I have a column up on the Royals’ success dilemma, plus postseason picks, and I chatted today as well.

Top Chef returns to New Orleans, great news because it’s a disadvantaged city still on its way back from the natural and human disasters of 2005, and because Louisiana is home of two of the only truly American cuisines – Cajun and Creole. Hugh Acheson does not appear on this week’s episode, but he did appear on my podcast and talked about the season. He also promised that we’ll get a Cochon challenge, which is huge news as that restaurant is insanely great.

So we meet the chefs, starting with the man voted sexiest chef in Lake Nobody Cares, Jason, who looks like a douchebag and admits it, but claims he can really cook. If you want to convince people you’re not a douchebag, losing the pink shorts would be a good start. Then we meet Janine, an Australian chef who refers to herself as “not so ugly,” a rather stunning contrast in ego to Jason, as she is rather better than not-so-ugly – but more on that later, once the boys start acting like boys around her. Also of interest is Stephanie from Boston’s No. 9 Park; she tried out with her roommate/colleague Kristen last year, but was bounced in the qualifying round while Kristen went on to win the top prize.

On to the cooking…

* No quickfire this week. Instead, we get a giant elimination challenge, where the chefs are randomly assigned one of three non-traditional proteins – gator, turtle, and frog – and must cook a dish featuring that item to be plated and served at a giant shindig in a Bayou swamp. To me that says they should be thinking more Cajun than Creole if they’re trying to play to the audience. The guests get bead necklaces and are asked to give one to the chef who created their favorite dish of the evening. The three chefs with the most necklaces end up in the top, and the three with the fewest go on the chopping block.

* Two of the 19 chefs begin with immunity because they won a mini-competition of ten New Orleans chefs to earn their spots on the main show. One is Justin, from La Petite Grocery, and the other, Michael, is from the French Quarter stalwart Galatoire’s, so we’re not screwing around here.

* The whining starts early as Michael drives one of the carloads of chefs on their shopping trip and points out some of the sights of the city, only to have Travis grumbling in the back that he just wants to think about cooking. You’re in one of the greatest food tourism cities in the country. Don’t be afraid to relax the sphincter and enjoy it, big guy.

* Bravo runs a live TV poll asking viewers which they would prefer to eat – gator, turtle, or neither, with gator winning in the last update. I’ve had gator and frog, but never turtle. The whole tastes-like-chicken thing gets old fast, because chicken itself has two tastes – dark meat, which usually offers flavor and texture, and white meat, which usually tastes like drywall. Saying “it tastes like chicken” is tantamount to saying “I’m not going to be bothered to think about what this should taste like.” If you cook gator, and it tastes like chicken, congratulations! You suck at this.

* One common thread as we continue to meet the chefs: The boys are cocky and the girls are self-effacing. Think that has a little to do with how we raise our children? The first female chef here to tell any of the men to go shit in his tocque will be my new favorite. I’m secretly hoping it’s Janine, though.

* I should point out that I’ve never cooked any of these proteins, so I have no idea what the challenges are beyond the tendency of such meats to dry out or toughen, but I was floored to see the raw turtle meat, which was the color of a burgundy wine. Michael is treating his like a cube steak to tenderize it.

* Another interesting background – Nina, the daughter of John Compton, the former Prime Minister of St. Lucia and one of the leaders of the country’s independence movement in the 1970s. She speaks of Top Chef as if it were the Olympics and she her country’s flag-bearer. She’s making a curry dish in a nod to her background and grinding the turtle meat into meatballs to mitigate its toughness.

* And then the testosterone kicks in, as we get comments on Janine wearing short shorts and sandals in the kitchen while we see a few of the straight male chefs trying (and largely failing) to flirt with her. I’m guessing that she’s immune to weak game having spent her professional life in male-dominated kitchens, but hey, stay classy, fellas.

* Chef Douchey-Douche, who slipped and wiped out on the floor earlier in the show, cuts his finger right as Tom enters the kitchen to do his walkaround.

* Sara works at Taste of Shoyu, a Japanese restaurant at Minneapolis-St. Paul airport (note to self for the 2014 Futures Game), bringing “real food” to the airport, after several yaers working for Wolfgang Puck as executive chef at two of his restaurants.

* Patty is running into trouble with her output, worrying that she may not have enough servings of her gator rillettes. She’s actually pretty good-looking herself, but all the talk is about Janine. I wonder why that is…

* Ramon is making turtle soup with a Thai dashi, but makes an obvious mistake when he tries to cool the dashi more quickly by dumping a bunch of ice in it, thus watering it down. Why not put it in a larger bowl or pot that is full of ice, so it cools (and maybe even reduces a little more with the last bit of evaporation) without dilution? Is it possible that a professional chef knows so little of basic chemistry that he gets this wrong?

* When Emeril walks into the house the next morning, did everyone clap for him or for the beignets? Because, really, while it would be fun to meet Emeril, I would absolutely trade that opportunity for two beignets. Well, maybe two beignets and a cup of coffee.

* The chefs arrive at the swamp to find they have to build their own cooking stations, including setting up the gas grills. I hate these physical-strength challenges, as they’re a pretty clear disadvantage for at least some of the women in every season. What are we accomplishing here? Is it just so we can watch Sara nearly blow herself and a few nearby chefs up as fire starts shooting out the Venturi tubes?

* Patty is scrambling, moving to a plan B – making a pan sauce with “a gumbo flavor profile.” I don’t see how that’s possible in this short a period of time, since the fundamental flavor of gumbo comes from the roux, which takes 30-60 minutes to make.

* Nina thinks her curry came out too spicy and makes a chutney to balance it, which just sounds like a strong way to show more of her range and increase the dish’s complexity anyway.

* Padma admits she’s never been to a swamp. Did they hire two people just to keep the mosquitos away from her?

* Steph notices Douchey-Douche’s “air about himself.” More like hydrogen sulfide, I’d guess. He’s acting pretty douchey about being done early.

* Tom is not a fan of okra. I love okra. Tom is wrong.

* To the dishes: Bene (who said he wanted to be the first “Top Gay Chef”) makes a turtle croquette with cauliflower puree. Nina’s finished dish is a curried turtle meatball with chayote slaw and chutney with raisins, earning huge praise even from the judges. Janine makes an “alligator BLT,” gator confit (in duck fat, dear God I love this woman) with a tomato jam on the side. Aaron does a duo of turtle, one confit with pickled eggplant, the other in a ragout served over tagliatelle.

* Shirley steals a recipe from her mother-in-law for “turtle tea,” a soup with goji berry and chinese slaw. Carrie does a cold dish, poached frog legs with an oyster emulsion and cold zucchini salad. I believe her dish was the only cold one, which could be an advantage since the air in the swamp was apparently so humid you could chew it. Carlos serves gator rilletes with fennel and pickled red onion relish.

* Note to guests: Giving Janine beads will not get her to flash you.

* Michael serves up fried gator, with sauce piquant, slaw, and basil. Sara goes for a “general Tso’s” gator, deep fried with smoked chilis, pea shoots and herbs, and pickled vegetables. Padma takes a bite and drops a “holy shit that’s hot.” If she says it’s spicy, you know it’s damn spicy. Ramon’s braised turtle with thai dashi and shaved radish is already getting panned for lack of flavor. Big shock there. Patty’s Cajun-style gator with yucca puree doesn’t look like much, and I don’t see how she could have developed those flavors in such a short time.

* Douchey-Douche does a frog’s leg croquette with roasted eggplant and a fennel salad. Steph confited her frog’s legs in butter and served with a spinach and watercress puree, which made me think of glasswort (a.k.a. sea beans) and how they’d be a perfect garnish for any of these dishes.

* Nina looks like she has a million beads, which is pretty telling. Ramon has almost none.

* The big twist this year: The chefs get to watch the judges deliberating, and it doesn’t seem like the judges hold back at all even though they’re being watched. I imagine that will be very, very awkward, but also potentially useful for chefs who take mental notes on their own dishes and what judges do and don’t favor in others’ dishes.

* The crowd loved Nina’s, Sara’s (despite the heat), Carrie’s, Shirley’s, and Janine’s. They didn’t favor Aaron (Tom said pasta suffered from sitting around too much), Patty (gator wasn’t treated as well), Carlos (toast was quite soggy), Ramon (dashi didn’t have flavor), or Bene (mushrooms weren’t cooked properly). Nothing terribly shocking on either side there, I think.

* Top three: Carrie, Nina, and Sara. Sara brought a lot of heat and cooked to the audience. If I had a surprise it was her making the top three despite a dish that had the Spice Queen dropping s-bombs on camera. Nina says she’d heard that turtle is tough, so she made a bite-sized dish that would become tender when cooked in the sauce. Carrie thought on a humid and hot evening, a cold dish would be refreshing, but she was the only chef who presented a cold dish and it may have helped her cause. Nina wins. That makes sense given what we were shown, but she’ll have to show she can cook outside of her genre as the show progresses.

* Bottom three: Patty, Aaron, and Ramon. Aaron said he ran with the pasta idea, but didn’t think of how the time and place would affect execution, earning him a scolding from Tom. Curtis said he wouldn’t try to do homemade pasta in a swamp for 150, period. Tom thinks it could have worked if done in small batches. No one mentions that he might have been better off doing one preparation well rather than two poorly.

* Ramon’s dashi was bland. Tom’s face when Ramon says he added ice was priceless, and I think his quote, “that’s just bizarre,” was just the best he could get out of his mouth while he was still in shock. At this point, I was certain Ramon was toast, and then Emeril said of the dashi, “it’s not a cocktail!” and I was sure.

* Patty says she changed concept midstream, broke up her rillettes, and at the end it was just pounded-out gator meat. Tom’s surprised she got a dish out the way she described her experience. I don’t know if this was poor planning or poor execution, but I can’t imagine she’s very long for the show either way.

* Ramon goes. Right call. Last Chance Kitchen is back, and maybe he’ll think more about cooling techniques before his first battle.

* One last note on this episode: The previews for the rest of the season focused mostly on positive moments, not behind-the-scenes drama; even the negative bits were more about dishes not working or chefs appearing stressed, rather than Project Runway-style sniping and bickering. Good for them. After all, I’m just here for the food.

I think there has been and will be as much discussion about the finale’s format as there will be about the result, which is somewhat unfair to the two chefs, but, in my opinion, a little unfair to the format itself. Switching to cooking live in front of an audience and serving the judges one course at a time for what appeared to be on-the-spot decisions was somewhat reminiscent of Iron Chef, although that show’s “live” judging element was merely a trick of the cameras anyway. This Top Chef format was far more transparent than previous finales (and than Iron Chef) because viewers could see the judges’ decisions on each plate and heard detailed opinions from a majority of the judges on each. It also insulated the judges from outside interference, accusations of which have appeared in the past, prompting vociferous denials from Tom. The end result of the format change was a greater emphasis on the food, which is what we want, right?

The main criticism I heard from you on Twitter was that the new format reduced suspense or drama because at the 52-minute mark, when the show went to commercial, it was obvious who had won because there wasn’t time for the opposite result. Given how much criticism the show took this year for the elimination of Kristen, which was painted (rightly or wrongly) as a move to raise interest in the show and in Last Chance Kitchen at the expense of choosing the best chef, I’ll gladly take a reduction in drama in exchange for feeling like the best chef won – and understanding why she did so.

On a related note, does Stephanie Izard go into therapy now? Her entire identity has been cut in half!

* It is so odd that Top Chef is now a brand (or sub-brand) of frozen food. Is that not kind of antithetical to the idea of the show? Chefs get sent home for using frozen or previously-cooked ingredients.

* On to the show – Brooke and Kristen come out from back stage and seem overwhelmed by the space and the size of the crowd. One advantage neither mentioned: They have tons of space to move and for the heat to dissipate. Each has chosen two teams of three sous chefs from eliminated chefs. Brooke goes for skills, choosing Stefan, CJ, and Kuniko (great choice). Kristen says she just wants “good people, no egos” and takes Sheldon, Josh, and Lizzie. Sheldon and Lizzie might have been the two least egotistical chefs of the season, and all three of hers made it very far in the competition. Editing can be misleading on something like this, but I thought Kristen’s team was humming the whole night – we saw no discord, almost to the point where they were quiet, like they’d worked together for ages. Brooke’s team wasn’t loud, but we saw more of them, which is usually not a good sign.

* The format is a five-course meal, judged one course at a time, so the first chef to win three courses wins the title. I’m surprised no one is agitating for a best-of-seven format. Meanwhile, chefs from smaller markets are arguing for a one-course play-in meal.

* The only restrictions beyond time are that the chefs must use scallops in the second round and red snapper in the fourth round.

* Brooke says she’s “going for bigger, bolder flavors.” Kristen is going for “simple and clean, nicely executed, and pretty.” I don’t know that either of these is a clearly superior game plan, but Kristen does “simple and clean” like Greg Maddux “threw strikes.”

* So three hundred people are there to watch three hours of cooking? That’s longer than any of this year’s Best Picture nominees. I hope the conversation was good.

* Gail points out to Stephanie Izard that there will finally be another female Top Chef. Seth Macfarlane is still waiting for the nude scene.

* Brooke’s pig ear salad sounds amazing, and she has it on her menu at the Tripel. I need a report, people.

* Kristen says that at Stir Boston she’s typically cooking for just ten people. I can see why cooking for such scale would be intimidating – look at how many plates they had to do for each course.

* I love how the sous chefs are all so clearly into it even though it’s not their fight. Some of that is professionalism, much of it is probably love of food, and I’m sure a small part is that everyone likes the two finalists. Is there a tradition where the winner buys her sous chefs something, like a quarterback taking the offensive line out to dinner?

* The food! Course one: Kristen does a chicken liver mousse with frisée, mustard, prunes, hazelnuts, and pumpernickel. Emeril loves the mousse and chicory, calling it “very classic.” Tom says mousse was well seasoned. Gail loved the mousse, velvety airy texture, but also admits (in so many words) to being a bit of a chicken-live mousse harlot.

* Brooke serves that crispy pig ear and chicory salad with a six minute egg, apricot jam, candied kumquats. That sounds amazing, probably better in the description than Kristen’s, but it sounds like CJ overcooked enough of the pig ear strips to knock it down a peg. Hugh says the salad dressing was really balanced and that Brooke has a real knack for that.

* The vote: Kristen gets votes from Hugh, Gail, and Emeril and wins the round. I don’t know if that meant she got all three, or if we just saw the three who voted for her.

* Brooke’s scallops are huge so she cuts some in half and begins searing them, which seems to me like a big risk of overcooking them. For years I was just so-so on scallops, but I’ve had several great scallop dishes recently – one at the Catbird Seat in Nashville and one at Citizen Public House here in Scottsdale – and I’m finally coming around.

* Stefan’s harassment of Kristen always kind of annoyed me, even though she seemed cool with it, but his trash-talking here, when he tells Kristen he chose light blue “for the baby’s bedroom,” did make me laugh, mostly because of how he baited her.

* Am I the only one who tends to forget that Kevin Sbraga was a Top Chef? Granted, that whole season had probably the least talented crop, but he did win it.

* Brooke talks more about her phobias, which I’m glad to see, obviously. Exposure therapy is huge.

* Michael Voltaggio with the quote of the night: “I’m jealous, dude. I wanna be down there.” The fact that someone who has already won this title and had real-world success as a result could see that pressure-cooker environment and want to grab a jacket and throw down speaks volumes about his makeup, both positive and negative.

* Round two: Brooke serves her seared scallops over a salt cod-potato puree, crispy speck, a black currant and mustard seed vinaigrette, ground juniper, and deep-fried romanesco (a brassica closely related to broccoli). Tom likes the combination of flavors, works really nicely, his scallop perfectly cooked. Brooks says salt cod is her favorite flavor, which would have made a lot of sense if Top Chef were held in 1896.

* Kristen does a sort of crudo preparation, a quick-cured scallop in citrus and lavender, served with with bitter orange, Meyer lemon, and apple. It looks gorgeous, although I’ve never had a cured scallop of any sort. General praise here too, with Padma saying the dish left Kristen nowhere to hide but that she did the scallops proud. If they hadn’t been cruelly ripped from their shells, that is.

* Voting: Brooke gets votes from Gail and Emeril. Kristen gets votes from Tom and Padma. Hugh is the tiebreaker and goes … Brooke. So far, this is pretty TV-friendly, and we’re down to a best of three.

* The chefs have 34 minutes until they need to serve the next plate, which is the first time (I think) the clock has been explained to us. I was kind of confused from the start of this episode – that was probably my main complaint.

* Kristen says she’s going to taking a trip to Korea with some of her winnings to see where she came from – she mentioned in a previous episode that she was abandoned as a baby and was adopted by a couple in Michigan. In an era where international adoptions have become terribly expensive and endlessly controversial, it’s good to have a positive example offered as a counterpoint to the horror stories in the media.

* I can’t believe Brooke made chicken wings. They’re too damn hard to eat, with so little meat relative to the skin and bone. I buy whole chickens a lot but I save the wings for stock. They’re just not worth effort.

* Round three: Brooke serves vadouvan-spiced fried chicken wings with a sumac-yogurt tahini and pickled kohlrabi fattoush. Past winners are saying it’s “ballsy” to serve something so plebeian in a Top Chef finale, although the way she served it was ambitious. She tells Hugh she wanted to redeem herself from the fried chicken challenge, but was this the way? With wings? Emeril loves it but Tom is a little iffy on the side salad.

* Kristen serves a celery root puree with crispy bone marrow, bitter greens, stewed mushrooms, and barely cooked radishes. Emeril keeps raving about the “earthy tones.” Padma’s wasn’t hot enough. Gail liked it. Tom seems unsure of stewing the mushrooms rather than roasting them for caramelization, as she did earlier this season when she won an elimination challenge for making mushrooms and fried onions as side items.

* Kristen gets votes from Emeril, Tom, and Padma, so she’s one away from the win. Padma voting for Kristen despite the temperature issue was a little bit of a surprise.

* Kristen says she practiced her red snapper dish before she got here and was most confident in this course.

* The producers covered the King Arthur name on the bag of flour with duct tape, but really, if you bake at all, you know that logo and color scheme. I would be surprised if they’d used any other brand.

* Michael Voltaggio again with the great quote, saying Top Chef has “made eating out cool.” Even if that’s kind of an exaggeration, I do think the show’s effect on popular culture, especially our culture of eating, is a huge positive, economically and gustatorially.

* Stefan is distracted by a female fan asking about the location of his restaurant. I assume she’s a plant from Kristen. It would have been even better if Tammy 2 was available.

* Round four: Brooke serves a braised pork cheek and seared snapper with a collard green slaw, pomegranate seeds, and sorrel puree. Hugh’s snapper perfectly cooked, and loves collards as an alternative to kale. Everyone praises the sorrel but no one seems to know how to pronounce it.

* Kristen does a seared snapper with leeks, little gem lettuce, tarragon, uni, and shellfish nage. So Gail says she found the leeks a little harder to eat because they were slightly stringy, and Hugh absolutely smokes her with five words: “I’m good with a knife.” I wonder if Gail knows who the Marlins’ shortstop is.

* Brooke offers what I thought was a pretty gracious comment: “I want to prove I wasn’t winning because Kristen wasn’t around.” You know, everyone who watched was probably wondering about that – at least, would some of the challenges have been closer? – but Brooke didn’t have to acknowledge Kristen in that way.

* Kristen gets Gail, Emeril (who was obviously torn by the knowledge he was about to help eliminate Brooke), and Tom, making her the tenth Top Chef winner, the second female winner, and the first of Korean descent. I wonder if this would be news in Korea, where, according to some prior contestants on this show, cooking isn’t seen as a highly respected profession yet.

* Brooke is disappointed, and it has to suck to spend so much time away from your family only to come up just inches short. She might be the best positioned runner-up to benefit professionally and financially from her time on the show, since she had several weeks as the clear leader while Kristen was in the relegation bracket. Speaking of which, Kristen thanking Tom “for having this whole Last Chance Kitchen thing” belongs on the highlight reel.

* I only watched a little of the follow-up show, but Sheldon won the fan favorite voting and earned a $10k prize. He was apparently talking to Andy Cohen from Maui via a tin can, but I’m pretty sure he said was going to use the money to “pimp up his 2014 Avalon.” At least he’s honest, man.

So it turns out the entire season up to this point was completed over six months ago, which must be agonizing for the contestants. That’s like playing League Championship Series as scheduled in October, then waiting until April to play the World Series. I shouldn’t give MLB any ideas.

We get one glimpse of Sheldon and Brooke acting slaphappy before they leave Alaska, including their versions of a “top-two-plus-one” dance, and Sheldon going all Adam Sandler on the ukulele.

* First we visit Sheldon in his restaurant two weeks before the finale, watching him tear up some pork tenderloins while he’s supposed to be removing the silverskins. (That’s not an easy thing to do, but he could have made cleaner cuts with a chainsaw.) It looks like celebrity has been good for his business. Also, his youngest daughter is pretty adorable.

* Then we visit Brooke in LA a week before the finale. I would like to point out to all the food-snobs who bash Trader Joes that there was a TJ bag visible in Brooke’s house. Good enough for me.

* Brooke and her husband – whom she met when she hired him as a sous chef – run two restaurants, and she says she worries more about paperwork and finances than she does about the food/kitchen. Her special the day the cameras visit is a salad made from fried pig ears, which is one of my new favorite things to eat, especially since I’m not likely to make them at home (you have to braised them for hours, then slice them very thinly, bread them, and fry them). I feel for her when she talks about how hard it was to be away from her little guy, who just turned five, during the competition. Traveling away from my family is the only part of my job I dislike, and she was gone for longer than I’ve ever been apart from my daughter in a single trip.

* They both seem to think Kristen will be the Last Chance Kitchen winner. Sheldon says he’d be shocked to see Josh, while Brooke would be shocked to see see Carla or Josie. Shocked to see Josie, but pleased, I imagine.

* And the LCK winner is … Kristen, which is the least surprising thing ever. This is like a 98-win wild card team getting to the World Series – she belonged there anyway but her path was needlessly difficult. If this were a sports broadcast, we’d be treated to a long argument over whether she has “momentum.”

* The elimination challenge: Create a three course meal to serve at craft LA in just three hours. Tom will expedite and tells them, “Please don’t screw this one up,” since it’s his restaurant. There’s no way the diners are unaware that this is a Top Chef night and not the regular craft menu. Then again, half the customers probably think Tom is personally firing their steaks in the back, so who knows.

* The chefs get their pick of proteins from the walk-in, which is probably the best selection of meats and fish they’ve ever seen. Sheldon says the spot prawns are speaking to him, which I think he meant literally. Might want to ease up on that good reefer, my friend. He’s doing a roasted quail entree that Brooke says “doesn’t sound like him,” but he wants to show how much he’s grown since he last cooked for the judges. I suppose nothing says you’ve grown as a chef than eviscerating a bunch of tiny little birds.

* Brooke is overwhelmed by the quality of the proteins and starts to psych herself out again. This becomes really critical later in the show, and I don’t think this is just a case of lack of mental preparation or toughness.

* Kristen is mapping out space and writing on the counters. Is that something other chefs do? I don’t remember seeing it before, but it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if she were an unusually organized chef given the food she produces.

* Hugh does the kitchen visits Tom would usually do and actually counsels Brooke while asking Sheldon not to burn the restaurant down. I suppose that’s marginally more helpful advice than Tom would have given.

* Kristen is making a chestnut veloute and is focusing on “simple, clean flavors.” Her main is an ahi tuna dish and she says she’ll do some “chocolate … thing” for dessert. She says she benefited from doing Last Chance Kitchen because she didn’t have time to overthink her dishes – meaning she had better balance between the rational and emotional parts of her brain when making decisions. Except that she kind of forgets about dessert here.

* So apparently Tom has dreamy eyes and everyone goes all Debbie Gibson and gets lost in them. I have no idea what to do with this so I’m moving on.

* Sheldon pours a bottle of wine into a pot and says it’s “for my homies, gangster pouring.” Are gangsters more into French reds or Italian? Or do they just drink fucking merlot? I’ve been off the streets for too long, it seems. I’m losing my edge like James Murphy.

* Brooke’s anxiety level is rising. We know Brooke has anxiety/panic issues from her own admissions in previous episodes, so I think it’s fair game to point it out here. The disorientation, the inability to order her thoughts, the catastrophic thinking, these are all hallmarks of anxiety problems, even if it’s hard to recognize them per se as “attacks.” You don’t have to be panicking for anxiety to affect you physically or mentally. If you don’t learn how to manage these thoughts, they take over and you can’t think about anything else, even if you are in a critical situation. I feel badly for her as she flails and her body language and facial expressions betray that inner turmoil. I’m surprised we didn’t get Gail saying, “I can taste the panic in the sauce.”

* Sheldon definitely wins the best vocabulary award when he drops a “mother hugger” on this show, although I was always partial to “mother’s younger brother” when looking for a euphemism.

* Sheldon and Kristen both seem to be punting dessert to some extent, Sheldon because he’s not that familiar with it, Kristen because she just sets it aside in favor of focusing on the first two items. She calls herself a “white person Asian,” a term I am not touching with a 39½ foot pole.

* Tom comes in and asks them to clean up right before service. Is that a trap to break their rhythm just before the first tickets arrive? At least he didn’t turn off the running water or anything.

* Padma’s in a skintight pink dress for the meal. Oh my dayum.

* Sheldon’s starter is spot prawns in court bouillon with radish and Asian herbs. This is a huge hit but it turns out it’s all downhill from here for Dazed and Confused tonight.

* Kristen’s starter is a chestnut veloute with a seared duck rillete and Brussels sprouts. The judges thought it needed a touch of acid, but one guest wants to pick up the bowl and drink the veloute. I have no problem with this, by the way. Etiquette be damned – isn’t that a big compliment for the chef? It’s like saying “your veloute was as good as the milk is after a bowl of Cocoa Krispies.” Because you all know you drank that as kids. Or last week. Let’s move on.

* Brooke’s starter is a crispy veal sweetbread salad with beets and kumquats. Martin Yan – who can cook, if you haven’t heard – says the beets are good but aren’t integrated into the overall dish. Hugh says the sweetbreads aren’t quite cleaned enough and are cut too thin. I heard when she served this on the Walking Dead she got perfect scores.

* Back in the kitchen, Brooke is in the weeds and has to replate some of her starters. It’s textbook anxiety – not to harp on this, but as I watched it it was a little like an out-of-body experience, like, “is that what I look like when I panic?”

* Kristen’s main is a seared ahi tuna with veal mustard jus and lemon curd; the fish is excellent but the curd was too bitter. She says cooking while Tom is expediting is frightening, delivering the quote that should go on her tombstone: “I peed in mah pants a little.” Next week’s finale of Top Chef will be brought to you by Depends.

* Brooke’s main is braised short ribs with Parmiggiano sauce, nettle puree, and squash dumplings. Yan says it perfectly cooked. Emeril loves the nettle puree. The sauce is a smash. From the descriptions and the presentations+, this was the best thing I saw on tonight’s show. That’s a $35 entree, easy, the kind of dish that could be a restaurant’s signature item.

+ So my daughter had to do a big poster on desert habitats and talk to the class about it on Tuesday. It went great, so well that she didn’t even need to use her notes on index cards. She was so excited to tell me that she “got to presentate my poster to the class.”

* Sheldon’s main is roasted quail with pine nut puree and tangerine. Hugh doesn’t love it and says it’s not Sheldon. No one likes the puree. It’s funny that yet another quail dish didn’t work (although it doesn’t have the curse of risotto or burgers on Top Chef), but the problem here wasn’t the quail.

* Brooke’s dessert is a brown butter cake with whipped goat cheese and blackberry sauce. John Besh loves it but probably feels awkward without Malibu Chris making goo-goo eyes at him all evening. Martin Yan loves the texture and balance and calls it yin and yang, spurring some bad puns on his name. There’s no winner named in this episode, but with Brooke nailing two of her three dishes it seems like she would have won again.

* Sheldon’s dessert is a white chocolate mousse with fennel and apple. The raw fennel is overpowering and distracting for the judges. I like fennel in moderation but raw fennel is pretty bold and even harsh, with the bitterness of darker greens along the anise flavor. What’s weird is that he used three ingredients that are all better when roasted to get some caramelization, but didn’t do that with any of them.

* Kristen’s dessert is a curry dark chocolate with cashews. The consensus seems to be that the odd flavor combination really works, but that the dish is too basic and ill-conceived. It’s not even clear to me what this was – a custard? Ganache? An unset mousse?

* Tom the Expediter is like a cross between a drill sergeant and a nagging mother-in-law.

* Besh-a-mel says it was all awesome. Hugh thought everything was easy/safe. These two should be made to duke it out. Yan says they didn’t put quite enough attention into execution; otherwise the meal could have been perfect.

* Sheldon is drinking Red Hook, a local beer, back in the kitchen as they await judges’ table. More local brands on Top Chef, please.

* Judges’ table: Sheldon up first. His app was very successful. The quail itself in his entree was fine, seasoned nicely and cooked well, but the pine nut puree was chalky. It turns out that he didn’t roast them; raw pine nuts are really unpleasant in both texture and flavor. I’m not crazy about most raw seeds or nuts, but pine nuts are one that desperately need to be cooked somehow, even if you’re grinding them into pesto. His dessert was killed by the raw fennel. Emeril comments on how Sheldon tried to present a new version of himself but says, “there was nothing wrong with the old Sheldon,” to which Padma replies “Amen.” Is it just me, or has this whole season felt more collegial than the last few? The chefs are mostly getting along better and on most episodes the judges are more conversational with the chefs and more supportive.

* Kristen’s turn. Her veloute was nice and velvety, the rillette was good, but it was all too one-note for Hugh, who’s playing the hard-ass this week. She said her concept for her tuna entree was to simplify from the last time to avoid what got her bounced from the main show, although she doesn’t point out that what really got her bounced was Josie. The ahi was perfectly cooked, but the lemon got bitter and the combination of the celery puree with that bitterness didn’t work. Hugh said her dessert was “badly thought out pot de crème.” It seems like she has a slight edge of Sheldon; both their desserts flopped, and her entree edged his.

* Brooke’s turn goes better. Her sweetbreads were crispy, and were boosted with a bright note from the kumquats, although she didn’t clean the glands enough, saying she was cleaning to order and couldn’t handle it. Her short ribs were delicious; Emeril loved the parmesan sauce and the nettles. Her dessert was the only successful one of the three, although Tom said it was not a restaurant dessert because it seemed unfinished.

* The summary discussion: Sheldon’s flavors fell a little flat tonight. Kristen’s dessert was a flop. Brooke’s short ribs might have been the best of the nine dishes. She lost some points on the kitchen side, which Tom says was a lack of focus – but that’s what anxiety and panic do to you, robbing you of your ability to focus and think clearly. It’s to her credit that she didn’t melt down or quit at any point. That’s not a job where you can go take ten minutes to meditate and calm yourself down. I get that you’re judged on your food here, not on reasons you didn’t do as well as you should have, but Tom saw Brooke’s demeanor and body language, and might have been a little less quick to criticize because of that.

* Sheldon goes home. He’s very gracious in defeat. Bro hugs all around. I thought Padma might tear up again. She’s gone all soft since she had her baby.

* There are some words for the surviving chefs, though. Kristen gets dinged for playing it a little safe in her concepts. Brooke gets dinged for rough service.

* We have an all-female finale for the first time ever. The guest judges will be Betty Friedan, Sandra Fluke, and Queen Latifah. My pick remains Kristen, but after watching Brooke go all ’75 Reds on the competition the last four or five episodes, this feels a lot closer than it would have before Kristen’s original elimination.

Some admin stuff first…

* I have a new post up for Insiders, ranking the top 20 prospects by expected 2013 impact. The ranking incorporates my best educated guesses at playing time, based on what I’ve been told by team sources, although injuries could obviously change that. And I did a brief Klawchat, abbreviated so I could take my wife to lunch for Valentine’s Day.

* I’ve updated the Arizona spring training dining guide with a few places I forgot to mention.

* alt-J’s An Awesome Wave, the Mercury Prize-winning album about which I’ve been raving since late October, is now just $2.99 on amazon through that link. I reviewed the album in October, and you can listen to it on Spotify if you’d like to test-drive it first.

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Josh’s wife is now a week overdue. I just can’t fathom being in Alaska while my wife was in labor in not-Alaska. She’d be furious with me and, for once, she’d be right.

* Before the quickfire, the three chefs have to fly in a helicopter for about 15 minutes to get to the challenge site – and Brooke’s very real anxiety kicks in almost immediately. She’s in tears, somehow gets herself on the chopper, and spends much of the ride with her eyes closed and clinging to Josh (who gets major points for both helping her and for not patronizing her for her fear). I’m fortunate that my anxiety has never taken that stark a form, but I understand how strong that reaction is, and that it’s not just mental at that point but is physical. Eventually she does recover enough to look out the windows and get absorbed in the views, although I thought that might trigger another round of panic for her.

* Sheldon, meanwhile, thinks this is awesome: “I would die for some good reefer!” You and Tim Beckham, my man.

* They land on Norris Glacier, which appears to be near Mendenhall Lake and Glacier just northeast of Juneau. They’re at a camp where dogsled racers are training for the Iditarod. The quickfire: make a dish using ingredients and equipment found in the camp. It looks like there’s at least a decent supply of fish on hand, but the kitchen is tiny, there are no electrical appliances, and the burners are small and not very powerful.

* I know you’re shocked, but Josh is doing breakfast again – corn cakes with eggs and smoked salmon. He doesn’t have time to fry the eggs and keep them warm when he brings them to the outdoor table, so he scrambles them, which means his plate looks and feels like mush.

* I like that the sled dogs have little dog huts to protect them from the wind.

* Brooke’s pan cools down immediately when she adds the fish, which she says may have to do with the altitude, although I also wonder what material the pan was and how long it would hold the heat (I need a physicist’s opinion here). She made a pan-roasted halibut with lemon zest, smoked sea salt, red currant-beet vinaigrette, and a panzanella with walnuts and crunchy croutons. Despite the pan problems, her halibut has a nice brown sear on the outside.

* Tom’s reaction to Josh’s scrambled eggs – “Really?” – was pretty telling.

* Sheldon does a seared halibut with a chicken broth-tomato sauce, sesame bok choy, and pickled radish. His halibut doesn’t look seared like Brooke’s, but Tom said it was cooked perfectly, instead criticizing the sauce as too salty and very one-note. That turns out to be foreshadowing.

* Brooke wins, no surprise there. Her only real competition at this point is still hanging out in Last Chance Kitchen. That’s her third Quickfire win and seventh win overall.

* So Padma drives the trio back to Juneau after the helicopter ride down, which leads to Sheldon mocking Padma’s driving, saying she’s probably been chauffeured everywhere. A little casual misogyny, maybe?

* Elimination challenge: Cook dinner for the Governor of Alaska and his wife at the Governor’s Mansion. The guest judge is Roy Choi of the Kogi Korean BBQ food trucks (which popularized the Korean taco) and A-Frame.

* Roy and Emeril cook lunch for the group, during which Roy tells about how he was a real stoner into his early 20s, and one day, while high on his couch, he had the Food Network on and saw Emeril braising short ribs in red wine, at which point “Emeril popped out of the TV and slapped [him] across the face” (must have been some good weed), after which Roy started researching culinary schools and turned his life around. That moment felt genuine – I don’t think Emeril knew the story was coming, either.

* Josh asks Emeril one of my favorite culinary-philosophy questions: sugar or no sugar in cornbread. Emeril says no sugar. This is why we like Emeril despite all the “BAM!” stuff. Cornbread with sugar is corn cake.

* The challenge: make a dish that represents the moment when you knew you wanted to be a chef. Brooke says she knew it from age four, so I assume she’s making pureed green beans and Cheerios.

* Josh gets the call from his wife – her water broke, she’s crying on the phone, he’s upset, wife tells him, “if you are still competing you just need to win,” and now he’s crying. Two things: I was surprised that even his wife didn’t know that he was still in the competition, and this reminds me of something I learned when my daughter was born, that only about 10% of pregnant women have their water break before they get to the hospital. Of course, my wife’s water did break, at 5:45 am on a Friday, five weeks before the due date, after which she helped and I had to be peeled off the ceiling.

* Sheldon is making a snapper dish as an homage to Hawai’ian chef Sam Choy (who made an infamous clam flan on Iron Chef America). Tom cautions him not to start cooking the fish too soon, which seems to get into Sheldon’s head … but more on that in a moment.

* Josh’s “moment” was the first time he tasted foie gras, saying its delicate liver flavor changed how he thought about food. He’s making a torchon, foie gras that is soaked, lightly cured and marinated in white wine or brandy, briefly poached, and then wrapped tightly in a towel or parchment paper to dry and chill overnight in a cool place, a process that takes several days but that Josh will try to do overnight. Best of luck.

* Brooke talks about watching Julia Child as a kid and how her mom cooked dinner every night, so she’s making her mom’s braised chicken but is also adding quail to show who she’s evolved into as a chef. Quail has to be high on the list of things chefs screw up regularly on Top Chef.

* Brooke has a lot more ink than I realized, which I bring up because of the debate last week over whether she’s real-life cute or just Top Chef cute. I think she’s real-life cute, for what it’s worth.

* Josh’s wife calls again, obviously in pain and possibly high on medications, crying, “I just want you to be here, I love you, I have to go.” Good luck recovering from that phone call. Anyway, the baby’s born, yata yata yata, back to the kitchen everyone.

* I’m kind of disappointed that Sarah Palin is no longer the governor of Alaska, because maybe she could shoot another caribou for the chefs to cook while asking them to refudiate veganism or something.

* Sheldon starts to cook his fish with 20 minutes to go, but discovers his broth over-reduced and is too salty. He’s hinting that Tom’s comments got in his head, but why the hell wasn’t he checking the broth while he waited to cook the fish? If it’s reducing too fast, take it off the heat, or add some water? Am I missing something?

* He plates first, serving a pan-roasted rockfish, spot prawns, baby vegetables, and some of the dashi (broth) he used to cook the fish. The prawns are great and slightly sweet. Roy loves the concept of the dish. And everyone says it’s too salty. Whoops.

* Wolfgang’s father used to tell him that he’d be good for nothing, which seems to be a common theme among professional chefs – and when Wolfgang became a chef, his father said cooking was for women. Sounds like the damn Father of the Year.

* Moving along rapidly … Brooke serves braised chicken with crispy skin, grilled quail, carrot barley (she cooked the barley in the carrot juice), pickled baby turnips, and mushrooms with pearl onions. Wolfgang says his quail was a little overcooked, an angle I think was played up from here on out through editing to make it look like she didn’t absolutely nail this dish start to finish. Roy says she was “a prodigy in LA” when she first got started. I think her unassuming demeanor masks how extremely skilled she is.

* Josh’s torchon isn’t set up sufficiently and moves it to the freezer. You can hear his death rattle.

* He serves foie three ways: the torchon, foie pan seared on corn purée, and profiteroles with foie mousse. Roy loved the flavors, Gail liked the profiteroles, but the torchon wasn’t set. Tom says you just can’t do it, even if you’re as good as Tom Colicchio. (He may not have phrased it that way.) The Governor says the dish had too little texture contrast, so already he sounds smarter than his predecessor.

* Judges’ Table: Josh says he “wanted to go balls to the wall,” but Tom questions “short-cutting” the torchon and hammers Josh on his core concept. Brooke’s had great flavors, looked simple but was “like origami” according to Roy, and we hear that the quail a little overcooked. Sheldon’s fish cooked perfectly, but he botched the broth. Wolfgang says the fish and prawns were beautifully cooked “like you were the best chef in the world,” so how could Sheldon fail to taste the broth before plating?

* Brooke wins, again. If it weren’t for Last Chance Kitchen, this would be the least dramatic finish for Top Chef in ages.

* Josh is eliminated. I thought Sheldon made the bigger error here, the third week in a row he had a glaring mistake in the elimination challenge and stuck around; Josh used an ingredient he didn’t fully understand (per both Tom and Wolfgang), but it seems like the remainder of his fish was strong. Have they saved Sheldon a little too often?

* LCK: Make Tom a great plate of food. Lizzie wins save-a-chef, so it’s her versus both Kristen and Josh. They get 30 minutes to cook and can use anything in the craft LA kitchen. Josh goes for venison as his protein, claiming he’s “curing” it (impossible in 30 minutes) but really just using a coriander-heavy rub with kale and shaved raw carrot. Lizzie goes for black cod, cooking it with black pepper and vinegar, plus spaetzle and savoy cabbage. Kristen grabs semolina flour to make fresh pasta. Nearly certain she has new tattoos on her arm. She makes caraway orecchiette, with pea tendrils, citrus, brown butter, pomegranate seeds, and fresh herbs. There’s a lot of handwork required to make that shape, although I think that’s part of her strategy – impress the judges by accomplishing tasks they know are arduous or difficult in a short time period. Josh’s venison looks raw, kind of purplish, and sure enough it was cold in the center, so he’s sent home immediately. The winner between Kristen and Lizzie is … to be announced next week, on the show.

* Rankings: Kristen, Brooke, Lizzie, Sheldon. I’ve just lost confidence in Sheldon’s ability to execute in the bigger challenges. The finale really needs to be Kristen versus Brooke in some form; they have nine of the fourteen elimination challenge wins, and they’ve been by far the most impressive contestants this year, blowing just about everyone else out of the water. I know Tom insists the judging is always strictly about the food, but you know Bravo is loving the Kristen storyline, and they figure ratings will be highest if those two women are in the finale.