Top Chef Power Rankings

Top Chef - S7E3 Power Rankings

Note to self: When Waxman comes over for dinner, serve him asparagus.

Maybe they should just all serve asparagus. It might put the judges in a better mood. The big question this week seems to be whether these guys are any good, and while I'm still in the "give it time" camp, they're not making a great showing for themselves.

Take the pie challenge. Look, I know pastry freaks out a lot of chefs. I'm pretty damn confident in the kitchen and I understand that trepidation. It feels constrictive, like you're being asked to cook with one hand behind your back (and we've already seen how well that worked out). But that said, there were some pretty sorry looking excuses for pies put forth in this episode. Of course, if I call out the chefs, I have to call out the judges as well. Your grandma can make a pie, Johnny? Of course she can, Johnny, she's done it 700 times! That's what grandmothers do. They have a handful of recipes that they can make better than anybody because they don't have to think on the fly and improvise and adjust and constantly revise their menus. They have the luxury of spending their entire lengthy lives making that peach pie and refining and refining and refining it until they can do it in their sleep. If you think that any chef ought to be able to make a simple pie, fine. That's reasonable. But the grandmother comment is hyperbole. And Gail, you're seriously going to ask the guy about his grandmother's spuma? He just finished telling you that he wanted to honor her recipe AND give it a few of his own twists. We all know who decided that celery spuma with banana cream pie was a good idea. There's no need to browbeat the guy.

Then there's the grilling challenge. It's been suggested that these dishes weren't nearly as interesting as previous grill challenges, and I'm going to... um... challenge that assertion. Setting aside the Precambrian Era (before season four) for which I have no notes, a quick glance shows the tailgating grill challenge in season four and the ranch cookout in season six as the closest analogues to this one. Last season's dishes were more interesting. But first, remember that you're comparing to season six, which is like watching a mob movie and proclaiming that it's no Goodfellas. And second, recall that last season, they didn't know it was a cookout. The dishes they prepared were all over the map because they weren't tailoring their prep to cooking over fire outdoors, so naturally the food was more diverse and more interesting. Then, there's the tailgate cookout from season four. The winner was Dale Talde's Tandoori ribs with a potato salad that included raisins, mango and turmeric. Okay, that's interesting enough. Your other two top dishes were Antonia's watered-down jerk chicken with grilled pineapple and banana, and Stephanie's plain Jane (but no doubt tasty) pork tenderloin with potato bacon salad and rosemary vinaigrette. Point being, your season four all-stars weren't exactly bringing shock and awe to the grill challenge, either. But all of this said, it wasn't the most impressive showing. I still have faith that the second half of this season is going to be as compelling as any, but these guys are going to need to get it in gear like I suspect they can.

And with that, I'm going to jump right into the rankings. I apologize, I'm traveling and can't devote the usual 6+ hours to combing through all of the recipes and watching every little video clip I can find, so consider this the Top Chef Power Rankings, Shoot From The Hip Edition. Frankly, aside from a few at the top and a couple at the bottom, you might as well throw all of the names into a hat anyway. Reeeeeally hoping we get some clarity this week.

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

Wins

Top

Bottom

1 Angelo Quickfires 2 2 0 Last Week: 1 Eliminations 1 2 0 No wins, but another top appearance for Angelo and he still has triple the wins of the nearest competition, so this is kind of a no-brainer. Though I'll admit I don't quite see what the big deal is with his Vietnamese lettuce wraps. It was a good choice and I'm sure he executed it well, but it's nothing novel or exciting. His curried sweet potato crumble looked kind of neat, but it didn't receive any love, perhaps because he chose to ignore the challenge and not make a pie. That'll bite you in the ass at some point, Angelo. What I did like to see -- even if it doesn't really have any significant bearing on the competition -- was what seemed like some genuine good guy moments, especially considering that he's been taking a beating from the crowd in the personality department. Yeah, he's got kind of a weird smarminess at times and he uses the word "sexy" to describe his food waaaaaay too much (and the front page of his website is something I wish I could unsee). But there he was, poking his head in the oven and looking out for Tracy, and after joining the pile-on-Amanda, he swallowed that pride and didn't hesitate to do a full 180 and give her full marks for a great dish. Let's not cast him as the villain just yet, hmmm?

2 Kenny Quickfires 1 3 0 Last Week: 2 Eliminations 0 1 1 No surprises here, either. Kenny pulled down his first win with a pretty slick-looking pie (hooray for five spice!), and his elimination dish elicited a shrug from the judges, which frankly puts him in the upper echelon this week. The guy's confident, he's sound, and he's doing interesting things. Not much more to say.

3 Kelly Quickfires 0 1 1 Last Week: 5 Eliminations 1 1 0 Kelly picked up a top mention for her dark chocolate ganache tart, and while chocolate ganache with raspberry sauce is kind of a snoozer, we'll give her some points for not screwing it up. The dish kind of screams "I'm a chef and this is the dessert I practiced for the competition," and that's fine. Better than fine, actually, since that's what we've been screaming these chefs should be doing for years. For the elimination, I'm going to defend her from Gail a bit. Characterizing baking fresh brioche, whipping up garlic aioli and roasted tomatoes, and making two salads with two vinaigrettes as something "any home cook could do easily" is a little unfair. No, this isn't technically dazzling, but let's not overreach, here. The true complaint, I think, might have been that it played that way, very safe and straightforward, and that's worthy of a little shot. But let's not pretend this was home cookery 101, because it wasn't. Especially because some other dishes actually were.

4 Arnold Quickfires 0 0 1 Last Week: 7 Eliminations 1 2 0 Hey, a little interest! I'm still not sold on Arnold. His menus really look like a train wreck to me, and I have a hard time believing that anybody who balks at grilling is going to go all that deep. If you aren't willing to get dirty, you aren't going to survive. But that said, he's making some noise, and coupled with some weak performances near the top this week, I kind of feel like I have to give him the fourth spot. It's not a confident move, but I can't say he hasn't earned it so far.

5 Alex Quickfires 0 0 1 Last Week: 5 Eliminations 0 1 0 I'm still kind of moving Alex and Kevin as a unit, and I had a hard time deciding who would be on top this time. They both had weak showings, Alex in the QF, Kevin in the elimination, and I finally decided to give Alex the nod this week, more because of Kevin than because of Alex. Though the fact that he thought egg in his pie was a good idea made me think long and hard about it. As for the eating the ass out of the pig comment, I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he knows that pork butt is from the front of the pig, not the back, and that it was just a dumb joke. Because otherwise, that would be a truly shocking level of ignorance. There's just no way.

6 Kevin Quickfires 0 1 0 Last Week: 4 Eliminations 0 1 1 Blowing a pie is bad, but that steak with beans and rice looked worse. That was a seriously denuded recipe. THIS was the dish that deserved Gail's comment about it being nothing a home cook couldn't do easily. Though to her credit, she not only went at him with both barrels, but made the point beautifully. This food is fine. You're not here to cook this kind of food. What really bothers me is that Kevin couldn't see that this wasn't going to fly. This may be a simple lesson learned, move on scenario, and I expect he'll bounce back. He's one of the ones who's shown that he can put a dish together. But if he doesn't use his head, a blind spot like that will kill him in a big hurry.

7 Andrea Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: 7 Eliminations 0 0 0 Andrea's one of two chefs with no top or bottom appearances, so it's tough to know what to do with her, but I mostly like the cut of her jib so far, so we'll let her tread water. Again. Even if root beer glaze is getting a little old. Particularly if it's too sweet.

8 Ed Quickfires 0 1 1 Last Week: 11 Eliminations 0 1 1 Ed benefits from a strong elimination showing and his presence in the middle of the pack where even the slightest hint of a heartbeat can send you shooting to the top right now. But he's still maddeningly inconsistent. On one hand, I want to give him props for pushing the envelope with that banana cream pie with peanuts and celery spuma. At least he's taking some risks, and that "elevate, elevate, elevate" mantra is a good one to have for this show. But he might've been a little too smart for his own good here. I still think the guy has a lot of potential, but he's going to have to show more to claw back to the top.

9 Amanda Quickfires 0 0 1 Last Week: 14 Eliminations 0 1 1 Speaking of clawing... attitude or tenacity, take your pick. They're both apropos. I was afraid of this. We'd heard she might have some actual skill, and now she's going to be a crazy wildcard the rest of the way out. I just know it. This week, she could flame out of the quickfire or win the elimination, and neither would surprise me. I'll just react accordingly. For now, we'll give her a solid bump for the strong showing, but not too much because... you know... she nearly bit it last week.

10 Lynne Quickfires 0 0 1 Last Week: 9 Eliminations 0 1 0 Lynne's just hanging around, and despite her protestations, she's making the kind of solid, unexciting food you expect from a cooking instructor. Her trajectory is starting to look pretty clear, hanging around while others screw up around her. But slow and steady doesn't win this race... it just gets you past the midpoint of the season.

11 Tiffany Quickfires 0 0 1 Last Week: 11 Eliminations 0 1 0 I want to believe that Tiffany has something to show, but this week wasn't doing it. I'm not sure how a glaze with tamarind, balsamic, cinnamon, habanero and star anise has no flavor, but I'm inclined to believe Waxman. She was also one of the contestants to use what Tom described as some truly awful tomatoes, that any chef should have had the good sense to leave in the kitchen. I dunno. More data needed.

12 Tamesha Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: 12 Eliminations 0 0 0 Wait, is Tamesha still here? I thought she snuck out the back midway through the first episode. Cripes, there's nothing to go on here. I mean, seriously, I've got nothing. Her steak was fine. Unless it wasn't quite fine. Depends on which judge you ask at which second, actually. But it definitely wasn't good and it definitely wasn't bad, which is pretty much what the response to her has been for three episodes now. Do me a favor, Tamesha. Next episode, put, like, seven habaneros in your dish just so we can be sure they're actually tasting your food.

13 Timothy Quickfires 0 1 0 Last Week: 10 Eliminations 0 0 2 Timothy probably doesn't deserve this, but man, the guy just can't stay out of trouble. He's been on the block more than anybody not named Stephen, and there comes a point where you kind of have to stop making excuses for the guy. It's like he has enough skill to make tasty food, but only has enough of an attention span to do it for half of his dish. There's always been enough good to save him, but how many more times can he show up on the bottom before the judges lose patience and start to wonder why he can't put together a complete dish? This entire paragraph is probably one bottom appearance premature, but what can I say... it's the Shoot From The Hip Edition and a double elimination opens the door for somebody like him to make an early exit.

14 Stephen Quickfires 0 1 2 Last Week: 15 Eliminations 0 0 2 Okay, Stephen cracks me up. Mostly because the poor dude just looks like he desperately needs sleep, and I can soooo relate. He's totally helpless out there. And when he almost snatches a moment of greatness out of thin air, it's right back to overcooking sea bass and undercooking bacon and having no idea why he's on the bottom. He obviously has some talent, but damned if he can do a thing with it. He hasn't checked out. It's that he never checked in to begin with. Somebody get this man a pillow.

15 Tracey Quickfires 1 1 1 Last Week: 13 Eliminations 0 0 1 And yet, Stephen managed to snooze his way to the second-worst spot this week, edged out of elimination by Tracey, who just never got it going. I decided that I'm sad to see her go, even if I didn't get a sense that her food was going to be all that interesting, even at its best. What can I say? I'm a sucker for a classy exit, and this was a classy one.

No discussion of the upcoming episode this week... a little short on time. With apologies, there they are. Do me a favor folks. Muster up whatever juju you have and try to get us an episode that really shows off what these guys can do this week. I need a little help, and I'm not above soliciting mystical/spiritual/divine intervention to get it.

Discuss!

Top Chef - S7E3 Postmortem

All rightey, some real, individual cooking!

Too bad it didn't do much to clear anything up.

I know I'm not disappointed to have lost Tracey from a food standpoint. I'm less certain about whether I'm disappointed to have lost her from a personality standpoint. The bar's been set a little low in that regard this season.

I thought there was some fun-looking food this episode. I think you've all been spoiled by last season, folks. (Me too.)

Very much looking forward to a straight-up, small volume, plated cooking challenge... hoping it comes soon.

Discuss!

Top Chef - S7E2 Power Rankings

Oy... can I take back all of the good vibes I got from the first episode?

Let's just say this was not an episode geared towards the food nerds. Which is fine. They happen. But yeesh... a quickfire that probably cracks the all-time top ten for culinarily meaningless gimmicks, a hyper-restricted budget for the elimination, and a huge crowd of contestants who are almost universally unlikeable already. Woo. But we'll look at this as the glass half full and hope they're getting some of the goofier challenges out of the way early.

This really was an exceedingly dumb quickfire, exceeded only by how everybody involved with the show felt the need to comment about how clever it was. This is high concept gone wrong. Like holding a competition for a bunch of track stars and making them run a potato sack race for one of the events because they happen to be in Idaho. Entertaining, perhaps, for the sheer spectacle, but not a meaningful test of their skill. The less said about it, the better.

The elimination, frustrating as it was for those who are still trying to get a grip on what these people can do, was at least relevant and meaningful and forced them to be creative. A little preachy? Sure. But I'm inclined to excuse chefs for being a little preachy about a subject that hits so close to home for many of them. And I doubt there's anybody who would take the position that the nation's school lunch programs are anything short of an unmitigated disaster.

There was a good deal of controversy, most of which I'll deal with below where most relevant. The one general note that does bug me, however, is what appeared to be a reshuffling of the judging parameters. Everybody has noted, I presume, that rather than select a loser from a losing team, the judges called out two bottom teams and then picked those they perceived to be the worst performers from those two teams -- which pulled in Kenny and Ed by default. Given that both Kenny's and Ed's dishes were called out in various places as being pretty decent in a vacuum (even if Ed's wasn't the best choice for the challenge), it sure seems like the judges realized they'd been painted into a corner where they'd be forced to eliminate one of two contestants, neither of whom cooked bad food. And it looks like they rejiggered the structure to achieve a more just, if not technically correct, verdict. My instinct is to say that I don't like it, not because I don't support the result, but because trust in the judging process is a fragile thing, and mid-challenge changes like this appeared to be do not help.

Some shuffling at the bottom, some shuffling at the top, and a whole lot of guessing in the middle. This season's crop is not exactly coming into focus quickly.

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

Wins

Top

Bottom

1 Angelo Quickfires 2 2 0 Last Week: 1 Eliminations 1 1 0 Did anybody think that a celery and peanut butter tuille, ill-advised though it may have been, was going to drop Angelo out of the top spot? The guy has still won three of the four challenges thus far, and an error in judgment on this week's QF isn't going to outweigh that. I know the theory that he was trying to sabotage his team is gaining some traction, even with the judges. Possible, I suppose, but that would surprise me. More likely, I think, he was picking to win and simply made a stupid choice with his dish. Mostly because I like to think that anybody devious enough to go the Machiavellian route would do a better job of it. It's true, the "I can't answer that right now" line is odd, but even if it's in context (the edit looked awfully jumpy), it's a strange response that could be interpreted a lot of different ways. I reserve the right to be proven wrong, but I just don't think there's anything there. Angelo hangs on to the top spot. Even if it took everything I had to resist dropping him four slots for breaking out the sleazy and tired "sex on a plate" cliché. Ugh.

2 Kenny Quickfires 0 2 0 Last Week: 2 Eliminations 0 1 1 Holding Kenny at number two is a little harder to justify than holding Angelo at number one, but not that much harder. He and Ed came in second in the QF, and by all accounts he made a good elimination dish. The only sin he's been accused of is not stepping up and insisting on a better vegetable. Which doesn't exactly leave him smelling like a rose given his preseason pledge to bring some real leadership to Top Chef. But still, three out of four challenges, he's been nipping at Angelo's heels, and not being vocal enough in the first group challenge isn't enough to outweigh that.

3 Kelly Quickfires 0 0 1 Last Week: 5 Eliminations 1 1 0 Even if I were inclined to give the number three spot to somebody else (I'm not), I couldn't see going any lower for the only person other than Angelo to win a challenge (well, there's Tracey, but we'll get to that). Take the very positive notes on her dish last week, a QF with Arnold that earned some nice words even if it missed a top call-out, and a no-doubter of an elimination win, and this is an easy call. Kudos for making a great-looking dish on a shoestring budget, and for standing firm when so many questioned whether the kids would like her recipe, judges included. And even if it meant getting a little prickly with her teammates, I like the fact that she was staking her claim. She knows how this game is played.

4 Kevin Quickfires 0 1 0 Last Week: 3 Eliminations 0 1 0 Kevin drops a spot purely to make room for Kelly in the top three, but he looked just fine this week. Even though it didn't get a shout out, I like the fact that he and Andrea actually did something meaningful with the QF, fusing their styles along with their aprons and making a "Philly Cuban Sandwich." And the melon skewer with a orange-flavored yogurt (and cream) whip was just a nifty and elegant little package that was perfectly suited to the challenge. He played smart, he was on one of the top two teams, and he mostly holds his position.

5 Alex Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: 4 Eliminations 0 1 0 Ditto Alex, who was also thinking on his feet and turning out a tasty dish for the elimination. He wasn't quite the saint the edit made him out to be. There's still ketchup and brown sugar in that BBQ sauce. But the amount of added sugar was, no doubt, greatly reduced by starting with an apple cider reduction and the approach struck a nice balance between meeting the parameters of the challenge and being tasty. I still have my misgivings about whether Alex will remain this close to the top for very long, but he's off to a strong start and I see no reason not to reward him for the performance.

6 Andrea Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: 6 Eliminations 0 0 0 Yet again, Andrea stays right where she is, which actually works out perfectly. She did good work on a top team, and the fact that her cole slaw wasn't quite as creative as Kevin and Alex's approaches to the school lunch make it easy to just leave her nestled right behind them. I'm reluctant to read too much into anything from this week's episode, but I'm starting to feel like Andrea was one of the preseason calls that I landed just about in the right spot.

7 Arnold Quickfires 0 0 1 Last Week: 7 Eliminations 0 1 0 Arnold's another hold from last week. He showed enough, I think, to let him stay above some of the MOTP movers, but not so much that I feel at all compelled to consider him for a higher spot. Though Kelly was adamant about making her mark in the elimination, it sure seems like their sandwich was all Arnold. I've no doubt that Kelly contributed, but a curry-rubbed grilled chicken pita with honey, Indonesian sambal and cucumber raita? That'd look awfully odd surrounded by Colorado-influenced contemporary American dishes, but it'd be right at home in two of Arnold's three restaurants. There's little doubt in my mind about who was driving that one. And I appreciate that even when making a very simple vegetable salad, he tried to pull in a little more flavor by charring the corn. This is in contrast to others, but we'll get to that. Arnold stands pat this week.

8 Tiffany Quickfires 0 0 1 Last Week: 13 Eliminations 0 1 0 Though Tiffany technically moves five spots, think of it more as she and Lynne moving four as a unit, and getting flip-flopped. Their fortunes were very much linked this week, and I give Tiffany the edge only because I really like what she did with her dessert. Working in the sweet potato was incredibly smart, both because of the added nutrition and the fact that she made it work with chocolate, and the judges seemed very impressed with her sherbet. My gut tells me that eight is too high for Tiffany, but there's very little separating 5-10 or 11 right now, so the MOTPers are going to jump around quite a bit for a couple of weeks based purely on who has the hot hand.

9 Lynne Quickfires 0 0 1 Last Week: 12 Eliminations 0 1 0 More of an 8a, almost everything said about Tiffany applies to Lynne, and vice-versa. Their QF sandwich was kind of lackluster and earned a bottom callout, but as mentioned before, I'm loathe to read too much into that circus act. More importantly, Lynne also stepped up and did something fun and interesting with limited resources, making a sautéed black bean cake with a crispy sweet potato "wig" that was fun, attractive, and purportedly tasty.

10 Timothy Quickfires 0 1 0 Last Week: 9 Eliminations 0 0 1 Timothy isn't being dropped so much as he's being outpaced this week, by not showing the same ingenuity and execution under trying limitation as some other chefs. His mac and cheese was alternately called pretty good, and identified as the weak link of the group that was lacking flavor... never a good sign. But there wasn't that much attention paid to him and his is the only recipe missing this week, so we'll just let him tread water for the time being.

11 Ed Quickfires 0 1 0 Last Week: 10 Eliminations 0 0 1 Ed's pretty much treading water like Timothy, but in his case it's a matter of running hot and cold rather than a constant lukewarm. He narrowly missed the QF win with Kenny, and missed elimination after having been on the chopping block. But there are mitigating factors that cause me not to weigh either extreme as heavily as I ordinarily might. On the QF, there's my already stated distaste for the challenge and the fact that he could've been riding Kenny's coattails. We just don't know. And on the elimination, I'm struck by the fact that Gail seemed to feel he made a perfectly lovely restaurant dish that simply wasn't a great choice for the challenge. I'm not sure the QF peak or the elimination valley are as meaningful as the numbers might suggest, so I'll let Ed hang out here and see what happens next week.

12 Tamesha Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: 8 Eliminations 0 0 0 This is probably less of a drop and more a correction after getting a little too cute with her position relative to where I put Timothy last week. Anybody know what the heck to do with Tamesha? Yeah, me neither. After flying completely under the radar last week, she made a completely uninspired sandwich and a completely uninspired salad, yet managed to stay out of trouble. I don't really know what else to do with her yet, so we'll stick her here until further notice.

13 Tracey Quickfires 1 1 0 Last Week: 14 Eliminations 0 0 0 It probably isn't fair to put the only winner other than Angelo and Kelly all the way down at number 13, but I'm standing by it... and somehow I doubt anybody's going to fight me all that hard on it. Does anyone think she had anything to do with the creation of the quickfire sandwich? Anyone? Okay, moving on. Her chicken burger got a lot of shrugs and "it's okay"s, but it looks like another bland offering that was, as Tom put it in his blog, more rice than chicken. I'm just not seeing anything to get exited about here.

14 Amanda Quickfires 0 0 1 Last Week: 11 Eliminations 0 0 1 This one might get a little pushback, not for being too low but for being too high. I suspect quite a few believe that she should be gone or in the basement, and it was made quite clear that Jacqueline's pudding saved Amanda's bacon. But let's examine a little bit of the Amanda controversy this week. First, there's the budget issue. We don't actually know what share of the budget she took, and we're assuming it was a large one based on the fact that she opted to braise her chicken in sherry. But a quick internet search reveals 1.3 gallons of cooking sherry for under $17 and chicken thighs at $1/pound. I'm not sure how Restaurant Depot's prices compare (they don't post stock or prices online), but it seems to me that whether or not she did, it would have been possible to produce her dish for a quarter of the budget. Presuming she overshot, it might not be as significantly as some assume. Then there's the issue of cooking for schoolkids with alcohol. I have to say, I'm a little surprised by how this idea is being greeted by some. Yes, I know, alcohol doesn't all burn away and it takes a while to do so. But this is a sauce that is reduced halfway, simmered for two hours, and reduced halfway again before a couple of scant spoonfuls are drizzled over the chicken. The question of whether these kids are getting anything other than a trace amount of alcohol is a total non-starter. All of that said, this was a poor choice of dish for a number of other reasons that probably aren't worth rehashing, she deserved to get dinged for it, and an elimination wouldn't have been the least bit unwarranted. But consensus seems to be that her chicken tasted fine and was properly made, it's just that it was boring and a poor (and controversial) choice for kids. Plus, there's one fellow who seems even more lost than Amanda.

15 Stephen Quickfires 0 0 2 Last Week: 15 Eliminations 0 0 1 I still believe there's bounceback potential here, but man, Stephen just looks terrible. The reason he's in the basement is because he's now been on the bottom of all but one challenge, and for that challenge he was on one of the bottom teams and basically made rice with a little onion, carrot and tomato. And the sandwich he made with Jacqueline was just shockingly boring. It was a club. Chicken, tomato, bacon, avocado, lettuce. And onions cooked in saba. What's saba? It's essentially reduced grape must, a precursor to balsamic vinegar. So he basically made every club sandwich you've ever had with the most overused source of sweetness known to mankind. Believe me, given where I put him in the preseason, there's nothing I'd like more than for Stephen to bounce back. But as far as I'm concerned, he's earned this spot.

16 Jacqueline Quickfires 0 0 2 Last Week: 16 Eliminations 0 0 2 On the bottom of all four challenges so far, you'd think this one would surprise absolutely no one. And yet there are some who can't figure why Jacqueline went home instead of Amanda. To those who feel this way, there are two things I can do to convince you that it was the right call. First, remember when the losing teams started taking potshots at each other, Kenny criticized the amount of sugar in Jacqueline's pudding and Amanda responded with a tirade about the "ridiculous," "horrible" amount of sugar in processed peanut butter, which "may be one of the worst things in the world for children to eat"? Yeah, of course you remember. Well, it turns out that Amanda's team might as well have served a four ounce cup of processed peanut butter. Grams of sugar in half a cup of Jif? Twelve. Grams of sugar in half a cup of Jacqueline's pudding? Eighteen. At least Angelo had the sense to serve a small dollop of his sugar bomb rather than half a cup of it. Still not convinced? Head over to the kitchen and measure out half a cup of milk. Really, go ahead. I'll wait. Now, add four teaspoons of granulated sugar. Stir it until the sugar dissolves. Might take a little while... it's a lot of sugar. Now drink it. That's how sweet Jacqueline's pudding was. The prosecution rests.

There you go! I'm still not happy at all with the rankings. Hopefully we get a little more meat this week:

WARNING : MINOR EPISODE THREE SPOILERS AHEAD

Okay, this I can get my head around. Of course I'd rather they were plating for a small dinner party, but at least they're all doing their own work and not doing so under ridiculous constraints. Our upcoming QF is to bake a pie, which should be interesting. It's a pretty specialized discipline, baking pies, so I don't know that I'll give too much weight to failure, but it will be fun to see who rises to the challenge. And for the elimination, a BBQ picnic with charcoal grills. There will, no doubt, be a couple of contestants who are frightened and confused by the concept of fire (at least one is identified), but grilling is a discipline that any good chef ought to be able to pull off. At least well enough to best 13 others and live to see another day. On the quickfire, Tracey and Tiffany grew up in the South, and something tells me Lynne can make a mean pie. Can't really justify it. Just a hunch. For the grill challenge, Kevin seems to be especially meat-centric, and I guess we'll see if that translates to an open flame. And even setting his confidence aside, I can just see Kenny rocking either of these.

Discuss!

Top Chef - S7E2 Postmortem

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

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

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

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

Discuss!

Top Chef - S7E1 Power Rankings

Well, heck, I thought that was a pretty good start to the season.

Starting off with a prep challenge is becoming tradition at this point, but I have to say, I thought the way they structured it this time around was particularly elegant. A multi-stage knockout guaranteed that only the strongest prep beasts would get the chance to cook for the win, and the manner in which they then used those results to form teams for the elimination was great, and I particularly loved the use of the 17th contestant. Last man standing is, in theory, the biggest perceived threat of those who didn't make it to the cooking phase. Let the winner decide where he goes.

The elimination, too, was perfect as a simple get to know you challenge, even if we didn't actually get to know everybody. It's always frustrating for the first few episodes when there are a few contestants about whom you hear absolutely nothing, and many more about whom you hear very little. And the show's edited pretty tightly. Barring additional time, I'm not sure where you get the few more minutes you'd need to give us more info about some of the dishes. But we at least got to SEE everything, and this is a marked improvement over some previous seasons. So I'm finding it difficult to complain.

Which is why i'm a little surprised to see that there are people so down on season seven already. To those people, I'd like to point out that at this point last season, Ron Duprat had more top elimination finishes than both of the Voltaggi put together. Point simply being, it's early, folks... let's give this a little time before jumping to conclusions.

And now I'm going to jump to some conclusions.

As in previous seasons, there's so little to go on at this point, the rankings are all over the map and probably will be for another episode or two. Until we have a little more data, I'm just kind of slinging people around. And there are a few moves that might look rather surprising except for one important note in Tom's blog. He stated that there was one group of four -- he didn't identify which -- that was uniformly strong. So much so, in fact, that he said they all could have been in contention not only for their group, but for the entire challenge. The question, of course, is which group? Certainly not John or Jacqueline's groups. Which would leave Kenny/Stephen's group or Alex/Timothy's group. This also means that either Timothy's or Stephen's dish wasn't as bad as the edit would have led you to believe. Stephen's group was five rather than four, and I might consider that Tom had simply forgotten one of those groups had an extra contestant, except that the five person group also included Tracey and Ed, both of whom received some on-air criticism. So I think that group has to be Alex/Timothy/Andrea/Tamesha. And that's why you'll see some of them where they are.

Okay, let's do this... on with the rankings!

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

Wins

Top

Bottom

1 Angelo Quickfires 1 1 0 Last Week: 4 Eliminations 1 1 0 Second-easiest call in the field (the first-easiest was... um... made for me). Win the first two challenges, take the top spot. For his QF, it sounds like Angelo pulled a lot of flavor out of a very simple recipe. The chicken was seasoned with cumin and salt and sautéed. The potatoes were julienned and simmered in vegetable stock with butter. And the jam was onion with curry, sugar and rice vinegar. There's really not much there, but he made a compelling dish out of it, and that says quite a bit. The char wasn't quite as simple from a construction standpoint, but it looks very uncomplicated in terms of flavor. The shallots are pickled with a little vinegar, sugar and ginger. The tapioca is spiced with Kashmir chiles, chipotle chiles and smoked paprika. And the foam is basically just chicken stock that's been simmered with bacon, garlic and thyme before being strained and hit with lecithin. The flavors aren't complicated, but he's doing a lot to bring them out, and they apparently work great together. Sounds an awful lot like his mentor. Only one thing that bugs me about Angelo, though it has to be nothing. Supposedly, he earned a Michelin star running a restaurant in the West Village. As far as I can tell, Yumcha is the only place he's run that's been in the West Village. And I sure can't find where Yumcha was awarded a Michelin star. Yumcha folded pretty quickly (after Angelo had a falling out with ownership and he and the entire line walked out in the middle of service, apparently)... did it do so after the star was awarded but before the book went to press? Or are the online listings omitting Yumcha because it had closed by then? Anybody have a copy of the 2005 or 2006 NYC Michelin guide who can shed a little light on this?

2 Kenny Quickfires 0 1 0 Last Week: 13 Eliminations 0 1 0 Unlike Ron last season, Kenny sure doesn't give the impression that he just happened to start off with an unusually good week. Dude dominated the prep table and put out two interesting and well-received dishes. I'm not quite sure how adding paprika and dill to five-spice powder makes it Moroccan, but hey, the duo of chicken with Moroccan spice went over pretty well. Add a simple onion confit, blend some potato, onion, chicken stock and olive oil to make a coulis, make a little ragout with fiddlehead ferns, dried cherries, pumpkin seeds and honey and voila... a Moroccan-esque near-winner. His elimination dish was even busier. 41 ingredients has to be a Top Chef recipe record (and that's after removing duplicates from separate sections), and it explains why he's so fast at the prep table. He has to be. First you lay down a mole made with black beans, chorizo, pumpkin seeds, chocolate and a horde of chiles and spices. Then a polenta enriched with goat cheese. The trout that's cooked with butter, cilantro and lime, but not before being rubbed with coffee, cinnamon and a bunch of other spices. You make a vinaigrette with chorizo, agave, pumpkin seeds, cinnamon, orange and cherry vinegar, you bake up some garlic tuiles, you add a dollop of tomatillo relish that's made with onions, bell peppers, cilantro, agave, lime and chile powder, and top it all off with some quinoa that you cooked and then fried up crispy. No sweat, right? Gail's first impression wasn't unreasonable. That dish looks like it needs some serious editing. But surprise, it worked. And Kenny's in the second slot.

3 Kevin Quickfires 0 1 0 Last Week: 5 Eliminations 0 1 0 Third spot goes to Kevin. Tom dinged him for a salty broth in the QF, but he was still on top of both challenges and appeared to have redeemed himself with the elimination. And that QF dish didn't look too bad, even if it didn't quite hit. Very conventional flavors -- chicken, onion, potato, garlic, lemon, tomato, mushroom -- but he simmered the chicken wings, then deboned and sautéed them before serving up with the resulting broth. Simple little twist that might've worked, but I'm betting having (and I'm speculating here) Swanson chicken broth rather than chicken stock to work with bit him in the ass. Get used to it, Kevin. It isn't the last consumer product you'll have to use. His elimination dish was also very simple, but the flavors look a lot more compelling to me. Simply cooked lamb, drizzled with a natural jus bolstered with veal stock, and paired with a Meyer lemon and pistachio marmalade with a little slivered spring onions on top. Kevin looks like he'll be around for a while.

4 Alex Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: 11 Eliminations 0 1 0 Alex rounds out the top group and is the other big mover. Unlike the three above him, I don't feel entirely confident that he'll maintain this level, but he was on the top of the elimination and missed being on top of the quickfire by a few seconds, so he'll join the early leaders. The flavors of his deconstructed beet borscht are very, very straightforward. Essentially, it's very simply braised short ribs, a roasted beet puree, some wilted cabbage with a little cherry vinegar and crème fraîche whipped up with some goat cheese. But in deconstructing it, the reimagined soup took another proven form, that of the braised short rib with pureed sauce and soft vegetable. Small wonder it worked, and a simple, smart play on Alex's part.

5 Kelly Quickfires 0 0 1 Last Week: 3 Eliminations 0 0 0 Kelly may have washed out of the first round of the prep race, but I'm reluctant to read too much into an inaugural challenge that required steady hands and had the additional gravity of a $20,000 prize. No doubt some were suffering from opening day jitters. I have Kelly on top of the second tier for garnering some very positive comments, including a blog shout-out from Gail, having the unfortunate luck of being in Angelo's group, and a recipe that looks good to me. Her NY strip was rubbed with fennel pollen and juniper berries, plated with mushrooms, asparagus and fiddlehead ferns, and sauced with a currant-infused port reduction and "Kelly Liken Currant-Lavender Sauce" which makes it sound like she brought her own line of bottled sauces with her. Either that, or she just really likes to use her name which, given the eponymous restaurant, may be the case.

6 Andrea Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: 6 Eliminations 0 0 0 I have Andrea right behind Kelly because she was in Tom's favorite group, her dish seemed to go over rather well, and she also put out a recipe that looks interesting. She makes sautéed potato gnocchi kicked up with ground chorizo, serves them with pork shoulder slow-braised in the usual suspects plus New Mexican chiles and orange juice, and tops it with a little gremolata, sautéed spinach and mushrooms, pan-roasted squash and manchego. There's a little fun in there. I'm looking forward to seeing what she does next.

7 Arnold Quickfires 0 0 1 Last Week: 10 Eliminations 0 0 0 It might be a little unfair to put Arnold behind Andrea given that Gail fawned over his dish in her blog, but I feel like I just can't give a dessert as much weight this early. Not because it's any less difficult, but just because it's different, and the exception rather than the norm. That said, this looked like a nice cake, made with kaffir lime and basil, served with a bourbon ginger snap and topped with a coconut crème anglaise and a gelatinous concoction of cardamom, lemon juice and basil seeds. Oh, and the whole thing was paired with a lemongrass "Myint" julep (*groan*), so he already has a leg up on the inevitable booze challenge.

8 Tamesha Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: 14 Eliminations 0 0 0 Yeah, I know, this one doesn't make any damn sense. But she made the second-to-last round of the prep race, she was in the group of death, and Timothy, who's at number 9 for reasons I'll get into at the moment (and which also probably don't make any damn sense), lost out to her in his group, so I feel compelled to put her higher. Her recipe doesn't look all that exciting, but let's remember that this was part of the "any one of the dishes in that group could have won the whole challenge" group. Essentially, she made a jerked chicken meatball with polenta, a tamarind sauce and a tropical fruit slaw. But it apparently earned Tom's admiration, so here she is.

9 Timothy Quickfires 0 1 0 Last Week: 8 Eliminations 0 0 1 Yes, I know, somebody who was on the chopping block and who took criticism for both of his dishes is at the midpoint of the field. Did I mention that this doesn't make any damn sense? I'm basically punting on Timothy because he has both good and bad notes for this episode. On the good side, he made the final round of the quickfire, and he's in the group (I'm pretty sure) Tom identified as providing four dishes all of which could have potentially won the whole challenge. On the bad side, his garlic roasted chicken with potato galette, fennel, cherries, ras el hanout and oyster mushrooms had too much cream, and those comments at JT sure didn't SOUND like those that would be applied to a dish that "could have won the whole challenge." But here's my line of thinking. Tom says outright that all four of the QF finalists cooked "adeptly," and Gail stated in her blog that Tim's elimination dish "could have been a winner if only he had paid attention to a few crucial details." So my hunch is that Timothy got a bit of a misleading edit, and that the bottom of his group is still worthy of the middle of the pack. Exactly. 'Sides which, most of the people below him are there not because they showed poorly, but because they didn't show at all. Seems odd to move them up for the grand achievement of appearing on the show. I say we need another week to figure out what's up with Timothy.

10 Ed Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: 1 Eliminations 0 0 0 Ed's at the top of the bottom half, basically because I'm not going to bust the preseason number one down any further for two seconds of vague discontent from Tom and a partygoer saying that the cod didn't work for him. Ed made what basically looks like a more refined version of a Baltimore coddie, served with baked beans, shaved fennel and a mustard aioli. Tom's complaint was that there wasn't enough cod, but all the coddies I had in Baltimore were mostly potato, and they worked just fine for me. So I'm going to put the best possible interpretation on this and guess that Ed was shooting for a sort of traditional form that just didn't sit well with Tom. And he just didn't seem all THAT annoyed to begin with, so we'll stick with number ten for now.

11 Amanda Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: 16 Eliminations 0 0 0 Amanda, somehow I doubt Tom Colicchio and Eric Ripert were impressed by the California culinary history lesson. But that said, it was at least an interesting-looking recipe that garnered minor criticism. She dusted clementines with sencha, made a daikon-caraway gelée, pickled some cucumbers and put all three on top of raw snapper. So, uh... yeah, we'll see what she does next week.

12 Lynne Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: 15 Eliminations 0 0 0 Lynne is one of two contestants about whom we essentially learned nothing. Zero feedback on her dish. We know it was better than Stephen's and worse than Kenny's. Which also doesn't help. Recipe looks neat, though. Another dessert, she made waffles with corn-camembert ice cream, bacon praline, bourbon apple butter, maple-cardamom syrup, caramel syrup and acorn squash jam. And hey, she made the second-to-last tier of the prep race. So I suppose I should probably put her higher than two or three of the folks above who received negative comments. But I can't bring myself to move her based on nothing but her recipe. She'll have to just hang out in the nebulous portion of the bottom half this week.

13 Tiffany Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: 12 Eliminations 0 0 0 Ditto Tiffany, who is in the exact same boat as Lynne, better than John, not as good as Angelo, zero feedback. Not much to go on. Her not much, however, was a cajun shrimp and crawfish salad with ravigote sauce (that'd be of the mayonnaise-based New Orleans style variety rather than the traditional French variety), fried tomatillos and a bacon vinaigrette. She flew completely under the radar and her recipe didn't look quite as interesting to me as Lynne's, so she's essentially 12a.

14 Tracey Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: 9 Eliminations 0 0 0 I don't really have anything more to go on with Tracey than I do with the others, but there's one thing that bothers me. Tom seemed significantly underwhelmed with her dish for the three-quarters of a second we saw him talking about it. Problem is, the grits with maple cheddar and rock shrimp looks like it's Tracey's de facto signature dish. I found multiple writeups that all called it out as a favorite. So if Tom just grimaced at what may have been her best shot, she's toast.

15 Stephen Quickfires 0 0 1 Last Week: 2 Eliminations 0 0 1 Stephen had a rough couple of days. First round washout in the QF. Chopping block in the elimination. Scathing words from Tom and a chicken nugget comparison from Ripert. Plus, the guy's already sporting an episode nine strung-out look, and we're only two days in. It occurs to me that Stephen just left 14-month-old twins at home. I'm trying to decide whether this means he's already done and will be a quivering mass of goo by episode three, or if he'll follow the opposite trajectory of the typical Top Chef contestant and actually get more rested as the season wears on. Either way, he's not looking so hot right now. UPDATE: I neglected to mention that I'm betting Stephen will bounce back. I don't imagine you become a Tourondel hit man without some serious skill. But you can't lead off the season like that and not be near the bottom of the pile.

16 Jacqueline Quickfires 0 0 1 Last Week: 17 Eliminations 0 0 1 He's looking better than Jacqueline, though! Damn... so close to nailing the first exit three seasons in a row. Jacqueline sure didn't make a good showing for herself. Though I call shenanigans on the recipe. A quarter pound of butter for a pound of liver is not "almost no fat." The recipe she couldn't remember on the show? I suspect that's the one I'm looking at. What's more, the recipe says it's a duo of mousses, and Tom says in the extended judges' table video that she screwed up both of them, but I don't see two in the recipe. In that same video, Ripert talks about how he considered Jacqueline and John for elimination and settled on John. Good enough for me, even if I didn't already think so myself. Jacqueline now inhabits the basement.

17 John Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: 17 Eliminations 0 0 1 Cripes, John, at least Eve had the courtesy to stick around for an episode before washing out. And she didn't describe elements of her dishes as "just an instrument to bring the mousse to your mouth." And she didn't use three prepared items in her very first dish (the puff pastry, canned mango in syrup and a third item not identified but referenced in the extended JT video). Basically, it's clear that John screwed everything up. Everything. Even the stuff that was premade. Can the dude actually cook some good food? Who knows. He put bad mousse and bad sauce on frozen puff pastry. And I agree with some of the comments that there's nothing inherently wrong with frozen puff pastry. But your very first dish, when it comprises such a substantial portion of what's on your plate? Bad, bad call. We know he had some oven issues, but it's still amazing -- particularly looking at the recipes -- when you compare what John did with his time as compared to what some of the other chefs did with theirs. The goal was to introduce yourself and where you come from. John said he doesn't do pastry, and the judges couldn't taste the maple in the dish. With Jacqueline, at least they could look at her dish and see a (mostly) good idea, poorly executed. John gave them absolutely nothing to put forth as a point in his favor. He seems like a swell (if odd) fellow, but eliminations don't get much more deserving than this.

So there it is. Consider these the knee-jerk reactions they are until we get a little more data.

WARNING : MINOR EPISODE TWO SPOILERS AHEAD

Sadly, it doesn't look like that data is coming this week. I'm already gearing up to hate episode two. The quickfire is a really lame variant on cooking with one arm tied behind your back (also lame), and the elimination is a grammar school cafeteria challenge. So it looks like we might not learn much about the contestants other than which are going to be ultracompetitive bastards and which of them hate kids. But Kelly runs a food program for schoolchildren, so consider her the favorite.

Discuss!

Top Chef - S7E1 Postmortem

Go ahead, TGP... I deserve it.

Eeeeysh. That was more embarrassing than Eve. And for even more painful reasons. (Just a vehicle to get it to your mouth? John, I tried to give you the benefit of the doubt and you're killing me here.) You win... that's the last time I let accolades keep me from putting somebody where I suspect they ought to be.

Couple of surprises, for me, anyway. Kenny apparently hasn't lost a step since shifting from EC to empire management. Stephen's the other big mover, but I'm betting he bounces back. I'm hoping he bounces back. I don't think I can take two early flameouts in the top half, especially if one of them is number two. And Alex shoots out of the middle of the pack, at least for now.

Enough about my broken pride, though... great start to the season! Good challenges, interesting food and the judges are in fine form. It is, of course, still early. I'm sure some who looked shaky will get it together, and some others may have just used their best ammunition and have nowhere to go but down.

A quick note, for those who are wondering, anything that's been broadcast is fair game the moment it hits the sets on the East Coast. And with that, I'll leave the rest for the rankings. On Monday. There's... um... going to be some movement.

*sigh*

Top Chef - S7E0 Power Rankings

Holy crap! Top Chef is almost here!

I'd like to take a moment to applaud Padma for her decision to breed. Sounds like it bought us a little extra time between seasons six and seven and boy howdy, did I need it. This stuff is exhausting, you guys. But as much as I'm usually ready to hang myself by episode ten (wait and see when I use my get out of the Power Rankings free card for the season... that's usually when it's become a slog), it's always exciting to start a new season. Perhaps doubly so this season, because of the little surprise judging shakeup that occurred a month or two back.

For those who might not have heard, everybody's favorite snarky Englishman, Toby Young, is on the outs, having been replaced by everybody's favorite fishy Frenchman, Eric Ripert. And while I'd still kick Ripert to the curb in favor of Jay Rayner in a heartbeat, this is a pretty freaking good catch (ha!) for the Magical Elves. Ripert's been around a lot as a guest judge. He knows the drill. He handles the spotlight quite well (even if the Santa suit incident was... unfortunate). There's no questioning his bona fides when it comes to culinary knowledge, and though some folks have expressed fear that he will crush and destroy anybody whose seafood is anything less than absolutely perfect, I think he's shown an ability to be very understanding and constructive in his previous judging stints. This is a regime change I feel great about.

I feel a lot less great about the preseason rankings this time around. First of all, last season's were too freakishly good. I have no idea how that happened. So let's be clear right off that bat, that will not happen again. Then, there's the field this season. I feel like I'm researching Supreme Court nominees. As if they've been picked specifically because they aren't leaving a nice paper trail. Last season, there were a few like that, but this season is packed with chefs who may have traceable resumes, but whose current work is shrouded in mystery. And among those to whom I could pin a menu? Seasonal Contemporary American. All of them. Well, not ALL of them. There is kind of a lot of French. But cripes, it seems like they're all cooking the same damn food this season. And what's more, I feel like the field is a little more compressed top to bottom. The throwaways are harder to throw away and have just enough mystery to make you wonder if there's a total sleeper in there somewhere. And the top tier have question marks... ones that will be resolved very quickly, I'm sure, but question marks nonetheless. The talent level is high again. It's no season six, and I don't think we're going to see anything like the four horsemen, but if last season hadn't completely blown the curve, I'd be super impressed by this crowd. And I still am. I just bothers me that in the top tier, last season was a matter of picking who I thought was most likely to kick ass and take names, and this season is a matter of trying to figure out who I think is least likely to be a surprise washout.

Confidence level, low, but here it goes anyway. As last year, the preseason rankings, in reverse order:

Wins

Top

Bottom

17 Jacqueline Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: n/a Eliminations 0 0 0 Jacqueline (that's jack-LEEN, apparently) might have some skills, but she's chock full of warning signs, not the least of which is that she's a 9/11 career changer who was originally in advertising. Which explains why the website for her catering company, Jacqueline Lombard Events, is so slick. That she did a stint at Otto looks semi-interesting, until it's revealed that she was doing pastry. No less noble, but that's a bonus for Top Chef, not a baseline. Where it gets really problematic is when you try to figure out what kind of food she's cooking now. Her newest restaurant project, Leña, isn't off the ground. Her website has been oddly scrubbed of all menus and recipes, leaving no clue as to her style. In fact, the only information I could find about any of her food was a handful of reviews of Gansevoort 69, where she developed a comfort food menu that's garnered responses ranging from mediocre to awful. Yeah, everybody and their brother is doing comfort-ING food nowadays, but she really takes it to an extreme. Meatloaf with diced peas and carrots? Grilled chicken sandwich with guacamole? BLT? The menu reads like the clubhouse grill at a public golf course. And I've seen photos. They look about as good. One blogger tried her Spaghettios (yes, she served spaghettios) and said Chef Boyardee's Franco American's were better. Ouch. Far as I can tell, she has a really pretty website with a long list of big name clients. But it's tough to go on that alone. I'm putting her at the bottom of the pile until further notice.

16 Amanda Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: n/a Eliminations 0 0 0 I'm very uncomfortable putting Amanda this low, not because I've seen anything to make me think she deserves anything higher, but because I just haven't seen anything. She's worked within Joachim Splichal's organization and was even executive sous of his ill-fated seafood joint, Paperfish, but I just have absolutely no idea what she can do. She trained at Le Cordon Bleu and has seemingly bounced all over the place, hitting a few Michelin-starred places in Europe as well as -- by her own description -- just about all of the fine dining restaurant in Los Angeles (a dubious claim, but okay). But what does she cook? No clue. Has she ever designed a menu or even her own dishes? Couldn't tell you. She isn't even attached to a restaurant at the moment, listing her occupation as "consultant." She's a total mystery contestant who could turn out to be some kind of mega sleeper. But I doubt it. So I'm putting her near the bottom.

15 Lynne Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: n/a Eliminations 0 0 0 If this were 2001 instead of 2011, I might have Lynne a lot higher. And it's not because of her age (51). Unlike some, I don't buy the theory that anybody over a certain age is washed-up. She may prove to be, but I'm not jumping to that conclusion. No, the reason I bring up ancient history is because once upon a time, in a town called Atlanta, Lynne had a very warmly-regarded restaurant called Grappa, where she prepared her "hands off" cuisine, treating things simply and letting ingredients be. And I can see that appealing to Colicchio, in particular, if she does it really well. But Grappa is long, long gone, and it seems that she's spent her time since then as a professor at the CIA. Excuse me, assistant professor. Now, I hesitate to throw out fighting words that start with "Those who can't do," but it does kinda make you wonder. Maybe not. Maybe she's a fabulously skilled chef who was simply seeking a little stability. After helming a failed restaurant, post forty no less, I can see how regular hours and a steady paycheck might be mighty attractive. But even if so, she's been out of the fire for a while. Gotta consider her a bottom-tier contestant with upside potential.

14 Tamesha Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: n/a Eliminations 0 0 0 There are a lot of reasons I can't put Tamesha very high. At 24, she's very young. She's never held an executive position that I can find, and while her bio lists her style as modern American with French and Asian influences, I've seen no concrete examples thereof. What she has going for her is that she's currently sous at The Oval Room, which is really rocking the DC food nerds I know right now. And what's more, she was brought there by Executive Chef Tony Conte, who left Jean-Georges' stable and took her with him. So she has to be a formidable technician, and she's working a hot kitchen. That has to be worth something. And bonus, home field advantage.

13 Kenny Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: n/a Eliminations 0 0 0 Kenny's another contestant I have a very, very tenuous grip on. He runs a company called Passionate Culinary Enterprises, which "is focused on assisting food and beverage organizations to become synergistically sound." Okay, then. Basically, it looks like restaurant management and consulting. And in his intro video, he even talks about how he'd really like to go beyond the food and bring some leadership to Top Chef. The guy's already pegging himself as a manager rather than a creative. But he has real restaurant experience. He made a little buzz down in Florida about a decade ago, and his most recent project is all of the food for a Telluride resort called Capella, including their fine dining restaurant, Onyx. But damned if I can't find anything anybody has to say about Onyx, good or bad. Onyx doesn't even post a full menu, instead highlighting just two or three dishes. Kenny defines his style with a grocery list of ethnic cuisines including Japanese, Thai, Vietnamese, Italian, Middle Eastern, Indian, Native American, Moroccan and African. Sure you didn't miss any there, Kenny? But that's not exactly evident in his current work. But dig a little bit, and it turns out he's done a number of dinners at the James Beard house, and some of them look kind of interesting. So I'm going to put him near the top of the bottom tier. There might be some sleeper potential here. At the very least, he should be technically sound enough and experienced enough to survive for a while.

12 Tiffany Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: n/a Eliminations 0 0 0 This is about where I feel there's a transition to the middle of the pack, and while it's tricky to find daylight between most of them this season, I feel like I have a pretty good grip on where most of them are coming from. Tiffany does seafood, and this means so could be Ripert's best friend, or his favorite punching bag. She's the executive chef of Go Fish Ocean Club in Dallas, and it has a menu of clean, crisply presented seafood with Asian and the occasional island accents. Oysters with green apple mignonette; fried green tomatoes with shrimp ravigote, radish pico and remoulade; olive oil poached escolar with fiddlehead ferns, morels, corn and garlic confit; jerk fish... you get the idea. Tiffany has been heading up the kitchen there since 2008, so she's had some time to get her sea legs (ha!), and a recent writeup from the Dallas Morning News was rather complimentary. Plus, the food goes a fairly refined route, which would help in the later stages should she stick around. Plus, I like the fact that her alma mater, the Art Institute of Houston, apparently thought enough of her to let her do some amount of instruction so young. Yeah, I know, could've been the culinary equivalent of a TA for all we know, but it implies she was a good student. Of course, she's young, there isn't a ton out there about Go Fish and she's bound to fall into Ripert's crosshairs at some point, so there are some significant marks against her, but I think she might show us something that merits sticking around for a bit.

11 Alex Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: n/a Eliminations 0 0 0 I'm not sure why, but I'm getting kind of a dark horse vibe from Alex. And I say dark horse because his menu is out there, it's clearly his, and yet I'm having a heck of a time finding much in the way of commentary upon it. He trained at Le Cordon Bleu in Vegas, and worked at Lutece and a number of restaurants in the Bally's empire before catching the eye of Ivan Kane and moving to Los Angeles to launch Ivan Kane's Cafe Was. Cafe Was looks more like a theme park than a restaurant, but what little I can find seems to be positive, and his menu looks interesting, at least. He terms it "California Bistro," which looks to me like mostly straightforward French bistro with some creative touches. The problem is that so little has been written about the place that I'm really not sure what to think. Is it untouched by the MSM because it's young, or because it looks like a theme restaurant? Hard to say. So I just can't put him any higher. But there might be a little surprise potential here.

10 Arnold Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: n/a Eliminations 0 0 0 Arnold makes me nervous. First because he's a big personality, and you always have to wonder if the big personalities get a bit of a pass on skill. Second, because he's a career changer who started as a figure skater (you can't make this stuff up). And third, because of his cooking style. But we'll get to that. In his favor, he comes from a restaurant family, he did some training in NYC including some involvement in the Jean-Georges empire that I couldn't nail down, and he currently owns and is the EC for three successful Nashville area restaurants. Launching three winners (even if two of them are fairly young) is impressive for a 32-year-old, no matter where you live. What gives me pause is that his three restaurants -- PM, Cha Chah and Suzy Wong's House of Yum (you read that right) -- absolutely scream scene over cuisine. And some menu items are pushing into Tex Wasabi territory. Deluxe Asian wonton nachos with BBQ pork, queso blanco, edamame, cilantro pico, sriracha and red curry crema... wait, what? Seriously, it reads like your worst Asian fusion nightmare. The menu at Cha Chah, a tapas joint, is a little less frightening, but it also lends the impression that he's dabbling in cuisines rather than learning them. But all of the local press I could find is quite positive and, again, the guy's launched three winners, so I'm trying to respect those facts even if my instincts say no, no, please, no.

9 Tracey Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: n/a Eliminations 0 0 0 I have Tracey in the upper end of the MOTP (middle of the pack) because she's been around a while, seems well-regarded back home, is coming out of the CIA and might have a little extra versatility. Actually, she's been around quite a bit, bouncing around Georgia and Florida for a number of years. Then she was sous at Luna Park in the Orlando area before landing at her current home, Table 1280 in Atlanta, where she was elevated to EC in early 2008. She does contemporary American with some Southern touches, sending out dishes like royal rock shrimp with Logan Turnpike grits and maple cheddar; black bass with shaved cauliflower, sweet celery, white truffle oil and salsa verde; or a Niman Ranch pork chop with toasted farro, asparagus and pickled ramps. A lot of her pairings are fairly conventional by today's standards, but by all local accounts I could find they're cleanly plated, properly prepared and quite tasty. She hasn't gotten enough notice to make me think she's anything more than a middle-of-the-packer, but she seems capable. Also in her favor is the fact that she does a lot of themed menus to coordinate with the productions and art exhibitions at the Woodruff Arts Center, which houses the restaurant. When the terra cotta soldiers roll into town, maybe Chinese isn't her specialty, but that kind of flexibility could help her survive when she's forced out of her element. And she does pastry, which is the Top Chef equivalent of a mini derringer in a calf holster.

8 Timothy Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: n/a Eliminations 0 0 0 Though Timothy is somehow supposed to be an almost star who has trained with some big names, I'm troubled less by what I've heard about him and more by what I haven't heard about him. He came up under Jean-Louis Palladin in DC, who thought enough of him to make him Chef de Cuisine of Palladin in NYC. And his bio notes that he's worked alongside Alain Ducasse (indeed, it looks like he spent some time at Louis XV in Monaco), Roberto Donna, Guenter Seeger and Patrick Clark (even if the careful wording of "worked alongside" gives me pause... heck, I worked alongside Charlie Trotter.) But here's the thing. Timothy has spent the past six or seven years in Baltimore, and I lived -- quite literally -- four or five blocks from his place for two years. And I basically heard nothing. He opened his first restaurant, Timothy Dean Bistro, in 2004. When the Bistro started tanking, he converted it into TD Lounge, which is what it was for most of my stay in Baltimore. And now, he's just launched Prime Steakhouse (which, BTW, uses choice meat), and the lead critic for the Baltimore Sun seems to feel it's a just shy of great kind of restaurant. So why, when I ping the Baltimore food nerds for a little info, do I get a collective shrug in return? Admittedly, Timothy has had a lot of distractions. He's been involved in a couple of very high-profile lawsuits, and it sounds like he lost his wife to breast cancer a few years ago. Maybe a little Top Chef-style isolation, where he has nothing to do but concentrate on the food for a few weeks, is exactly what he needs to show this great culinary promise he's supposed to have. But I'm dubious.

7 John Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: n/a Eliminations 0 0 0 Here, I see another bit of a break as we move into contestants who have some strong credentials, but aren't cracking the top tier because there are just some question marks. I realize I just put a guy who was a James Beard nominee in 2008 and 2009 down at number seven. And no, it's not an indication of an incredible top six. It's just... it's just... I dunno. Something about John's whole situation gives me pause. He's an engineer who fell into a restaurant called The Lark, outside of Detroit. And he's been there for sixteen years, working his way from garde manger up to Chef de Cuisine, a position he's held since 2006. So the guy has spent his entire culinary career in one restaurant. And that one restaurant is a bit of an odd duck. The Lark is an old warhorse with an old world decor managed by old world Europeans who guided its mostly old world European menu. You choose a main course, and with that main course comes a nondescript salad and a selection from the "hors d'oeuvre trolley." If you order their signature Rack of Lamb Gehghis Khan, you get a little printed card showing how many they've now served. And yet, it's now overseen -- and has been for four or five years -- by a guy who supposedly is into all kinds of eclectic, international flavors? The menu's oddly schizophrenic. Roast prime rib with Yorkshire pudding, Tournedos Rossini, Lobster Thermidor, prime beef strip loin with Burgundy reduction on one hand. Then there's macadamia nut crusted barramundi with tropical fruit relish and ginger beurre blanc, morel and artichoke Napoleon with pine nuts and tempura vegetables, grilled loin of rabbit with garlic flan... I mean, nothing's that far out there but it almost seems like there's a culture clash going on, and I just don't know what to make of it. And yet, a lot of people love the place. It's been around forever, charging $70-90 a head for this prix fixe menu. But reading around, I just kind of get the impression that it's coasting on reputation. I haven't read anything good from any source I trust, and there's a little too much, "Yeah... it's really not all that," going on. I don't know. Sometimes those early James Beard nominations are peppered with big fish in small ponds, and I wonder if this is one of those situations. I may regret starting John off so low, but there it is.

6 Andrea Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: n/a Eliminations 0 0 0 Andrea strikes me as a "you know what you're going to get" contestant, and I feel like I can already see her trajectory: Solid at the start, maybe a little vanilla but steady, slowly outpaced as it gets into the second half of the season. She's a CIA grad who's run a restaurant called Talula along with her husband down in Miami for about ten years, and it's gotten a lot of great press. At first, I thought she might be a heavy hitter, but then I started looking a little more closely. She was one of Food & Wine's best new chefs... in 2000. The NY Times listed Talula in a section of "places to be now"... in 2003. Their website is chock full of nice press clippings... from 2004 and 2005. I started to get the impression that maybe time had just passed Andrea by, and then I fell upon a piece in the local alternative paper that basically said exactly that (the sharp retort from Andrea's husband in the comments section of that post was... interesting). But some food nerds seem to love the place, and claim that Talula is still one of the best joints in the area, it's just that Miami Beach tourists have been seduced by glitzier options that have opened in the interim. Adding another layer of interest is that Andrea and her husband are just now opening a place called The Water Club with a really basic-looking sandwichy salady kind of menu that would seem totally nondescript except for the fact that it seats 500 people. Based purely on her husband's response to that post in the Miami New Times, it's clear she and her husband have something to prove. Either they cook the right way and they've been outpaced by more glamorous options, or they're still cooking like they did a decade ago and the rest of the world has moved on. Guess we'll find out which.

5 Kevin Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: n/a Eliminations 0 0 0 He's from Jersey, he's a big, beefy guy, and he runs a place called Rat's Restaurant. This does NOT tell you all you need to know about Kevin. It's rather misleading, in fact. Kevin, as far as I can tell, is not season seven's Joey/Howie/Danny. First off, Rat's Restaurant is actually a reference to The Wind in the Willows, and it's located at the Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton. And second, in his intro interview at least, Kevin strikes me as rather soft-spoken. So he's not what he seems from a quick glance at the bio. So what is he? Well, he's been running Rat's since Stephen Starr took it over last summer, where he's been putting out a French-Mediterranean menu with some creative touches... toasted peanuts with the duck pate, sea beans with the butter-braised lobster tail, smoked chickpeas with the steamed halibut, etc. There are some less unique options too, like the spinach ravioli with parmesan froth, sweet pea puree, porcini mushrooms and lemon oil. Of course, the menu actually reads "raviolis," so maybe you can't take the Jersey out of the kid after all. But the thing I keep coming back to is that it sounds like he made a pretty good showing at the 2008 USA trials for the Bocuse d'Or. Now, we can debate the merits of the competition, and the award he won was for presentation (meat, natch), but it takes an incredible amount of dedication to jump into that fray, and the fact that he was even on that stage says something. And with two or three years as Chef de Cuisine at the Ritz in Philadelphia and a stint as culinary director of Jose Garces' restaurant group, it isn't as though his resume is light. Thing is, he's originally from Hamilton, and now he's working in Hamilton. My hunch is that he could've move onto to bigger and better things, but decided he'd like to be home for a little while. I'm getting a good vibe here. Rat's is kind of under the radar, but I think Kevin might have some surprises in him.

4 Angelo Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: n/a Eliminations 0 0 0 I have Angelo as a near miss for the top tier. What I like about him is that he's a CIA grad who spent a lot of time in prominent positions for Jean-Georges restaurants, including stints as executive sous at Spice Market and even Jean Georges. What I don't like about him is that the first restaurant he opened as EC, Yumcha, tanked in under a year, and he's now running a sandwich show. Which sounds worse than it is. Sosa is all about creative Asian, and Yumcha, somewhat in the spirit of Jean-Georges' own failed 66, was a very open, modern take on Chinese cuisine. Chinese-inspired might even be a more appropriate way of putting it. And from what I can tell, people really liked it! Important people who know their food, even! So I can't figure out why the place didn't make it, and it's tough digging up info on places that have been closed for five years. Perhaps some NY food nerd can fill us in, here. So now, he runs Xie Xie, which is an Asian sandwich shop with five sandwiches. Not banh mi, mind you, but Asian sandwiches. Really interesting, creative ones, actually, that people -- important people who know their food, even -- seem to rather like. So I get the feeling that the guy was stung by Yumcha's failure and is kind of regrouping. I'd feel better if it weren't taking so long, but it seems like there's a lot to like here. Heck, the guy was even invited by Alain Ducasse to do a guest menu at Spoon in Paris (though I didn’t particularly like Spoon). It’s just... five sandwiches, huh?

3 Kelly Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: n/a Eliminations 0 0 0 Here we enter the top tier, even if I kick it off with one that could (and probably will) come back to bite me in the ass. I just can't help but rank Kelly awfully high. In some ways, she has Eve written all over her. Her restaurant, Kelly Liken (oy), is in a very small, insular community, she's been running the place since 2004, and everybody seems to love it. But she hasn't traveled, hasn't worked in any big kitchens I can find, and has seemed pretty content to do her thing out there in Vail, Colorado. Which is great, if she's good. And she might be as good as the limited press suggests. She's a CIA grad, she's pulled down a James Beard nomination, Bon Appétit was all over her at one point... she's been making some noise out there. Heck, she even has camera experience. She recently challenged on Iron Chef America, and lost to Jose Garces. Sadly, I missed it, and it wasn't exceptionally close. Garces beat her by five points, including a large-ish gap in the all-important "taste" category (the ingredient was bleu cheese). But again, the fact that she was asked on the show says something, and I'm sure she took a lot away from that experience that's going to come in handy on Top Chef. And I like the cut of her jib. She cooks a fun-looking contemporary American menu with a lot of local influence, including dishes like Dungeness crab salad with tomato-watermelon gazpacho, chili oil and pickled watermelon rind; pan roasted duck breast with wild rice hoe cake, sautéed arugula, blackberry conserve and cassis gastrique; and Colorado rack of lamb with eggplant caviar, feta studded farro, pickled red-onion fennel salad and creamy cucumber raita. The only red flag -- and it isn't a small one -- is that her latest venture, a casual joint called Rick & Kelly's American Bistro, is getting savaged. But if it turns out that she's simply a one-restaurant chef who can't maintain a satellite, is that necessarily a bad thing?

2 Stephen Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: n/a Eliminations 0 0 0 I have never been less confident about my top two picks, ever. And the reason is that I'm kind of flying blind on them. Let me explain. Stephen is a total pro who's been around the block a few times. He's externed with Charlie Trotter and Thomas Keller (I think). He's been working for Michael Mina for over a decade, and is currently EC of Michael Mina's Seablue in Vegas, sous at Stripsteak before that. In fact, it kind of sounds like he's been Mina's go-to guy when it comes to maintaining the empire as of late. He's been around the right people, and I don't have the slightest doubt that he's going to be technically sound, a total pro, and that he'll be around late. Or at least late-ish. But what does he cook? Got me. Mina's food, I guess. And so you see why I look at the number two next to his name and kind of shake my head. Guess we'll find out if he can be a number one, or if he'll always be a number two. Um. You know what I mean.

1 Ed Quickfires 0 0 0 Last Week: n/a Eliminations 0 0 0 I'm similarly nervous about Ed. Holy cow, does this guy have a resume. CIA, Olives with Todd English, No. 9 Park with Barbara Lynch, executive sous at DB Bistro Moderne and Daniel with Daniel Boulud, a stint as EC of Veritas, BLT Market with Laurent Tourondel... he's had his ass kicked for many years by some very high-profile chefs. And he ALMOST escaped the Stephen trap, since he just launched Plein Sud with Frederick Lesort, so I can at least get a look at his menu. But Plein Sud is less than a month old, and there's precious little to read about it just yet. It's brasserie cuisine, and it looks pretty straightforward, but he just has to be rocking it. Has to be. Right? *fingers crossed*

Ladies and gentlemen, your Top Chef Season Seven contestants. May they not embarrass me.

A quick side note, now that we're out west, I'm going to be doing the postmortems on delay this season. It's not that we don't get the show the same time as everybody else. We do. It's just that dinnertime with two little kids isn't the best time to be concentrating on Top Chef. DVR is my friend, and I'm compelled to use it. But my intention, provided I remember, is to always post the thread before the show starts, so you guys can even yak as things develop if you like. And then I'll jump in a few hours later once I've had a chance to catch up. Starting Wednesday.

Discuss!