I should have started this when this season first started 4 weeks ago, but I didn’t quite have my act together then. Now that I do, I’ll be doing regular weekly posts about the show and I’d love for you guys and gals to chime in with your thoughts about things.
For those of you that don’t know, Top Chef is a reality cooking show which airs on Bravo TV at 10 PM Wednesday evenings. It is hosted by Padma Lakshmi and Tom Colicchio. It is essentially a contest where each week, one or more contestants are removed from the field due to creating the least liked food of all the chefs. The final winner is given a boatload of cash (somewhere north of 100K) and a feature in Food and Wine magazine.
So from our perspective, it can be somewhat hard to comment on the decisions made by the judges because we can not taste the food the chefs have prepared. However, the judging panel is always composed of top flight culinary talent and when they say the food is crap, we can rest assured, the food is crap.
This past week, two of the chefs were kicked off the program for failing this weeks challenge. The challenge was to go out fishing off Montauk on Long Island and catch some fish. They were then to prepare the fish that they caught for a group of 200 guests. One of the things that was challenging was that the chefs were to be preparing the food right on the beach for the guests.
Given the setting and the environment, one would think that simpler fare would be something that the chefs would think of. In fact, the most well liked dishes this week were done that way in Carla’s lettuce wraps and Dale’s fish tacos. Which leads to the question, what the hell were Marcel, Richard, and Fabio thinking with their Sea Bass, Succatash, Corn Puree, Cherry Tomato Confit, Concord Gastrique and Jamon Air? I know that Marcel has a thing for foams, but you’re on the beach dude, get a grip.
Also, I have to say that it was time for Jamie to go. All she’s done is complain about everything and try to avoid being judged at every opportunity. I’ve discussed this with other people before and in this competition, it is usually best to kind of hang out in the middle of the pack until about half of the chefs have been eliminated because being too risky early (a la Casey’s chicken feet fiasco last week) can really backfire on you. However avoiding being judged just shows your fear of the other competitors and that mindset will always bring about an early demise.
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