I'll preface this by saying that we won't be held responsible if any of these turn out to be false, but let's discuss a couple of the Top Chef rumors that we heard this week - because what fun are reality show participants if you can't talk about them once in a while?
A friend, recently returned from Las Vegas and "one of the best meals of [her] life" at Tom Colicchio's restaurant, Craftsteak, reported that her waiter said Elia was recruited for the show and never intended to audition in the first place. In this case, the friend is a reliable source, but how the waiter from the restaurant got the information is something we'll never know.
An irate "fan" of Top Chef physically assaulted Marcel in a Las Vegas nightclub by hitting him with a bottle. Marcel needed 30 stitches to close up the cut above his eye. Totally uncalled for - not to mention highly disturbing.
Ilan Hall, who is one of the two chefs to make it into the final cookoff, has quit his job as a line cook at Mario Batali's New York eatery, Casa Mono. As we all known Ilan only knows Spanish food - what will he do now? Could this be an indicator of how things turned out for him in the finale - good or bad?
On-set spies say that Padma might have the munchies, explaining the former model's seemingly large appetite.
Want to know what former contestant Sam Talbot eats in a week?
This season of Bravo's Top Chef is close to an end. This episode was the last one of the regular competition and, as we could tell from the promos that ran during the week, it would determine which chefs would make it to the finale in Hawaii. The real question going in to the show was how many chefs would be competing for the title in that last competition, since there were still five chefs left on the show when this episode began.
After a few minutes of footage that illustrated everyone's determination to win, the chefs headed into the kitchen for the quickfire challenge. Everyone was surprised to see that the guest chef was Eric Ripert, who is the chef at Le Bernardin in New York and one of the most well known and well respected chefs in the country. Needless to say, his presence added to the pressure. The challenge was to use chocolate to create something sensual. The dish could be sweet or savory and the chefs had 90 minutes to work.
New year, new episode of Bravo's Top Chef. The season picked up again this week with only seven of the original fifteen competitors still in the competition. At this point, the chefs have been living together for several weeks and, as in many situations where you have a group of type-A personalities, things are getting a little tense. Everyone in the group seems to oscillate back and forth between feeling compelled to act as a team trying to screw over everyone else so that they, as individuals, can get ahead. It makes things more interesting from a dramatic standpoint, but the chefs really need to get a grip on their tempers if they want to end up as Top Chef.
As the episode started out, one of the first things that we got to see was that Michael had a wisdom tooth pulled. He made it sound like he went to a less-than-reputable individual for the procedure, but seemed to be getting along fine aside from the pain and swelling. Medicated, Michael was much less feisty than usual. He noted that he hoped the challenges weren't too long and the rest of the tired-looking competitors agreed.
In January, the Food Network will be debuting a new reality show called Dinner: Impossible. The show features chef Robert Irvine, who has cooked for the British royal family and four US presidents, and his two sous chefs (both named George), all of whom are put into strange situations in which they have to prepare gourmet food while overcoming various obstacles. By obstacles, we're not referring to any Indiana Jones-like traps, but more along the lines of extremely unusual working conditions. For example, one episode will feature the chefs having to shop for and prep dinner for 150, to be served on a train - assuming that they don't get left at the station. Another will feature the chefs cooking with 18th century equipment and utensils, also on a tight timeline. Essentially, the chefs will not know where they are going, where they will be working or who they will be cooking for before they arrive and will have to cook the best food they can in the circumstances. Perhaps the only downside is that, unlike Top Chef, which also features some somewhat extreme cooking situations, no one will be voted off on this show so the only thing that really will keep the chefs motivated is their own desire to beat the odds.
When you were in school and didn't get along with someone, parents and teaches probably told you that in the "real world" you have to try to get along with people you don't like because you often have to work with them no matter what your personal feelings are. Reality TV might not exactly be the "real" world, but it is becoming more clear that not all of the contestants had this lesson when they were growing up. On this week's episode of Bravo's Top Chef, the camera spent a lot of time on the personal interactions of the cooks, as well as filming the cooking itself.
This was a Thanksgiving themed episode, so it was particularly appropriate for this week despite the fact that it was probably filmed earlier this summer. For the quickfire challenge, chef Tom Colicchio served as the judge and the contestants were given only 15 minutes to create a "tasty" dish using three different canned ingredients. There was no time for anyone to utter more than one or two words of complaint as everyone got down to cooking.
The annoying thing about starting up a new season of a show like Bravo's Top Chef is that you have to learn all about a whole new cast of characters. It is fun to watch fifteen new contestants - three more than last season - compete in the various challenges, but it is awfully hard to keep track of them all as the show finds its stride and you don't get invested in the characters until the cast has been narrowed down a bit.
That being said, the cast seems like a fairly talented bunch this time around according to their credentials. But that can all change once they move into the Los Angeles loft that they share and get in front of the cameras in the kitchen.
MasterChef Goes Large is coming to BBC America this fall, giving food-loving US viewers a chance to check out a great British reality show. The show is a remake of an older, more subdued British show, simply called MasterChef, and is a culinary competition that challenges amateur cooks to face off against each other to see who is the Master Chef - sort of like Top Chef, only with a seemingly greater emphasis on sheer culinary skill, passion and talent and less on interpersonal conflicts. At least, as much as can be hoped for in any sort of reality show.
The number of contestant s narrows as the season goes on and the chefs face multiple types of cooking challenges. In the Invention test, each chef has less than one hour and a set of ingredients that must be used within the time gram to create a dish. The Pressure test puts the amateurs into real kitchens to see how they fare, as well as giving viewers an inside look at some great restaurants. And for the Final test, chefs are expected to put out their best 2 course meal for a review by the judges.
The show premiers on BBC America on October 2, but if you want to get in the mood to watch, blogger Maki of i was just really very hungry played along with the invention challenges when they aired in Europe earlier this year and tried to make 40-minute meals using the same ingredients that the MasterChef contestants were given to work with.
The networks must have tired of having reality show contestants battle for rewards of bagged Doritos and beer when stranded on deserted islands because they're taking the challenge of survival even further. The eight contestants on the weight loss show Man's First Diet (working title) will live with bushmen in the Kalahari desert and follow their hunter-gatherer lifestyle. The men will hunt with the tribesmen while the women will "have to live according to the San Bushmen's strict social rules, looking on the ground for tubers and learning how to process and pound them to make them edible."
One of the goals of the show is to regain the knowledge of "the essential evolutionary link between food and effort." In other words, the contestants will hopefully realize that they should appreciate the food that they have at home, rather than inhaling packages of chips in front of the television. Whether the experiment, which will be monitored closely by experts evaluating their physical and mental health, will be a successful one remains to be seen, though it does seem likely that the participants will have difficulty transferring their new skills to life at home.
It is unknown how long the contestants will be out in Africa, but the show is planned to air over four 1-hour time slots on BBC3 in England.
Top Chef has but two episodes left to go this season, if you count the "reunion show" next week along with the Las Vegas finale on May 17th. This week's episode was all about luxury and being able to showcase ingredients. It is unfortunate that Stephen was eliminated last week because he probably would have done very well in the elimination competition.
First up was the quickfire challenge, after the show took the viewers though a quick tour of the household dynamics to point out that no one really likes Tiffani very much. For the challenge, a table bearing plates of junk food - from corn dogs to ding dongs - was presented to the chefs. There was a moment where they all looked crestfallen, sick of having to cook with such unwelcome ingredients. Fortunately for the chefs, however, the task was to reinvent the junk food as a gourmet food and they had 45 minutes to do it.
This week the competition on Top Chef got even more intense as the contestants faced one of their
most difficult challenges yet. Not only did the chefs have to cook, but they had to come up with a concept and start a
restaurant from scratch. The needed a name, decor, tableware and, most importantly, time, which they didn't have. As an
unusual twist in this episode, the incentive of immunity was eliminated from the quickfire challenge and instead, a
prize was offered to the winner. There was no guest judge, either. Chef Tom Colicchio stepped up to offer the challenge
and the prize.
Tom is opening a branch of his restaurant, 'wichcraft, the fast food
variation of his craft restaurant, in San Francisco and asked the chefs
to prepare the perfect sandwich, a food that 'wichcraft specializes in. The winner would get his or her sandwich on the
menu when the West Coast 'wichcraft opened. Fast, portable and delicious would win in the sandwich competition. All the
chefs did well, but Miguel's Falafel sandwich was the flavor winner. Unfortunately, Miguel made his a
"deconstructed" sandwich, which meant that it had to be eaten with a knife and fork. A sandwich without bread
is not a sandwich, and instead of Miguel, Tom gave top billing to Harold's sandwich of mortadella with grapes,
roasted peppers and sunchoke mayonnaise on sourdough. The recipes for Stephen and Dave's sandwiches, both of which
looked delicious, are on the Bravo
site.
Top Chef is really heating up. The closer we get to the end of the season, the more the viewers can get involved with the contestants. No doubt everyone has their favorite to win at this point, but it is still anyone's game. This week the contestants faced the celebrity chef judge Ted Allen, the food guru of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, and a panel of professional food writers and critics at a party he hosted to celebrate the release of a new book. Talk about pressure! This was the first challenge that all the chefs had to work together, though the were judged separately, and things really got hot in the kitchen.
The quickfire challenge was about budgeting money and time. The contestants were presented with an array of ingredients, priced by the ounce, and had 20 minutes and $3 to spend on an appetizer. Ted Allen's favorites were Tiffani's dish of oyster 3-ways ($2.67), Harold's radicchio stuffed with Gorgonzola and wrapped in bacon ($2.93), Stephen's poached clams over grilled sea beans ($2.84) and Lee Anne's deep fried oysters ($2.98). Allen was won over by Stephen's El Bulli-like ultra-modern presentation, as well as the taste of his dish, and awarded him with immunity. This drew criticism from the other chefs, but clearly is a hugely successful trend in the restaurant business.
On this week's episode of Bravo's Top Chef, the theme tried to integrate a very hot topic in cooking: speed. Along with speed, convenience was really emphasized in the theme of Food on the Fly. While the contestants are used to being behind the scenes in restaurant kitchens, working on their own terms, a Top Chef has to have the capability to appeal to home cooks' desire for easy, accessible meals. The episode started in a convenience store and ended with a microwave - and another elimination.
In the quickfire challenge, where the prize is immunity, the contestants were given $20 and 30 minutes in a gas station convenience store to shop for the ingredients to make a main course dish. One contestant called it "a nightmare for any chef" but they managed to pull it together. They were given 30 minutes to prepare and plate their meal. Two contestants - Miguel and Tiffani - attempted krispy kreme bread puddings without too much success, though Tiffani seemed unnecessarily hostile over their use of a similar idea. In addition to their in-store finds, the contestants were allowed access to the dried herbs and spices in the kitchen. Stephen pretended that he hadn't heard that instruction and used fresh flavorings. It didn't help his case, though.
The second episode of Top Chef ran Wednesday night on Bravo. The bulk of the episode took place inside a fetish shop in San Francisco, since the main challenge involved making a sexy dessert. It was interesting to see some of the contestants cutting loose among the latex-clad party goers - one of which was RuPaul - while others were clearly out of their comfort zone. But as usual, there were two challenges on which the contestants were judged.
The first, quick challenge for immunity, dealt with presentation and the chefs were asked to make a fruit plate in 30 minutes. Elizabeth Faulkner of San Francisco's Citizen Cake served as the judge for this challenge. Some of the chefs really didn't seem to understand that not only were they making a fruit plate, but that they were competing against other people, so originality was important. Half of the chefs had garnished their plates with pineapple tops, which Ms. Faulkner didn't like, and the majority of the other plates looked very similar. She criticized some plates for looking like they were part of a buffet. The three top plates were Cynthia's, which was minimalist and used papaya seeds as a garnish, Harold's, which showcased his knife skills, and Stephen's, which used fruit and herb combinations served in espresso cups. Stephen won purely on originality; his presentation was gorgeous.
Did you miss Bravo's Top Chef last week? The new reality show is already garnering fans among foodies for its slightly more realistic than usual approach to reality television. Of course, reality TV being what it is, a little bit of conflict and one or two people who get by on their looks are par for the course. For a great recap, check out i was really just very hungry's review of the first episode - including detailed descriptions of all the competitor's dishes. For photos of the dishes, you can check Bravo's site.
A real top chef, Tom Colicchio, serves as chief chef on the show and Food and Wine magazine's Gail Simmons is a judge. Both experts have their own blogs that chronicle their own opinions on the show and the contestants, which are a great way to catch anything you might have missed or to get some inside info on the procedures and participants from behind the scenes. The second episode airs tonight on Bravo at 10/9 central.
I'll preface this by saying that we won't be held responsible if any of these turn out to be false, but let's discuss a couple of the Top Chef rumors that we heard this week - because what fun are reality show participants if you can't talk about them once in a while?
In January, the Food Network will be debuting 
The networks must have tired of having reality show contestants battle for rewards of bagged Doritos and beer when stranded on deserted islands because they're taking the challenge of survival even further. The eight contestants on the weight loss show 
DIY Foods: Making homemade sausage
Cakes so amazing they'd be hard to cut into
Fruit juice: An invitation to diabetes?
