Episode 3 - A Foo Fighters Thanksgiving
If you're not too familiar with "Top Chef", you should know that most episodes include a "QuickFire" Challenge and an "Elimination Challenge". The QuickFire challenge is usually something the contestants have to do quickly, and the winner is granted immunity during the elimination round. For this episode's quickfire challenge, the chefs were asked to draw knives from the knife block (this is a common way to form teams or assign tasks for challenges on the show). Grant Achatz from Chicago's
Alinea restaurant was introduced as the guest judge. As each chef pulled a knife from the block, there was a two or three digit number on the blade. Once everyone had a number, Padma (did you know she used to be married to [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salman_RushdieSalman Rushdie[/url]? revealed that the numbers represented page numbers in the Top Chef Cookbook (containing recipes from past seasons). So now each contestant had a former contestant's recipe in front of them, and they were asked to produce their own version of the assigned recipe, putting their own spin on it, within one hour.
Ten minutes had passed when Padma and Grant suddenly stopped the clock and asked for everyone's attention. "We've changed our minds," said Achatz. "We're in the mood for some soup." Suddenly everyone's thrown the same curve ball - they have to turn their dish into a soup based on the original recipe.
I thought it was interesting that Achatz was a guest judge, considering his sense of taste has been wafting and waning during his battle with tongue cancer. Apparently, his tastebuds are on the upswing at this point. Achatz refused to submit to the oral surgery his doctors told him was the only way to save his life, because he couldn't face having 75% of his tongue removed (although he did have surgery to remove cancerous lymph nodes). You can read an in-depth article about Achatz' battle with cancer and cancer treatments DURING the conceptualization and opening of Alinea
here.
Richard knew he needed some sort of acidic flavor with his soup, but didn't remember to add it before time was up. Leah had a tuna tartare dish to convert to soup, so she wisely chose to make a chilled soup out of the white asparagus accompaniment , piling the tuna in the middle. Achatz chose Leah as the winner, giving her immunity from elimination, AND she was also allowed to pick half the remaining contestants to be on her team for the elimination challenge. All in all, I think she made wise choices, picking Stefan and Fabio (winners of the two previous challenges) among others.
As it turned out, the challenge was to fix Thanksgiving dinner for the band Foo Fighters (and their entourage, a group of about 60) backstage at a concert venue in Rochester, New York. They were also given a copy of the band's rider (food requirements, likes and dislikes). When the contestants were shown into the venue, they found each team had one and only one gas burner plus a bank of microwaves and toaster ovens to execute their meals with. It was close, but in the end "Team Sexy Pants" won (although it seems there was quite lively disagreement between the judges - which included the Foos). That was Leah's chosen team. Unfortunately, "Team Cougar" (including Ariane - I called her a dumbass last week - who nailed the turkey preparation with just a toaster oven and a microwave, so props to her, even though her team lost). Richard was sent home for his poorly conceptualized and poorly executed "banana s'mores", which were not served hot and were garnished with whip cream way too far in advance (which caused them to look like someone spit on them by the time they were eaten).
I still feel Carla isn't long for this world. Danny's obviously hanging on by his fingernails, too. This week I liked Jamie (the petite blond lesbian) and Gene, who MacGuyvered a hibachi charcoal grill with oven racks and hotel pans, giving his team (which lost) another conventional cooking surface to use. That was genius. But in addition to the best turkey (Ariane's) and the best stuffing (Rhadika's vegan cornbread stuffing), the grill wasn't enough to put team Cougar over the top. I really think I might have voted the other way.
Who's caught up on episodes? Dish, people, dish! And Episode 3 will repeat at 9 PM on Bravo Wednesday, right before the new episode at 10.
