So it’s week three of Top Chef New York and coincidentally also Thanksgiving Eve. Actually, is that really what it’s called? I guess technically it is, so let us just go with that. In any case the cheftestants are tasked with cooking a Thanksgiving spread for the Foo Fighters, musicians extraordinaire, and their entourage. Even better Richard lets the audience know that Leah is the flirty one with a nice rack. I hadn’t noticed mainly because she’s yet to stand out in the cooking aspect of the show, but thanks for the heads up Richard. See, the gay community can be helpful for us straights.
Post recap of the show we all just watched 7 days ago Padma stands in the kitchen to wish the cheftestants a very Happy Thanksgiving. Despite it not actually being the national day of over feasting for them they all play along. There’s a lot of the “playing along” stuff going on in Top Chef, and boy was it evident tonight. Beside Padma is Grant Achatz of Alinea in Chicago, a superb chef who I really thought would challenge the contestants to something interesting. He did, but in a far different way.
Initially each cheftestant picked a knife with a number that corresponded to a page in the Top Chef Cookbook (product plug we’re going along with #1). Everyone had to reinterpret a classic dish done by previous cheftestants. Sounds easy enough. Adapting an existing recipe is one of the simplest challenges these guys could hope to face. But then Grant and Padma burst back in the kitchen to announce they desire soup. Soup? Yes Fabio, soup. Soup, which is hard enough to get perfect when planned for from the start. Unfortunately the cheftestants had to use the ingredients already being prepped to do their soup.
Editing and choices for the show were blatantly obvious for the Quickfire. Normally I shrug aside the product placement and clear editing job being done on Top Chef because it is always so secondary to the food being prepared. But Richard’s comments about Leah’s rack and then the subsequent focus on her trying to turn a tuna tartare with white asparagus into a soup made it fairly obvious the producers decided that in episode 3 we’d get to know more about Leah. This was also the episode of Ariane’s comeback, but more on that later. The other egregious item was the Swanson sponsoring of the Quickfire, as that’s the stock the cheftestants had to work with.
Predictably Leah wins the challenge with a white asparagus based soup with the aforementioned raw tuna and tapenade. Not a bad sounding dish and I do like white asparagus. Especially in a nice crisp summer salad with jicama.
Oh exciting day. This week’s guest was the Foo Fighters. Possibly the best band touring the world at the moment. I don’t like everything they’ve done, but Dave Grohl has had a solid place in my musical heart since I picked up Smells Like Teen Spirit as a young lad. Plus it fits since Grohl is a huge fan of good food. So the cheftestants were split up into teams: Team Sexy Pants and Team Cougar.
Team Sexy Pants was chosen by Leah and consisted of some of the current top performers on the show so far, including Fabio and Stefan. Team Cougar is so named because of Ariane, who is a cougar. She’s not quite clear what that means, only that someone is somehow calling her hot. Now she just has to prove she can cook.
The cheftestants drive to the venue the Foo’s are playing at in Syracuse, NY. I live here in the Salt City, and I travel down to Long Island to visit family now and then. It’s a minimum of a 5 hour drive, so that probably wasn’t fun. And there’s really nothing to see on the way. Once the two teams arrive they are given instructions on what kind of Thanksgiving feast the Foo Fighters are interested in, and then they go to the “kitchen.”
Cue twist: there are no ovens and only one burner to cook on. Instead they are given access to toaster ovens and microwaves. Hoo boy! Fabio looks ruffled, and everyone is clearly not happy with their makeshift outdoor kitchen. But I’m fairly certain all of these people have watched Top Chef before and knew what would happen. With this new information both teams gather to plan and shop.
There were some surprising choices made on both sides. I had no idea Jeff was making a pumpkin parfait thingy, which drummer Taylor called a “barfait,” but if I did I would have slapped him. Foamy pumpkin goo is just not a good idea, and pairing it with berries just makes the whole thing worse. And S’Mores. S’Mores? Banana fraking S’Mores? Was there no one else on that team looking at Richard’s idea and realizing that it was a horrid concept, and then he starts messing with the fundamentals of the S’More itself. It’s quite possible he was sabotaged and the entire team just looked away as he went down in flames. For her part Ariane redeemed herself with the turkey breast. When you hear someone describe turkey as “moist” you know they are getting fairly high praise. Not that moist fowl should be difficult for any of the cheftestants.
In the end Team Sexy Pants won the contest, saw the concert, and had good times. Team Cougar cleaned up the mess, sulked and bitched, and one went home. This was the easiest decision I think the Judges Table has handled in a long while. Richard was told to pack up his knives and go home. He also blubbered a lot during his exit interview. Sucks because I thought he was a nice guy, but this show isn’t about nice and it isn’t about what you cooked last week.
You’re not off my list yet Ariane…just saying.
