Loin, Ras el hanout and Carrot Puree, Tomato-Piquillo Marmalade)
Winner's Prize: $30,000 and the opportunity to compete to represent the United States in the 2011 Bocuse d'Or.
Guest Judges: Jerome Bocuse; Thomas Keller, Daniel Boulud, Gavin Kaysen, Timothy Hollingsworth, Alessandro Stratta, Traci Des Jardins
Original Airdate: November 18, 2009

[BK]

I'd love to see Sandra Lee judge an EC.

JUST KIDDING!

[BK]

But seriously, who stole Top Chef and replaced it with Next Food Network Star?

[paula]

I admit, my heart died a little in the preview when Carla started enthusing over Paula Deen.

[KinderJ]

Just a quick note on the Waters v. Bourdain thing, expanding on Nomnomnom's summary a little.

Bourdain argues that, while Waters advocates many things that he personally supports, her arguments seem divorced from reality. Things like localvorism are great and all, but if microwaved dinners are your idea of haute cuisine, then organic leg of spring lamb from a farm less than 100 miles away is kind of irrelevant. One of the things Bourdain argues should be tackled first is that everybody attending school, regardless of gender, should be required to take a home ec. course. Learn how to cook eggs a couple of different ways, basic cooking techniques, creating food budgets, that sort of thing. By doing that you help people lower their food cost, eat healthier food, etc. It's not so much that he disagrees with a lot of Water's arguments, he just thinks that forcing people to live like 14th century peasants is a bit much.

I had some fun with this episode, but that Target segment annoys me more and more. The idea is that you can cook a great meal using just the stuff in a Target. Yay Target. The entire back half of the show is product placement. I get it. We all get it. And tacky though it is, annoying though it is, I can deal with it. I have plenty of stuff in my house from Target, not going to throw stones. But why did you have to make it at 3 am? Why did you give them such limited time to prepare? Carla running through the hallways looking for linen, distracted by pitchers, feeling the time slip away in a fog of sleep depravation and adrenal collapse- it's like some nightmares I had. Just horrible. I like grilled cheese and tomato soup, but Dale won that cash for his endurance, not his cooking skills. Not knocking his cooking skills, the guy is a beast, but this EC was designed to make chefs fail.

[Alamos Road]

Well, if there was any doubt, it's now official: Top Chef is no longer a cooking competition, just a bizarre ripoff of a Japanese game show. To go from Season 6 and the latter half of Season 7 to this? I'm outta here.

[bryanD]

"I'm personally not a fan of Alice Waters (I'm 100% with Bourdain on this one), but she does have the gravitas and would make sense."---Independent George

Whole Foods don't want no gravitas 'roun' he'ah!

http://www.counterpunch.org/cummins01282011.html

"How'd you guess (about being a lawyer, though I'm trying to make photography my full-time gig)?"---matthew

Oh, I'm smarter than I appear in print. "Photography?" Have attractive young people wear vampire fangs and poster-ize each moody image for consumer affordability. Girls can collect the guys and dirty old men can collect the girls! Ka-CHING!

"So is Bourdain against her advocacy for healthy school lunches, or am I missing something bigger?"---paula

Bourdain is a parrot picking on a semi-recluse. A safe target. (As opposed to Target, the store in which he sat obediently in his blue don't-hit-me sweater, like a flaming putz.)
Actually the only SPECIFIC critique of Waters by Bourdain that I can remember is that Waters doesn't know how to bank a fire, and so wastes wood while cooking. AND that her restaurant is too expensive, as if French farmhouse fare must be priced for French farm families---or something.

[Nsam]

"I'd love to see Sandra Lee judge an EC." Only if she makes her Kwanzaa Cake.

We joke, but in a world where Ms. Kwanzaa Cake is now the First Lady of my state and we're looking down the barrel of a Paula Deen TC episode, what is not possible? Whistling past the graveyard...

[Kim in Chicago]

http://www.bravotv.com/blogs/the-dish/four-top-chefs-named-james-beard-semi-finalists

Four were named James Beard award finalists. Stephanie Izard, Kevin Gillespie, Dale Levitski, and Kelly Liken

Awesome!

[Katherine]

Chiming in on the "who I'd like to see as a judge" parlor game ... Mark Bittman would be great. Eric Schlosser? I'm a huge fan of him as a journalist, but that's no indication of how he'd do as a judge here. I'd vote for Michael Pollan ("Omnivore's Dilemma"). Not to take anything away from her once-visionary take on American cuisine, but these days, Alice Waters takes herself way too seriously to stoop to a Top Chef appearance. I pretty much agreed with Bourdain's take on her in his last book; she's just too divorced from reality for her enormous ego to be considered charming (in the way Bourdain's sometimes is).

[paula]

"I pretty much agreed with Bourdain's take on her in his last book; she's just too divorced from reality for her enormous ego to be considered charming (in the way Bourdain's sometimes is)."

Oh, goodness. Biting my tongue. Ouchies.

Deep breath.

Moving on.

I like Michael Pollan, too. But I much prefer to see the chefs who practice what he preaches in the Top Chef context. It's so much more meaningful.

[Sweet Sue]

Independent George, your fields of Carthage quip was hilarious, worthy of Dennis Miller when he was funny.
I've had luck desalting stews and soups by cutting baking potatoes or cabbage heads in halves and pushing them down into the too salty dish. Some old Irish cookery trick that works if you, then, let the food bubble away for forty five minutes to an hour or so.
When I saw Dale make grilled cheese sandwiches with an iron, I rolled my eyes at that old wheeze.
Johnny Depp did it in "Benny and Joon" and it was kind of pathetic, but it's genius from Dale?
Antonia wuz robbed, I tells u.

[Nsam]

Oh, my mistake, actually I meant Michael Pollan when I originally wrote Eric Schlosser. Oops. Hard to keep all the lefty foodies straight. (No offense to lefty foodies -- I'm a fan!)

"Lefty foodie" might be redundant, though, yes? Because "righty foodie" is an eight-sided idiot. Oxymoronic.

Sorry -- I'm punchy.

And now for something completely different -- in Twitter news, Dale tweeted, "That was mean what i said about tiffany sorry Texas". I disliked Dale when he said that on the episode, so yay for him apologizing. But, hmm, wait now, is this Good Dale or Bad Dale writing? Apologizing to Texas but NOT to Tiffany?

Tone started getting really problematic to pin down starting even way back in the '90's with the emergence of that newfangled e-mail. (Also snark.) And now, in 140 character-limited Twitter mode, well, I throw my palms up.

[Independent George]

Though he would probably object to both designations, Tyler Cowen would qualify as a 'righty foodie' in most circles.

[Independent George]

My only regret regarding the QF was the absence of Swedish Chef.

Also, lost amidst all the Target discussion is that Kevin G's commercial was pretty good. I miss him.

[doktarr]

The QF was great TV, but not a great challenge from a technical perspective. It's no big deal, though, because it was just a straight cash prize and not for immunity.

Angelo's exit interview is possibly the classiest exit interview in Top Chef history. Just a fantastic perspective on the whole thing.

I really got to like Angelo in this season, to such an extent that I was sort of annoyed at myself (and the elves) for not rooting for him more in the previous season. All the sabotage stuff is ridiculous; this is a guy who acted like a total professional throughout the process, even when he was making mistakes. He's definitely an odd cat who marches to a different beat, but he's got passion for what he does, and I respect that.

It's frustrating to see Angelo go home in one of these bizarro challenges, but at the same time, the mistake seems so glaring that I don't see a need to excuse it. If Carla had gone home, that would have been a fairly clear case of going home because she was overwhelmed by the bizarre parameters of the challenge, but in Angelo's case, it was a simple matter of over-seasoning that did him in. It seems like a mistake that could have happened almost as easily in a relatively normal challenge.

It was easy to pick the top three in this elimination based on the reactions. Although I expected Richard to win (before judge's table), I don't see why we should dismiss Dale's dish as simple. Soup is a great test of ability to develop flavor (note that no other soup managed to reach the top) and his sandwich had grilled ribeye in it. It takes Moonen 11 minutes to do the recipie on video; that's a lot longer than many other winning dishes. This reminds me a bit of the epic Italian food debate we saw here recently - just because something has a sparse ingredient list and relatively short list of cooking instructions doesn't mean it's an easy dish to squeeze quality out of.

[Nsam]

Oh my God, oh my God, did anyone see this?? I'm sorry, I know everyone here must be sick of Kwanzaa Cake by now, but this is told by the woman who created the recipe for Sandra Lee.

http://www.eurweb.com/?p=71913

The Huffington Post removed the post. (Sandra has friends in high places, hmm, must be nice.)

[Nsam]

Thanks IG. And some Republicans did pop up on the DC season, like that wet-behind-the-ears congressman.

[Steve]

Just found out that Angelo took on All-Stars 2.5 weeks after Singapore. No wonder he burnt out. He had more wins than anyone else going into this week. :(

Still hoping that TC opens up a wild card slot for him.

[Redpoint]

I'm not a chef, but I am a home cook. I don't think I've over salted anything in the last 30 years. Maybe one of you who work in this industry can explain why it keeps happening in every episode. ( I do understand how it can happen in an over- reduced sauce)

[Independent George]

I'm not a fan of Sandra Lee, but that article was a cheapshot.

[Skillet Doux]

"Just found out that Angelo took on All-Stars 2.5 weeks after Singapore. No wonder he burnt out. He had more wins than anyone else going into this week. :("

Steve... you've now said this both about his wins and top appearances, and I'm wondering if I'm misunderstanding, because one isn't close to true, and the other is awfully misleading.

Through the first nine episodes, Angelo was tied for fourth in overall wins with 2 (same as Antonia). Richard and Dale had 5, and Carla had 3. He was in a three-way tie for second place in elimination wins with Richard and Dale. All three had two wins apiece (Carla had three). He didn't have any quickfire wins, tying him for last with Carla and Tiffany.

For top appearances, overall he was fourth with 7. Dale and Richard had 9, and Carla had 8. On quickfires, he was second to last with one top appearance, only ahead of Tiffany. The only place where he was a leader, stats-wise, was in top elimination appearances, where he was tied with Carla at 6.

So he didn't have more wins than anybody any way I can figure it. And he only had more top appearances if you cherrypick eliminations and ignore that he was tied.

Did I just misunderstand what you meant?

[Bart]

@IG: Yeah, I agree. I'm not going to get into the whole Sandra Lee thing (there's a whole 'nother post for that), but... had she never spoken up, everybody would have gone on to assume that it was Sandra Lee who devised the recipe, not whoever this lady is.

Now people are going to know that it wasn't Sandra who devised the Kwanzaa Cake after all. How does that help this lady?

[Dreamboat]

@IG, I agree completely. Basically this woman cries "I did it but it's not may fault! She made me do it!!" Um, yeah...my cheating X used the same excuse. I did not buy it then either...

Onto Paula and the quick fire. I would not be at all surprised if the challenge was sponsored by Campbells and the chefs have to make a casserole with cream of crap soup.

[Joanna]

@Redpoint: I am definitely NOT in the industry, but here's my limited insight to how/why it can happen. Salt is a flavor enhancer, meaning that adding it to food tends to bring out the flavor of that food. Adding more salt, in turn, brings out more flavor - but only to a point. Once you add too much, you stop tasting the underlying food and start tasting the salt itself. Perfectly-seasoned food should not taste salty, but it should be at a point where just a few more grains would take it over the hump.

So it's kind of a risky game - you can add less salt than this "perfect" amount and food will still taste good, but maybe not *as* good as possible. Or you can try to toe the line and aim for perfect, but you risk adding just that little bit too much salt, and that can be hard to recover from. To make it even more complicated, different people have different ideas of what the perfect amount of salt is -- one person's "underseasoned" can be another person's "way too salty."

For me personally, I have the most trouble when I'm salting something that I can't taste immediately, usually raw meat. I'm getting better, but the fact that a thicker piece of meat might need more salt than a thinner piece of the same overall size is something that I only got the hang of recently. My other downfall is salting marinades and dressings, since they aren't really supposed to taste good on their own. Though in both of these cases, I am as likely to undersalt as I am to oversalt.

I don't think this is necessarily what happened to Angelo, though. When Mike tasted his soup, he said that it needed "something." Angelo interpreted this as "more salt." But there are other factors that go into balancing flavors besides salt; maybe a little acid or some kind of fresh herb (if they have them in Target) could have brightened up the flavor and provided Mike's "something" while also helping with the heaviness that the soup seemed to suffer from. Of course, I'm just speculating here; I'm sure it also didn't help that he added bacon at the same time as the extra salt, since bacon is plenty salty already.

[kw819]

I think with this Tiffany takes over the "black hammer" role of the season. I had a sinking feeling it was going to be Angelo...what a bummer.

[Skillet Doux]

It's easy to be the black hammer when you're always on the bottom.

...

Okay, now I feel bad.

[bryanD]

"Four were named James Beard award finalists. Stephanie Izard, Kevin Gillespie, Dale Levitski, and Kelly Liken Awesome!"---Kim in Chicago

The James Beard Foundation is a racket. As I type this, thousands of James Beard Award "semi-finalists" wander the earth.

"I'm not a chef, but I am a home cook. I don't think I've over salted anything in the last 30 years. Maybe one of you who work in this industry can explain why it keeps happening in every episode."---Redpoint

Good question. Over-salting, double-dipping, throwing spices blindly. The more I think of this, the less annoyed I am that Angelo got sent home. THANKS!

[Lon]

When the three "winners" were announced for this episode, I had one of those moments where I said, "I think these are the three finalists." For Carla's sake, I hope not, but could be.

And I totally agree that these quirky challenges would have been better earlier in the season. However, scheduling is always an issue, especially when it comes to booking resturants and groups like The Muppets.

[foodiewannabe]

To be honest, I never particularly cared for Tiffany; either in her season or currently. That being said, I felt badly for her last night; when the camera panned on her during Angelo's good byes in the stew room; her facial expression was one of sadness. She was not gleeful at having survived another week; I think she was really prepared to go. Sometimes I forget that for the most part, these are very decent people subjecting themselves to this kind of competition, in order to further their careers in a very tough profession. The more I thought about this, the less annoyed I was at the elimination although I would have loved to see Angelo in the finals.

[doktarr]

Sous Chefs for next week:

Antonia - Spike
Mike - Tiffani
Tiffany - Marcel
Richard - Fabio?
Dale - Angelo??
Carla - Tre???

Not 100% on the last three there.

[timothy]

Here's the link to what I think is the first Bourdain reference to Alice Waters. (For the record, I like both of them, but I think I see his point.)

http://dcist.com/2009/01/chewing_the_fat_anthony_bourdain.php

Here's the part of the interview where he goes after her:
"I'll tell you. Alice Waters annoys the living shit out of me. We're all in the middle of a recession, like we're all going to start buying expensive organic food and running to the green market. There's something very Khmer Rouge about Alice Waters that has become unrealistic. I mean I'm not crazy about our obsession with corn or ethanol and all that, but I'm a little uncomfortable with legislating good eating habits. I'm suspicious of orthodoxy, the kind of orthodoxy when it comes to what you put in your mouth. I'm a little reluctant to admit that maybe Americans are too stupid to figure out that the food we're eating is killing us. But I don't know if it's time to send out special squads to close all the McDonald's. My libertarian side is at odds with my revulsion at what we as a country have done to ourselves physically with what we've chosen to eat and our fast food culture. I'm really divided on that issue. It'd be great if he [Obama] served better food at the White House than what I suspect the Bushies were serving. It's gotta be better than Nixon. He liked starting up a roaring fire, turning up the air conditioning, and eating a bowl of cottage cheese with ketchup. Anything above that is a good thing. He's from Chicago, so he knows what good food is."

[Katherine]

@timothy, thank you for posting that link.

@paula, please don't bite your tongue on my account! Just to clarify my views on this -- yes, Alice Waters was a visionary in her early advocacy for organic, seasonal, and locally grown produce. Yes, I heartily support her advocacy for healthier school lunches. But she does tend to go off the deep end at times in assuming just how easy it is to make these changes on a societal level, at a time when many low-income people lack access to markets carrying ANY decent produce, let alone seasonal, local, and organic. In the interests of full disclosure, I live in Berkeley, and have friends rather heavily involved in Berkeley's ground-breaking school lunch program. So my views on Alice Waters perhaps illustrate the old saying, "Familiarity breeds contempt." It isn't that I disagree with Waters' advocacy for these very worthy goals, nor do I dispute the important role she's played in the history of American cuisine. What I have problems with is the preciousness and the orthodoxy Bourdain speaks of. And, well, she DOES have a rather sizeable (albeit well-earned) ego! If you're interested in reading more about her, I'd recommend both "The United States of Arugula" (sorry, author's name escapes me at the moment) and "Alice Waters and Chez Panisse" by Timothy McNamee.

[timothy]

http://popwatch.ew.com/2011/02/17/anthony-bourdain-top-chef-all-stars-episode-10-blog/

Another Bourdain post about last night's show. I don't know if this has been posted elsewhere, but I thought I'd put the link up here. He has some complimentary things to say about Antonia, Dale, Richard, and Angelo.

[Nikki L]

I think Anthony Bourdain's idea about teaching people basic cooking lessons is great. The problem with food in this country is definitely a lack of education, and I think the growing interest in cooking shows and channels is at least a small help in fixing that. I have so many friends that years ago hated to cook and now love it because of shows like Top Chef and Iron Chef.

It's amazing what some basic cooking knowledge can do.. I watched an episode of Kitchen Impossible where a restaurant has astronomical food costs because everything they used was canned. Robert Irvine showed them how to make a menu full of new recipes that tasted better, were healthier and fresher, and much less expensive than the canned food they had been previously using. I feel like this same lesson could help thousands of people across the country who don't know how to cook and have small budgets.

[Kenny]

Paula, I have to agree with you. I started watching TC late in season 1, and this is beyond a doubt one of the strangest challenges I've witnessed. And while I wasn't wild about the Muppets, I'm thankful it wasn't the Teletubby's. Bourdain commented in his blog once about the alcohol at judges table, and it's not difficult to imagine an alcohol induced 3AM serving with top props going to an iron as innovation. (Huhuhuhuh, heheh, huhuh... he used an iron, huhuhuh..heheh) I know, I'm bitter cynical and jaded, but I'm still entitled to my opinion dammit! This was a ridiculous challenge.

[Steve]

Dom, Sorry about the confusion. I must have been tired when writing my posts.

I meant only to refer to his placing high in EC challenges. I edited the QFs out mentally without putting it in the posts. Since only ECs eliminate a player, I was only thinking of them.

I only meant that he had placed in the top tier of ECs more often then anyone else up till then. He was horrible at QFs.

[Independent George]

I can't take it anymore. I've got Muppet Fever, and the only cure is more muppets:

Habanera
Bohemian Rhapsody
Carven Der Pumpkin

[paula]

thanks, Katharine. I appreciate your perspective. I definitely read your first post wrong--which is why I bit my tongue, actually, because I decided that all the things that popped into my head about comparative egos, the importance of charm and Top Chef-worthiness might have been misplaced. :)

Oh, and two trivial things from the episode deserving of a shout-out: Did anyone else catch the lingering shot on Swanson Broth during the COOKIE challenge? That cracked me up. And I thought Kevin G. was quite amusing in his two ad spots.

[Kenny]

@Nikki, I love your points about cooking lessons, fresh produce and small budgets. And while I do profess to be a bit jaded of late regarding Top Chef, I do have to admit that after I started watching it I became much more engaged in the disciplines of the culinary art.

@Paula, I did notice the chicken broth, and thought Kevin was hilarious, and also cracked up at Padma... quite the actress there.

[infinity728]

@IG Well played, sir. But you forgot the ever classic Popcorn: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7UmUX68KtE&feature=related.

Also, I forget who said something about their soul dying in relation to Carla's Paula Deen-induced enthusiasm, but I would like to point out that that enthusiasm seemed restricted (at least in the preview) to excitement about Paula Deen's hair. Which is, at least, not soaked in butter. So there is that.

[Nikki L]

@Kenny Thanks! I've been watching Worst Cooks in America lately and I've learned a ton of new cooking tricks from that too. Whenever I'm cooking I can't stop thinking if my pan is hot enough before I put my meat or fish in it... it may seem basic to most people but as someone who has only been cooking a few years, I learn most things as I go and so I love picking things up from shows.

[timothy]

I am not defending the elimination challenge, but I am defending Dale's selection as winner. Given the challenge, he played really smart and he made good food. People wanted to eat it. He used a well-cooked protein, a classic comfort food, and balanced seasoning and spice. As for the iron, it really is that challenge's version of using a blow torch for creme brulee (sp?) or, for that matter, liquid nitrogen to make ice cream. He took an available technology, repurposed it in a way no one else did, and created perfect crust on the grilled cheese. Using an iron in and of itself is a gimmick, but using it to create that crispy outer texture, an essential component of grilled cheese, well that's good cooking. Yes, I was hoping Antonia would win because 100 perfect eggs seems harder and I like the sound of eggs and parmesan. But I am not sure that Antonia worked harder or made better decisions than Dale. He played smart and made good food, and I think he deserved to win.

[Kenny]

@timothy I think many are familiar with the iron for grilled cheese shtick. And to Dale's credit he whipped it out for a late nighter and used it to feed his audience for the parlay into 25K.

Angelo didn't seem to know who his audience was. Caught up in the 'late night, this is a horrible venue' saga he just whipped up some c$%^ coasting on the waves...

With the editing, it seemed that the iron was the winner and not the food.

[Independent George]

When I was a kid, I just never realized how good an actor you have to be to voice a muppet; Cookie Monster & Kermit are absolutely brilliant.

Nikki & Paula - I agree with the both of you about teaching people to cook, but I fear that in a lot of cases, the cooking shows only serve to make cooking complicated and intimidating. Dom's best point in his Sandra Lee post was that her "it's just too hard to do it from scratch" theory of cooking only reinforces that point even rather than demystifying it.

[The Janitor]

As a former maintenance person (thank heaven only in high school) the reason why the challenge started at midnight was that they were in a real, live, working store and it had to get cleaned up and restocked before the elves could start shooting. And from the blogs, it wasn't a small store. I bet the 100 employees were the crowd making the place look TV ready between when they closed (9? 10?) and midnight. It looked great. I'm sure the chefs weren't the only ones busting their asses that night.

As a food challenge, meh. As a commercial display for Target, they knocked it out of the park. But, while I shop at Target, I don't expect to buy myself a "sandwich iron" any time soon. I'd rather they leave the commercials to Kevin, Padma, and Eli.

[The Janitor]

The more I think about the Target challenge, the more frustrated I am with it.

This was one challenge where I wish someone had shown me how to sous vide with a Target Foodsaver. Or how to mix spices to make things better than a prepared spice mix (sorry Tiffany, I know it was late and you were rushed).

I wish we'd seen less of Dale's iron and more of what he did to make it all so tasty. Or how Antonia did knock out 100 perfect eggs.

Instead of thinking "I shop at Target, I can cook better with what I find there" my takeaway is to look elsewhere for cooking inspiration. Sigh.

[Scott]

I think I've come to a point where I feel like if Richard or Dale goes home for a similarly tacky challenge, this would be the worst season of Top Chef for me.

[Scott]

Also (sorry for the double post), but Top Chef really needs to watch how they do the exit interviews. When I saw tears in Angelo's eyes halfway through the show, my heart sank. It was honestly just a terrible feeling as a viewer. Maybe they should do the interview in the stew room before they receive judgement.

[nomnomnom]

The in-episode interviews have been really bad this year. I think, but I'm not 100% sure that they are shooting this season on a very tight schedule. That may account for so many "tells" in the in-episode interviews. They used to do those at the finale location at this stage in the game.

[paula]

IG: The mystery box clip rocks. "Arrivederci, frog!"

I'm like Nikki and Kenny, though: Watching Top Chef inspired me to cook more and cook better; rather than intimidating me, it showed me certain techniques and ingredient combinations again and again, which made me want to try them. that, and the critiques from the judges helped me learn more about what not to do.

And as Kenny said, it did seem a little like Dale's win was as much about the iron as it was about the food itself. Tom and Bourdain's blogs don't actually dispel that.

[mncharm]

"and that's why "logical" systems and trying to rate according to who might do best in the finale makes no sense at all. impossible to tell who'll actually get to the finale."

Uh oh...the power rankings police are out and I've been caught with my hand in the cookie jar...:)

Was surprised that Dale won -- seemed as if it was going in the direction of Richard/Antonia -- but I'm not going to knock him for making a "simple" dish (funnily enough, we did get the stoner food AND comfort food comparisons last night), just as I'm not going to knock Carla for making a "simple" dish last week.

Mystery Box is awesome. My 1 and 3 years old fall off the couch laughing when they hear "rump roast," their current favorite joke by a mile. How did we ever live without YouTube and iPhones?!

[mncharm]

"And as Kenny said, it did seem a little like Dale's win was as much about the iron as it was about the food itself. Tom and Bourdain's blogs don't actually dispel that."

I'm not picking that up from either blog -- both said that his food tasted best.

[paula]

I'm reading between the lines because it supports my theory. ;)

No, actually, it sounded to me like Dale's food was a bit better than Richard and Antonia's--not far and away better--but that they were impressed by his "clever" embrace of the iron as a cooking implement, which showed that he met the constraints of the challenge best. (or something like that.)

I'm not arguing that he shouldn't have gotten the win because he made such simple food; just that if it was a close race, which it sounds like it kind of was, I wish they'd given Antonia and Richard bonus points for degree-of-difficulty and for not playing it safe. But I know that's not how it works. Just a fan's dream...

[mncharm]

"they were impressed by his "clever" embrace of the iron as a cooking implement"

Were they, though? I'm trying to remember lines from the show and can't -- but i'm not seeing it in the blogs. Here's the closest thing in Tom's:

"The chefs understood that this challenge didn't require of them that they prepare high-end food. Dale made smart choices and his dish reflected them."

...and Bourdain's:

"But Dale? His dish tasted the best. Was executed skillfully and innovatively."

I'm just not seeing it, I guess.

I hear you on degree of difficulty, but at the same time, don't we then have to ding Antonia for mussels? Maybe even Carla for chicken pot pie? For me, I like that at the end of the day, the judges value flavor above all.

[rf]

I am most definitely in the minority but i didn't hate the elimination challenge. It may not have been an expose on great cooking but it was fair. Every chef had exactly the same time, equipment and food. This is quite different than when Fabio has to do a hamburger or the three who had to do pasta, or early on where the meat course in the museum challenge turned out to be a much larger handicap than the veg course. As for someone who said this has devolved into a japanese game show, well, it is a game show and has always been a game show. I get far more annoyed by the inane twists they throw out during the finale when it really should be all about the food, not the game, then i do about a mid-season target promo that was hard but at least fair. Look at the bright side, they don't sell liquid nitrogen at Target, so Blais had to be restrained.

Finally, i am pretty sure that spice rub that Tiffany picked up was a Tony Chachere creole rub. My friends from Louisiana love this stuff and use it most frequently in crawfish boils...

[paula]

Well, the mussels and the chicken pot pie came across as runaway winners, though. That's the difference (although, you know, elves and stuff...).

From Bourdain on Bravo:

"Richard's arepa, while ugly (and its appearance was not a factor in the judging in this case) was only slightly less tasty than Dale's soup and sandwich. Antonia's courageous and delicious soft-cooked eggs were only a hair behind Richard in their wonderfulness.

"But Dale? His dish tasted the best. Was executed skillfully and INNOVATIVELY [my emphasis]. And once again, hit that sweet spot with the judges as Dale figured out just right what four jaded palates might crave at 3 a.m. in an empty Target store in New Jersey."

Also, he blogged this on EW.com http://popwatch.ew.com/2011/02/17/anthony-bourdain-top-chef-all-stars-episode-10-blog/:

"Dale hit the flavor sweet spot. It was both delicious and clever. He used an iron, which showed us something special. He embraced the challenge and made something that was delicious, creative and smart."

So that's where I'm getting it. Also, it makes me sad that, again, this late in the game, the contestants were judged on what people eating in a Target at 3am would be craving. Why didn't they just take over a White Castle instead?

[mncharm]

Thanks for the link to the EW blog. Nonetheless, still seems as though taste carried the day. I think the problem with adding degree of difficulty, to a certain extent, is that you open judging up to even more criticism regarding subjectivity than it already is.

[paula]

I was just reading an article about yoga foodies (which I guess I am) over lunch, and I came across this quote:

"Many American yogis are so particular about what they put in their bodies that they make Alice Waters look like Paula Deen."

Kinda funny considering the thread this week!

[twelden]

I am enjoying all of the muppet love here (great clip IG), much more than I enjoyed this episode. If you love the Muppets, be sure to check out Muppet Wiki (http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Muppet_Wiki). It is the go to source for all things Muppet. When I first found this site, I ended up spending way too much work time checking up on my favorite characters. I particulary enjoyed the story of how the Swedish Chef came to "be", watched clip after clip of his kitchen disasters, and spent days humming his theme song and laughing everytime I sang ""Børk! Børk! Børk!" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLqohiMy_CU&feature=player_detailpage)

[Danielle]

The most recent foodstuff I've purchased at Target was a three-pound bag of Haribo gummy bears.

Having read this NYT piece (see below), I can't see Alice Waters ever agreeing to appear on Top Chef unless, maybe, unless they shot an episode on her (literal) turf and played by her rules. But still, time constraints? "Fast" food?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/19/dining/19wate.html

"Back at my place Ms. Waters insisted we unpack and spread out everything on the dining room table, to take stock of what we had and to make a plan. It took almost every dish, basket and bowl I had. Ms. Waters just sat with it all for a while.... Then she called her daughter, Fanny Singer, to tell her how pretty it all looked."

It sounds like Carla in the Target minus the panic.

[twelden]

And just because this episode was so heavy with soups, none could have topped this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=j1KSaUEu_T4. No more Muppet links, I promise.

[mncharm]

I must say, although at first finding Angelo creepy during season 7, he grew on me this season. Funniest moment has to be nutting Mike I with a cucumber at the farmer's market in the fishing challenge. That's tried and true physical comedy right there.

[Polybus]

@paula "Why didn't they just take over a White Castle instead?" Not a sponsor, but I wouldn't rule it out for the future.

So, I just read through the entire thread. No kidding. I love the Muppets and really enjoyed them in this episode, but I'm not sure I like them as judges. The Quickfires really have little meaning this season.

I liked the Target challege, but I don't like it this deep in the season. It's too easy to lose someone like Angelo. I got to like Angelo, just like I did Fabio, much more in All-Stars than I did during their seasons. Pursuant to an earlier comment, I actually liked Tiffany more last season than this and it seems like she's just holding on psychologically and really more than ready to go. As a big S4 fan, it's good to see Richard, Dale and Antonia going deep, but Dale is very up and down, whereas Richard and Antonia seem to be rock steady. Even though Dale got two wins in this episode, I'm not comfortable moving him above Richard. Carla is also up and down, so I have her fourth, followed by Mike and Tiffany.

TC has also inspired me to try a number of dishes I never would have before I got hooked on the show. In fact, I cook more in general than I used to and I certainly use more fresh ingredients.

I think that Bourdain should open a restaurant called The Haight Cafe. It would be open from 10PM to 4AM and only serve Stoner Food. French fries covered with chili and monterey jack, chocolate chip banana pancakes drowning in strawberry syrup, corndogs made with kielbasa, mustard and horseradish in a pool of catsup, and wedges of iceberg lettuce with cherry tomatoes and apples drowning in bleu cheese dressing.

Frozen snickers. Tony knows what I'm talking about.

[bryanD]

"Sous Chefs for next week:
Antonia - Spike
Mike - Tiffani
Tiffany - Marcel..."---Doktarr

Even I feel sorry for the losers being dragged out each season from their isolation chamber and made to do flips in the street. And also for the Chosen stuck with the lesser of these. (Antonia + Spike looks STRONG, by the way...IMHO.)

"Here's the link to what I think is the first Bourdain reference to Alice Waters."----timothy

Thanks for the link. Of course, Bourdain's autumnal Alice Waters Problem coinciding with Bourdain's lucrative career as independent contractor to energy-invested conglomerates has nothing to do with it. Let's face it: the "nutty"(TM) paleo-hippie, Ms. Waters, is one of the few remaining Big Names willing to even imply that America's practical investment in petroleum-based fertilizers and insecticides pervert the end product that we all eat. Thus the casual innuendos far and wide. I foresee more "peanut allergies".

"Bourdain commented in his blog once about the alcohol at judges table, and it's not difficult to imagine an alcohol induced 3AM serving with top props going to an iron as innovation. (Huhuhuhuh, heheh, huhuh... he used an iron, huhuhuh..heheh..."---Kenny

Yep. Clothes iron trumps paninni press or George Foreman grill! *Summoning Marshall McLuhan!* Dale's cool! Never mind Dale's sexy inefficiency. (What's the definition of "chef", again?)

"I've been watching Worst Cooks in America lately and I've learned a ton of new cooking tricks from that too. Whenever I'm cooking I can't stop thinking if my pan is hot enough before I put my meat or fish in it."---Nikki L

Nikki L., (Do you like fried rice? Rhetorical question!)
Below is the only NON-BOGUS fried rice recipe I've ever come across on the web or tv or in books. Note WHEN and HOW egg meets rice. Apparently, this First Step is some kind of trade secret or something...which "foodie" and "recipe" sites are happy to hide...shamelessly. DRUIDS!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-LF2xAkff4

[jh]

@bryanD- Interesting about the fried rice recipe. I like to add a lot of veggies and some protein to mine. It's actually my go to recipe when I have leftovers. The way I was taught, I add the scrambled eggs to the pan, and while it is runny, add in the rice. Don't add some beforehand like the video. I might have to test that out. Also, I tend to like my fried rice on the crispy/drier side, and day old rice is best way to go (many Chinese restaurants do this, actually).

[ri]

BryanD: Did you seriously just suggest a vast conspiracy between Bourdain and the petroleum industry? In what world is that even a coherent thought, let alone true?

Let me lay out what I've seen is Bourdain's problem with Alice Waters.

- Earlier someone mentioned that Bourdain disliked Alice Waters for improperly using a wood fire to cook. What Bourdain actually criticized was Alice Waters demonstrating "sustainability" by cooking an egg over a wood fire. Wood fires use an immense amount of energy for their actual output and are in no way energy efficient or sustainable. On top of that, it was such an excessive amount of energy to cook a small amount of food as to go far beyond hypocritical.

- Alice Waters ideas of sustainable farming literally cannot work for a population the size we currently have. Not only would it not produce enough food for our current population, it would vastly drive up food costs to levels most people could not sustain, and still would not insure quality products reach most people. Here's the reality of our world - there are many places that are better suited for agriculture than others. This is also true of dairy and meat production. It basically comes down to a single clear fact - size brings efficiency. The cost of running a single giant farm is much greater than many small farms and will produce vastly more produce. Not only that, but the manpower needed to produce agriculture is vastly reduced. Despite what Alice Waters may believe, this is actually a good thing. It's inefficient from a market perspective to have half of your population producing agriculture and to revert to that would not only set back any country centuries, it is not even sustainable. This is basic human geography.

On top of that, take into consideration the average wage of most people. It is more expensive to produce organic produce, it's more expensive to grow local, and it's always going to be sold at a premium. For most low to mid income families, it's not affordable. If you want to get people to eat healthier, paleotization of the food market isn't going to make that easier.

If you want to argue for some changes of the food market, I certainly won't disagree. But while Alice Waters can announce herself as the queen of sustainability, her ideas only work on a small scale and require such a degree of separation from poverty that it could never be replicated on a wide scale. I don't disagree with Bourdain for arguing those points. They make sense and represent a real problem with Alice Waters arguments.

I personally don't like her because she's a pill, but to each their own.

[Cooper]

Just gotten through reading all the comments and I have no need to voice my opinion on the Muppets, Waters v. Bourdain, or using irons as cooking devices.

I *do* want to say how sorry I am to see Angelo leave for such a basic mistake. Really unfortunate, but given the circumstances and fatigue they were dealing with, totally understandable. It was one time when I wanted the judges to look at comprehensive talent and offerings versus a single dish. Alas, that's not how the game is played.

How adorkably nerdy was Angelo's outfit? Shorts, black knee highs, and white gym shoes. I was cracking up at the sight of him at judge's table.

Kevin G. was awesome in his Target spots ~ so good to see him!

In defense of Target, their new expanded grocery offerings are great. They compare favorably in quality and price to my local grocery store and I find myself getting more and more of my food purchases there.

[drl]

@Polybus How is Antonia more rocksteady then Dale? She has had more bottom finishes then him

[jh]

@drl- She does have more bottoms, but most of the time was never in danger of going home and was often on a losing team with a decent/great dish. Dale has more bottom finishes recently and his bottoms were on individual challenges.

You can argue the rocksteady part either way.

Antonia's bottoms:

Ep 2: Team challenge. Technical errors with the oven.
Ep 5: "Team challenge" (everyone failed). Cooked one good dish. Errors with Jamie's and her bean dish. Contributed to Casey chicken feet.
Ep 6: Team challenge. One of the best dishes of the night.
Ep 7: Team challenge. Restaurant wars. Over-reduced sauce, but had some good points.

Dale's bottoms:

Ep 8: Bad pasta dish.
Ep 9: Over salted.

Sometimes I wonder how bad the "bad" dishes really are. I remember in S6, the judges (and/or LeAnne) were saying that the some of the losing dishes would have won in past seasons. I wonder if it is the same this season for some of the challenges. I recall the contestants saying as they were returning to the stew room about the judges were down to "nitpicking."

[Polybus]

@drl "How is Antonia more rocksteady then Dale? She has had more bottom finishes then him"

Thanks to jh for breaking it down.

It's all arguable. It's just that for me, I have never once felt that Antonia was even close to going home, but Dale has now stood on the precipice twice and just barely got pulled back. And even though I don't put much stock in this season's QFs, Dale has racked up a few really spectacular failures there, as well.

You could equally argue that when Dale is on, his dishes have been significantly better than Antonia's and you would be making a great point. I just feel like when Dale crashes, he makes a noise. The same thing happened in S4 and Antonia putted right past him to the finals.

[drl]

@jh & Polybus I was coming on to post a mea culpa and take back what I said when I saw your posts. I eventually did remember that Antonia has been unlucky with team assignments.

I would rate Antonia, Carla and Dale about equal. Richard just seems insanely overrated at this point. Mike I's strength is to be consistently mediocre which is why he has lasted so long, but also why he has no chance of winning. Tiffany is a reminder that one can go pretty far by always making the second worst dish.

I don't really take past seasons into account, were far enough into this season that info from previous seasons is borderline irrelevant.

[bryanD]

"I might have to test that out."---jh

Yeah, it's a goodie. It coats ALL the rice and the spices cling to it permanently.

"BryanD: Did you seriously just suggest a vast conspiracy between Bourdain and the petroleum industry? In what world is that even a coherent thought, let alone true?"---ri

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6718420906413643126#

"Let me lay out what I've seen is Bourdain's problem with Alice Waters."---ri

That's all nice and risible. This is more illuminating: (Imagine a timeline.)

Point A. Bourdain wallows in writing and speech that the eccentric Alice Waters is essentially a nut.
Point B. Bourdain and Waters meet in public and Bourdain folds. Bourdain shortly afterwards concedes Alice Waters is essentially correct and/or harmless in her food and lifestyle philosophy.
Point C. Bourdain wallows in writing and speech that the eccentric Alice Waters is essentially a nut.

[Duffy]

Wouldn’t Dales dish qualify for a Sandra Lee award? Some cans of tomatoes, three other ingredients, add cream, then mix, dump, boil and serve. Voila!

Of course it tasted great – it was the middle of the night, and it had a boatload of bacon.

[BK]

Stephanie's Girl and the Goat got a rave review from Saveur:

http://www.saveur.com/article/Travels/Restaurant-Review-Girl-and-the-Goat/1

[timothy]

Regarding the idea that Dale's soup was Sandra Lee quality because of the canned tomatoes. I wonder if this notion is anything like previous Skillet Doux threads about dry pasta versus fresh. I know it isn't exactly the same, but I think some times canned tomatoes taste better than fresh if it isn't tomato season and/or good, ripe tomatoes are unavailable. I wouldn't say tomato soup from canned tomatoes is hard to make, but there still is the business of balancing flavors and getting the consistency right, so I would give him more credit that I would give Sandra Lee. I have made pasta sauce with fresh tomatoes and I have made it with canned, and I wouldn't say fresh is automatically always superior. But maybe that's just me.

[bryanD]

Oy vey! What was I thinking linking a 4-hr documentary above.

My last word on the subject.

Below is the government consultancy which categorizes all citizens as *consumers* and all consumers into *types* in the name of instilling "consumer desires" over finite, real "consumer demand" in the marketplace. Consumer Desires must be constantly created and recreated by psychological means via "motivational research". As Alice Waters does not fit into the SRI consumer-type pattern book, she becomes a dangerous Archetype. That's the Motive for Alice-bashing on such a grand and ridiculous scale.

http://www.sri.com/

Also, on youtube, one can find the 60 Minutes story of which I assume Bourdain's jab at Water's firewood wastage stems. Actually, to ME, the wood fire seems to be made up of wood refuse such as limbs that fall off trees in a good wind. Or trimmings. Also, I had forgotten: Alice Waters IS America's first celebrity chef. (She certainly predates the establishment's "first" celebrity chef, Wolfgang Puck by several years. Also, to Bourdain's chagrin, Waters actually LIVED the "sex and drugs" and France, etc while Bourdain was wrecking restaurants from within.

"Stephanie's Girl and the Goat got a rave review from Saveur"---BK

Congrats to S. And what DOES that horrid name mean???

[Independent George]

Timothy - you're completely right. Canned tomatoes are often preferred over "fresh" supermarket tomatoes, as they are cooked at their peak instead of being picked early and then transported before they are ripened. Different brands have different qualities (America's Test Kitchen recommends Muir Glen, and I trust them completely), but the point is, unless you're at a farmer's market in July, you're usually better off with a good quality can. For the same reason, if you don't much care about texture (like with a sauce, or a soup), frozen fruits & vegetables often give you a better flavor than fresh.

Congrats to S. And what DOES that horrid name mean???

Izard is a type of Pyranees goat; the original name was going to be 'The Drunken Goat', but that was already trademarked.

[nomnomnom]

Ugh. As if this season can't get any worse it looks like after 3 weeks of very simple food we get two consecutive weeks of helper chefs. Next week is set to have the off chefs and the following will feature the return of former champions.

I figured they would save the former champs till the finale. Oh well. Maybe we'll get a Season 3 type finale helper setup.

[doktarr]

ri - This is dangerously close to a political discussion, but quickly:

- Purely from a market perspective, the massive subsidies from the farm bill distort things and further stack the economic deck in favor of a certain forms of agriculture.

- There's a whole host of externalities (i.e. costs not reflected in the price) associated with factory agriculture, from carbon emissions in fertilizer production, water contamination from feedlots and soil runoff, carbon emissions from transportation, and road wear from transportation. If these prices were internalized, the difference in price between local/organics and industrial agriculture don't disappear completely in most cases, but they narrow considerably.

- There are public health concerns with the way industrial agriculture works, from the overuse of antibiotics (seriously, why can an entire feedlot get prophylactic antibiotics, but I have to go get a perscription?) to general sanitation concerns (as evinced by the regular salmonella outbreaks).

Now, contaminated meat/dairy/eggs are hardly unique to industrial agriculture, but when your screw-ups have as widespread consequences as those screw-ups can have, you should be held to a higher standard. A little more transparency/openness would go a long way.

[bryanD]

"Next week is set to have the off chefs and the following will feature the return of former champions."---nomnomnom

"Just when I thought I was out... they pull me back in!"---Michael Corleone

(I hope everyone realizes that, in the extremely unlikely chance that Harold Dieterle should appear as "helper", the world will end in T-minus 30 seconds EST.)

[bryanD]

@doktarr:

Well put.

[KinderJ]

Doktarr- Cost allocation is a huge and highly complex issue, and I was glad to see you raise it here. Its a problem without a silver bullet, and I wish much more was being done about it. I do believe that the FDA now has the power to order a recall, and new product tracing requirements are being put into place. That will certainly help the on transparency, but how you price, say, phosphate runoff into the tomato market as a whole, or just Florida etc... Well, like I said. No silver bullets.

Bryan D- The issue regarding wood burning stoves is not so much the source of the wood as the fact that it is wood, as opposed to gas or electricity. It's a pretty inefficient way of producing heat. The byproducts can be dangerous- blindess as a result of woodsmoke from cooking fires is pretty common in some parts of Africa. And the simple fact is that most people don't have a wood burning stove, or know how to cook with it. I have no problem with Waters doing a farmhouse special with a wood burning stove. It could be good, for all I know. It's just that it bears little tangible relation to how things are cooked today, and is a terrible argument for a future fuel source.

[jh]

In terms of local farming and sustainability, for those that don't think it can't be done on a larger scale, should look into Wal-Mart, the world's largest grocer. Once you sort through the facts and PR spins, bottom line is that if it weren't cost effective, Wal-Mart would not do it.

Another thing to consider, money earned by small/medium local farmers helps return money to the local economy.

[redpoint]

Since when are canned tomatoes a suspect food? That's ridiculous.

[Lon]

How close are we to the finals? I'm ready. I wonder if they "gapped" the regular taping and the finals like they've done on other seasons? Or if they shot straight through to the final episode? I think the latter.

Actually, I'm getting kind of bored. For an "All-Star" season, the recent challenges have been pretty unworth. The season started out so great with the restaurant challenges, but since Restaurant Wars, the general level has been proceeding downward. Hence, my desire for the finale episodes.

[Steve]

Easy rankings for me this week:

1. Dale
2. Richard
3. Carla
4. Antonia

5. Mike

6. Tiffany

[tennischef]

Re: Alice Waters, first celebrity chef.

I would suggest James Beard was America's first celebrity chef; he first appeared on TV in the late '40s and was the "go to" guy for all things culinary for many years, both in written form and multi media. (He even had a radio program on cooking). Julia Child has to be considered at least number two. Wolfgang was still at Maison in LA up till around '83 whereas Alice W started Chez P in the 70's. Chef Waters was well known in SF and California, but I would also suggest that it was some of her disciples that brought her national attention after they started their own places, in particular, Jeremiah Tower at Stars. His promoting of "California cuisine" helped turn the spotlight back on her. Louis Szathmary of the Bakery in Chicago might also be considered one of the first celeb chefs due in part to his cool 'stash.

[paula]

In my mind, there's a difference between a "celebrity chef" and a "cooking personality." James Beard and Julia Child were certainly famous and influential, but they came to prominence via their cookbooks, not via running and cooking in their own restaurants, like Waters. I don't know that it's a distinction worth making, but it is a distinction.

[doktarr]

@KinderJ,

OK, last post on this subject, because I'm almost surely breaking Dom's rules at this point. But the "silver bullet" is to use taxes and user fees to internalize the costs.

If you make the highway system self-funded through tolling, you internalize the road wear costs.

If you institute a carbon tax (or an all-auction carbon permit), you internalize the carbon output from fertilizer production and transportation.

The toughest one is the runoff issue. This could be handled through a property tax assessment, though. It's just a matter of having a well-designed rubric for determining cost. Things like this are already done on some scale - I pay a storm runoff bill to the city of Denver that is indexed to the percentage of non-permeable surfaces on my property, so it goes up if I put in a big concrete porch. Similarly, you could have a scoring sheet based on the farming practices and the number of animals on the land, and assess runoff fees based on that.

Yes, these are all taxes, and yes, all of these costs end up getting passed on to the consumer. But the government has to get revenue one way or another, and getting it these ways (all of which actually correct market failures) all seem superior to income taxes.

[bryanD]

@tennischef: Good points re: Tower and the flow chart.
However, Waters' establishment predates Tower's and the Coming of Alice coincides EXACTLY with the post-1968 inward-turning of the "hippie"- and youth movements AWAY from politics and TOWARD holistic studies of myriad kinds. This is expressed in her food philosophy which in turn is expressed in her resaurant and that philosophy hovers over everyone in the American fine dining biz to this day...except for retrograde additive clowns--the you-know-whos.

And I'm with Paula viz attributes. Heck, Child on her later shows with Pepin mentions how she has preferred NOT to do things in a certain old way? Alice-influence, maybe via Tower, or Puck, etc? Probably, yes.

Beard an interesting fellow and a caution against being too celebrity. He became a hired name to corporations without considering too carefully the effect on his legacy. BTW, Bird-Eyes frozen foods? Good product. Some of those canned and bottled products he endorsed? BLECCH.

[Nikki L]

@bryand - thanks for the fried rice link! I feel like I always put my egg in at the wrong time...

[bryanD]

@ Nikki L:

Bitte schon! The primary "egg rice"-prep component solves the enigma: WHY are their STILL bland, white grains in my fried rice @#$%??!

[ri]

@bryanD: If that's your argument about the meat industry you really are just arguing a strawman because Bourdain has stated pretty much that exact argument in his books, blog, show...pretty much anywhere he can. While he doesnt argue that all livestock should be Kobe, he does say he is disgusted that meat can be treated with ammonia, that he would gladly pay more to reduce antibiotic use, have better compliance and contamination testing, since no real enforcement exists. He doesn't argue that the entire system should be overturned like Alice Waters wants, because what Alice Waters wants is a fantasy. It exists no where in the first world, simply because it cannot.

I lived in the Netherlands and if you want fruit, well you aren't buying local. If you want grains, again you can be sure they are not grown local and probably coming all the way from the Ukraine. Sure the dairy is local, but everything that supports the cows has been imported for over 5 centuries now. The externalities of factory farming exist, but you are still completely ignoring the extreme difference in efficiency per acre/labor, lack of suitable temperatures and land for farming, and dozens of other real factors that make the use of large farms and imports necessary for sustainability of the population.