If you watch the episode, it shows Hosea in the refrigerated section next to the fish counter asking if they have dungeness and fretting about the only available suitable substitute, as he is pulling the obvious plastic “yogurt cups” of Lump Crab Meat out of the cooler.
I’ll basically agree with what everyone said about the contestants and competition this week.
The most interesting thing to me about the episode, however, was the corps of rejected New York Top Chef applicants that they had doing the tasting.
Have you ever seen such a group of people that seemed to be stamped from exactly the same mold. They all looked nearly identical (both the men and the women, for that matter), and they all seemed to have an identical absence of personality. Not one of them said or did anything that seemed in the least interesting or creative.
I have no doubt that half of them are better chefs than most of the successful contestants, but if they had picked the show from that pool, it would have been damn boring television. To the extent that we complain about some of the dogmeat contestants that fall in the early episodes or inexplicably last into the middle of the pack, most of them are at least somewhat interesting on the screen.
Word. At least on Ostrich Egg Girl, anyway.
I thought Padma was hamming it up for the camera. You’re eating stuff in sampling mode, so you’re not chomping big bites. And it was too sweet… not bitter or salty. I can see spitting something out that’s super bitter or salty, but super sweet? You’d grab some water.
Thought that was a little Hell’s Kitchen-esque of her.
That’s why they need to get Gordon Ramsay as a guest judge.
I completely agree, half of them came off as petulant children. I could have done better…wah?
To be fair the cameras were looking for cattiness and douchiness. I’m sure they had some pretty good conversations about the food, being foodies/chefs and all. Truth be told, if I had the glue quiche and I knew I could do better, I’d be asking aloud why they picked broke-down Hillary Swank instead of me…
Here’s a translation guide for the rejected chefs eating the food:
“I could have done better” = “This dish is not at the level a Top Chef should have”
“This is pretty good” = “I can’t deny this is good. This person would have been my top competition.”
(looking at the menu) “WTH? That sounds totally unappetizing” = [del]“My hovercraft is full of eels.”[/del] “I have no idea what the specs for the challenge were, so I’m arguing from ignorance.”
“This tastes awful.” = “I’m never going to be impressed because I’m consumed by bitterness.”
“It should have been me” = “Sure I’d only last until the really bad chefs are dumped, but I would have been on TV for more than three seconds. Waaaaa.”
I thought it was a good episode. A little different and unique, so it was fun. I do feel a little sorry for Ariane, her lack of confidence seems so all-consuming, I don’t know if anyone ever really will know if she is a good chef or not. Jill’s schlumpiness did kind of turn me off to her from the start, and the only thing I know about ostrich eggs is that on one season of the Amazing Race, one of the tasks was to eat an entire scrambled ostrich egg. (I could be mis-remembering.) I seem to remember they found the taste a little odd, but not altogether bad. But still, whether it tastes good to some people or not, why would you ever choose to cook something that you had never cooked with? A competition is not the time to experiment with recipes. There is a difference between “taking a chance” and just cooking something you are totally unfamiliar with in hopes that it will impress.
How many chefs have been killed because they get married to an idea nd are insistent todo it even if they can’t fdind the right ingredients for it?
Almost. A competition is certainly a time you can experiment with recipes, within intelligent boundaries. It’s not the time to experiment with brand new ingredients. She didn’t even know how to crack the damn shell!
Exactly. Taking a chance is combining white chocolate and wasabi, not picking out a random noodle package that looks different.
I can’t believe Whole Foods only had prepackaged crabmeat.
I also felt sorry for Jill when she was being questioned, but she needed to go.
Those olives looked NASTY. I’m not big olive fan, but my husband is and when I described them to him, he was grossed out.
For those interested: spherical olives (see the video).
Bump; caught the episode late, over the weekend.
I agree. Although I think she was probably doomed (quiche is cookery 101; making a gummy one is pretty much unacceptable. And yes, ostrich egg behaves pretty much like any other standard bird egg: if you can’t make a quiche with an ostrich egg, you can’t make it with a chicken egg either), she did herself no favors with her pathetically limp defense. Her only chance at surviving the challenge (and I concede it would have been a long shot) was to come out aggressive with the message. The judges have certainly kicked off contestants for trying to play it safe and hide in the middle of the pack (remember salad guy last season?). What she should have said was something along the lines of: “Look, I know I fell on my ass. But I was reaching for something new and interesting. If I’m going to fail, I’d much rather fail by challenging myself and screwing up spectacularly, than by doing something ordinary which gets me kicked off for being bland and boring. And I promise, if you keep me, and I’m in this situation again, I will make exactly the same sort of choice, and take exactly the same risk, because that’s how you win.” I’m not saying it would have been enough to save her (and she clearly isn’t the right kind of personality type, to say something like that), but it was her only chance. And what’s more, even if it didn’t save her on the show, it would have kept her from looking like a sad little dishrag, which is what she needs to do as she sells herself in her culinary career going forward.
P.S. Dang, that corn soup looked good, didn’t it?
This is a very good point. If they kept people on the show just because they “took a risk” and botched it, it wouldn’t be much of a risk.
This episode is why I like the Contrived and arbitrary contests. The praised Corn soup, and Carpaccio dishes were clearly test and succesful recipies from their places. Fabio said as much that it was a bestseller for him. I wish there were some better way to see which chefs are actually creative and understand food, rather then just learning under a good system and parroting it. I don’t want to see another Ilan, who went through the whole damn thing with recipies from his spanish restaraunt.
That being said, Stefan’s reaction in the hot-dog competition was priceless. For a German to be told their sausage is crap is a real kick in the Nüsse. It actually sounded pretty good to me to be honest, but she said it was pretty much disgusting, I wonder what went wrong.
If I recall correctly, Stefan is a Finn by birth; he did live for a while in Germany, though.