"top chef just desserts" news and stories

As the first season of Top Chef Just Desserts comes to a close this month, Slashfood's taking the time to indulge in conversation with the final five contestants about their time spent on the show. In an effort to avoid spoilers, click through to read our exit interview with the latest exiled cheftestant.

Do not screw with a pastry chef's plans. We thought we knew the minds of dessert-makers, really, we did. But thanks to our friends at Top Chef: Just Desserts, in the past two months we've learned a lot more than we ever hoped about this strange breed of OCD perfectionist -- part haute-cuisine diva, part pretentious modern-art sculptor, part mad scientist.

Chief among these lessons: Don't get in their space. Do not squelch their fondness for show tunes. Don't make them create delectable treats without any coloring. And, whatever you do, do not take away their chocolate.

This last tidbit came courtesy of this week's installment, whose alternate title could have easily been "Danielle's Finally Being Sent Home Tonight, Right? Please?!" Now that we're down to just five emotionally stunted sweet-tooth maniacs, the bar has been raised. The ultra-demanding cake-decorating perfectionist Shinmin Li was brought in as a guest judge. And yes, as a twist, the chefs were denied their god-given right to all the Wonka-grade chocolate in their pantry.

They can sing show tunes all they want -- "from the top of the hills, like Julie Andrews," to paraphrase the lone, obnoxious straight man Morgan -- but the chefs on Just Desserts can't hide the fact that their once-boiling dramas have receded into something a little more like moping.

Even a mysteriously missing sheet of Rice Krispie treats couldn't rouse week six out of its self-hating spiral of shame. With grumpy-Gus Heather C. decisively out of the picture -- she was sent home twice! -- we thought the whining might subside and the serious competition could begin. But alas, the complaining had only just begun.

Let's be fair: Last night's two challenges were enough to make any sweets chef want to slit his or her pastry bag. First, our less-than-humble cheftestants were told to make a dessert accented with savory flavors. Then they were told they could use only one "gadget" -- a pot. This wrinkle was added to the challenge, it seems, solely to extol the virtues of washing said pot with Dawn Hand Renewal Featuring Olay Beauty.

Seth may be gone, but the drama lives on.

When the motormouthed whirling dervish was whisked off of Top Chef Just Desserts last week because of "panic" issues, we admit we were worried. But before you could say "fondant flower," the remaining pastry chefs -- once united in their unanimous hatred of Seth -- promptly returned to the catty, teary, self-flagellating, throwing-each-other-under-the-bus behavior we've come to expect in just a few episodes of our new favorite show.

It comes as no surprise, then, that episode five was a bit of a breather -- no big shocks or surprises, just a continuation of the interpersonal fear and resentment we've come to know and love.

Presided over by guest judge (and Wolfgang Puck's pastry chef) Sherry Yard, the proceedings seemed simple enough: Make a soufflé for the quickfire and a piece of edible fashion -- with petits fours on the side -- for the elimination challenge. But in an evening that was meant to show off technique, one thing was clear: Either you have it or you don't.

We love Top Chef Just Desserts. We love it so much, in fact, that lately we've questioned the reasons behind our mad attraction: Is it because we love beautiful, architectural sweets with crazy, intense flavors? Or is it because we love crazy, intense, emotionally unstable basket cases who make pastries?

As much as the former may be true -- and in no short supply on the show -- it's the latter that makes us tune in every Wednesday. And this week, one whacked-out plot twist made us confront a very harrowing reality: Would we love Just Desserts if it were, say, 80% less insane?

To explain, let's address the "pink elephant" in the room. So far on the show, our primary pusher of chemical imbalances -- and, ironically, culinary harmony -- has been chef Seth. The obsessively pumped, garishly tattooed, aggressively hetero New Yorker might possibly be the guy the phrase "hot mess" was coined to describe.