'Top Chef - The Quickfire Cookbook'
by Emily Miller with foreword by Padma Lakshmi Chronicle Books -- 2009 Buy it on Amazon
It's Padma's world. The rest of us just cook in it -- just mostly without a gigantic LED countdown clock, a dozen cleaver-wielding competitors jockeying for prep space and a mandate to make haute nibbles from the contents of a 7-Eleven's snack aisle. But if that's what cremes your brulee and you haven't the tats, 'tude and temerity to audition for competitive reality TV, you can live vicariously through this book.
Eli, Kevin, Ron and a lot of attitude. Photo: Bravo.
Cocky much? You'd think that in the highest-stakes episode yet this season, a bunch of young cooks with their reputations on the line would be too busy sweating the details to gloat.
But on Wednesday night's tribute to the art of French cooking, awe quickly gave way to a swaggering show of braggadocio the likes of which we haven't seen since Eminem was doing freestyle rap-offs on the streets of Detroit. Chalk it up to nerves -- or ironic editing -- if you want, but when the headstrong, "I'm better than my brother" Michael V. seems the most shy and unassuming of the bunch, you know something's out of whack.
Sure, a few were in awe: Not only did the cooks have to make snails for Daniel Boulud in a quickfire challenge, but none other than Joël Robuchon held court at the elimination dinner.
Ashley: Mick Jagger hair and the rebelliousness to match. Photo: Bravo
If there's a lesson to be learned from the latest installment of "Top Chef Vegas," it's this: Drunk guys at a bachelor party will happily inhale whatever food you put in front of them. And if it's served with a shot, they might even compliment you for it, no matter how gristly, limp and flavor-deprived it may be.
Wednesday night's bachelor- and bachelorette-party hors d'oeuvres challenge managed to serve up a little slice of cruelty for everyone, it seemed.
Not only were the 16 remaining cheftestants forced into gender-based teams that helped determine their fates -- a fact that did not sit well with "I'm as good as any guy" Jennifer.
OK, so if you watched last night's season premiere of "Top Chef," that statement might ring a tad premature considering that that most obvious wearer of throat ink ended up being the first to go home.
But if you're looking to Bravo's increasingly popular cooking competition to discern new and exciting trends in the culinary world, you could do worse than to single out "oddly placed chef tats" as this year's food foam.
Relocating to Vegas has seemingly brought out the bad-to-the-bone personas of the 17 brash, mostly young contestants. Or at least that's what their carefully edited, perfectly timed snotty remarks would have us believe.
There's Jennifer, self-proclaimed "bitch in the kitchen" and queen of the "you got a problem with that?" shrug. As long as her dishes continue to be as seemingly spot-on as the bright prawn ceviche she whipped up for the Quickfire challenge, she suits us just fine.
Designated jerk in the group: "Jersey Mike," who managed to denigrate women, cancer survivors and the entire 40-something population in deeming elimination-immune Robin "one less old lady I have to worry about."
Who knew someone as adorable as Zooey Deschanel could be so difficult? Truth be told, when the actress and singer showed up as a guest judge/elfin dinner hostess last night on "Top Chef Masters," we were counting the moments until she threw the inevitable curveball: "I'm a vegetarian."
When she added "no eggs or dairy" -- never uttering the word "vegan" -- and professed her intolerance for soy or wheat, we sensed the evil guiding hand of the show's producers, eager to ratchet up the tension for the five remaining celeb chefs. The only way they could've played it up more would have been to have her break plates and pull a "Mommie Dearest" at the dinner table: "I told you, no gluten ingredients EVER!"
No such luck. The star of the heavily Bravo-promoted "500 Days of Summer" was a model of apologetic demureness when she met the cooks pre-meal, although she did decline Michael Chiarello's request to sing couple of a cappella songs in exchange for his culinary handiwork.
Behind her back, the Italian cuisine maestro was the most outwardly offended by the restrictions, calling them "off-putting."
It's been more than two weeks since we've had a new episode of Top Chef (any of you going through the stages of withdrawal yet?). Thankfully, the wait will be over next Wednesday, when the show will return after the holiday break. If you remember, in the last episode, the chef'testants cooked for a faux holiday party, hosted by the lovely Natasha Richardson. However, the judges rated their appetizers as subpar across the board, and so, in an act of holiday charity, they determined that they weren't going to eliminate anyone that week.
That act of compassion won't be repeated this week though, and one of the chefs is going to be out faster that Padma can say, "Pack your knives." As you can see in the clip above, the Quick Fire is a dessert challenge in which they have to make a sweet treat minus the sugar. After that, they'll be judged blind, so the food will have to speak for itself. Who do you think waving good-bye this time around?
Tomorrow night on Top Chef, Gail Simmons has a special surprise for the Chef'testants. She's throwing her girlfriend a bridal shower and they are cooking!
Creating a menu around the old maxim:
Something old, something new Something borrowed, something blue And a silver sixpence in her shoe.
... should be no trouble for the teams (Old, New, Borrowed, and Blue ... where's Sixpence?).
The only problem is, some of them don't look too excited to be Gail Simmons' personal chefs. Isn't this supposed to be a competition, not a service?
The episode airs tomorrow night, Wednesday, December 10th, at 10/9c on Bravo with guest judge Dana Cowin, Editor-in-Chief of Food & Wine Magazine.
Season 5 of Top Chef premiered last night on Bravo, and I have the enviable task of recapping each episode for everyone's favorite foodie blog: Slashfood. A word of warning for all you folks out there that haven't watched this episode yet, here there be spoilers.
The producers of this season's Top Chef have made it clear that this is the most difficult season of Top Chef ever, and it is being filmed in the toughest city around: New York. This season's contestants meet each other for the first time in a variety of New York locales (just to make sure that you know they are, in fact, in New York City) and introduce themselves, I try not to get attached to any one chef until at least episode 6 (you never know when someone will be eliminated).
Soon enough the contestants find themselves on a ferry to Governor's Island where Padma Lakshmi and Tom Colicchio wait with this season's first Quick Fire challenge.
So, the lesbian and two gay chef contestants on this season's Top Chef had a glass of wine and decided to call themselves "Team Rainbow."
Genius. Also genius: Bravo is selling Team Rainbow t-shirts (at right). It's $24.95 and pretty cute! Also, the word "team" is rainbow-colored, and the word "rainbow" is gray. That's unexpected. Just like Team Rainbow.
It's the kind of t-shirt where if you wear it on the street, you'll probably get shout-outs (and possibly make new friends with) people who've seen the show. Team Rainbow is about friendship. Wear the Team Rainbow t-shirt to show your support for Top Chef's Team Rainbow, for Top Chef in general, or to display your personal appreciation for rainbows.
Who better to tell you where to eat than the Top Chef chefs? You can type in the cuisine you desire and a city to get listings and reviews, or browse each chef's personal picks!
Some restaurants are recommended by multiple chefs, like Alinea in Chicago, which is recommended by Stephen, Radhika, Harold, and Tre. Their plugs for the restaurant even include "must eat" items. That's right. Top Chef even tells you what to order!
Stop bossing us around, Top Chef, jeez.
The new season of Bravo's Top Chef begins next Wednesday, November 12th, at 10/9 Central, and features new judge Toby Young, food critic and best-selling author of the book How to Lose Friends and Alienate People.
It's been a long 14 episodes, and last night we finally learned who has been crowned the new Top Chef. Lisa, Richard and Stephanie duked it out for the title in Puerto Rico, creating what was supposed to be the "the most important meal of their lives." I don't know what caused me to salivate more -- the food or the drama. Read on!
So even Tom Colicchio has chimed in to call this season of Top Chef a "hard one to read" (aka mediocre), which means that either 1) I have low standards for television (possible), or 2) My television airs a secret, for-my-eyes-only awesome version of Top Chef that's full of crazy cooking and fun. I loved watching Restaurant Wars last night, and I'm still sticking to my belief that the show is as sharp as ever. Let's get into it.
On last night's episode of Top Chef, Spike confirmed his maybe-sexist tendencies, Richard was all up in my Slashfood post, and contestants couldn't distinguish between low-quality and high-quality butter.
Let's backtrack. The theme of the episode was "taste," and Blue Ginger's Ming Tsai guest judged. At first, I thought the theme seemed a bit lame for a show that obviously centers around taste during every episode, but I was quickly swayed when the show revealed my favorite Quickfire Challenge ever: the taste test. The theme also led to some of that heated Top Chef drama that I love. We'll get to that in a bit.
Welcome to the first installment of the Slashfood Top Chef recapped, a regular post that I'll be writing following each episode this season (barring any Tivo emergencies). I love Top Chef and tend to get really into it, so the posts will likely feature my own completely biased but hopefully interesting commentary, and I'd really like for them to serve as a jumping point for everyone to discuss favorites, who's hot (Padma), who's lame, etc. So let's begin with the first episode.
First things first: lesbian couple on the show! I'm totally rooting for them, and consequently rooting against Spike, who seemed most uncomfortable with the idea. It's unclear whether more gay contestants will be revealed later, but I wouldn't be surprised. One member of the couple, Jennifer sports the same hairstyle as Richard, and both clearly knock-off last season's Dale. Richard noticed = major drama (I wish). Seriously though, there is some major girl power this season and I love it.
On to the food. The deep-dish pizza Quickfire Challenge was an obvious but fitting choice, given the Chicago setting. That said, I wasn't too impressed with the pizzas that the contestants conjured. Dale, who is already establishing himself as the confident, out-to-get-you Hung of this season, put it only slightly too harshly when he said that everyone else's dishes looked horrible. The only one I would have been really interested to taste was Richard's with peaches and syrup.
Season 5 of 
Bravo's Top Chef has cooked up a 
Spoilers!
Spoilers! Really, what do you expect?
On last night's episode of 
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