Episode 5 is starting to make me worry about this season, guys. I guess it was bound to be a letdown after last week’s 50s-flashback fun, but … well, you’ll see when you watch it. (Or, if you don’t agree, come back here and tell me why I’m crazy!)
Mild spoilers in the body of the post; big spoilers in the comments.
1. Breakfast on a stick
The farmer’s market Quickfire was a fun version of the common Top Chef “cook for strangers outdoors” challenge, and I love me some breakfast food. But was it just me or did those breakfasts-on-a-stick all look really hard to eat? It seemed like everyone had to do a lot of work to prevent their food on a stick from falling to the ground or poking themselves in the mouth with the stick. In the end I found myself wondering if breakfast on a stick is actually a good idea. Why not have the challenge be to make it something they could eat with their hands, or something in a wrapper that they could use to protect their hands?
2. Artisan products
I was fascinated by the products the chefs were challenged to incorporate into their dishes for the Elimination challenge. Salmon candy? Coconut curry chocolate? Rosewater jelly? Very intriguing.
But what on earth were cheese curds and pickles doing in this group? I’m sure they’re both fantastic artisan products but the degree of difficulty seemed much lower for the chefs who pulled those knives. Anyone who’s had poutine knows how melty and delicious cheese curds are, and spicy pickles are a much easier flavor to work into savory dishes than, say, cardamom bitters. (Did anyone else think Team Cardamom Bitters should have made a cocktail-food pairing? Just me? Ok then.)
3. Teamwork, Part I
If I ever have to run a teamwork seminar, I might be tempted to just show clips from Top Chef. Want to know how relentless negativity affects a team? Check out Season 4 Lisa! Want to see what happens when a teammate doesn’t contribute or communicate with the team? Let’s take a look at Season 1 Stephen during the wedding challenge. What happens when you have a team leader who won’t listen to others’ ideas and forces everyone to do everything “his way”? Here’s Season 8 Restaurant Wars and Marcel. You get the picture.
This week was particularly interesting from a teamwork perspective, since the chefs had to work with the same partner for both the Quickfire and the Elimination. You’ll see more thoughts about that in the comments.
4. Teamwork, Part II
Ok, first, how in fuzzy blue hell did Josh and John end up working together? John may be a PITA but he’s a talented guy and doesn’t seem all that bad to work with. Was there really no one else willing to take him on? Josie and Eliza both would have done better with John, I bet.
Credit to John for wanting to bottle his tension with Josh to do well in the challenge—and credit to Josh too. That said, their attempts to be non-confrontational pretty much screwed their dish. (They’d be another segment in my Top Chef Leadership seminar!)
Second, what exactly went wrong with Josie and Eliza’s partnership? They were both really unhappy but I couldn’t quite figure out why. Was it just because they have such different styles and couldn’t agree on anything?
5. Uh oh, Tom’s in the stew room.
You know things are bad when Tom comes down to yell at the contestants—and they’re really bad if the prize gets taken off the table. I only remember the no-prize thing happening once before, all the way back in Season 1.
And boy, did the food in this challenge look lame. It says a lot that everyone found sand in Josie and Eliza’s dish and that dish wasn’t even in the bottom 3. I bet I could have made better pork and grits than Josh and John’s dish and I’m just an OK home cook. Also, I loathe braised red cabbage, so I was perversely happy to see that dish on the bottom (although it sounded like the complaint was more about the duck and less about the cabbage).
But when that burger came out, I think a piece of my soul died. That pale, sad, spongy-looking bun actively depressed me. Whose moronic idea was it to put a burger between two crumpets? Do you know what a crumpet is designed to do? It’s designed to soak up every available ounce of moisture in its vicinity! OF COURSE the bottom crumpet-bun was soggy and disgusting! CJ and Tyler, what in the world were you thinking?! Crumpets are for slathering in butter and jam and honey and are delicious in the right context. A burger is not that context.
6. Oh, no. Not Tyler!
The moment Tyler said he was going to let CJ take the lead because he was the veteran, I knew he was in trouble. There are roughly six things you absolutely cannot do on Top Chef if you want to win. Playing sous-chef to a teammate is one of them.* If you’re up at Judge’s Table on the bottom, telling the judges “I wanted to do a different dish but didn’t say anything” is all but guaranteed to get you eliminated.
* Others include “refusing to learn how to make dessert,” “making delicate fried foods hours before serving them,” and “agreeing to do front of the house in Restaurant Wars when you suck at talking to people.”
When Tom said an entire team might be eliminated I thought CJ’s presence might save the team—the producers clearly enjoy his ego—but no. CJ goes down in flames and takes sweet Colorado chef Tyler with him. And the super-annoying thing is that CJ blamed the fact that he was working on a team for his loss. That dish was CJ’s from beginning to end.
I was really pulling for John and Josh to get the axe. John seems to be a good chef, and I think his more annoying qualities come from insecurity, but I’m already over the drama he seems to attract. Josh snapping at Tyler for his “whatever will be will be” attitude also rubbed me the wrong way. I’m going to give Josh the benefit of the doubt and assume he didn’t know Tyler’s a recovering alcoholic, or that he doesn’t know how central “acceptance” is to the AA philosophy. Also, I know they’re all stressed, blah blah blah, Josh wasn’t in a great mood at the time. Even so: shut up, Josh.
7. Last Chance Kitchen
I was a bit annoyed with the way this was set up. The dessert challenge was clearly conceived to mess with CJ. So was forcing CJ and Tyler to work in a team. It felt kind of disrespectful to Tyler and Kuniko to have a challenge so tailored to one contestant—even if it wasn’t meant to give CJ an advantage.
Anyway, Tyler and CJ pull out the win and Kuniko’s going home. Does anyone else feel like CJ has gone over to “weird for the sake of weird” cooking? Why would anyone want to eat hay ice cream, or have a burger on a crumpet? Here’s hoping they break up the Tyler-CJ partnership for the next LCK.