I understand the distinction you are trying to make, I just don’t think it is important at least to my criteria. If it were a marathon race one owuld have only run half the race and the other would have ridden their bike. Either way they both failed. I can see how Sandee, seeing how Howie got off the hook last week, might have thought that as long she prepared something not really BBQ that tasted good, she would be OK. So I think they set a bad precendent with Howie. I’m not to concerned anyway, Clay, Howie and Sandee were/are not going to win.
:eek: interesting. Thanks to **Liberal’s ** link, at least now I know who he is. The mohawk guy. And yes, I don’t remember seeing him at all. I guess we are pretty sure he won’t be winning the top prize.
btw, *spatuler * would be a great username for a food forum 
ETA: on review, Just noticed that I used two smilies! God help me.
I wouldn’t jump the gun on the Dale thing, though. It seems to be a running theme on reality shows that personalities developed early on get booted early on. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have any feelings of sympathy for the loser. The producers need to flesh out the early evictees quickly so you can feel *something * about them, whether it’s sympathy, good riddance, or whatever. If a character is going to be around for awhile, producers have the luxury of waiting longer to make him significant.
Sorry for the late bump but my TiVo cut off the last 15 minutes of the original airing so I had to watch the conclusion during this morning’s repeat.
Howie’s problem this time was exactly the same problem he had during the last challenge: time management. He didn’t set out a schedule of events for the surf and turf, and got caught with his pants down, and his frog missing. (And doesn’t that sound dirty.) This time, he didn’t set out a schedule of events, and he grilled and cut his meat way too early. That is basic. If you go into the kitchen with a two-hour requirement, you’d better have a plan, broken down into minimum fifteen-minute increments until the last half hour when it’s broken down into five-minute chunks. Howie’s failure to do this, twice in a row, does not reflect well on his chances.
Still, Sandee’s dish, at least based on what we got to see, looked like it was furthest wide of the mark, given the parameters, and I can’t argue with the ejection.
On the other hand: I wouldn’t have argued with either Howie or Joey going home, either. It’s that little “producers have been consulted” thing in the end credits that makes me strongly suspect the balance was tipped toward Sandee because the showrunners wanted to keep Howie and Joey around a little bit longer in hopes they wind up in a fist-fight, and don’tcha know, that there’s some good TV. Especially when the show is about cooking. Uh huh.
Hung so far has no weaknesses. Obviously the upcoming challenges are ostensibly designed to determine just how well-rounded and creative the chefs are (remember the “cook from what you find in the vending machine” thing?), so it’s likely we’ll eventually find something he can’t do, but right now he’s the guy to beat. And his attitude doesn’t bother me at all. I think I’d get along pretty well with him, actually.
Err, it sounds like you have some experience in this kind of thing. Care to elaborate?
Not professionally; I’m an experienced home chef only. But I’m fairly ambitious, and I know how to organize my time in the kitchen.
I had people over last night, in fact, and served a four-course dinner:
[ul][li]Gazpacho over avocado panna cotta[]Asparagus “noodles” topped with shrimp, bacon, and asparagus tips[]Rib-eye steak with Maytag Blue sauce and garlic roasted potatoesChai gelato with spiced lychee syrup[/ul][/li]Before I picked up my knife – heck, before I went to the grocery store – I knew exactly how I was going to execute the menu: when the panna cotta had to be in the fridge, when to boil the broth so I could blanch the asparagus noodles and have time to shock and re-warm them, when to sear the steaks so they’d have time to rest and still be warm on the plate, all the way down the line.
Howie’s not doing this, and more than anything else it’s why his dishes are failing.
I agree with Cervaise. I’m not a professional chef, either, but can pull together some pretty good meals. One of the basic things you learn if you’ve cooked a few multi-course dinners is that you need to plan ahead if you want everything to be ready at the right time. A lot of newbie cooks don’t think about how much plannign you really need to do.
Case in point: Mr. Athena. I do most of the cooking in the house, but on occasion he’ll do it. It takes him twice as long to do most meals, because he doesn’t plan. When making pasta, for example, he’ll cut up all the ingredients for the sauce, make the salad, etc. THEN put the water on to boil for the pasta. Result: a fifteen minute dinner takes him 25 or 30 minutes, because of the big lag in the middle when all the prep work is done but we’re waiting for the pasta water to boil.
That’s no big deal, but you get the idea. When you’re doing a multi-course meal, it’s even more important. Any prep work that can be done at your leisure early in the day, or the day before, should be done. The 60 minutes right before dinner starts is always the most hectic. Sit down and think about how things need to come together.
That said, I can kind of sympathize with Howie and the other TC chefs, because what TC asks them to do is not representative of the real world. Chefs don’t have to throw together great meals in two hours in the real world; if something new needs to go on the menu, they spend time experimenting to get it right before it has to “go live”. The skills that work in a restaurant kitchen and the skills they have to demonstrate on the show aren’t one and the same. In the real world, Howie had the time to throw his frog legs on the plate (they were done cooking, and it would have only taken him 1 second to put them on.)
Thanks to Cervaise and Athena. This is the kind of information I would like to hear more about during the show. I realize its not an instructional show. It’s a reality show and part personality contest. However, I would like to learn more about the technical things that the contestants did right or did wrong. Maybe a voiceover during the challenges where a narrator points out the things that are key to success or failure. I will say Top Chef does a much better job of this than Hell’s Kitchen, though.
Ditto. Probably my weakest area as a home cook is getting things to be done at the right time. Probably why I gravitate to one-pot meals like jambalaya or stew.