Top Chef-Tailgating
Watching now.
Jennifer wins immunity. I didn't think much of her dish. Richard picked Michelob Ultra??!!! Are you kidding me? That's like trying to cook something that goes well with water. That's not beer! Stephanie's choice of Hoegaarten was excellent and her dish looked and sounded great. Wish I could taste it.
And what is with that pretzel crumbles? What up with that? I feel bad for Mark because he has no idea what football tailgating is, poor guy.
Oh, and Richard's pate melt? Lets say I'm dubious.
OK, foreshadowing just happened. I think its either Spike or Mark.
How did Nikki get this far?
Mark goes for the charcoal, I hope it works for him. Risky.
The Fridge, Dent, and Sayers?? Simply awesome.
Spike uses jicama? In Chicago? Too wimpy.
Ryan's food is way too fru-fru for football. And the judges agree with me.
Andrew definitely got issues.
OOh, Lisa's looks good.
Quinoa tabbouleh? Oy!!
OK, looks like Mark is gone.
Dale. Antonia, and Stephanie. are the winners. They ARE the most consistent. And Dale wins!! And he gets a freaking Bears jersey and a studly grill grill, I guess thats OK, I still would rather go to Italy.
OK, Gail Simmons still bugs me.
OK, whaling on Nikki, Ryan, and Mark now.
Nikki is clueless.
Ryan is a cry baby.
Mark is the slob. His area did look pretty disgusting, and coming from me, it must be truly disgusting.
Oops, got it wrong. Ryan goes. I guess they faked us all out. And the schmu
ck still won't admit he missed the boat on the challenges. He's an idiot.
Phaedrus
Apr 16, 2008 07:21PM
agreed. not a fan of ryan at all. glad to see him gone.
go stephanie. everything she makes looks fabulous.
but agreed that dale's looked really good here.
also for the quickfire (great idea by the way) i think it was some mich ultra with lime or something. not that that's good beer or anything. i thought jen's did look good. and i couldn't BELIEVE how many of them were anti beer. i mean really.
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Loved that Chef Colicchio noticed that Stephanie was up in the Top 3 yet again. Consistent, consistent, consistent - that's got to count for something for her down the road!
And re: the QF - did they know which beers they were drinking? It didn't look like it - just a pour from the pitcher in front, and out of the 3 they tasted, they chose one? So if Richard doesn't like the taste of beer (I believe he said he didn't drink it), going for the watered-down Mich Ultra makes sense for him.
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Two Top Chef #5 threads is gonna be hard.
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i dont drink beer, so i'll take everyone's word about what is good/what is not. but when i saw jennifers dish i was like "yes!" i would so eat that.
lol i totally said the same thing about dale when he won the grill--he would of rather gone to italy.
the judging really suprised me. i thought for sure it was nikki. she has really made crappy stuff every week (minus the pasta) and im shocked she made it past this week...although i am shocked she slid by with her blueberry fungus and cheese droppings. She totally did a riff on sandra lee with the prepared sausage. I mean how hard is it to make peppers and onions with a jus and heat some bread? oh and the random shrimp on the side?? My monkey could do all of that--in his sleep. My only sympathy is that she was the last to serve the judges and I guess she ran out. But I would of saved some for the judges and just told everyone else i was out. how can you forget tom and padma???
i am so glad ryan went home. he was so full of hott air i was sick of him. I screamed in excitement when he was sent home (there was a whole bunch of us watching and we had wagers on who it would be. i picked him just because i thought he was a jerk). im glad mark was not axed. i would miss his accent. i thought he was so cute tonight because he was pissed off several times yet when he said it, he had a totally straight face.
andrew cracks me up. i think he is hilarious.
richard's dish looked great. i though lisa's did too.
whoever made that "one shrimp" dish, it may of been great, but i think i would of been a little disappointed on the size. I mean com'on people were serving burgers, ribs, chicken sandwiches, etc. One single shrimp...it looked miniscule in that large bowl. maybe its my americaness speaking out, but i would of felt a little cheated.
stephanie has been my favorite since week 1. she is this seasons casey. i hope she goes all the way.
btw, was anyone not really impressed with the guest judge in the QF??? I wonder why she didnt return for the Elimination challenge. Has that happened before? i know the two are from the same restaurant but i thought that was just weird.
Glad to see they are finally taking into account audience opinion. I wonder how they chose who got to sample the food.
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<stephanie has been my favorite since week 1. she is this seasons casey. i hope she goes all the way.> Stephanie has WAY more talent than Casey! not even in the same ballpark...
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I agree COMPLETELY, Chef June. Stephanie is heads and shoulders above Casey. Shouldn't be mentioned in the same sentence. It's more like Stephanie is the new Tiffani (without the attitude) or the new Lee Ann (with slightly more talent and/or consistency that could take her all the way).
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Agreed. Stephanie is more talented than Casey. She is more like Lee Anne Wong. And I know everybody absolutely loved Casey but I kind of thought she sometimes smacked of insincerity -- like when she was saying how glad she was that Howie helped her in the finals. She was trying to be diplomatic but it didn't come off that way on TV as she said it with so much hesitation.
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Nikki had to go for grilling pre-made sausages with onions and peppers. She thinks like a mom packing lunch for her kids, not as a high level chef. Anyone who made an effort with their own food, however foul, should have stayed over her.
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Wasn't it Nikki who made the "mom" comment, "When you swear, you draw attention to yourself"?
(Clearly from my userid, I have no problem with moms in general ;-)
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Whether Mark understands the tailgating concept or not, his station was very unhygenic. Ick. I think based solely on that, he should have gone. I thought it was a toss up between him leaving and Nikki- sausage and peppers? Come on! I don't care how great it tasted (and I do love sausage and peppers) it was uncreative and kind of lazy of her. I was surprised when they told Ryan to go, even though his dish totally missed the mark.
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Chef Kahan's blog/interview at bravotv.com implies that it wasn't close at all -- that with Ryan trying to do so many dishes, that didn't even comply with the challenge, all the dishes suffered. I think both Nikki and Mark were lucky -- I knew they were going to be in the bottom 3. I was kind of relieved to see the judges be consistent about expecting people to comply with the challenge concept.
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That whole unhygenic thing was weird--I don't remember that ever coming up in previous seasons, although there's been lots of carting around raw meat to picnics and such. Seems like if editors wanted to focus on hygiene they could have made anyone look bad from the right angles. And where are the hairnets and gloves in the TC kitchen, if we want to get all picky about that stuff?
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I think Mark was hungover from his "pool" party and it showed. I couldn't believe he tasted his chowder and put the spoon back in the pot! Wasn't somebody else disqualified on the spot for doing that in a previous TC series? They were working in a professional kitchen and he tasted from the cooking spoon and got the boot.
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I actually saw Mark last night at a fundraiser. He was manning the Public station and serving those anchovy things they served at the zoo. He looked much more cleaned up and handled himself quite professionally.
Yeah, I thought it was weed but you're probably right ginnyhw. It's probably the drinking from the bubble bath.
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You're thinking of TC #1, the first episode - the loud-mouthed Irish guy. When they were in the chef's restaurant with limited time to show their line-cook skills, he dipped his finger into the sauce to make sure it tasted right. This was not acceptable in that chef's kitchen, so he was sent outside.
At elimination, the loudmouth Irish guy (I don't remember the name, just the accent, sorry!) kept saying how he'd been in a million restaurant where it was perfectly fine to do that, so he was right. No amount of "you operate under the chef's rules, not your own when it's not your kitchen" would dissuade him.
It wasn't so much the hygiene as it was the attitude for that TC contestant.
I think none of us really want to think about tasting spoons, fingers and whatnot...we'd never eat out if we did! ;-)
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Is it me, or have there been too many "food for the people" challenges so far this season? Heck, I' make food for the peeps every day in my kitchen--seeing people with fauxhawks do it on TV is not my idea of excitement. I give some props to Ryan for doing his own thing and I'll miss his metrosexual vibe, tho he looked much hotter in the interview segments than in the challenge footage. Hopefully this is the last of populist cuisine we'll see, and the last time Padma's forced to wear a football shirt. Shallow alert: What was with that gray turtleneck she was wearing at judge's table? I miss the bright colors and funky jewelry of last season. Should be a rule that the more boring the challenge, the more outrageous Padma's fashions.
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I agree with newhavener07. The level of the challenges presented this season must be stepped-up. Is this Top Chef or Top "Food Network" Chef?
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It's insulting to the people of Chicago that the producers seem to think that tailgates and block parties are the main components of the food scene. And next week looks like Second City comedy night--huh?
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Re: Padma's wardrobe -- they're in Chicago in the fall, instead of Miami or LA -- seems like this was a chilly rainy day, thus the hot chocolate offerings were gratefully embraced. Not that her turtleneck had to be gray...
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Even in the cold Padma usually wows--someting like plaid spandex with alpaca fringes and a ponyskin hoodie...
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Good point. But at least she changed out of her Flashdance sweater from the quick fire ;-)
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Re: fashion--what was with Tom's little outfit? Note to Tom: Samuel L Jackson looks cool in a scarf/beret combo. You, Tom, are no Samuel L. Jackson.
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i laughed out loud when i saw chef tom wearing a beret and a fashion scarf (it wasn't cold outside) for a bears game. getting all over nikki for not making her own sausage in chicago and then wearing that get up? - wow.
on a totally different note, andrew has not been front and center in the last few shows. i knew he reminded me of someone but i could not put my finger on it. then i watched e.r. last thursday. i have never seen andrew and dr. archie morris in the same room. check it out:
http://www.nbc.com/ER/cast/scott_grimes.shtml
http://www.bravotv.com/Top_Chef/seaso...
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I laughed out loud at that scarf/beret combo too. It was so goofy.
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LOL! You're dead-on re: Andrew and Dr. Archie - if not twins separated at birth, brothers separated when they were young! :-)
And Chef Colicchio has worn that (or a similar) beret at other outdoor functions, so it's not the first time we've seen him with it.
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i like richard's style. i know with shows like this a lot of the creation of "personalities" is accentuating certain characteristics in the editing, but his creativity has been very pronounced, and all the outside-the-box cooking is refreshing. few people on top chef cook boring food, but everything i've seen him make has been ambitious on a whole different level, and i admire it. he sort of reminds me of marcel, with fewer foams, and who isn't a complete weenie. and his food always sounds and LOOKS good.
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Oh, and it was pretty funny that viewers voted to play touch football with Tom. He really looked like a linebacker in a couple of the those shots from the rear.
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I am dissapointed (at one point angered) that they bowed down in front of their almighty advertisers once again and used all A-B related beers (including Inbev beers that they now have distribution agreements for in the US). All the talk of quality ingredients from Colicchio and quest chefs on the show are negated when you utilize mass produced beers to pair food with. You think they would do this with wine and show up with boxes of low end wine and ask them to pair food with it? I doubt it. It was a slap in the face to all the craft brewers that put taste before profit and produce quality, flavorful products. A huge opportunity to educate consumers and chefs about the world of beer outside of mass produced crap, wasted in the name of advertising dollars.
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Amen--that was outrageous! Especially with such great beermakers in the Midwest to choose from. Land Shark Lager? Michelob? They might as well have a Kool Whip challenge or a Hamburger Helper bakeoff. I was horrified by the selection of beers, and it seemed like there were only a few styles represented. Where were the porters and stouts? Speaking as someone who has driven hours out of my way to pick up a case of Great Lakes Holy Moses, it was infuriating!
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land shark lager is particularly wretched beer. it's in the pick your own six-pack for $3.49 bin at mgm liquor warehouse. dh couldn't get over it. otoh the red hook that dale picked was vaguely decent compared to the rest of the swill-- yet jen won with the land shark and dale lost with the red hook. hmm.
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There was a Red Hook ESB--was Red Hook absorbed into A-B a few years ago?
I did notice one very dark beer on the end that could have been a stout or porter, but I didn't see what it was. Was it Michelob Dark or something?
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AB bought a large share of Red Hook. i don't remember the percentage.
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OK, I looked it up. I found an article from January 2007 that says:
Anheuser-Busch, the world's largest brewer, owns 33.6 percent of Redhook and a 39.5 percent stake in Widmer.
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Well red hook and widmer recently merged so who knows how much A&B actually owns now.
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My cousin called during the episode so I might have missed it, but were any of the beers by Goose Island? They are a Chicago company AND now distributed by A-B.
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Only a few labels were shown, I didn't see mention of Goose Island. There was an amber bock that I didn't catch the maker of--anyone see it?
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No Goose Island. It was all crap beer. I believe Michelob makes an amber bock now.
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Yah, the QF was little more than a product placement for A-B. Every one of the beers used is in the company's stable. No Back Road, no Goose Island, no Lakefront or Leinenkugel (which are just across the border in Wisconsin) or any other craft beer, which are easier than ever to get these days. And this was in the same episode where Nikki got slammed (rightfully) for using premade sausages. Well, if she gets docked for not making her sausage, the producers should get docked for turning a good idea for the QF into an advertisement for the ol King of Beers. On an unrelated note, I was stunned at how few of the contestants knew anything about football. Mark, the sole foreigner, gets a pass. While I doubt Dale will make it too much farther, it was nice to see the one football fan win this EC.
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Jen said she was a football fan -- that she grew up watching football with her dad and that both her brothers played football. A couple of other cheftestants also mentioned being fans. Dale was just more obvious because he was not just a football fan, he was a Bears fan.
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True enough, but there were several of them (Richard, Mark, Ryan, Spike, Andrew and Nikki come to mind) who said they don't like/follow football. That just struck me as an awfully large segment of Top Chef contentants that don't like/follow the biggest sport in the United States.
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Think about it. Think about the hours they work, the amount of hours when they work. I can see them being totally detached from the normal flow of American life.
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Sure, but as Ruth pointed out, Jen grew up watching it, as did Dale. I'm not saying that I expected all of them to be huge football fans, but I was surprised by the number of contestants who seemed to have no background at all with the sport. If it were only a couple of them it wouldn't have caught my attention, but when it's half or more of the chefs expressed that they either didn't like/follow football at all, that really struck me as unusual.
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Honestly, it may come as a surprise, but, while I have plenty of football fans in my family, there are plenty who are not (including me), which doesn't mean I couldn't come up w/ a dish that I thought would be appropriate for a tailgate party.
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Exactly, whereas Ryan clearly knew as much about football and tailgating as he did about chicken piccata. Again, I didn't expect everyone to be a fan. But I also didn't think so many would have so little background with the game.
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I know football is the largest fan sport in the US, but there are plenty of people who couldn't care less. All I was saying is that given the homogeneity of th the chosen career, I am not surprised they are not fans. This is not a random selection of a large random sample space of people, this is a pretty select number of people within a very specific population.
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Actually, I think Nikki mentioned some experience with tailgating/going to games. Mark isn't an American, but he did mention being a rugby fan. I'm not at all surprised that self-proclaimed metrosexual Ryan, Richard and Andrew the cooking nerds and Spike the "alternative" guy weren't into football. But at least some of those guys participated in throwing the ball around after the challenge, so they aren't totally oblivious to football.
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OK, I was going to agree to disagree on this point, but then you brought up the footage of them throwing the football around. Watching Andrew heave that wobbly duck into the air just looked horrible. Sure it showed that they were trying to get into the spirit of the event, but it also showed that 1) Andrew has probably touched a football fewer times than Mark; and 2) many of the chefs were fairly oblivious to football. That being said, a few of them (Robert, Andrew) made great tailgating dishes all the same.
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i'm glad someone finally gave andrew a helmet.
i actually don't know any chefs who follow football. when chefs get an unoccupied 3-4 hour block of time, they sleep-- they don't watch football, or go outside and toss perfect spirals to their homeboys across the park. football games are shown during prep time and holiday meal time. it's like saturday night live-- nobody who works in hospitality has ever seen that show, in its entirety, even once. we'll miss every reference to it. it's easy for chefs to become sort of cultural ignoramuses because there simply is not much downtime at all, and even when there is time to get out of the kitchen, it's filled up with something related-- visiting the farm of a producer, going mushrooming, doing a demo at a cooking school, doing research, teaching a class, eating other people's food. look at how many of the chefs were clueless about current movies for the movie challenge-- they don't have time to see movies.
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Again, I'm not suggesting that all of the contestants should be season ticket holders. But sports, and football in particular, is a common cultural touchstone. I was aware of football by the time I was seven. It was also an organized sport in every middle and high school I attended. Even if I wasn't a fan of the sport, I would think that I would have an awareness of it. Maybe fewer people than I think have grew up tossing the football around in the backyard or eventually at a cookout or tailgate party. Sure, chefs and staff are busy folks, but they weren't doing a demo at a cooking school when they were 14.
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Dude, not everyone cares about sports, deal with it.
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"But sports, and football in particular, is a common cultural touchstone. I was aware of football by the time I was seven. It was also an organized sport in every middle and high school I attended. Even if I wasn't a fan of the sport, I would think that I would have an awareness of it."
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Awareness, yes, but who tailgates at a high school game? I attended HS football, soccer, and basketball games. Because it was the "thing to do" (and I lived right behind our HS). But after that? I wasn't much interested in sports until well into my adult life. My entire family was *not* sports-oriented. None of us participated in sports during our school years or after. I knew really nothing about it. Even now, I watch pro football moreso than any other sport. But usually only in group settings with friends - but if my friends weren't into sports, I probably would still be as uninterested in sports as I was growing up.
So as Phaedrus said - not everyone cares about sports.
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Well I am still not sure which ball goes with which sport, but I do understand the type of food that gets made for a tailgating party. I honestly don't think the sports element changes this challenge: the challenge is to make food that can be eaten outside, involves a grill, and feeds