"recap" news and stories

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.

The end of the season for a show like Bravo's Top Chef is always bittersweet. Like a good chocolate, you want to finish it off, but you also sort of wish that it could go on. Come to think of it, this season might be more like the "finishing off" chocolate, since there has been so much drama that it will almost be a relief to see it end. Almost.

Last night was the first part of the show's season finale and it started off by giving viewers a sneak peek into what the chefs have been doing for the past few months during the break between the main taping and the filming of the finale. Marcel and Sam spent the time practicing their technique, with Marcel trying to learn as much as possible about new ingredients and presentations and Sam learning about pastry, which he felt was a weak spot in his training. Elia and Ilan each spent time learning about Hawaiian food, but neither actively tried to learn as much new information as their competitors.

After the high level of drama last week on Bravo's Top Chef, it was a relief to see the chefs acting a bit less aggressively, though the tension was clearly still present. Marcel is a bit of an outcast from the men's apartment because the other guys, with the possible exception of Michael who is so laid back that he is probably just going with the crowd because it is the easiest thing to do, dislike him so much. He spent a bit of time on the roof of the building at the beginning of the episode composing a little rap/poem to try and clear his mind and enable himself to focus. He wasn't the only one trying to buckle down at this point. Elia is the only woman still cooking in this competition and she clearly wants to win it.

The competition kicked off with the quickfire challenge. This week, the chefs had to come up with a Kraft Gourmet Snack, a snack/small plate that used either mayonnaise, Italian dressing or BBQ sauce in some way. There was a bit of grumbling, primarily about the prospect of using mayo in a dish, but the chefs put out some impressive combinations in just 30 minutes.

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.

Finally! Bravo's Top Chef was back on schedule with a new episode this week and now that the show had only nine chefs, there was more individual coverage of each one and we got to see everyone's dishes, which was sometimes a bit of a problem early in the season, especially with the quickfire challenges.

The theme of this week's episode was Raw and Cooked and the underlying theme seemed to be about technology and what chefs could do when there wasn't a lot of it around. For the quickfire challenge, the chefs were taken down to the Redondo Beach Farmer's Market and told that they had to create a mouthwatering, filling dish using entirely raw ingredients. They had a budget of $20 to spend at the marked and were then given 30 minutes in the kitchen to "cook" their food. They were also introduced to the guest judge, Raphael Lunetta, the chef at Jiraffe.