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We didn’t get to talk about last week’s episode, and maybe that’s for the best. WHAT WAS THAT? First there was the nonsense Quickfire Challenge twist when everyone had to trade off their “Crazy Proteins” halfway through, as if that has ANYTHING TO DO with cooking or talent. And then the Cold War challenge, because if there is one thing that has come out of decades of horrifying nuclear stand-off between two trigger-happy imperialist nations it is funny wordplay on garbage reality TV. Huh?! And on top of that, Team Angelo’s lock-step formation against Kenny was so blatant and tasteless. Also, this whole Angelo IS Megamind (in theaters November 5, 2010!) thing is starting to seem like over-the-line producer manipulation. I’m sure he’s an arrogant, overly-hair-producted jerk, but his schemes seem so perfectly calculated, as if he had spent his young adult life mastering SCHEMES instead of COOKING, it feels like someone is putting him up to it. This guy, perhaps? I was disappointed that the judges never said anything about what a hamball attempt at subterfuge that team was trying to pull off. “We just honestly think that Kenny is the worst chef we’ve ever encountered.” Ugh. Anyway, Kevin won and Tamesha was eliminated. Did Angelo sabotage Tamesha on his own team to get ahead?
Well let me answer that question with a question: at the beginning of this week’s episode, Angelo talks about how sad he is that Tamesha got eliminated, while shining his shoes extra hard. Would a saboteur shine his shoes this hard?
Probably. “Perhaps if the judges see that my shoes are shinier than Kenny’s, he will have to go home out of nowhere. Because leadership.”
The contestants show up for the Quickfire Challenge only to discover Congressman Babyface waiting for them. Padma explains that this week is all about ethics. WAIT, HUH, STOP, HUH? The Republican Representative of the Muppet Babies District explains that he’s on the House Ethics Committee, and a lot of their conversations are actually about food! No they’re not. Fuck you. It’s bad enough that you spend your life lying to the American people when it actually matters, don’t do it in a throwaway line on a reality TV show about how to make soup using only things you find in a toilet. Look, Top Chef, we know that cheap puns are stock-in-trade for this kind of programming. We are all adults here, and we recognize and accept the rules of the game. So just say, like, “this week it’s all about Checks and Balances, so you are going to have to make a salad using Chex Mix that doesn’t weigh more than three pounds.” And then we can all move on. You don’t have to have an ACTUAL elected member of the LEGISLATIVE BRANCH of the UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT making up bullshit explanations for how your lazy puns are actually very thoughtful puns reflecting the real machinations of ethical conduct and federal law-making. If you want the chefs to make food on a toothpick, which you do, just make them make food on a toothpick. You know they’ll do it. They want to win that magazine picture!
“I think it makes sense that all the food has to fit on a toothpick because otherwise things could get really out of control with corruption and then you’re basically living in George Orwell’s 1984 or The Matrix Revolutions,” Stephen basically interviews. Also, how excited is Stephen for this challenge?
Too excited.
Everyone makes food on a toothpick, just like how George Washington ate all of his food off toothpicks. Did you know he had a set of dentures that were just toothpicks? True. You have 30 minutes to make dentures using everything in the Toyota Pantry. Anyway: the constants contest. “We were all just fighting for the protein” is what Angelo said. Ed, of course, has already come further than his father ever did, who never even got the opportunity to put food on a toothpick as a joke. Alex explains that he’s really good at party food, which sounds to me a lot like someone saying they’re really good at kissing after practicing all night on their pillow. “I promise, if someone would just invite me to their party, they would be so impressed.” Amanda flirts relentlessly with the Baby (R-Crib) despite having what looks like a giant Herpes sore on her lip. And the Congressman himself is a walking TWSS factory. “It was like fireworks in my mouth,” she says, and also: “Wow! There’s a lot of meat on that stick. I really liked that.” I bet she did!
The bottom three toothpick meals are Alex’s scallop with crispy bacon, strawberries, and basil essence, Ed’s duo of tuna with avocado and sweet & sour watermelon, and Kelly’s scallop with watermelon & watermelon vinaigrette. Good party food, Alex! The top three toothpick meals are Angelo’s cucumber cup with spiced shrimp and cashew, Kevin’s grilled pork and mushroom kabob with sherry vinegar, and Stephen’s scallop & beef with crispy potato and Bearnaise sauce. But Angelo wins the challenge AND $20,000. Poor Stephen.
Angelo explains that he doesn’t even have time to be happy about winning $20,000 because he is already focusing on the next challenge, such is his dedication to win. Sure. Although a) he has immunity in the next challenge, and b) if he has time to style his hair within an inch of its life, he has time to be a human being about winning $20,000. Shut up, Angelo.
The Elimination Challenge is about power lunches or whatever. They’re going to be taking over the Palm Restaurant, whatever that is. People explain that no one has EVER taken over the Palm Restaurant before. Well, maybe that’s just because they don’t know what it is. (By the looks of it, later, it is a mom and pop version of a Bennigan’s.) I’m sure that is a very well known Washington restaurant frequented almost exclusively by beltway insiders, but don’t pretend like all of America has been waiting for the day when the Palms Restaurant would FINALLY let someone take over its kitchen for a reality show challenge. And also: don’t pretend like the people filling the restaurant on the day of the challenge were actual powerbrokers. “Do you have secret meetings in private backrooms in which the fate of millions is decided? Are you free from 1-7PM next Tuesday for a television taping?” Hah.
Everyone will be cooking some kind of massive piece of meat or fish, for power. Yelling fuel. Everyone cooks. To be honest, the part where everyone cooks is the part where I start checking my email. All the drama of this show is in the Quickfire Challenge and the Elimination Ceremony. “What, you don’t find Ed complaining about how much time it is taking to break down his lobsters to be exciting and entertaining?” Who said that? “I’m a ghost!” Anyway. I guess there is SOME drama this week when Alex might have stolen Ed’s pea puree. That is lame. It would be like Alex to do that. “I told you you should have invited me to your party.” Also, Kelly and Amanda get into a fight because Kelly only brought enough salt for herself, or some shit. “It’s a competition,” Kelly explains. “If you didn’t bring salt, I’m not going to help you.” Haha. It’s salt! We’re not talking about a key protein or secret ingredient. It’s fucking salt, you cunt. Anyway, this week’s guest judges, or at least guest diners, include a bunch of people from, like, ABC News or something. Snore. Although they also include Joe Scarborough. Perfect.
At one point during the meal, he explains that he much preferred a dish that everyone else thought was away over-salted. Of course you did, you walking heart-attack. I do love the challenges when Tom has to eat alone in the kitchen.
And so, we get to Judges Table. The winning dishes were Ed’s poached lobster ballotine, eggplant caviar & English pea-asparagus fricassee, Tiffany’s swordfish with olive-raisin tapenade, broccolini and bacon, Alex’s applewood smoked salmon with black forbidden rice and illegal thievery pea puree. Alex wins, due in large part to the pea puree which everyone at this point pretty much agrees he stole from Ed. The guest judge, Art Smith, explains that he could have eaten another dish of just the pea puree. After he wins, Alex explains what a compliment it is when a celebrity chef says that he could eat a second dish of your “food.” I’m sure it is a compliment, but that’s not what he said you LIAR.
The bottom dishes are Kelly’s porterhouse with crispy potato-arugula salad and roasted shallot demi-glace, which was over-salted because apparently she only brought too much salt for herself. Also bottom: Andrea’s pan-seared swordfish with “risotto-style” couscous, asparagus, and beurre blanc, and Kevin’s double-cut lamb chops with olive and goat cheese rissole, mache, and tomato concasse (maybe the judges are taking points off for using too many words that make no sense?). Back in the stew room, Kelly breaks down in tears because she has been “playing the game.” Ugh. I hate Kelly so much. She also says that she hasn’t been cooking “her food” (Top Chef Klassic Kwuote), which is “delicate” because she fears the judges will think it’s too bland. Well then maybe it’s not delicate. Maybe it’s bland. Kelly stinks.
But it is Andrea who goes home.
Oh well. Bye Andrea! She explains that she doesn’t need four people behind a table to tell her she can cook, because she knows she can. Which is good, because that’s not at all what the four people behind that table told you. Anyway, good luck in your on-going feud with that other chef whoever she was I don’t remember and don’t feel like looking up her name. And don’t worry: Alex, Amanda, Kevin, Stephen, and Kelly are all just waiting their turn to join you.
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You created a commenter profile just to say that? Because you could have just not.
Do I upvote to agree with your confusion?
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I was talking to Gabe.
That just happened to be your first post? Right, you are not a regular at all. Did one of us really go to all the trouble of creating an alternate persona just to “prove a point”? I am disappoint monsters, I am disappoint.
Says the guy calling someone a faggot.
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Yeah, you’re still not getting it. No one here cares who you agree with or disagree with politically. Gabe’s reply and all of the monsters downvoting you is because you used a word that is commonly accepted to be extremely offensive, and you used it in the form of hate speech.
Your comment basically boils down to “I hate this guy”, which is just not very constructive and doesn’t add anything to the conversation here. I’m fairly new here, but I’ve noticed that commenters here tend to disapprove of this sort of thoughtless hate, and get angry when someone brings it into our comment section for no apparent reason.
Downvote for too many and’s. Everything else is perfectly fine though.
I like her….like..LIKE “LIKE” her. Ya know?
I logged in just to downvote you.
I love that this is the first comment on the thread…what are the chances!
I love to picture unionman returning to his leather-bound copy of Nicomachean Ethics after typing that.
I won’t say anything about the Congressman’s sexual proclivities, I’ll just share a picture of him wearing pink gingham with a teal belt:
http://towleroad.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c730253ef0133f10266ee970b-800wi
(sadface.gif)
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Well. He sure showed us.
Was the guest chef for Judges Table the double rainbow guy? “This pea puree is so intense, what does it mean!”
That first comment is so bizarro I don’t think anyone knows how to move on and make puns about food and ethics.
It’s not that bizarro. Outside of videogum that’s the way people talk on the internet. I get called that all the time. Well, except for the “teabagger” part.
On an unrelated note, I wish ‘Work of Art’ would be on forever. There is something cathartic about watching people that are crazier than you interacting.
Also I want to be friends with Miles.
Ugh, except for when he kept smirking at the camera about how he was going to trick Jaclyn into taking off her clothes! That was so creepy! Miles, you are so much cuter when you just curl up and take a nap.
Also, barf+barf=art
Hey, Jackie, the word you’re looking for is “masturbating.” M-A-S-T-U-R-B-A-T-I-N-G.
Poor Mark.
I like how Peregrine’s piece was really about how much she hated Mark’s idea of going with the absolutely least nuanced take on heaven & hell possible.
I guess that whole thing bothered me about Miles this episode was that he acted so self satisfied that he tricked Jacklyn into taking off her clothes… LIKE IT IS THAT HARD. Every piece she has done involved herself in some degree of undress.
Another thing that bothered me: Miles’s blatant cringe/sneer at Mark’s scar (when the judges requested he show it). Bad form, dude, bad form.
Agreed. You know what bothered me most though? His crappy concept. I know a lot of women who bunch holes in walls…my wife being one of them (shes half Siciliana and half Syrian).
Because I like America’s Most Sleepiest Artist, I want to believe that he was trying to be cute & jokey with the interviewer and the producers edited everything to unfairly make the home audience think that he’s a sociopathic manipulator.
Jaclyn’s blog (http://www.jaclynsantos.com/blog/) makes it seems like getting privately sexual with her own self was her idea, and not Miles’s. But maybe during one of his naps he just incepted her into believing that she wanted to take her clothes off (for every challenge).
I think Abdi should have gone home. What was that fucking garbage he painted?
Abdi is the worst. I initially thought he was filled with child-like wonder, but it turns out he’s just filled with idiocy.
I just think he is young, amateurish and derivative. Perhaps he will be a good artist in another 10 years or so.
It was Socrates’ cave. There’s a reason that Plato’s cave is so much better known.
Also, I Googled Miles Mendenhall to see if he had a Twitter and found his MYSPACE MUSIC PAGE!? http://www.myspace.com/milesmendenhall.
i hate miles so much…his art is utter garbage…but i’m glad other people are watching this whso and agree about how nuts these people are
i can’t spell show
I think the problem with Work of Art, I’ve come to realize, is everything. There aren’t any good artists on the show. Not really. The standard of criticism from the judges is also really low, and very narrow. They use “literal” like it’s a bad word. sometimes literalness can be powerful! For example, in a revealing autobiographical context, it can make it feel all the more intense because the artist is exposing himself in an honest way without hiding behind abstraction. The real problem with Mark’s piece wasn’t that it was too literal, it’s that it was fucking clichéd. It is absolutely impossible to interpret “heaven” literally. That is absurd.
When Jaclyn made the decision to photograph herself in a “personal sexual position” I was like, Oh, brother… let the hack art commence! And it did. And she won. Again. Remember that photograph she took of all the men leering at her, and how she “took their power away” by splooging dollops of white paint on their faces? Ohhh, the judges were impressed with that!
I so totally agree–More “Work of Scallops,” please. Wait, I am getting confused.
While “literal” may not necessarily be the worst thing you can say about a piece, literal paired with unskilled and “completely lacking in artistic vision” is pretty bad. I don’t know if it is their age, or the lack of time to think and work, but these folks really only seem to be making some rushed high school class projects.
Hey kids, get a JOB! Read a BOOK!
I said it last night in chat, and I will say it again – Alex is the Dov Charney of the cooking world. Yikes.
I am never going to order the clam chowder at his restaurant.
But he made it himself, Mans. In his chowder lounge.
Angelo’s “My mind is alredy on the next challenge” voiceover while tearing up at winning 20k for a cucumber cup on a stick also makes me wonder what the producers are up to.
And, what chef shines his/her shoes just to spill a demi-glace reduction essence on it later?
And, I find it really hard to believe that there is no footage of either the theft of the pea puree or the creation of a second pea puree or Tom asking about it at Judges’ Table as he WAS IN THE KITCHEN! Bravo is holding out for the reunion special, methinks, and I will be forced to watch.
Ohboy I can’t wait for that special!
As long as that crazy cross-eyed super-medicated fuck hosts it, I’m in.
shame on you research-Gabe, the Palm (while not great) IS pretty famous. Locations in every major US city, including MEXICO CITY and LONDON ( we acquired them as I was typing this, just before the trade deadline).
also i want some Bravo show crossover, like..kenny has to cook someone who gets voted off of one of those shows where someone has to make shoebox dioramas for the Olsen twins new shoebox diorama line, to be sold in Target stores.
I will actually argue that The Palm is great. I’m a fan of both LA locations, the Chicago and Las Vegas versions as well. I’m not sure how many of them are in Manhattan, but I know there is at least one.
Wow, that was boring. I must have suddenly thought I was on Yelp. My apologies.
(Kelly is the only one I like)
Wow, everyone. WORST SEASON OF TOP CHEF EVER? Can we all agree to that? What is going on here?
“OH MY GOD. Nicholas Cage and sassy black woman are talking. They must be having an affair. QUICK, ask Amy Ryan during a talking head whether or not she’s noticed anything and manipulate the questions to get the answers we want”
Bravo: Hey Amy Ryan, if Nicholas Cage and sassy black woman were to have an affair, what do you think sassy black woman’s husband would say?
Amy Ryan: I don’t think he would be too happy….that is assuming that Nicholas Cage and sassy black woman are having an affair though. Why?
Bravo: No reason. Shut up.
Also, did anyone notice in last week’s episode when Kenny likened the situation on a REALITY COOKING COMPETITION to the Cold War? I’d like to congratulate Kenny for being a team player cause you know when the line producer was like, “Kenny, can you make a comparison to the Cold War and the tension in the kitchen?” and Kenny was like, “HUH? WHAT? LOL? OK I GUESS?”
This show rules.
Kelly is Amy Ryan.
Andrea is just ugly. (sorry, but true)
Sorry for not being funny or super-offensive like union man, but the winner of this was predetermined once knives were drawn.
The prize is getting your recipe on The Palm’s menu. So you think they’re going to pick the recipe that uses meat from a four pound lobster, a two pound porterhouse, or a salmon dish. Hint: salmon is at least four times cheaper than lobster.*
I did not mean to imply that unionman was funny. Everyone is funny except for unionman and, in this particular comment, me. Please resume regular commentering.
sorry..i dont know why but “everyone is funny” struck me as incredibly and wonderfully giggle inducing for some reason…maybe i need more medicines.
jesus, producers. you’re filming every minute of this thing. show us if he stole the PEA PUREE or not.
In case you’re curious, Tom’s blog entry about the pea scandal (which doesn’t provide any answers whatsoever): http://www.bravotv.com/top-chef/blogs/tom-colicchio/the-peas-that-split
i also want to know why everyone was so convinced that whatshisface COULDN’T have made the pea puree himself. i’m not captain chef, but i’m pretty sure all that is required to make a pea puree is to throw some peas in a food processor and then maybe heat it up a little? it’s not like he had to go out and slaughter the peas himself…
but anyway, he totes stole it. he should be murdered and pureed.
Why is no one talking about how the House Ethics Committee is in the pocket of the Toothpick Lobby?
Why is no one talking about how horribly Padma behaved after the elimination? I think the new mommy needs a nap…
Who said that? “I’m a ghost!”
Almost peed.
I’m so tired of Top Scallop. One of the challenges should be that no one can use scallops…
favorite top chef videogum related comment ever
Loved that Kelly used all her salt just so she didn’t have to give any to Amanda, although it’s hard to say which one is more unlikeable.
The best moment was right after Andrea was eliminated when Tiffany and Ed went to hug her and Padma broke it up by basically telling them to GTFO already. Awesome.
Yeah that was sort of the best. In an episode full of creeps, Padma refuses to indulge any expression of authentic human emotion.
Seriously: Congressman Ribbonbelt, Morning Joe and Zbigniew’s Shame, Hulking Baby Russert, Some Reporter Lady NBC made show up because of owning Bravo, and Unimportant Tooth Monster Mark Warner were the guest judges? Horrible. Just so painful to watch.
These are the best names for famous people ever.
It sounds like the best running of the Belmont Stakes in history. Zbigniew’s Shame is edging out Hulking Baby Russert… Whoa, here comes Unimportant Tooth Monster, but wait just a second… IT’S CONGRESSMAN RIBBONBELT BY A POPPED COLLAR!
have you guys seen this behind this scenes judges table thing?
http://www.bravotv.com/top-chef/videos/extended-judges-table-comfort-zone
Padma “I also think that none of them managed to just put out a decent plate of food..” ouch!
DONT PUT THE LIGHT DIRECTLY IN GAIL’S FACE!!
The best part of the episode was when they, for some reason, had to suddenly insert a shot of Tom wearing a tie. The whole Judges Table, he’s just sitting there in some open-collared shirt, then, all of a sudden, he’s wearing a different shirt with a tie. Five seconds later, back to no tie…
Worst part of this episode was when that one lady said “I don’t like the way swordfish eats”. Sorry, that is not a thing that anyone says. It sounds kind of like industry jargon, but think about it: that does not make one lick of sense (no pun intended).
no one in the industry says that… I assure you – “I don’t like the texture of cooked swordfish” sure but Andrea’s poor English no