# Top Chef Season 10 **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 8, 2012, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-chef-season-10/640370 "2012-11-08T16:51:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 13
**Author:** ![tim314](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim314/32/3468_2.png) [@tim314](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tim314)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2013, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-chef-season-10/640370/243 "2013-02-22T21:30:19Z")
> [@Big\_Norse](#): > > I can see how that would be, and I think that adds to my frustration this week. Brooke was praised for doing more Brooke food and Sheldon was penalized for doing something outside the box. Since I can’t taste the food it would have been nice if they’d said a little bit more about what the Brooke thing was, and why it worked. (In addition to “depth”). > > I know it’s the editing and judging goes on longer than what we see, but they really had very little to say about Brooke’s food at Judges’ Table at all. I got the “Yep, of course she’s in” vibe from it all. > > And again, I’m not saying it’s rigged, just a forgone conclusion because of her talent and history in the competition. Maybe for dramatic reasons they can’t just outright state she’s blowing them all away and none of them is even in her league. But I’d love to hear it (maybe when she wins) and learn about why. Out of curiosity, do you read the judges’ blogs? These often have a lot more info about why someone won or lost. There have been a number of times where the edit made it look like the judges were on the fence, and then Colicchio says in his blog “This was an easy decision because X.” There have also been times where a judge will say “We argued about this for hours, and in the end, I was outvoted.” (E.g., Gail wanted to send Josie home instead of Kristen in restaurant wars, but couldn’t convince the others. That one was doubly interesting because Tom said “I would have voted differently if I knew what happened in the kitchen.”) ---
**Author:** ![eenerms](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/cdc98d/32.png) [@eenerms](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eenerms)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2013, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-chef-season-10/640370/244 "2013-02-28T04:42:00Z")
Cool!!🙂 ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2013, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-chef-season-10/640370/245 "2013-02-28T05:30:04Z")
I found the format of the finale fairly boring. Bunch of people sitting around while the chefs cooked. I channel surfed some because I just couldn’t take an hour of that. [SPOILER]I’m disappointed for Brooke. Especially because the wins were so overwhelming for Kristan They almost didn’t need Hugh there for tie breakers. [/SPOILER] ---
**Author:** ![Kolak\_of\_Twilo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kolak_of_twilo/32/73_2.png) [@Kolak\_of\_Twilo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolak_of_Twilo)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2013, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-chef-season-10/640370/246 "2013-02-28T05:41:12Z")
Nice result! I gotta say I like both of these chefs and would gladly eat anything either of them put in front of me. Still, I was pulling for the ultimate winner. Overall, this has been a much more enjoyable season than last year. ---
**Author:** ![etv78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d78d45/32.png) [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2013, 8:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-chef-season-10/640370/247 "2013-02-28T08:13:36Z")
The winner cooks not far from me! ---
**Author:** ![tim314](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim314/32/3468_2.png) [@tim314](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tim314)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2013, 9:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-chef-season-10/640370/248 "2013-02-28T09:10:43Z")
I’m pleased with the winner, although I guess I would have been pleased with either at this point. I really enjoyed seeing her proud father at the end. I’m not sure how I feel about the format. One problem with having it end whenever someone has won three is you can figure out the outcome based on how much time is left – if there’s no time for course five, then you know course four seals the deal. Plus, then you don’t get to see course five. If I were in the audience, I would be saying “Hey, what about our dessert?” ---
**Author:** ![sohvan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/96bed5/32.png) [@sohvan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sohvan)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2013, 9:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-chef-season-10/640370/249 "2013-02-28T09:30:58Z")
[spoiler]I knew Brooke was in trouble when she said she was doing fried chicken. It seems like a bad idea to try to redeem one of your failed competition dishes. Even if it’s good, it’s still something they’ve eaten before from you. If it’s between something new and delicious and something old but redeemed, I suspect the new dish would win most of the time. It also seemed like the judges were waiting for more from the finale dishes. The final two were really talented, and I was going to be happy no matter who won.[/spoiler] ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2013, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-chef-season-10/640370/251 "2013-02-28T11:25:42Z")
> [@tim314](#): > > I’m pleased with the winner, although I guess I would have been pleased with either at this point. I really enjoyed seeing her proud father at the end. > > I’m not sure how I feel about the format. One problem with having it end whenever someone has won three is you can figure out the outcome based on how much time is left – if there’s no time for course five, then you know course four seals the deal. Plus, then you don’t get to see course five. If I were in the audience, I would be saying “Hey, what about our dessert?” Exactly. I was watching, checked the time, and knew who won before a bite of course four was taken. I didn’t like the format. It was too easy to manipulate for drama. Better if they all voted at once for each course, so there was no temptation to alter your decision based on previous votes. Even still, I’d have preferred the usual format. ---
**Author:** ![not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_what_you_d_expect/32/3246_2.png) [@not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_what_you_d_expect)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2013, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-chef-season-10/640370/252 "2013-02-28T12:57:12Z")
I didn’t like the format either. And now the Top Chef withdrawals begin. ---
**Author:** ![StGermain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stgermain/32/2868_2.png) [@StGermain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StGermain)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2013, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-chef-season-10/640370/253 "2013-02-28T17:17:04Z")
I liked this format because the former TC chefs in the audience are so into it. I think given the chance, most of them would’ve been glad to go down and help out on the floor. I’ve been reading a book called “Millionaire Households and their Domestic Economy”, written in 1903 by a former head housekeeper from an American household similar to Downton Abbey. She talks about the sense for fraternity the chefs have, coming to help a brother chef when a big house would have a large party. > [@](#): > > To behold our hero in his glory we must descend to the kitchen floor when a large dinner is in anticipation, and there watch his swiftly moving hands at work. Besides those who are hired in to assist him, he will have a sort of “bee." Every one of his disengaged friends, whose masters and mistresses are dining out on that evening will, with one accord, drop in and lend a hand. They like to be “in it,” and will work as industriously as if it were their own affair, for chefs are a fraternal body of men, ever ready to help each other in emergencies, and then dine together. If one should unexpectedly visit the culinary department between seven and eight o’clock on this evening the bright electric lights of the kitchen would illuminate a striking picture. Chefs everywhere. At each table one or two standing busily at work — all in their white caps and linen suits— engaged with every kind of viand and ornamentation for the banquet. At the meat block one stands cutting and trimming. Before the marble pastry slab another deftly manipulates delicate pates and croustades destined each to contain a bonne-bouche that only a chef can evolve. In front of the capacious range another may be seen stirring soups and sauces or opening and closing oven doors with a celerity that only a skillful chef has mastered. A corps of magicians are they, from whose dexterous hands marvels will appear below stairs, only to disappear above stairs by the inferior magic of the banqueters. > At a first glance we might suppose that all the chefs in town had come to see the dinner through. The kitchen wears a bewildering aspect as these fraternal artists of the saucepan fly about in their white caps, jackets, and aprons. Swiftly to and fro they go, a set look on each face, every eye bright and keen — the credit of their art at stake. The intense heat of the kitchen is evident on the faces of the men and in the women’s tired eyes. Quick, short words in French or English escape from time to time as the dumb-waiter ascends and descends in response to calls from above or below, or as the butler’s electric signal notifies of the new course called for in accordance with menus which epicures only one flight up are studying with a care worthy of a better object. StG ---
**Author:** ![GrandWino](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grandwino/32/67_2.png) [@GrandWino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrandWino)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2013, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-chef-season-10/640370/254 "2013-02-28T17:26:43Z")
I would have been happy with either chef winning, though I was rooting for Brooke since she was a bit of an underdog and also had actually been through the entire gauntlet of the Top Chef filming (LCK was a gauntlet of its own, but a much different animal.) I liked the format of cooking and judging in front of an audience, but I didn’t like the way they decided a winner. I’d have preferred they looked at the meal as a whole (like at the end of each episode of Chopped) instead of the Best of 5 approach. Knowing that there were only 4 mins left when they started deliberating the fourth round made it pretty anti-climactic as well. Great season overall. ---
**Author:** ![Tangent](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tangent/32/3098_2.png) [@Tangent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tangent)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2013, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-chef-season-10/640370/255 "2013-02-28T17:32:17Z")
I didn’t like the format. It felt too rushed. It was like Top Iron Chef. I also don’t like the whole Last Chance Kitchen thing. I liked Kristen a lot and thought she got a raw deal when she was knocked out of the regular competition, but I don’t think she or anyone else should be able to get back in at the end and win it all. Even though it appears that Kristen was clearly the best chef, I still think eliminations should be final. ---
**Author:** ![GrandWino](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grandwino/32/67_2.png) [@GrandWino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrandWino)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2013, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-chef-season-10/640370/256 "2013-02-28T17:34:19Z")
> [@Tangent](#): > > I didn’t like the format. It felt too rushed. It was like Top Iron Chef. > > I also don’t like the whole Last Chance Kitchen thing. I liked Kristen a lot and thought she got a raw deal when she was knocked out of the regular competition, but I don’t think she or anyone else should be able to get back in at the end and win it all. Even though it appears that Kristen was clearly the best chef, I still think eliminations should be final. Yeah, I think she made a pretty terrible decision to throw herself on her sword for Josie, of all people. She should have had to live with that. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2013, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-chef-season-10/640370/257 "2013-02-28T17:56:39Z")
> [@Tangent](#): > > Even though it appears that Kristen was clearly the best chef, I still think eliminations should be final. Why? I mean, the rules of the show are the rules of the show. If the rules are “eliminations are final”, that’s fine. And if the rules are “eliminated chefs go into LCK, and the winner of that comes back at the end”, that’s fine also, as long as they’re generally consistent and fair with the rules. A good season overall, but I agree about the timing of the final round ruining the suspense entirely. ---
**Author:** ![tim314](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim314/32/3468_2.png) [@tim314](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tim314)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2013, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-chef-season-10/640370/258 "2013-02-28T18:33:13Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > Why? I mean, the rules of the show are the rules of the show. If the rules are “eliminations are final”, that’s fine. And if the rules are “eliminated chefs go into LCK, and the winner of that comes back at the end”, that’s fine also, as long as they’re generally consistent and fair with the rules. I agree. It would only be unfair if Brooke wouldn’t have had the same chance of winning her way onto the show after an elimination. It’s kind of like a double-elimination tournament, which isn’t any more or less inherently fair than single-elimination. That said, I would have rolled my eyes a bit if the Save-a-Chef winner made it back onto the show, only because that makes it less about skill and more about popularity. But Last Chance Kitchen is just as much a test of skill as the regular show. ---
**Author:** ![Tangent](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tangent/32/3098_2.png) [@Tangent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tangent)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2013, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-chef-season-10/640370/259 "2013-02-28T18:41:10Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > Why? I mean, the rules of the show are the rules of the show. If the rules are “eliminations are final”, that’s fine. And if the rules are “eliminated chefs go into LCK, and the winner of that comes back at the end”, that’s fine also, as long as they’re generally consistent and fair with the rules. I’m not saying any rules were violated. I’m saying I don’t like the rules. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2013, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-chef-season-10/640370/260 "2013-02-28T19:06:21Z")
> [@Tangent](#): > > I’m not saying any rules were violated. I’m saying I don’t like the rules. Why not? ---
**Author:** ![etv78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d78d45/32.png) [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2013, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-chef-season-10/640370/261 "2013-02-28T20:09:48Z")
Tom just said on Twitter that they probably won’t use that format anymore. ---
**Author:** ![Palo\_Verde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/65b543/32.png) [@Palo\_Verde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Palo_Verde)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2013, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-chef-season-10/640370/262 "2013-02-28T20:45:59Z")
Did he say why? ---
**Author:** ![etv78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d78d45/32.png) [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2013, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-chef-season-10/640370/263 "2013-02-28T21:02:40Z")
> [@Palo\_Verde](#): > > Did he say why? That he, and fans he’s heard from, didn’t like the format. (prefered traditional version) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-chef-season-10/640370.md?page=12) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-chef-season-10/640370.md?page=14)