Green salads, pasta salads, shrimp and dessert seem to be huge pitfalls on this show. Some of the choices seemed to be quite bizarre to me particularly the clam chowder.
Can Ms. Facial Piercing prepare anything that isn’t soup? She did two in a row last night.
And does bacon ever lose?
With this episode I’m finally starting to devlop some favorites, Kevin, Eli, the brothers, and Jennifer. It is starting to get more interesting now.
I knew Preeti was out the door because of her own poor judgement. It is bad enough to make a yuk dish, but when you can’t even recognize that a lame pasta salad isn’t up to snuff you deverse to go.
As for the chowder. I am so tired of hearing the comment that hot food can’t be served on a hot day. Look, it is hot for most of the year here in south Texas and elsewere in the south/southwest. What, are we not supposed to get hot food for 11 1/2 months of the year? It is just a silly contrivance perpetrated by lazy food writers. And yes, not only do we eat hot food in the summertime, we even eat it outside. Ever heard of of BBQ? As long as the beer is cold then everything is ok.
It’s not about hot food, it’s about hot and heavy wintery food. Yeah, you can eat BBQ, but are you gonna eat a hot bowl of stew with it?
We have this stuff in Texas we call chili. It is the offical food of the state of Texas. You should try it sometime.
I wouldn’t call much of call any Tex-Mex cuisine particularly “light.”
In that same vein, I’m originally from the sweltering swamps of Louisiana, and a lot of Cajun and Creole cuisine is pretty heavy too (gumbo, jumbalaya), so yeah. I think it’s a canard to say you can’t serve hot or heavy food in hot wather.
Yeah. My less snarky reply to enalzi would be to challenge her assumption that there is such a thing as a “wintery” food, especially for cultures in areas with no discernable winter. Criticizing food choice in regards to temperature and spiciness is fair game for a cooking competition. But to automatically jerk one’s knee when served a hot dish on a hot day is silly. It can even be a sign of cultural ignorance, which is something professional food critics should strive to avoid.
Well it’s also a hot and heavy dish to guys work non-stop all day. I remember the same criticism was used in the second season when they were serving to firefighters. I think a dish not being seasonal is a valid criticism.
I think the problem is that it seems like they are always in hot conditions. Either they’re in a hot area, or they’re in a seasonal area during summer.
Anyone in Texas starting their chili by reducing heavy cream?
Is chili any less heavy for not having cream in it?
I don’t understand. Are you suggesting that because of an absence of cream that chili is less rich than chowder? Because I assure you there is at least as much fat in a bowl of chili as in a bowl of chowder. Or are you suggesting that heavy cream is to be used only in the winter? If you like I can give you dozens of examples of Tex-mex dishes literally swimming in cream. And that’s just Tex-mex, I can include Creole, Cajun, Central Mexican, Coastal Mexican, Caribbean, and of course, Southern food, in which the use of heavy cream is practically mandatory.
You are kinda making my point for me. Look, I am capable of understanding that up north there are dishes and ingredients that are considered seasonal. I even have the ability to imagine why someone from say, Boston, may prefer to have their chowder in the winter as opposed to the summer. So why is so hard for to you to understand that Southerners, Texans, Southwesterners, Mexicans, and Central Americans have different cultural expectations and values when it comes to food? It is a great big world. When judging a cooking contest somewhere in the southwest, like say Las Vegas, you may want to keep in mind the regional food culture or you end up sounding ignorant.
There’s a still a difference between the dishes. Southern food works with the heat. Gail actually liked Hector’s Chili. Even though it’s heavy, the flavors work with the climate. Like he said “It makes you sweat, so it cools you down.” Chowder on the other hand is really meant to be eaten on a cold winter’s day, and then you take a nice long nap afterwards. Maybe stew was a bad analogy. How about “would you cook and serve a turkey in the middle of summer?”
I was mystified by the decision to make the most pedestrian pasta salad I’ve ever seen. I mean, it looked like they made the recipe on the back of the tri-color pasta bag.
However, it did seem like the only two teams who got to make use of a protein had a bit of a leg up on the competition. When everyone is forced to use canned ingredients, it’s no surprise that the two best dishes were the pork-based ones.
I’m fairly certain that every one of those cuisines use more spices, particularly hot ones, than a traditional NE clam chowder. And I’m not suggesting either of those things. All I meant was that a big bowl of clam chowder makes me want to take a nap and a big bowl of chili makes me want to have another bowl of chili.
How on earth did we get from my one sentence post that I’m ingorant of or insensitive to cultural differences?
Aside from the bread pudding for dessert and the boring pasta salad, everyone else seemed to use a protein. Clam chowder, 3 bean roasted chicken chili, roasted strip loin, greek salad with shrimp and the two pork dishes. Pork may be the tastiest protein, but it’s not the only one.
Reality show crossover?
Is Kevin Gillespie related to Kayne Gillespie from Project Runway? They look so much alike and even sound the same.
I forgot about the loin. :smack: But you’re right, I shouldn’t have said protein. I should have said the best protein. I don’t think you could compare frozen shrimp or canned clams, or (I forget what state the chicken was in) chicken to the pork and loin.
I watched this week’s Project Runway and this week’s Top Chef back to back, and they both had someone who was in the “winning” group also up for elimination as part of the losing group (did some Bravo exec send out a note about that last season?) Only Project Runway actually eliminated theirs.
But they got confused in my mind, and I was somehow certain that Mike I. had gotten his sexist ass thrown off Top Chef. Sadly, no.
Agreed. And I don’t really like the idea of pairing up folks who have been up for Beard awards and have Michelin stars with standard up-and-comers. Not that it’s a bad idea to have the budding superstars competing; I’d just rather see them compete amongst themselves, and not against the others who may be really good, but just aren’t their level. Not quite a Top Chef Masters, but still an advanced level of Top Chef among peers.
I’m still enjoying it, though.
Dumb question of the night: “Did you start out with dried beans, or canned?” Yes, I know you can rush beans a bit without the overnight soak, but when you have 3 hours to do an entire challenge, it seems a bit unlikely that you’d start with the dried beans.
I think they undercut the potential of dishes sometimes with the short time frames they’re given. In particular, I think the potato challenge could’ve had some better results with more time allotted.