| 1 |
Paul |
|
Quickfires |
1
|
1
|
1
|
| Last Week: 1 |
|
Eliminations |
1
|
2
|
0
|
One bright and sunny spot was Paul, who makes me feel better and better about starting him at number one with every recipe I see. Fried Brussels sprouts and grilled prosciutto, right? Check out the recipe. That'd be fried brussels sprouts and grilled prosciutto paired with peaches, set atop a curried creme fraiche, dressed with a reduction of ginger, garlic, green onion, Thai chiles, sugar and apple cider, and garnished with basil and candied pine nuts. It's wildly creative but it looks like it plays simply, and despite the far-flung ingredients and funky pairings, at its heart it's accessible. Let that be a lesson to the rest of the field when staring down the filet and gummy bear set.
|
|
| 2 |
Sarah |
|
Quickfires |
0
|
1
|
0
|
| Last Week: 4 |
|
Eliminations |
1
|
2
|
1
|
With the cochinita pibil debacle two episodes behind her (one for which I'm willing to let Lindsay take the fall if Sarah continues to do well), Sarah seems to have regained her footing nicely and has been one of the stronger performers over the past couple of episodes. And her artichokes looked very elegant and refined. She poached the artichokes with wine, lemon and herbs and finished them on the grill. Then she plated them with a puree made from wine-poached dates, lightly marinated bufala mozzrella and zucchini, and pecans. In terms of flavor it's very straightforward, but it shows a lot of finesse, which is precisely what you'd expect given her background.
|
|
| 3 |
Heather |
|
Quickfires |
0
|
1
|
0
|
| Last Week: 2 |
|
Eliminations |
0
|
1
|
0
|
I'd like to ding Heather more for the overcooked lamb, but it's hard to when that's basically all we know about what she cooked this week, and there isn't exactly a pack of kick ass dishes breathing down her neck. She stayed out of the bottom, though it sounds like only narrowly. Still, if not for that one comment, we have absolutely nothing to go on. That combined with a weak showing from almost everybody means she basically treads water even though she probably doesn't deserve it.
|
|
| 4 |
Chris J. |
|
Quickfires |
0
|
0
|
0
|
| Last Week: 3 |
|
Eliminations |
0
|
1
|
1
|
Ditto Chris J., though this one bothers me even more. But still, who do I move past him? Dakota, who since her inaugural quickfire win has made a good dessert and a bad dessert? Beverly, who was on the bottom twice last week and largely invisible this week? Edward, whose dessert -- stylish though it looked -- got a cool reception in Gail's blog? Lindsay, who can apparently do wonders with Vienna sausages and sterno, but who can't make a cochinita pibil despite having cooked in Mexico for three years? You see my dilemma. Chris got carried away. He got carried away in exactly the fashion I'd expect somebody who came out of Moto to get carried away -- too in love with the idea to stop and consider whether it's a good idea. Incidentally, I'm not even certain whether it's HIS idea. Moto has been serving a "Cuban Cigar" for a number of years -- going back to late 2008, I believe? -- the creation of which Chris may or may not have had a hand in since he's been there since 2007. But what's doubly puzzling is that Moto's Cuban Cigar is a Cuban sandwich. Get it? A Cuban Cigar. Which if nothing else, is witty. But this version didn't even have the joke going for it. Though it's frustrated me, I have a certain respect for the fact that Moto is a crazy idea laboratory. But crazy ideas won't fly on this show unless they're smartly developed and well-excecuted. Doing so can win you the title. See Richard Blais. But as Blais himself has said, sometimes the hardest thing is knowing when to edit. For Chris' sake, hopefully this is an early reminder that he's going to have to do a little more editing.
|
|
| 5 |
Dakota |
|
Quickfires |
1
|
1
|
1
|
| Last Week: 6 |
|
Eliminations |
0
|
1
|
0
|
I'm a little surprised to see this myself. First off, I don't care about the bottom appearance in the quickfire. You didn't work wonders with ramen noodles, canned crab and pineapple juice? I'm okay with that. Her dessert plate was busy, yeah, but unlike Chris C's, it had unity. It was unabashedly all about the banana, and the judges dug it. And in a field where precious few are standing out with any consistency, besting everybody in the inaugural quickfire and making a top appearance this week with dessert earns you position number five, apparently. I suppose another way to look at it is to say that she's won with every individual savory dish she's cooked. Doesn't make me feel better about having her at number five, but I suppose I could argue it in court if I had to.
|
|
| 6 |
Beverly |
|
Quickfires |
0
|
1
|
1
|
| Last Week: 7 |
|
Eliminations |
0
|
1
|
1
|
To me, Beverly's one of the more intriguing players in the field. She had a rough week last week, but not for reasons that completely freak me out. And this week, the little comments around the fringes suggest that her elimination dish was one of the better ones. It wasn't Korean, for those keeping score. Cantonese, actually, featuring XO sauce, which popped up in Hong Kong in the '80s, a sort of oily chile sauce made with dried seafood. I adore XO, it's a natural pair for a seared scallop (fresh scallop, dried scallop), and I'm curious about the polenta pairing but I can see it working in my head. No recipe, sadly. But getting dinged for not cooking her Anaheim chile aside, she's gotten a mostly warm reception when doing her thing, and I like the look of some of these dishes. And lord knows she's driven. I have a hunch her trajectory is going to be boom or bust, and I'm betting on the boom coming first.
|
|
| 7 |
Edward |
|
Quickfires |
0
|
1
|
0
|
| Last Week: 8 |
|
Eliminations |
0
|
1
|
0
|
Like most everybody else here, it seems, I really liked the look of Edward's dessert -- a cardamom panna cotta with cantaloupe consomme and basil pudding-stuffed raspberries. It looks light, clean and refreshing. But Gail was unimpressed, describing it as "mediocre" in her blog interview. Still, he got top mention in the quickfire, for what that's worth, and he's still kind of stalking the leaders, so we'll basically leave him where he is for another week. Incidentally, I'd like to take this opportunity to call on the elves to release the footage of Kari Klower expressing surprise that Nyesha's filet was "kind of meaty" and the desserts were "kind of sweet."
|
|
| 8 |
Grayson |
|
Quickfires |
0
|
1
|
0
|
| Last Week: 12 |
|
Eliminations |
0
|
2
|
0
|
There have been calls to put Grayson much higher than she's been, and I understand why. I mean, there have been six challenges and she's been on top three times. But the nature of those top finishes bugs me. Throw out her chicken mole. If she'd been on the losing team, that might've sent her home. I don't want to shortchange what looked like a very nice dessert, but still... you aren't going to win this thing with dessert. Which leaves us with her habanero popper. That's the basis on which we should be moving her up the ladder? Even more than that, though, I'd feel a whole lot better if I'd seen her produce one savory dish with some finesse. Still, it isn't as though Edward's blown us away with anything yet, which is why I've finally moved her to the middle of the pack. But to me, she's still a very, very unproven commodity, and unlike some whose under-the-radar dishes look interesting to me, Grayson's have looked uninspiring. We'll see, I guess.
|
|
| 9 |
Lindsay |
|
Quickfires |
1
|
1
|
0
|
| Last Week: 11 |
|
Eliminations |
0
|
0
|
1
|
I wanted to position Lindsay as the female analogue to Abe Froman here, but I think that might earn me a red flag from Google Safe Search. No, no, some other folks dropped past Lindsay this week. This isn't a promotion based on that dish in the field. I mean, really, I hate to diminish somebody's win, but when the winning dish is cream of celery soup reduced with onion soup mix and Vienna sausages paired with a saltine sandwich filled with tuna, sardines, mayo, mustard, soy sauce, Tabasco and trail mix... well, I think that says more about the challenge than it does about the winner, unfortunately. Either that or it says something about John Besh's level of sobriety. Take your pick. So... congrats, Lindsay. Please don't do that ever again.
|
|
| 10 |
Whitney |
|
Quickfires |
0
|
0
|
1
|
| Last Week: 10 |
|
Eliminations |
0
|
0
|
0
|
Aw, man... I was all looking forward to getting a nice running gag going about the invisible contestant and the elves had to go ahead and finally let Whitney say something. Based on her 20 seconds of screen time -- from which I naturally feel comfortable judging the totality of her character -- Whitney lends the fleeting impression that she may be committing the cardinal reality show sin: being bland. Which is fine by me as long as her food isn't. Sadly, indicators aren't currently pointing in that direction. You know, those piles and piles of indicators the elves have given us. We'll punt on Whitney... again.
|
|
| 11 |
Nyesha |
|
Quickfires |
0
|
0
|
1
|
| Last Week: 14 |
|
Eliminations |
0
|
0
|
1
|
Nyesha hasn't shown much since being in the basement last week, except she managed not to fall on her face, which is more than I can say for some of those below her. Those fleeting little looks and indicators seemed to suggest that her filet wasn't bad, but looking at that recipe, man, is it the coward's way out. Beef tenderloin with roasted vegetables, creamed corn and a red wine vinaigrette? It's like the very definition of playing not to lose. And without naming her, Tom (rightfully) dinged her in his blog for preparing a dozen steaks rather than seizing the opportunity to cook the whole tenderloin and carve it. She's supposed to have a pedigree, but man, she sure isn't showing it. It seems like she can execute, and that'll carry her for a while, but not for long... and she just has the look of somebody who doesn't want to be there. Maybe this is the Top Chef version of rope-a-dope and she's going to come out swinging in a couple of episodes. But if so, until then, she's hanging out near the bottom.
|
|
| 12 |
Chris C. |
|
Quickfires |
0
|
0
|
1
|
| Last Week: 9 |
|
Eliminations |
1
|
1
|
1
|
While things are relatively quiet at the top, the race for the bottom is fast and furious! After a double-bottom performance, I nearly put Chris C. in the basement, but ultimately decided that botching this season's canned goods challenge and taking his clients' dessert requests a little too much to heart were lesser sins than landing on the bottom for an entree (though that dessert really did look atrocious). Besides, they need to keep him around a little while longer. I think there's a judge or two he hasn't fawned over yet.
|
|
| 13 |
Ty-Lör |
|
Quickfires |
0
|
0
|
0
|
| Last Week: 13 |
|
Eliminations |
0
|
0
|
2
|
I think what bugs me the most about Ty-Lör's pork tenderloin is that it's such a low degree of difficulty dish, and yet he still made a mess of it. I'm on Nyesha's case for taking the safe road, yeah, but at least she executed. Ty-Lör's had a couple of interesting looking dishes that haven't gotten airtime, but more than that he seems to have a nose for the chopping block and a kind of, "Yeah, oops" attitude upon arriving there. I'm just not getting the vibe of somebody who's going to be around for long, here.
|
|
| 14 |
Chuy |
|
Quickfires |
0
|
1
|
1
|
| Last Week: 5 |
|
Eliminations |
1
|
2
|
1
|
Well, there's one dark horse pick down. Though I take minor solace in the fact that Tom also said he was surprised to see Chuy go home so early, based on the other food he'd cooked. Clearly, that dish didn't work. But I do feel compelled to defend Chuy somewhat from the notion that this melding of fish and cheese was culinary crazy talk, even if it means challenging Colicchio. Tom goes so far on his blog as to say, "In Italy, we do not put parmesan on fish dishes." And it's true that one of the easiest ways to earn yourself the stinkeye and the instant tourist treatment -- if not a free guided tour to the door -- is to order a seafood pasta and ask for parmesan to go with it. But as with so many things, these are guidelines, not unbreakable rules. I've had cheese paired with seafood plenty of times in Venice and, you know, they handle their seafood pretty damn well. I'm prepared to believe that there was potentially a good dish in there. Chuy mentioned that he sometimes serves it at the restuarant, and I tried to find some reference to it but came up empty. Still, the bottom line is that he overcooked it and then put up a lame defense. We saw that he said the salmon needed to be overcooked to melt the cheese. Stupid statement made on the spur of the moment in a desperate attempt to save himself. We didn't see him blaming the oven, though they made reference to it in the extended Judges' Table video, and seemed extremely annoyed by it. But what they didn't see was his exit interview, where he said in the most plain and straightforward manner possible that he just blew it -- he killed the dish by overcooking it and said there was no question that he was the one who deserved to go home. His exit interview was actually very humble and even-keeled -- the polar opposite of his casting video -- which makes me wonder how much of that personality was played up for screentime. The stories about his father indicate that he's someone unafraid of making an almost self-aware caricature of himself. I know people like that. But in any case, it's the food I'm going to miss. I was looking forward to seeing what he could do, and I didn't see nearly as much of it as I would have liked. Too bad.
|
When I watch football, I'm one of those obnoxious twits screaming for the coach to go for it on 4th, or to go for two to win and skip overtime. The numbers back me up on that - assuming a coach lasts several seasons, the expected outcome is generally better if you go for it.
On TC, though, you generally don't get second chances (this season being a surprise exception). In the past, the optimal strategy is to play it safe and make your run at the end. It's extremely difficult to run the table - every eventual champion has been on the cusp of elimination at least once and lucked out when someone else managed to screw up even worse.
It's frustrating to watch as a viewer, but it makes perfect sense in a food context. Restaurants survive by not screwing up; occasionally coming up with something brilliant is just a nice bonus. Surviving the competition seems a lot like working your way up the ranks - you start out pleasing your employer by cranking out thousands of identical copies of the same dish, and gradually showcase more and more of your talent as the situation demands. At the beginning of things, your only objective is to not get yanked off the line. Showing your creativity comes later, after the other nitwits get the boot. The biggest difficulty is knowing how to evaluate your risks, and then picking the right spot to go for the kill.
Posted by: Independent George | December 6, 2011 at 07:51 AM
IG -- sound analysis and advice for the elimination challenges -- but how about the quickfires? These carry substantial cash prizes, in addition to immunity, with no risk of going home. How should the chefs play the quyickfires early in the game? Shouldn't they try for the fences every time here?
Posted by: Duffy | December 6, 2011 at 08:57 AM
Absolutely. The QF is an entirely different game - since there's no penalty for losing, it's all reward, and zero risk.
The EC, on the other hand, is all risk.
Posted by: Independent George | December 6, 2011 at 10:13 AM
IG, this is why when they started introducing money prizes for quickfires in Season 6, some of us thought they were doing it backwards - if they introduced the 25K prices for Elimination Wins, risk taking would increase there as the reward would be much higher, while quickfires until midway through the season always encourage risk taking.
Posted by: garik16 | December 6, 2011 at 10:29 AM
Dom, thank you for calling out the dog party book. While not my cup of tea, I understand there are plenty of people who suck up entertaining books, and so be it. But, really, a dog party? That was behind cringe-worthy and into self-immolation territory.
The cheftestant I'm fascinated with is Beverly. She proved she can do something other than "Korean take on ___", which was how it started, so I retract that compliant. But, she's clearly getting the early villain edit, which probably portends fireworks to come.
Posted by: Anon Man | December 6, 2011 at 10:40 AM
IG- I agree with your analysis with one caveat: A winning mentality. The whole notion that you can learn to win, to not defeat yourself in your head, has a lot of truth to it, I find. To extend your football analogy, the Lions have transformed from the worst team in football to a (if not great) often seriously challenging team because they now have the confidence that they can win individual games. It is a confidence born of experience, that if they work hard and work smart, they can win. The Eagles have more talent on the field than just about any team I can name (and this is as a Pats fan) but they lack confidence. They have become resigned to failure. As a consequence, they fail. Moving back to the food, we could consider the examples of the Voltaggio brothers.
Bryan won the eliminations (did he set the record for most EC wins? I seem to remember he did) and Michael won a lot of the QF, where his more aggressively inventive approach did not penalize him. Of course neither won everything, but, along with Kevin Gillespie, they came into the final with a strong history of winning behind them. Not just not-losing, but winning. Contrast with Lisa, from way back. I hold that consistent failure forms an expectation of failure, and is habit forming. Consistently trying your damnedest to win, even if unsuccessful, leads to a winning mindset.
Posted by: KinderJ | December 6, 2011 at 10:41 AM
IG... I like what you have to say in theory, but I'm not sure reality has borne that out. Working backwards:
Richard Blais
Kevin Sbraga
Michael Voltaggio
Hosea Rosenberg
Stephanie Izard
Hung Huynh
Ilan Hall
Harold Dieterle
How many of those winners played it safe early in the season? Certainly not Richard. Kevin's creativity didn't come out to play much until the later stages. Voltaggio was swinging for the fences from the get-go. Hosea was... well, not safe, exactly, even if I didn't find it especially compelling. Stephanie didn't really blossom until later in the season, but she wasn't exactly playing it safe at the outset. Hung sure wasn't playing safe. I honestly don't recall *what* Ilan was doing early in the season, and Harold wasn't wild by later season standards, but he was one of the most creative chefs of the bunch at the time... different Top Chef era, so to speak.
I don't see a whole lot of winners who played the survival game until bringing out the big guns late in the run. I mostly see chefs who were driven to do their food the way they wanted to do it, and were willing to take those chances. Yes, the judges take each challenge individually, but they're not immune to the subconscious impressions that all of the chef's previous dishes have created. Historically speaking, I think they've responded to that.
Posted by: Skillet Doux | December 6, 2011 at 10:53 AM
Dom, I can *almost* tolerate another episode this bad if your rankings post is as funny as this one was. Thanks!
Speaking of vibes, Nyesha seems to project the confidence and down-to-business attitude of a winner, so I hope she stops playing it safe and lives up to her pedigree and attitude. So far, she seems to be play-it-safe Lisa without the crappy personality.
Posted by: ally | December 6, 2011 at 11:57 AM
Dom - Thanks for the Abe Froman reference. There's a gourmet hot dog place in Austin (Man Bites Dog) that calls their Chicago style hot dog the Abe Froman. Makes me smile every time I order it. Except for using the wrong bun (their standard bun), it holds up pretty well.
Go Paul!
Posted by: TokenOmnivore | December 6, 2011 at 12:00 PM
Dom -- I agree with you in general but for one exception. Hung was playing it safe during most of his season. It may not have looked like it to us but he's been quoted in interviews as saying that his strategy was to stick to classic flavor profiles and techiniques so as not to take risks early. (That may also have been part of why he liked to sous vide as many dishes as he could.) This strategy led to him getting the whole crappy "lacks soul" criticism.
Ilan's "strategy" was to cook a Casa Mono dish whenever he could. Does that qualify as "playing it safe"? ;p
Posted by: rab01 | December 6, 2011 at 12:12 PM
rab01... I remember him coming out of the gate with that monochromatic black chicken, I remember the Smurf village, and my memory was of thinking, in general, that he was getting himself in trouble by pushing a little too far. But my memory may very well be faulty. I didn't start taking notes until season four, and I haven't watched season three since it originally aired.
Posted by: Skillet Doux | December 6, 2011 at 12:23 PM
1. Food/Math: I think the issue is a question of means vs. variance. Early on, large numbers of contestants automatically mean higher variance. I think in those early rounds, that means the best strategy is to minimize your own variance and let someone else take the fall. As variance of the field decreases with each elimination, your chances of getting lapped increase the further along you get. The idea is that you keep a low variance in the beginning, and gradually increase it as it goes on. My theory isn't geared so much about winning the championship, as it is making it to the postseason.
In S8, Mike I, Antonia, Tiffany, and Carla in S8 were all middling early on, then finished strong, while Dale & Angelo flamed out early. In S7 and S5, it seemed like everybody but Angelo & Steffan played it safe (to much gnashing of teeth from those of us in the peanut gallery). In S6, the four horsemen of the apocalypse ran the table; obviously, a high variance strategy was your best bet if you didn't ride a pale horse (see this article and this discussion on in-game variance vs inter-game variance). In S4, Lisa and Spike managed to hold on (to even more gnashing of teeth) right until the end, letting Dale (again) and Andrew (somewhat underrated and overlooked in my opinion) flame out early, while Antonia was high mean/low variance the entire way. In S3, Dale L, Casey, and Malarkey! struggled early and went on late runs, while Hung, as rab01 said, explicitly played it safe until the finals. S1 & S2 were kind of the 'dead ball' era, and hard to compare.
2. Dogs: A book on dog parties is actually a great idea, except that I want Patricia McConnell to write it, and it should be about introducing strange dogs into a home, how to read body language/behavioral cues, and safe handling of multiple dogs in a small space. Dogs don't care much about what they eat, but they care a great deal about who eats first, how much, and where they are when they do.
3. Football: Confidence & psychology matter, but that's a final step; the first step is matching strategy and tactics with talent. The Eagles are one of the winningest teams of the last decade; they didn't lack for confidence entering the season. What they lacked was a cohesive system which maximized their talents, or postseason aquisitions which addressed their weaknesses (LB, OL).
By contrast, the Lions are now winning now because they (a) got rid of arguably the worst GM in the NFL, which led to (b) hiring a competent head coach, who subsequently (c) runs a scheme suitable to the players he has available, and then (d) drafting the single most promising young defensive player of the last twenty years to play in that system. They're not as talented overall as the Eagles but they match their strategy to their talent (chuck it deep to Megatron on offense, Hulk smash puny QB on defense) a LOT better.
To bring it back to TC, I think the better way to win confidence is to avoid screwing up early, and gradually step up your game instead of trying to shoot the moon from the beginning.
Posted by: Independent George | December 6, 2011 at 12:36 PM
Ack; I somehow left out the first line of my post, which is that the only things I ever seem to discuss online are food, dogs, math, and football, and that I was going to attempt to hit the quad-fecta. Thus, the subchapters in my post, which make no sense otherwise.
Posted by: Independent George | December 6, 2011 at 12:37 PM
"In S8, Mike I, Antonia, Tiffany, and Carla in S8 were all middling early on, then finished strong, while Dale & Angelo flamed out early."
Well, yeah, but Angelo flamed out on baked potato soup in Target and while I don't remember what Dale's dish was (I accidentally deleted my season eight notes :-/), I don't recall his problem being that he was plating a risky dish.
I don't think there isn't merit to what you say, and I've no doubt some (many?) chefs employ that strategy. I'm just saying that the goal is to win the thing, right? And for the most part, especially recently, the winners haven't been the type to play it safe.
If the competition were judged by machines, I agree with you more. But no matter how much they try to judge each challenge in a vacuum, the judges are human, and they remember everything each chef has done previously. How much influence that has on their judging, who can say? But I bet it's not a small amount.
Posted by: Skillet Doux | December 6, 2011 at 01:18 PM
True enough - especially since, if you're going to play it safe, it counts against you doubly if you screw it up anyway. In some ways, ambition is its own insurance, as a minor error in a difficult dish, and you generally want to avoid the major errors regardless.
I just think that, as garik alluded, without substantial prizes in the EC, the challenges are structured to inherently favor playing it safe early on.
Posted by: Independent George | December 6, 2011 at 01:57 PM
Seems about right. I'm ready for more eliminations.
Was Nyesha on Chef Hunter?
Posted by: Nigel from Cameroon | December 6, 2011 at 02:08 PM
Nyesha was on Chef Hunter and it was a good episode. I know we're supposed to move on, but this last episode made me turn to Chef Hunter and Iron Chef. I don't know if I could watch another this bad... eeek is that blood on my monitor? No, just a red wine reduction, thank god.
Posted by: Tigerpiper | December 6, 2011 at 02:22 PM
IG: if only the hulk smash (or stomp) didn't happen after the whistle ... its kind of like if a contestant makes their best meals back at the cast house instead of during the show.
Posted by: ally | December 6, 2011 at 04:00 PM
"I just think that, as garik alluded, without substantial prizes in the EC, the challenges are structured to inherently favor playing it safe early on."
FWIW, I heartily endorse EC prizes in the early stages to provide incentive to not play it safe.
Posted by: Skillet Doux | December 6, 2011 at 04:03 PM
I think there's a sweet spot for big prizes on the EC. As Richard noted in a blog post, the first chunk of the season is the "mine is bigger than yours" part where the chaff is removed. Maybe a bit of wheat gets culled too, but, them the breaks. The middle, where the marginal chaff and the marginal contenders are still there, is when even good chefs go safe. Remember Hung's cucumber salmon mousse canape? I think that was near the middle. Perfect time to give away a car. As it gets near the end, everyone has proven the ability to meet challenges and playing it safe is a ticket home.
Posted by: Anon Man | December 6, 2011 at 07:18 PM
the worst EC prize ever was when Richard Blais clearly didn't want whatever car he won.
or did he?
Posted by: ally | December 6, 2011 at 09:31 PM
I've got to say - Chef Hunter is a damned fine show. I'm actually surprised it's on Food Network. There's minimal BS, and they actually talk about the economics of the restaurant business. Not a lot, mind you, but greater than zero (which is the amount most shows discuss economics).
This might be the first time anyone's ever said this about a television program, but my biggest complaint is that they don't show enough logistics.
Posted by: Independent George | December 6, 2011 at 11:34 PM
A dog party!...What a dog party!
Posted by: chrish | December 7, 2011 at 11:34 AM