Hello Trashies, and welcome to another entirely too long recap of Top Chef. This week the Chefs make their way back to LA, Kwame almost looses a finger, and all the chefs tell us more boring stories from their past.
We start with our contestants on their way to THE Top Chef Kitchen. Karen tells us she’s excited to have won one, while Kwame makes clear his desires for Padma. We know Kwame, we know. Finally, the chefs make it to LA where they meet Chef Antonia Lofaso. She tells them that she threw up before every quickfire when she was on Top Chef. Mmm, appetizing, wonder if that was the secret ingredient to her wins. The show reminds us that $125,000 is at stake for the winning chef. That seems low for an investment in a restaurant in New York, Miami, or LA, which is where a lot of these Chefs are from. I mean, they could skip one of their many unnecessary field trips to a date farm or four wheeling business in the dessert and up the pot. How much does Padma get paid per episode? I wonder if she laughs to herself a little every time she announces that paltry amount, which is so exciting to the plebs.
Anyway, the chefs are pumped about the money regardless, and Jeremy take this opportunity to play the single dad card. He tells us that he would use the money to send his daughters to private school. Umm…pretty sure you’re supposed to do something food-related with it. I know you named your daughter after a French cookie, but that doesn’t count.
This week’s quickfire challenge is to create a dish using only 10 ingredients from the pantry, each ingredient being chosen by one of the 10 chefs. Ok, everyone wants to succeed, so I don’t think anyone is going to pick something super kooky. Also, 10 seems like plenty to me. Even if there are some weird choices, you don’t have to use all 10, so what’s the challenge? Philip goes first, he picks beef, and then Isaac chooses chicken, which seems dumb since they already have beef, but whatever. The weirdest choice by far is Jason’s celery pick. My guess is he already had a dish in mind that requires celery and threw everyone else under the bus. But who knows, most of the time these fools aren’t really smart enough to strategize even that much. So the ingredients are as follows:
1. Steak
2. Chicken
3. Jalapenos
4. Salt
5. Vinegar
6. Olive Oil
7. Garlic
8. Mushrooms
9. Tomatoes
10. Celery
Carl says some boring shit as usual, Isaac continues with his Food Network audition, Marjorie is confused by Isaac’s choice of chicken, especially since Isaac isn’t using any, and Amar points out that, for a contestant on a cooking show, Jeremy rarely cooks. Then Carl gets weirdly selfish with the tomatoes, the time runs out, and we are presented with the following dishes:
Kwame: Fire-Roasted Chicken with Tomato Sauce & Celery
Jason: Raw Mushroom Salad with Shaved Celery & Chicken Fat Vinaigrette
Amar: Chicken Breast with Roaste Tomato Celery Vinaigrette & Mushrooms a la Grecque
Marjorie: Heirloom Tomato Salad with Seared Steak & Celery Jalapeno Vinaigrette
Chad: Grilled New York Steak with Marinated Mushrooms Tomato Seeds & Pickled Jalapeno
Issac: Seared Beef Carpaccio with Shaved Mushroom and Jalapeno with Tomato
Manbun: Tomato with Center Cut Tartare, Roasted Jalapeno, Mushroom, Garlic & Celery
Jeremy: Shaved Beef with Mushroom, Crispy Garlic Vinaigrette
Karen: Grilled Steak Salad with Grilled & Raw Celery & Jalapeno Vinaigrette
Carl: Pan-Roasted New York Strip with Tomato Confit, Grilled & Raw Jalapeno
During the tasting, nothing exciting happened except that Carl got his comeuppance for hoarding the tomatoes. He was criticized for having a weird ratio of too much tomato to steak. Then it’s on to judging. First, the least favorites were: Isaac & Karen. Favorites were Jeremy & Amar, but Jeremy won. Amar was pissed that Jeremy won immunity without cooking anything.
Padma then introduces the elimination challenge by reminding us that Top Chef started 10 years ago, and the world was a different place back then. As hallmarks of that change, she mentions Myspace was the top website at the time (ok), and that Tom Cruise was just marrying Katie Holmes (Didn’t care 10 years ago, don’t care now). The elimination challenge is to create a dish that is representative of who you were 10 years ago.
So, cue the boring stories of what everyone was up to 10 years ago. Jeremy had long hair, Kwame had a strained relationship with his father, Marjorie had just graduated from culinary school. Marjorie tells us that she was very “green” back then, and therefore she will be making a literally green dish, green curry to be specific. Because, you know curry, is like chaotic in the beginning, but then it really comes together. No, I don’t know. Green curry is just good to me, beginning to end, all I think about green curry is mmmm, green curry. Jason tells us he had just taken a management position, and that he was very intense back then, which isn’t at all how he is now. Uh, who are you talking about again? You look like you come from the atomic age, and you make food based on ancient Japanese cookbooks that other people think comes from outer space. Yeah, you’re not an intense dude.
Marjorie can’t remember the Alphabet in the spice aisle
Karen tells us that 10 years ago, she was in love with making pasta and her girlfriend, maybe in that order. So they moved to Italy but couldn’t afford to turn on the heat in the winter, so they had pots of water boiling to keep the apartment warm. Huh? Well depending on your stove, you’re still running up either your gas or electric bill, which would also go up if you turned on the heat. Except if you turned on the heat it would probably be a more efficient use of gas or electric to warm your place, as that is what the heating and ventilation system is designed to do.