Jump right into catering food with both feet. Some nice looking dishes that held up to the required prep/serving timing issues. many more that didn’t.
So long Valerie. I would have sent Nikki packing as well. Those mushrooms did look like poop. Why did she even serve any of them up. She would have been better off just saying they didn’t turn out and weren’t worthy of being served.
As for the quickfire, did any of them really think they were going to find fresh good quality meat at that market? As soon as they started dragging out frozen stuff I was like
I thought Nikki would be packing her knives. My mom doesn’t cook much. It’s just not her thing. What she makes is good, whe just chooses to focus on other things. She has large family meals catered BUT she does make stuffed mushrooms. They’re good. They come out of the oven plump and moist and succulent looking. My point? My mom did not beat out thousands of other auditioners to compete in a televised competition for chefs. She cooks for a crowd every other year or so, and she doesn’t screw up the mushrooms.
The difference in size and appearance between the mushrooms Nikki was prepping and the ones they were serving was surprising. The inclusion of dried blueberries didn’t sound appetizing to me.
Without tasting them it’s hard to know what’s the greater sin, dried out cold mushrooms, or undercooked rutabaga.
It’s still early in the season and it’s hard to see all the contestants enough to get any sense of preferring any of them. We were into the third segment before I realized that Andrew and Spike were two different people.
I really liked the elimination challenge – I thought it had a good structure, allowing the contestants a good deal of room for improvisation and creativity, and was happy that some of them – including Andrew, whom I seriously disliked – had a bit of fun with it.
Those mushrooms did look nasty. I would have loved to try the lamb meatballs, and the bison tartare.
Tom Colicchio being voted a Bear was my cackle of the night.
What is with Andrew, anyway? He seems seriously sketchy, like he is off his meds. And his swearing is reaching a Tourettes level. Seriously, I wouldn’t want to be in a kitchen full of sharp knives with that guy.
And you mom probably also knows that stuffed mushrooms have a pretty short life before they start to go soggy. They’re definitely something I would not want to make several hours in advance to serve at a fancy cocktail party.
I think what saved her was that Dale’s addition of the cheese made them worse, and that no one on the team tried them before serving them (though I suspect nobody was expecting that she’d serve the judges at all; she probably didn’t want them to think she made no contribution whatsoever).
Valerie reminded me of a girl I used to see off-and-on. It’s still a little early, but I am enjoying some of the contestants and dynamics so far. I’m looking forward to this season.
I was hoping it would go a little longer before all the tired “this is a competition” schtick started. But the guest judge amused me greatly (and kind of looks like John Lithgow).
I thought the challenge was a cute idea in theory, and an opportunity for creativity, but kind of boring because the chefs didn’t really go there. Plus, many made some really stupid decisions. By now I’d think it’d be obvious that not making sure the assigned group looks good however you can reflects poorly on you. Perhaps I missed the part where the judges said that table decoration was just as important as food, but I was like, huh? And my god, the scope of dishes makeable from the ingredients each group got was amazing - why on earth would any of them even consider foods that don’t keep/travel well (or meat dishes for a vegetarian diet, for that matter - who said it had to be a nutrition pyramid based complete meal)? And not tasting the food? Bad enough to choose to make something as inherently ugly as mushrooms stuffed with blueberries, but ouch.
I think all the animals had a lot more things that could have been on the lists, assuming we were seeing the full lists. I wonder if someone with better knowledge of their animal could have interjected
I liked the ones who tried to evoke the animals’ environments and such, even the stereotypes (bananas, honey). The glacier was a nice idea, but it looked like it would taste like crap (this coming from someone who usually loves viscous Asian foodstuffs), so I was surprised Andrew(?) won (and also annoyed…he irritates me the most, so I presume he’s going to win the show).
I agree that the Gorilla group mostly got off track with their menu selection, except for the banana bread…and speaking of which it was nice to see someone actually be able to bake something for a change. They could have easily featured themselves with vegetable and fruit dishes that would have set themselves apart from the other groups. Maybe some wraps or something like stuffed grape leaves and used some flambeed bananas over some type of desert.
I definitely agree with this - part of it is my own bias, since I am a long-time vegetarian, but I often think it would be far more interesting for the chefs to tackle a complex vegetable dish than make, say, steak tartare. Or lobster. It’s a competition, right? Do something different, something interesting.
On a different note, I experienced a very exciting personal foodie victory moment thing! during this episode: at the begining of the quickfire challenge, when Padma and the guest judge were standing with their backs to the camera, I knew it was Wiley Dufresne. I was very proud of myself for getting that from the back of his head.
It is nice to see them bake or do dessert once in awhile , but even the judges have said on many occasions that a pastry chef is a
whole other ballgame. And remember that the contestants are not allowed to take any recipes into the competition. I am far from a great cook but pastries and pies or any baked goods require fairly exact ingredient amounts to be a success.
Pies not as much as cakes. Basic pie crust is a simple recipe that should be engraved in the memory banks of any chef/cook whether you’re a pastry chef or not. As for the filling, fruit pies are simple mixture of fruit, sugar and spices and not very exacting - custard pie filling basics are fairly standard as well.
I don’t disagree but there must be a reason why any of the Top Chefs have little or no pastry experience.
Even on Iron Chef there is always a pastry Chef along with a sous Chef, why not two sous Chefs instead? Maybe I’m just picking nits here but to me it is almost two completely different fields of expertise. Oh well I’m just glad that this season is fun so far.
I think they just couldn’t find any one person to blame for the mushrooms, it did seem to be a team effort and the judges weren’t ready to send all three packing… yet. I don’t understand why they let the judges taste the mushrooms at all. They knew they were wrong, they didn’t serve them to the guests, why give them to the judges? Just inviting trouble, but I’m always amazed at the stupidity sometimes. I guess, if stupid enough not to taste, then stupid enough to give to the judges. I think they were only saved by agreeing that it was a team effort.
I don’t think the judges paid attention to the animal thing. Some of the guests did, of course, but the judges didn’t seem to care or comment on the meat for gorilla.
As someone who would love to go back to school at a Cordon Bleu institute, I know I would love to be a pastry chef. That being said, I’ve always wondered how a pâtissier ou pâtissieuse would do. Do they have the chops on main courses that along with, “And I whipped up a butterscotch souffle to complement. Get it? Whipped up a souffle. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.” could win some challenges?
Or even win challenges by being different. Let’s say as a pastry chef you are thinking dessert so for the first quickfire (the chicago deep-dish pizza) you add some cinnamon to the dough (taking into account it won’t rise as much now), make a caramel sauce instead of tomato sauce, add some apples and pears then topped with a sharp cheddar (pizza needs cheese right?), would it have gone over as innovative and thinking outside the box (in a good way) or would Rocco spit it out going," What the fuck?!" and Tom wondering why you made a tart instead of a pizza?
