Top Chef: "Block Party"

[rachelmanija]

Is anyone but me watching? I love the show! It's comforting to me to see that even pro chefs can screw up and produce inedible disasters on occasion.

I wish old episodes were available on DVD or online, so I could watch previous seasons! Here, Check out Hung's breakfast Smurf village on youtube!

It's too early to have real favorites yet, but I am currently rooting for the lesbian couple. I'm also rooting for the "molecular gastronomist" to make into the finals, because his food is so entertaining. It's a little early to tell who's actually got the best cooking. Though I have to say, Hung's food was consistently inventive and looked delicious from very early episodes on.

Was I the only one who mixed up the two smug, arrogant, scrawny white guys with light brown stubble? I totally thought they were the same person, sometimes with and sometimes without a hat, until they were all lined up together. Oops. It reminds me of how I went through 3/4 of The Thin Red Line thinking that two blue-eyed, dark-haired soldiers were the same guy, until one of them died. Anyway, they were both insufferable and I was hoping one of them would get the boot.

Comments

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I'm watching it! And Bravo reruns them ALL THE TIME, so that with a little judicious turning on of the TV, you can catch many older episodes.

ETA: And you're not the only one. XD

Also, I am annoyed this year at how many of the chefs are covering up their inability to do what the challenge requires by saying "I'm not going to compromise myself/my vision/my whatever." Dude, have you not ever watched the show? You're going to be asked to do bizarre things! Deal!

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Sometimes risks work and sometimes they don't, but getting pushed into cooking something you don't want to cook and don't think you can do well (the tasteless pasta salad) is the other thing that never ever works out well on that show.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Why do they never view that as a challenge? "I've been asked to do a pasta salad, so instead of applying my creativity to bust preconceptions of what pasta salad is, I'm going to make a boring one and whine about it!"

At least the molecular gastronomer would have made it into a foam or a gelee, or deconstructed it or something. Might have gotten whacked down for it, but would at least have gotten points for trying. You usually don't get the boot for taking risks.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I think I'd rather get kicked out for doing something risky than something boring anyway. I felt for the woman who didn't want to get kicked out for pasta salad (despite her whining), and also for the guy who did get kicked out for corn dogs. If you get kicked out for a glacier, at least you can say you got kicked out for a glacier!

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

I shouldn't have stayed up to watch it but I did, at least half-attentively.

(I should mention that I'm a baker and I've been to culinary school.)

I haven't sorted out the personalities, but MAN did I want some of those duck tacos.

And I also totally agree about who they sent home this week. Corn dogs? Done off site, transported in a hot box, and done with a two hour hold? OMG DUMB IDEA. When you're doing a catered event, you want food that's STURDY.

I got distracted, though, because a friend was IMing me and I was talking about my Boston cream cupcakes and he gave me my idea for next week: MOJITO cupcakes. Mint flavored cake, lime curd, rum icing glaze. I have to do it.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I totally agree! How could he NOT have considered that the two-hour ride would render them soggy and disgusting? Taking the cooking conditions and transport considerations into consideration is part of the job!

Your cupcakes sound delicious. I don't suppose you live in LA? I'd beg you to mail some, but I don't think they'd stand up to transport.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

No, I'm in Connecticut. But you can make the cupcakes! I'm using Elizabeth Falkner's buttermilk cupcake recipe from Demolition Desserts, and I'm going to make the lime curd using misia's lemon curd recipe, which is the best lemon curd I've ever tasted and my co-workers can't keep their hands off it. I haven't decided yet whether I'm doing the rum icing as a buttercream or just a flat icing glaze.

My job is not rocket science. Some recipes are trickier than others but I freely steal as many as possible from sources like Cook's Illustrated and other things meant for the home cook.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Especially after last week's blini disaster. XD

[tibicina.livejournal.com]

I really want some of those cupcakes.

Those sound... truly, truly lovely.

[veejane.livejournal.com]

I watch it, because, reruns on at all hours, and every once in a blue moon I pick up a cooking idea. (Less so, when they get into foams and weird crap.)

I've found this version faintly boring so far, but I think that's always true for the first 3-5 weeks, and then it picks up. I also just realized, while typing this comment, how far in advance they must film, because that street party couldn't have been any later than last September. People were wearing shorts!

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Top Chef and Project Runway are always so far ahead that it was a shock to see that Make Me a Supermodel* films the week it's aired.





* Which I find watchable, provided I fast-forward past all the interpersonal drama bits and watch just the challenges.

[veejane.livejournal.com]

Completely OT, but the Supermodel show has to be contemporaneous because it involves a voting audience. I think that's a bad idea, in part because reality show audience != high-fashion industry insider, but it also has weird side-effects as to how they cut the show. E.g., it's been creepily clear that some of the interpersonal stuff is vastly magnified to fill time, and because the editors thought it might develop into a "storyline" but never particularly did.

It's much easier to see what kind of whole-series arc subplots you have when the whole series is already in the can!

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Yeah. OTOH, that means they also don't spend just that little bit more time on the person who's going to get booted that week that I think I perceive on TC and PR.

I've been enjoying the photography and watching the behind-the-scenes stuff at the shoots, like how they did the tank setup for the weeks they shot them underwater with the snake. I'd love to have the resources (and skills, and equipment) to be able to take photographs like that. And the runway walks especially underscore how much I don't know about what fashion insiders look for and at in modeling clothes on the runway. But I prefer PR and TC, just because what I love about those shows is watching creativity under pressure.

I watched the hairstylist show when it was on (Shear Genius? I forget), but it wasn't as good. My stylist and I snarked mightily about it. He was contemptuous of them because none of them were that good of stylists, he said, plus he's done hair shows for years where he has to conceive and execute four styles an hour, so he had no sympathy for their whining about only having an hour and a half to do a style.

[veejane.livejournal.com]

I think the real problem with Supermodel (whoops not Supernodal) is, well, it's already been done (hello America's Next Top Model). The voting and the excessive male nudity are the only distinctions they've got in the marketplace of modeling competition shows, and actually, it's pretty clear that the two are related. The votes are overwhelmingly biased towards the male contestants (and against the females), because the audience of the show is really interested in male nudity.

Which is fine, for a reality show, but I have my doubts that it produces a worthwhile competition.

[tibicina.livejournal.com]

I'm watching. I knew they were two different people, but I'd have to think about which one had done what and sometimes I couldn't remember. I did know that there were two of them, though.

I was sad to see Mike go home - of the three they were considering sending home, I was really kind of hoping for the guy who made the waldorf salad, who just seems to have been forgettable thus far.

Well, or for skinny-arogant-guy-with-stubble-#1 after he said that they'd have to get security to make him leave. I really couldn't believe that he said that.

I did find it interesting that they emphasized to the winning team how close it was and how unimpressed they were with some of the choices, but didn't seem to tell the losing team that.

Pasta Salad is, honestly, a delicate art which follows neither the rules for salad nor the rules for hot pasta. You need a LOT less oil that you'd think and you need really strong flavors or the pasta tends to deaden them. You also need to be careful about moisture levels.

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

Plus, waldorf salad with no mayo? What.

[mallory-blog.livejournal.com]

I like the down under guy too...

And the girl who has won twice but is always on the verge of bursting into wild tears...

I was awestruck by the red headed chef who said he OWNED the house and would need to be dragged off...can we say EGO EGO EGO :)))

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I KNOW! I was boggled. I await more drama from him... though I don't for a second believe he'll do anything but make petulant remarks about how they didn't appreciate his genius before he packs his knives and goes.

[mallory-blog.livejournal.com]

I am also not liking the girl who made the mushroom turds last week - she didn't impress me...

:::butting in on VJ's conversation::: The supermodel show has been rather SUCKY - I HATES the offsite voting crap - come on - the best parts to watch of PR is when Heidi gives them the kiss off...

Back to supermodel - it was like they had too many ideas and none of them very good - the whole - we are going to WEIGH AND MEASURE you - oh the DRAMA of that...pfft

and the guys getting kissy on each other - does it mean they are BOTH gay - pffft

ultimately it doesn't feel performance driven like Americas Top Model where you are comparing photos or what they did - instead there is a sterile backlit runway...

to be honest I like holly but I'm darn tired of the rest of them and I don't believe you CAN make a supermodel on a show like this...

[madam-silvertip.livejournal.com]

I'm a Top Chef superfangirl.

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

I like the lesbian couple and Mark, the dippy Kiwi.