Top Chef, S12E09.

My analysis of the Wil Myers three-team trade went up last night for Insiders, and I held my last Klawchat of 2014 today.

Two amazon sales of interest – Ann Leckie’s Hugo/Nebula Award-winning 2013 novel Ancillary Justice is just $2.99 for Kindle right now; I bought it yesterday, as I’m working my way through the Hugo winners. Also, the excellent iOS app version of Stone Age: The Board Game is still on sale for $2.99.

Top Chef logoWe see Doug waking up Katsuji in the morning, after which he tells the camer that Katsuji “is the most bizarre person I’ve ever met, probably my favorite person in the house; I don’t know why.” Then we find out Katsuji’s wife is seven months pregnant with another little one at home, and she’s running their restaurant while he’s gone and probably cursing his name every twenty seconds. On a related note, I believe we call this “foreshadowing.”

* Quickfire: Gronk is in the house. He’s listed at 6’6”, 265, but he has to be bigger than that, no? He also turned Padma into a 15-year-old girl: “do you mind if I call you Rob? … you can call me honey.” Have we ever seen her blush like that before?

* Gronk says he’s Polish so he wants Polish sausage. The chefs get one hour to make the best sausage they can from scratch, during which Padma will continue to hit on Gronk. Does she know he slept with a porn star?

* When Gronk says “I’d eat a big sausage,” Padma pauses and smiles: “Me too.” I’m just going to leave that there.

* I didn’t hear which chef said it, but someone was surprised there was venison? That makes damn good sausage. I kind of thought wild game sausage was a thing now. There was a food truck festival in Arizona where one truck had sausages made from deer, boar, and even reindeer meat.

* Katsuji uses liquid nitrogen, cooling the mixture so the fat doesn’t break and can maintain an emulsion. I think that’s the first time we’ve seen him talk any food science on the show. Blais would be proud.

* I was surprised and pleased to see them all using the same KitchenAid grinder attachment I use. I assumed they’d have access to much better equipment.

* Both Melissa and George end up struggling to get the meat/fat mixture through the grinder – I haven’t had that happen, so I don’t know if they didn’t cut the meat into small enough pieces or something else went wrong – but while Melissa just ends up making half-sized sausages, George abandons the cases entirely and makes sausage patties.

* Doug says the casing “shouldn’t feel like a used condom.” It’s really the “used” that takes the analogy too far, isn’t it?

* Doug made the most traditional dish – a beer-braised pork sausage with onions and whole grain mustard on a roll. Gronk, who by the way comes off as very personable the whole time, says it’s “a good pregame meal.” Because, you know, before I work out I go crush something fatty with lots of onions. Melissa’s little sausages have wild boar and pork with lentils, cucumber, fennel, and red onion on top. Mei’s Asian-style pork sausage has ginger, garlic, and fish sauce, topped with avocado, coconut puree, yuzu aioli. Gronk loves the sauce – how could you not love a tangy citrus mayo with fatty pork? Katsuji’s sausage has brisket and pork with habanero, cumin, coriander, and saffron. Gregory’s pork and boar sausage has makrut lime leaves (see below), chiles, lemongrass, garlic, cucumber, and carrot salad. Gronk says it got spicier as he ate more of it; I’m shocked Padma didn’t chime in on that. George served his pork and veal sausage patty with a sunnyside up egg, flavoring the sausage with cumin and coriander..

(Gregory uses the common term “Kaffir,” which is considered a racial slur in many parts of the world, notably South Africa where it’s comparable to our n-word, while in Muslim societies it’s a derogatory term for non-Muslims. While the origin of the name of the fruit is hopelessly unclear, there’s no good reason to keep using the term when “makrut lime” refers to the same thing.)

* George meets Gronk and says he “can’t say I’m a fan of yours” before Gronk tastes the dish. What a dipshit.

* Worst: Melissa’s sausages were way too small, not surprising since Gronk emphasized that he likes traditional, oversized Polish sausages. Gregory’s had too much spice and toppings; do Polish sausages ever contain red pepper? I can’t think of one, but I’m not that familiar with Polish food. The best: Doug’s, of course, and George’s, which looked like a burger but was delicious. George wins, despite his inability to shut his trap, and gets immunity. Doug is clearly displeased since it wasn’t a real sausage in casing … but that was never a requirement of the challenge, was it?

* Elimination challenge: Tony Maws – great name for a chef – is in the house; he owns Craigie on Main in Boston and Kirkland Tap and Trotter in Somerville, which I will forever associate with “slummerville” even though it hasn’t been worthy of that nickname in about twenty years. The chefs must create dishes inspired by one literary work from any of a half-dozen New England writers. The diners should be able to visually see the story on the plate in some way.

* Gregory picks first and takes Edgar Allen Poe, which would be (I think) the most fun to work with because you can be macabre without needing gore. Katsuji takes Stephen King, whose work is gory and, more importantly, is not literature. George takes Dr. Seuss. Mei takes Henry David Thoreau. Melissa takes Nathaniel Hawthorne, but ends up not using The Scarlet Letter (as if anyone knows any of his other books). Doug gets Emily Dickinson by default and is unthrilled to have a “depressed chick poet from the 1800s.” But she has the most notable style of anyone but Poe, both in content and in the use of iambic pentameter in every one of her poems. “Because I could not stop for Death” has to be among the top ten poems every penned by an American, right? I need some poetry students/experts to weigh in on this, especially since I can’t put anything but “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” at number one: “In the rooms the women come and go/Talking of F.P. Santangelo.”

* Doug – who jokes that Dickinson “wrote Pride and Prejudice, right?” after which I might have murdered him in his sleep – likes the poem “Bring me sunset in a cup” for its opening image. I don’t think he kept reading, though, or he would have used some honey, some turtle meat, and perhaps some quail or squab in his dish.

* George chooses One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish after Padma warns him not to serve green eggs and ham. Blue’s a tough color, though, so he ends up using purple potatoes. I don’t (or didn’t, at the time I watched) know how literal the judges expect the chefs to be, but if you ask any two- or three-year-old about colors, they’ll tell you in no uncertain terms that blue ain’t purple.

* Gregory chooses “The Raven,” and gives a rather scholarly analysis of its contents as well. HE plans to use grilled cornish hens, parsnips and beets for the snow and love, and some sort of nori “technique” for the blackness clouding the man’s soul. That said, I might have chosen “The Telltale Heart” and actually cooked something like beef hearts – but I’m writing that with the benefit of having already seen the judging.

* Mei’s drawing of her dish is cute – she or Bravo should take stuff like that and auction it off to fans for charity. Stick a frame around that and hang it in your kitchen for a conversation piece. She’s using charred onions to represent the soil, blending them to a powder with butter … like a graham-cracker or Oreo pie crust. I’m surprised it doesn’t just taste like ash, but I’ve never tried it.

* Melissa chooses a Hawthorne book I had never heard of called The Blithedale Romance. Even if you know and like the book, if the judges don’t, haven’t you just shot yourself in the foot?

* Francis Lam is a guest judge. Tom says the chefs’ efforts looked promising in his kitchen walkthrough, but the “proof is in the pudding.” Francis tries to correct him and claims it’s Shakespeare … but Bill never said that, and while the phrase is generally credited to Cervantes, it’s probably not his phrase either.

* Gregory serves first: seared beef tenderloin, grilled hen, parsnip puree, beets, and crispy nori. Tony’s beef was a little medium-rare, while the other four plates had it rare. Is medium-rare that big of a crime? Granted, beef tenderloin is kind of an overrated cut anyway.

* George’s Dr. Seuss riff has calamari, mussels, clams, pan-seared branzino, a seafood emulsion, and red peppers and purple potatoes for the colors. Gail says the dish feels a little “tight.” I have no idea what that means, but that’s four fish, not one or two.

* Mei’s plate has roasted vegetables on charred onion soil, coated with tom kha (I assume coconut milk flavored with lemongrass) “snow,” and a radish and carrot top vinaigrette. Gail says the soil and snow both add subtle flavor. Tom calls it “roasted vegetables ‘Walden Pond,’” which seems like an enormous compliment.

* Melissa’s dish has seared halibut, spring veg, morels, charred baby corn, asparagus, peas, with a mushroom broth served tableside. She claims it’s to represent the four seasons, with the charred corn symbolizing the increasing darkness of autumn, but 1) where’s winter? and 2) would anyone in that room have eaten her dish and said, “oh, man that is totally Blithedale Romance.”

* Katsuji splatters his red beet sauce on his dishes so it “looks like somebody just got killed on this plate.” He gets a reaction from the diners, but then forgets the title and author of his inspiration due to nerves.

* His dish is a fabada with white beans, chorizo, jamón serrano, short rib, veal osso buco, red beet puree and hot sauce (with his voice overdubbed to say the last two ingredients). It’s a long explanation of the connection between the story and the dish. Tom says the “most unappetizing-looking dish I’ve ever seen in my life.” Gail likes the “discordance” in the dish because Carrie is a horror story. No one’s going to mention that he had four proteins from three different animals plus beans in the dish?

* Doug’s Emily Dickinson riff is a carrot bisque with grilled carrots, orange, cumin vinaigrette, radish, and dandelion. The soup has an intense carrot flavor from his various methods of cooking the carrots. The judges rave about it.

* The judges seem to have liked all of the dishes, with a few slight preferences. Mei connected the work, the author, and the dish better than anyone, but Doug executed that almost as well. Gail argues for Melissa’s fish and presentation of vegetables, but again, no one points out the tenuous connection to Hawthorne. George’s presentation was a little underwhelming, but he has immunity. Katsuji’s was big and bold, but it was a mess to behold.

* Judges’ table: Tom says it was all really good, despite a hard challenge. Mei, Melissa, Doug are the top three. Mei wins, which I infer is for a great dish with the most inventive presentation; the “soil” and “snow” weren’t just gimmicks but added flavor to the dish.

* The bottom two are Katsuji and Gregory, with George safe due to immunity. Katsuji’s sauce was too thick, pureed beets rather than a strained “au jus” (sorry, Tom, but the juice itself is just the “jus,” without the “au”) that would have had a more vibrant color without the inconsistent texture. Gregory gets dinged for an overly symbolic dish that was not evocative enough of Poe or “The Raven,” yet Melissa’s fared no better in that department and she was in the top half. This feels a bit contrived, unless something else was amiss with Gregory’s plates beyond one serving of slightly overcooked beef.

* Katsuji is eliminated, as his food didn’t quite hold up to the presentation for Tom. Axing Gregory for an insufficiently literal interpreation of his inspiration would have been ridiculous.

* Quick power ranking: Gregory, Doug, Mei, George, Melissa. Doug may really be neck and neck with Gregory at this point – a little more precise, but a little less imaginative. He’s outperformed everyone of late.

* Last Chance Kitchen: The three chefs must cook with 20+ ingredients, Katsuji-style. Katsuji makes a mole, which is a great way to use twenty ingredients in one shot, and he ends up over 30 ingredients in his dish. Adam wins with a ceviche; Katie is eliminated despite Tom praising her tomato chutney, just saying the other two dishes were better.

Comments

  1. Padma really was like a schoolgirl with Gronkowski. There is no doubt.

  2. Padma gushing over Gronk was wildly entertaining. Much like your recaps! I too questioned Melissa’s dish. If, as the judges said during the meals that each dish should be looked at and remind you of the author and book, there was no way Melissa’s dish would be recognized.

  3. That was probably one of the funniest episodes I have ever seen.

  4. Out of curiosity, why aren’t Stephen King’s books “literature?” I’m sure some are better than others, but regardless, he’s a wonderful story teller.

  5. That was easily one of the worst judges tables I’ve ever seen. Not that I thought Gregory was in danger of losing to Katsuji, but the fact that he was in the bottom for the reasons Keith outlined is ridiculous. Padma seemed to be downright giddy in putting Gregory down for not making his plate a visual representation of “The Raven.” And really, was Melissa or Mei’s dish a visual representation of their respective inspirations? The standards were completely uneven.

    I also thought the compliments for Doug’s carrot soup seemed over-the-top. He developed flavors in carrots, made a vinaigrette and added some garnish. Don’t get me wrong, it sounds delicious. But…it’s carrot soup.

    Finally, Doug is starting to wear on me with his whiny comments during the Quickfire. Last week it was slagging Gregory for using coconut milk; this week he’s whining about George making a patty. It’s too much.

  6. Keith,

    We’ve seen Katsuji have a case of the nerves in the past. Do you think there’s an anxiety issue there?

    • @Daniel: I imagine that’s a lot like the way I would look when anxious. I definitely would get flushed and start sweating even when I wasn’t hot. That’s not a diagnosis by any means, though.

  7. What’s the issue with Gronk having slept with a porn star? Heavens me!

  8. My opinion is that Top Chef continues to make what I think is a mistake: protecting what they think is the better cook instead of eliminating the worst dish. Gregory made the mistake last night and didn’t apply the theme well – he should have been kicked. They saved him because of his overall skill. This is a game. The best cook doesn’t have to win.
    Also they need to stop giving immunity for quickfires. Give them a prize. Good gracious they run enough commercials so they can afford it. Last night’s show had a ridiculously high percentage of the 60 minutes used in commercials. And I think that’s a cause of my last point – the show doesn’t have the substance it once did. They show less cooking, less evaluation and they show more Padma.

  9. Adn one final point as I’m no my soapbox.
    Why was George let back in? He didn’t get any kind of raw deal. What was this vote one in stuff? When he was first eliminated, legitimately, they gave him a life-preserver, and he failed that. He had 2 chances already.

  10. To be fair, George’s dish only has one actual fish (and three molluscs).

  11. I agree with Overbrook: give the chefs $5k for winning a quickfire, and lose the immunity. The program is starting to resemble “The Truman Show” with all of the convenient add placements. Oh look, it’s our sixth shot of Morton’s Salt!

  12. Does she know he slept with a porn star? How about, does he know she was married to a hacky writier, who got famous and rich by poking a (mostly) incompetent bear?

    • @Jay: Well, he won’t get a disease from sleeping with someone who slept with Salman Rushdie. (I liked Midnight’s Children, though.) I agree on venison but was surprised any chef would voice that opinion. Don’t you just add pork fat to any lean meat to turn it into sausage?

    • How many pornstars actually have diseases? How do you know they had unprotected sex? Honestly, you’re just slut-shaming pornstars.

    • @bbg: No, I’m not. I have no objection to or even criticism of their life choices, although the industry’s exploitation of women who have been victims of abuse or assault is a concern. I’m saying I wouldn’t want to have sex with someone in that line of work. As for unprotected sex, the industry itself openly objected to Los Angeles’ Measure B, which required condom use in adult films shot in LA County, and moved a lot of production to other areas. Plus many STDs, notably HPV, can be transmitted via oral sex.

      You’ve commented here several times, yet only seem to want to troll. If you’re going to do that, I’d prefer it if you’d use your actual name.

    • I’m not “trolling” – I’m questioning some of your comments, namely:

      1. Giving the only black guy on the show a nickname referencing a rapper;

      2. Objectifying Padma sexually with an incredibly played out melons/breasts joke; and

      3. Disparaging porn stars AND anyone else who has ever slept with a porn star by intimating that anyone who is sexually/romantically interested in a person who has slept with a porn star would have to be ignorant of the fact that said person slept with a porn star (which is far different than saying that YOU would not have sex with a porn star). Moreover, my point about unprotected sex was in reference to Gronk and whichever porn star he had sex with – you have no idea whether or not they used condoms.

      When you responded to #1 that Gregory appreciated the nickname, I wrote to say that I tabled my umbrage. You deleted #2 off of your comments.

      If having the temerity to point out that certain things you say are in poor taste is “trolling,” then so be it – though I can’t possibly imagine you’d enjoy living with that standard yourself, given the frequent lecturing you are prone to indulge in. One can only imagine what you’d say if Aaron said Padma had some nice melons or something similar.

      I’m also not sure what difference it makes if I go by “bbg” or “Keith” or “Tom” or “Hercules” – as if one makes me more or less anonymous than any other.

    • @bbg: That’s clearly trolling. You’ve made three spurious criticisms, without ever contributing to the actual discussion. I deleted your second comment because it was misogynistic and I inferred from it that you hadn’t even watched the show. (My joke was a reference to a specific shot, not a comment on Padma’s bosom.)

      I’ve made a very simple request. If you wish to make such comments, even fabricating offenses on my part, just do it under your own name. You should be willing to stand behind your comments to that extent.

  13. BTW, the hesitation on venison is about how lean it is. Any midwest hunter will tell you that you just mix in some pork fat and all is well.

  14. btw thank you for the Kaffir knowledge — I had no idea of the multitude of usages.

  15. Is it just me or are the producers getting too heavy handed with the foreshadowing? This is two weeks in a row where it didn’t take much of a guess in the first couple minutes of the show as to who would be leaving based on the little bio they did for Adam, and this week, for Katsuji.

    Re: Katsuji and anxiety–certainly no diagnosis, but definitely consistent with it. Also, Keith, in your chat today, I more or less agree with you about Chris Davis and amphetamines. The one part I’d take issue with is saying that legitimate patients with ADHD could just switch to a non-stimulant medication. That isn’t really true. Much like depression and other psychological/neurological diseases, people react very differently to different meds and might not do nearly as well from a medical and quality of life perspective on a non-stimulant. I’m in favor of keeping the TUE just for that reason, as imperfect as it is.

    • @Ben: I was too quick with the chat answer today, unfortunately. My point, poorly expressed, was that the TUE is a loophole the size of the Great Red Spot, clearly being abused by players who don’t actually need Adderall. I assume it’s like the Key & Peele sketch where the doctor is practically begging the patient to give him a reason to prescribe medical marijuana. MLB can’t take a hard line on steroids and hand-wave amphetamines through with a piece of paper.

    • Agreed on all fronts. I’d be very interested to see the portion of the CBA regarding TUEs. The vast, vast majority of people with ADHD are diagnosed by their teens, so I’d be super curious to see how many of the TUEs for ADHD in MLB are for “new” diagnoses.

  16. Didn’t Katsuji have a panic attack earlier in the season, I think at the Revolutionary War challenge? I’m pretty sure he did mention he suffers from anxiety on air.

  17. I agree the Padma/Gronk interaction was hilarious, which was good because his food comments didn’t really amount to much.

    I really liked the literature challenge, it reminded me of the Charlize Theron challenge from the TX season, I think these challenges really lend to some creativity and allow the contestants to turn out some really good food, probably because it doesn’t try to force them into some weird spot (not to say those should be eliminated – they do force the chefs to show some range). My biggest gripe is that Poe was one of the choices, I was born and raised in New England and never once associated him with the area. Yes, he was born in Boston, but left very young and never spent time in the area as a literary presence. It isn’t like they were desperate for New England authors – Kerouac, Frost, Emerson, Longfellow, John Irving and Harriet Beecher Stowe are all unquestionably more identified with New England, and Edith Wharton, Herman Melville, Louisa May Alcott, and Mark Twain have significantly more ties to the region than Poe ever did.

    • @Aaron: My wife was miffed at the omission of Alcott. I also thought of John Updike after writing this up, and while he’s not as well known, John Cheever was a wonderful short-story writer (his collected stories won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction) and would have provided more diversity to the field.

  18. The Blythedale Romance is actually a great novel.

    Poe was born in Boston, but was raised in Virginia. I think he was a weak choice for this challenge.

    • @Grant: I’m not doubting that, but how many people have read it? I’ve read lots of classics and hadn’t heard of it. My wife was an English major and she didn’t know it either. For diners to recognize the work from the presentation of the plate, they’d have to know the work at more than just a title level.

    • While Blithedale is not terribly well known, Hawthorne DOES have a famous book besides “The Scarlet Letter.” Namely, “The House of the Seven Gables.”

      In any case, they really should have given the judges some sort of crib notes on each work that was selected. You can never be SURE if people know something like “The Raven,” and the odds get even worse with the more obscure works…

  19. They could have gone Robert Frost.
    Or given a real mindwarp with Wallace Stevens (if New England is the theme).
    I’d still like to know what was in those vegetable medleys.

  20. I don’t know if you noticed it, but the guest judge that complained about Gregory’s beef said it was “medium to medium well.” Medium well? He’s the pro, so I guess I don’t know squat about doneness.

  21. @dominic

    That is what I thought I heard, but then when I read Keith’s recap, I assumed I misheard it. Medium to medium-well steak would be highly objectionable, but what they showed looked nothing close to that description. It was more well done than I would have liked, but I like my steak bleeding. Like you, I was at a bit of a loss there.

    • I heard it too; he definitely said medium to medium well, which was 100% incorrect; that was at the medium end of medium rare to medium, but well implies virtually no pink, or none at all

    • I must have just substituted “medium rare” in my brain when he said “medium well.” I thought the beef was still mooing, personally.

  22. Keith, on the subject of “kaffir” as a derogatory term versus the lime, they do have different pronunciations, despite the identical spellings; would that change your opinion on it? I actually didn’t know there was an alternate name for the lime, and I do always do a double take when I see it written, so I do see your point on simply eliminating the potential problem.

  23. Haven’t we seen more prizes for winning the Elimination Challenges in past seasons?

    That seems to be more difficult than winning a QuickFire, yet all they seem to get is a pat on the back.