My list of the ten prospects who just missed my top 100 was posted yesterday for Insiders. I also wanted to repost the link to my review of the cooperative game Forbidden Desert, which appeared on Paste magazine’s site a few weeks ago. I’ll be chatting today at 1 pm as well.

The Top Chef season 11 finale did not feature the two best chefs of the season, despite the judges’ claims to the contrary. Shirley had the better record coming into the penultimate episode, and from our distant vantage points (i.e., we can’t taste the food), she had the best combination of execution and creativity of anyone this season. Nick struggled through the last few episodes in New Orleans, and Nina never showed the kind of vision or inventiveness that I would expect from a Top Chef winner.

* The final elimination challenge: Take over a restaurant and make it your own for the night with a four-course menu.

* Padma is in spaghetti straps at the start. Oh, hello there.

* And then the bikini shot – Padma emerging from the waves, brushing her hair back from her face, wearing less than a fat quarter’s worth of fabric. The clip is completely gratuitous, of course.

* Nick says that he quit his job to come on Top Chef, and that winning the top prize of $125,000 would be “a kick-start to owning (his) own business,” which I can confirm that he does now, opening Laurel in Philadelphia in November. So that might have been a clue.

* Padma arrives with string bikini top on and a bunch of eliminated chefs behind her. Nick gets to pick his three sous first, and then Nina picks her three from the six who remain. He chooses Jason (they’re friends), Louis (the most technically sound chef, in Nick’s view), and Brian (saying he clicked with Brian in Restaurant Wars). Nina takes Shirley (duh), Stephanie (who says “I got those TC jitters again”), and Travis (whom she keeps calling one of the “gossip girls” … not entirely appropriate). I think she might have the stronger team, although Jason could be a lot better than we thought, and we didn’t see anything from Travis to make me think he’d be a real asset here. Janine, Carlos, and Sara were passed over. I’m not shocked – Janine wasn’t there long, the other two weren’t strong on fundamentals, and Sara didn’t come off as a team player.

* Nick wants to highlight classic and contemporary French technique. Meanwhile, Jason is already showing a better attitude – perhaps he’s aware he came off poorly the first time around.

* Nina seems to be planning with a broader palate, but still is going for Caribbean ingredients fused with Italian cuisine. She wants to do two extra “surprise” courses.

* The chefs chop at Kumu Farms, “Maui’s source for specialty farming,” as well as Whole Foods Maui, which must be the best Whole Foods on the planet. I wonder if the fish is still flopping around when it enters the store.

* Nick wants to do another panna cotta and do it well this time. Is it just me, or is panna cotta kind of overrated? It’s an eggless custard, thickened with gelatin rather than the proteins and emulsifiers found in egg yolks. That gives it a funkier texture – think strained yogurt versus those thickened with starch or pectin – and robs it of some flavor.

* There’s no ice cream machine in Nina’s kitchen, so she has to call an audible based on what she’s already purchased, making zeppole instead. That’s a big move from custard (semi-freddo) to fried dough.

* There’s a lot of protein on Nick’s menu – three savory/meat courses and then panna cotta. I understand this is a competition, not an actual restaurant, but we don’t need to eat anywhere near that much meat, nor would I want to. After two of these courses I’d be screaming for a vegetable dish. Meat is a luxury good, not an essential part of every meal.

* Tom asks Nick if his food is too subtle compared to Nina’s spicy food. Nick responds by dumping a bottle of hot sauce on Tom’s head and screaming “IS THAT TOO SUBTLE FOR YOU?”

* Nina says she prefers a cheese course to dessert. I knew I didn’t trust that woman.

* We get a little temporary drama as Nina has to continue braising her goat into day two to get it tender enough. Apparently braising goat is normally an “all-day affair.” I’ll take her word for it on that.

* In something of a surprise, Nick’s sous all seem to like working with him. Brian says he’s a “great leader.” The waitstaff won’t feel the same way by the end of the night, though.

* On the start of day two (before service), Nina checks the goat and pronounces it “chewy as fuck.” All righty then.

* When trying to explain the menu to the servers and offer them tastes of the various courses, two servers are absent and Nick demotes them before wandering off swearing. This, kids, is known as “foreshadowing.”

* The judges arrive. Gail appears to have brought the amuse-boobs to dinner. I’m not actually complaining about this. She also looks like she might give birth before the dessert course.

* Nina starts with an amuse-bouche: Breadfruit with whipped foie gras butter and curry salt on top.

* Nina’s first course: tuna and escolar tartare with tomato water, basil, and jalapeño. Escolar shouldn’t be eaten raw – the fish contains wax esters that cause severe stomach upset in some diners because our bodies can’t break them down. There’s no surefire way of reducing or eliminating them in the fish, but they’re absolutely at their highest levels when the fish is still raw. The judges appeared to have rendered their decisions before running to the bathrooms, so Nina isn’t hurt by this and they all love the dush.

* Service at Nick’s place is struggling. His expediter is either absent or clueless, or maybe he just did a lousy job of training the staff.

* Nick’s first course: Hamachi and tuna crudo with green apple wasabi, celery, and Maui meyer lemon. Once again, his fish is a touch underseasoned and needs a few grains of sea salt. You’d think by now he’d be a madman about this stuff.

* After dinner, Janine will be trying out for a part in Love Shack: The Musical, Featuring the Songs of the B-52’s.

* Nick’s second course: Sweet shrimp bisque with scallop noodles (made by Jason), shaved abalone, and daikon noodles. Chef Paul Bartolotta, one of the diners at the judges’ table, says the dish is “not sweet.” I may have missed something here in the chatter, but that’s not what “sweet shrimp” means, is it?

* Nina’s second course: Roasted goat sugo with orecchiette, cherry tomato confit, whipped goat cheese, and arugula. The goat, after all the drama, ended up perfectly cooked and seasoned. Tom says he’d come back for this dish. I love the sound of this – she did something very Italian at heart, but replaced the typical game meats you’d find in this (rabbit, boar, duck) with a very Caribbean element in goat.

* Nina’s third course: Spice-rubbed swordfish with squash puree, braised kale, and smoked onion jus. It sounds like some overpowering flavors over the mild, delicately-flavored fish (which has a meaty texture but not flavor), and the judges all say the same thing. I’m a purist when I have swordfish, which is rarely anyway – brushed with olive oil, seasoned with salt and black pepper, served with a squeeze of lime juice. It doesn’t need much more than that.

* Nick’s third course: Seared kombu-cured duck, shaved compressed kabucha squash, hijiki, and ginger. The duck is inconsistent from plate to plate – Emeril says his is chewy – but is packed with flavor and Nick did a great job rendering out the fat, which is nearly always my complaint when I order duck and don’t love it. Hijiki is a sea vegetable that grows on coastlines of China, Japan, and Korea, but apparently is high in arsenic and several countries recommend against its consumption. Good times.

* Nick’s fourth course: Caramelized white chocolate panna cotta, almond cocoa crumble, shortbread, and passion fruit and papaya puree. Delicious but not quite jiggly enough. I’m just writing what they said, people.

* Nick’s servers didn’t put spoons out even though we saw him ask them to do so. Something very weird is going on over on his side of the house. Are the servers deliberately ignoring him, maybe because he’s being rude to them? Or are we missing something entirely?

* Nina’s intermezzo (a between-courses offering, a palate-cleanser in this case): Compressed dragon fruit with ginger simple syrup and frozen papaya.

* Nina’s dessert: Chocolate zeppole, passion fruit anglaise, macadamia nuts. I want this recipe; she does (or did) something very similar to it at her restaurant. Tom says it’s not a complete dessert and it seems like a weak ending to her meal. I’ve asked Nina about the zeppole on Twitter, as I’ve never seen chocolate zeppole but want to try them out. They’re the Italian version of fried dough or beignets, nearly always yeast-raised and very airy and doughy inside. When I was growing up on Long Island, we’d go to Italian festivals all summer and get zeppole, three or six to a bag, coated in powdered sugar.

* Watch What Happens Live preview: Nick looks like he’s going to work out, Nina looks like she’s going clubbing, I look like I’m changing the channel.

* Tom says Nick’s sweet shrimp bisque with scallop noodles was the “best dish I’ve had all year.” The judges do seem more enthusiastic about Nina’s food overall.

* How do the judges eat this much? I’d be asking for a bucket by this point.

* And here we have Nick’s meltdown. Yes, someone out front screwed up – the prompt appears to be a table that never got its first course – but screaming “God damn it!” and slamming the counter in the kitchen ain’t solving a thing, buddy. First off, it’s not even clear whose fault this is; did Nick fail to train the staff properly, or does he just have a couple of screw-ups? Second, and more importantly at this point, blame is totally irrelevant when you are faced with a problem that requires a solution. Find the problem, figure out how to fix it, and drop everything to make it happen. (Jason appears to get this better than Nick in the heat of the moment.) If your staff in this challenge is a car of idiots, so what – you’ll never have to see them again. Solve the problem and move on.

We’ve seen this from Nick way too often during the season. He’s great until something goes wrong, but after that he loses his mind. I’ll confess I see a lot of myself, at least my old self, in this. Whatever the cause – anxiety, anger, control issues – you can’t go through life with a permanently elevated heart rate. Meditate, get therapy, try medication, whatever, don’t do this to yourself or to the people around you.

* Padma’s fabric accessory looks like a stack of Kayan neck-rings from Burma. Weird fashion choices across the board here – I haven’t even gotten to Tom’s super-casual shirt under the blazer.

* Judges’ table: Nick glosses over the service issues; it’s great that he didn’t just blame the staff, but maybe admitting he overreacted just a touch would have been smart. His first dish was a touch underseasoned. His second dish had no scallop flavor for Padma, but Tom adored it and Padma does this eye-roll that would make my daughter envious. Emeril’s duck was undercooked, but it sounds like no one else’s was. Nick doesn’t like panna cotta to be jiggly, but all the judges say it should be jiggly, so he needs to get … never mind. He should just make it more jiggly next time.

* Nina’s meal started stronger, but ended weakly. Tom asks if they should judge her on the two mini-courses too, and she says yes (why not?). Her crudo had really broad flavors and beautiful colors; other than the escolar, I’d eat this in a heartbeat. Her orecchiette with goat was “awesome,” “killer,” and Gail said it was one of her best dishes all season. Nina knows already that her swordfish dish didn’t really gel, and concedes that dessert isn’t her strong point, calling what she served “a bite,” not a full dessert. After that much food, though, isn’t a “bite” a good thing? Do you want a thick slice of a flourless chocolate torte or a heavy bread pudding after all that fish and meat and rich sauces? I wouldn’t.

* Back in the kitchen, the world’s smallest violin plays for Nick as he tells Nina that he didn’t win because he wasn’t perfect.

* Course by course: First to Nina. Second to Nina overall, but Tom disagrees. Third to Nick. Fourth to Nick by a huge margin. Hugh asks which chef delivered a better overall experience; Padma says they should consider service. Hugh is evidently pissed off about Nick lashing out the way he did (and rightly so). Tom says Nick was more consistent start to finish. Padma says Nina’s two extras were “amazing,” but Gail wishes she’d put that energy into the main four.

* Tom asks everyone for the worst dish of the night: Emeril says the duck, but the others all say the swordfish or the panna cotta.

* And the winner is … Nick! I’m surprised, based on judges’ table, but Tom tweeted more details this morning:

This is how we scored last nights challenge 1st course 5 to Nina 2nd 3 Nina 2 Nick 4th 1 Nina 4 nick 5th 0 Nina 5 to nick Nina 9 nick 11

— Tom Colicchio (@tomcolicchio) February 6, 2014

So the inference that Nick opening a new restaurant in November was a clue he’d won the show turned out to be accurate. I hope he set aside a little of that money to take up yoga, though.

* Nina leaves with a great quote: “I’m a role model for people in St. Lucia now.” She handled finishing second better than Nick handled winning. And she didn’t tell anyone to “suck a dick” in this episode.

* Overall, I wasn’t thrilled with the season as a viewer. We didn’t get the kind of wildly inventive dishes that have characterized great seasons or great individual chefs – there was no Blais, Voltaggio, Qui, or Kish anywhere here, not even an Izard. Louis may have been able to bring that, but his exile to Last Chance Kitchen seemed justified, and only there did we see evidence of a chef who’d worked under Thomas Keller and had both the technical chops and the respect for ingredients that characterizes the best Top Chef winners. Shirley topped my rankings for much of the season and it sounds like she was eliminated in a fairly close call one step from the finals. It just wasn’t an ideal set of contestants this time around, and the chefs most likely to blow us away didn’t get to the final matchup.

My review of the cooperative boardgame Forbidden Desert, from the designer of Pandemic (reviewed in 2010), is up at Paste magazine. I held my regular Klawchat today as well.

On to the semifinals…

* We get a few quotes up front from three of the remaining chefs. Of interest, Carlos says he came “to cook and not to make friends.” Sure, you want to win, but you can cook AND be nice to everyone else too. There are no style points for being a jerk in the kitchen. (Except for Michael Voltaggio.) Shirley, meanwhile, points out that Carlos always does Mexican food … and goes so far as to say “I think I can beat him” if they’re facing each other in the finale. I think she’d wipe the comal with him, but it’s not in her nature to say something like that.

* Quickfire: No immunity, finally, just the prize of a new Toyota Corolla. This quickfire has two parts, with two of the four chefs eliminated after the first part. Gail’s half comes first: Create one “perfect bite” on a cocktail fork, including sweet, salty, sour, and spicy all in one bite.

* Okay, I may have been wrong last week – Gail isn’t as far along in her pregnancy in these episodes as I thought when I accused the editors of hiding her belly. Still lookin’ fine, though.

* Random musing: If Shirley were a native English speaker, would it have been evident from the start how good she is? I’m asking that of myself, not just all of you. I may have underestimated her because she couldn’t express her culinary vision as well in English as other chefs – but that’s my problem, not hers, and it’s clear now that she has as much vision and creativity as anyone else this season.

* Carlos is grilling mango for his bite. I’ve had lots of grilled tropical fruits, and have grilled pineapple and peaches with success, but man do those things burn quickly. You’re not trying to use heat to coax sugar out of cells and then caramelize it; the sugar is already there, and if you’re not fast, you’ll end up with charcoal.

* Shirley drops a sort-of-boardgame reference, saying “I feel like I’m playing Jenga” trying getting everything on to each fork.

* The food: Carlos serves grilled mango with shrimp and a chile de arbol glaze. Nick serves beef deckle (the cap of a ribeye) with aged balsamic vinegar, purple potato chips, and yogurt. Shirley makes a tataki-style flank steak with fresno chilies, crispy onions, mint, and a black pepper cherry sauce. Everything falls off Gail’s fork, unfortunately, so while Shirley tries to fix it I doubt Gail got the full effect. Nina does a shrimp escabeche with potato aioli, pickled shallots, and fennel.

* All four were good – I wouldn’t expect any less by this point in the competition. Shirley’s bite had a little too much soy, and Nina’s was a touch greasy. That leaves Carlos and Nick as the winners.

* Tom’s half of the challenge is built around what he says is his inspiration in the kitchen – great produce, not meat. The chefs must showcase red bell pepper or eggplant and have to run up to the podium to grab the one they want, which I hate because it has nothing to do with cooking. If the contestants included a chef who was plus-sized, or in a wheelchair, would they alter the challenge? What if one of the chefs could Apparate? Well?

* I hate that they don’t use the blender lids. Nick is sticking his hand into the blender while it’s running. That’s about as stupid and dangerous as failing to vaccinate your kids.

* Carlos makes just one dish – fried red pepper soup with fennel, basil, and onion. Tom seems taken aback by the spice, but otherwise likes it. Nick does the eggplant two ways, cut like a scallop and roasted, and pureed with rosemary, sesame seed, sriracha, and tahini, all topped with chili threads.

* Nick’s was a little underseasoned, so even though Carlos was about half as ambitious, he wins. I don’t get that at all – they rewarded the chef who played it safe.

* Elimination challenge: Create a dish that reflects your time in New Orleans, what the city means to you, yata yata yata. Basically make a dish that reflects some local ingredients or cuisine and hit it out of the park. Guest diners include Grant Achatz (who needs a haircut), Andrew Carmelini, and Douglas Keene. The winning dish will be featured at all of Emeril’s New Orleans restaurants.

* Nina plans to make BBQ shrimp and trout amandine, both very standard New Orleans specialties that would show no creativity on her part, just execution.

* Shirley plans to build her dish around west lake fish in vinegar, a traditional dish in Hangzhou, a coastal city in east-central China, saying its combination of sweet, sour, and spice reminds her of New Orleans flavors. We see her banging stalks of lemongrass with the back of her knife; I just learned yesterday afternoon from the newest issue of Bon Appetit that you need to do that to release some of the aromatic oils in the stalk before chopping it.

* The four chefs go to Emeril’s namesake restaurant, where he’s in the kitchen overseeing an extensive dinner for them, served at a chef’s table in the kitchen. Can you imagine what seats at that table might go for at auction? Emeril could probably fund a lot of cleanup in the Ninth Ward that way.

* Emeril’s BBQ shrimp comes out with some petite rosemary biscuits. I’ve had BBQ shrimp a few times – it’s shrimp drowned in a pool of its own vomit, assuming shrimp vomit is basically garlic butter. Emeril’s version looks way more refined, with the shrimp glazed in the sauce rather than subsumed by it.

* Showing the chefs get out of bed is not fair. That’s a reality-show staple that needs to die. If someone shoved a camera in my face at 6 in the morning they’d be extracting the camera from someone’s small intestine.
* Nina tells Shirley “you really don’t want to make a mistake at the end.” This, kids, is known as foreshadowing.

* Nick is once again trying to do too much, overthinking his dish, even though he knows that’s his downfall. This is the definition of insanity, right?

* Carlos making a seafood tamal, but without corn – so it’s really a seafood mousse, cooked in a banana leaf. I’ll give him credit for doing something ambitious and a little out of his comfort zone, but this doesn’t sound remotely appealing to me.

* Nina has changed her dish and is now making a riff on BBQ shrimp with malfatti dumplings, usually made with ricotta and herbs or spinach rolled in flour (and/or mixed with bread crumbs) and quickly boiled like fresh pasta before they hit the sauce. Tom seems excited for these, as Nina has nailed Italian foods every time she’s cooked them (although I think malfatti are actually American in origin).

* Nick says “I don’t know if Carlos has grown much at all” during the course of the season. This from the guy who threw a hissyfit about people touching his pots in the last episode.

* And Nina forgets to plate her malfatti. Who saw that coming? Oh yes … everyone.

* Nina does serve a pretty good dish after all – pan seared speckled trout with baby veg and barbecue sauce. Tom remembers the malfatti, asks Nina where they are, and Nina suddenly looks like she’d rather fall into a black hole than be standing there at that moment. Tom ends up saying that the dish didn’t need the ricotta and might have suffered from it, although I think any twist on BBQ shrimp has to have some kind of bread component, whether it’s pasta, biscuits, fresh bread, or something else (waffles?).

* Nick’s dish is lengthy: a shrimp-based broth with shrimp dumplings, charred cobia, roasted bass, tuna confit, fresh herbs, fried rice, and I think something else too. Grant says the dish needed a little flaked salt on top to finish it – Hugh said the same thing about one of Nick’s dishes in an earlier challenge, I believe. The good news for Nick is that he cooked all of the fish correctly even though each required a different method and different cooking time.

* Carlos’ seafood tamal is served without the banana leaf, a brick of seafood mousse with chunks of crab folded into it, topped with a saffron cream sauce and pickled okra. Everyone likes the concept and the fact that he left the shellfish in chunks rather than pureed.

* Shirley makes a seared black drum with Zhejiang vinegar-butter sauce, a sauté of “hidden” holy trinity, braised celery, and mushrooms. She wanted to make the diners feel like they could be on West Lake in Hangzhou or on the bayou of Louisiana. Grant adores everything about this dish, including the story. I’d put big money on her winning the challenge based just on what we see of the diners’ comments.

* I don’t pay much attention to Watch What Happens Live, but the episode that aired after Top Chef last night had Laura Ingalls and the Douche as guests.

* We go straight to judges’ table this time.

* It quickly becomes apparent that the two women nailed their dishes. Nina’s plate didn’t need the malfatti, which apparently she never even cooked. Shirley is showered with praise for every aspect of her dish. Nick’s fish wasn’t seasoned properly, yet again. Carlos’ dish gets dinged for lack of acidity (that’s Gail’s frequent complaint) and, once he’s out of the room, Emeril points out that his tamal was “not so warm” because Carlos chose to serve them without the banana leaves to keep them hot.

* Padma totally draws it out, but Nina and Shirley are the top two. Shirley’s in tears, saying “I’m really happy to find myself,” and now she’s got Emeril tearing up too – and that’s before she’s named the winner of the challenge, too.

* Padma makes a salient point in the discussion of who to send to Last Chance Kitchen, asking why in the semifinals they’re still talking about Nick’s failure to properly season his food. Tom doesn’t seem to have an answer for that.

* Carlos is eliminated. Nick “just stepped it up a little bit more” per Tom, which I interpreted as a comment on the higher level of difficulty in his dish. Also, maybe the fact that Carlos’ mousse looked like baby food had something to do with it.

* LCK: We don’t know. Louis overcooked his fish a little; Carlos underseasoned everything but his fish. I’m guessing Carlos but I’m not sure.

* Rankings: I’ll include all five, since we don’t know who won LCK, leaving me with Shirley, Nina, Louis, Nick, Carlos. I’d give Shirley even money to win at this point, especially given who’s left. If I knew Louis had won LCK, I might have him second over Nina, just because he’s much more likely to do something inventive than she is, while Nick will do something inventive but likely err on execution.

Today’s Klawchat was a bit short, but I’ll do a big one on the 30th when my top 100 prospects package is up.

Right after last episode’s elimination, the remaining chefs are in the kitchen, Shirley crying on Nina’s shoulder, Nick looking hollow. Nina says to the two of them that they “should be proud” because their chef-leader, Dominique Crenn, planned an ambitious menu. Nick’s response was telling: “Cause I sent Stephanie home, I should be proud of that?” We would have been far better served seeing that scene in the previous episode – and Nick especially would have benefited, as there would have been a lot less speculation about him tanking the challenge on purpose.

* Quickfire: Roy Choi, the “king of the food truck,” is back. He’s the genius behind the Korean taco craze. Also, emphasis on “craze,” as Choi is a little nuts. The challenge is for the chefs to create their own takes on a po’ boy sandwich, as Choi did with tacos, and they have just 20 minutes to do it. For reasons no one can quite understand, the winner gets immunity again. I’m glad we’ve learned from last week’s mistakes.

* Is it just me or are there more obvious product placements in this episode than before? Dunkin Donuts, Morton Salt, and Reynolds parchment paper all get loving close-ups in the first ten minutes. I guess it beats subliminal placements.

* So each chef is doing something related to where s/he grew up. Nick’s is a New England version, with fried shrimp, mayo, sriracha, fennel, and pancetta. This sounds a lot like a New Orleans fried shrimp po’boy, just with different toppings. Not that that’s a bad thing; I just don’t see it winning a challenge.

* Shirley does a Chinese po’boy, with sauteed catfish and what I think is a mirin-ginger-garlic-black vinegar-soy glaze and a cabbage slaw. (I wasn’t clear if all of those ingredients were in the glaze.)

* Nina goes Caribbean, with a deep-fried mahi po’boy with a mojo aioli and pickled onions. I have no idea why you’d deep-fry mahi mahi. That is a gorgeous fish just grilled with salt, pepper, and some citrus juice. Frying just hides it.

* Brian goes Korean, with an Asian lobster po’ boy with gojuchang aioli, yuzu, and pickled napa. Can you really pickle something in under 20 minutes? At that point, isn’t it just marinated?

* Carlos goes Mexican with an al pastor (pork) po’boy with chile guajillo, pineapple, onion, and garlic.

* Choi hammers them. I didn’t see this coming at all, but he says “y’all fucked this shit up,” that they cooked without soul and didn’t take advantage of the giant blank canvas. Carlos’ al pastor lacked flavor. Nick’s was too salty and wasn’t balanced. Brian’s didn’t taste of gojuchiang. Nina’s didn’t pop for him. Choi liked Shirley’s, praising the pickled veg, the catfish, and the hints of black vinegar, but says it “didn’t represent her as a Chinese chef.” I don’t know what that means. Anyway, she wins Least Prize and gets immunity.

* Elimination challenge: Who’s the big winner her tonight in the kitchen? Oh, it’s Jon Favreau. He’s working on a film called “Chef” about a chef who has lost his culinary “voice,” so he opens up a food truck and goes cross-country with his son. The challenge is to reate a dish representing a turning point in the chef’s career that led him/her to discover his/her own culinary voice.

* Brian reveals that before turning his life around, he had a problem with alcohol and eventually had a DUI and spent 24 hours in jail. Twenty-four hours for putting the lives of everyone else on the roads with him at risk, as well as anyone else who might have been in his car. That seems fair.

* Why are they hiding Gail’s pregnancy? Are they concerned about messing up the storyline? Also, Gail had her baby last week and named her … Dahlia. That’s a lovely name, except it immediately evokes the nickname for one of the most notorious unsolved murders in U.S. history, so maybe she could have picked another flower?

* And why are they captioning Shirley when she’s talking? If you can’t understand her, you’re not trying. Eric Ripert was harder to grasp and I don’t remember him getting the dang-furriner treatment.

* Nina says Nick overthinks everything and has a short fuse. Hard to argue with either point there.

* Nick’s being dickish in the kitchen, yelling at Carlos (but really at everyone, even the imaginary chefs in his head), “do not move my pots, do not fucking move my pots, do you understand me?” They’re not your children, Nick. They can tell you to fuck off. I kind of wish Carlos would, at this point; he shouldn’t have to take that from Nick.

* Nina was planning to make agnolotti, a delicate filled pasta, but as she rolls her pasta out it’s breaking and sticking in the rollers because the kitchen is so hot. She switches to fettuccine, which is fine, but why not try to chill the dough as you work? I have flexible ice packs that I can unroll and lay under a half-sheet pan to create a quick-cooling surface for doughs that are getting too soft on the counter. Roll, chill on the pan, roll again. It’s a little unwieldy but it works, since the gap between “too warm” and “just right” is very small.

* Brian, the drunk-driving genius, is shown spraying the open grill with what I assume is cooking spray, causing flare-ups. This is also incredibly stupid, as spraying a combustible aerosolized product over an open flame creates a temporary flamethrower. It can’t directly make the can explode, as the pressure in the can prevents the flame from getting into its contents, but it can also melt any plastic parts, and if you get too close to the flame or drop the can, then it can and probably will burst. So, you know, try an oiled paper towel instead, Lavoisier.

* Carlos is making pork belly, searing it first and then braising it. I don’t quite know the dish he’s making, but I would think you’d want to sear it afterwards, no? (EDIT: See the comments for more on this; I understand the point of the initial sear, but that presumes you’re using the same vessel, which I don’t think Carlos did.)

* Nick wants to toast some quinoa, so he puts it on a sheet pan in what he thinks is a 275 degree oven. However, you can see that the oven’s dial is all the way at the maximum mark on the right-hand side, and a subsequent close-up confirms that it’s at 500 degrees. Needless to say, people like white quinoa and red quinoa but blackened quinoa is not yet a thing.

* Shirley can’t believe Brian used boneless skinless chicken breasts. Neither can I. They have so little flavor of their own that you have to marinate them for hours to get any flavor at all in there – preferably cut up into cubes – or slice them into cutlets for breading and frying. Otherwise, they’re like plain tofu with better texture.

* They’re cooking and serving at Cafe Reconcile, opened in 2000 as a program to teach at-risk kids the basics of cooking and food service. Emeril’s foundation is involved, so he’s one of the judges. Almost 2000 students have graduated from there. A few work for Emeril now. The kids are the servers for the challenge, and they’ll also get to taste the dishes.

* Shirley is up first – she does seared snapper in a crustacean broth with silken tofu and napa cabbage. Everyone loves it. The fish is cooked perfectly with a perfectly crispy skin. She used leek and fennel, which is also the filling in the bacon-wrapped stuffed trout recipe in Hugh Acheson’s A New Turn in the South. I made that recipe the other day, using bronzino instead of trout, and other than using bacon that was sliced too thickly to cook fully (my error) the results were amazing.

* Nina’s dish is fettuccine with charred calamari, pine nut gremolata, and crab meat. Again, raves all around. The woman can clearly make pasta. And this isn’t her usual tropical/Caribbean flavor palette.

* Brian makes a chicken anticucho, a Peruvian dish of grilled, skewered meat (usually beef), that he serves with twice-cooked potatoes, feta, and a walnut pesto. Emeril’s twice-cooked potato is still raw inside, and Tom loses his mind over Brian using boneless, skinless, flavorless chicken breasts. Seriously – if you know how to break down a chicken, buy the whole bird. You’ll pay marginally more than you would for the breasts alone, and you get the remaining parts, the skin, the bones (for stock), the liver, and, if you’re into that kind of thing, the heart and kidneys too.

* Carlos makes his braised pork belly with a sweet potato puree and a chipotle tamarind glaze. It was one of the first dishes he put on the menu when he opened his own restaurant, and this might be the most praise he’s gotten for a dish all season. Emeril says you can taste every element, and Tom says they all have a purpose. I need a report from one of you who’s been to his restaurant.

* Nick’s concept was to showcase carrots in a slew of different ways, something he did at his previous job when they switched to a tasting-menu format. He builds it around a seared hunk of yellow-fin tuna, serving it with several preparations of carrot and some fennel pollen dust. He told them about the missing quinoa, which may have been a tactical error (don’t tell them what’s missing, let them figure it out themselves). The sauces and oils are good, but the whole plate is underseasoned, especially the fish, and of course there’s no texture contrast on the plate. The kids liked the other four dishes, but they don’t like Nick’s at all, one calling it “not nasty … but too gooey.”

* Judges’ table: All five chefs go in, to see five judges all crammed behind the judges’ table. If they all roll over, will one fall out? Also, Gail looks very good when pregnant. Not that you’d know she was from watching the show.

* They don’t specifically say who’s up and down, but the top three were Nina, Shirley, and Carlos, and all three got universal praise. Nick’s lack of texture and lack of cohesion on the dish put him in the bottom two, while Brian’s protein choice, raw potato, and overall heaviness put him there.

* Winner: Shirley, aka Girl On Fire. Carlos was very slightly behind, and Nina was also safe. That’s Shirley’s third elimination win, matching Nina, and her fourth Quickfire win, one more than Brian (who also won one as part of a team of six).

* Tom, right before one of the two remaining chefs gets the axe, says, “one of you will have to reconcile with…” something I couldn’t hear because I was groaning at the awful pun. For shame, Colicchio.

* Brian is eliminated. I would guess Nick survived because his dish was more ambitious, although the judges don’t explain their reasoning. On the other hand, I’m a little surprised there was no holdover from last week, where the judges might have used Nick’s dish, the worst of that episode, and his refusal to surrender immunity as deciding variables.

* LCK: This should have been the tater tot challenge, but instead it’s the skin-and-bones battle, with chicken, duck, and pork available (no meat, just the skin and bones). Neither uses duck skin, which shocked me, as that would be my first choice to cook or to eat. Louis roasts his vegetables under pork skin, serves it with crispy chicken skin and a warm poached egg yolk, and nabs what Tom calls the best thing he’s eaten all season, so Brian loses despite cooking a pretty good dish himself.

* Rankings: Shirley, Louis, Nina, Nick, Carlos. Louis’ comeback has been impressive, but what’s clear now is, befitting a former Thomas Keller protegé, the man can really cook him some vegetables.

This turned out to be one of the most interesting Top Chef episodes I’ve ever seen because of the controversy in the elimination. I’ll spend more time on that than I usually do on judging or elimination, especially since it seemed like many of you wanted my thoughts on Twitter.

* Jacques Pépin is in the house for the Quickfire. Padma says he “wrote the book on technique, literally.” (The original 1976 book to which Padma refers, La Technique, is out of print and appears to be a collector’s item.) The challenge is to prepare his favorite dish: Dover sole with artichoke and asparagus. It’s a skills challenge, so they’re all making the same dish, which he shows them all how to make first. That’s really his favorite dish? I love a good fish dish, but when it comes to favorites, bury me in duck confit, please.

* I wish we’d seen more of him cooking – the man just made everything look effortless, like when he ripped the skin right off the sole like it was only attached with Velcro. He also carves a rosette from butter with a few turns of his knife and says, “Now you can charge 30 bucks for it.” And people say the French are all socialists…

* “Your tahm start … now.” Pixar blew it. They should have had Pépin voice a character in Ratatouille.

* Three of the chefs struggle here – Stephanie, mostly with the fish, and Carlos and Brian with several elements of prep. Nick and Shirley, both of whom have training in classical French cuisine (which is really the foundation of Western cuisine in general), don’t have any trouble, and neither does the Queen of Execution, Nina.

* Carlos’ dish is missing tomatoes and the sauce is not what he wanted. Brian’s plate is a mess, with no sauce and cold fish. Nina’s presentation is poor. Stephanie’s plate looks just a little sparse, and her fish was also undercooked. Nick’s plate is “neat and tidy.” Shirley’s looks the most authentic. She says Pépin is like a grandpa, and you wouldn’t want to let your grandpa down, would you? I suppose that depends on what kind of grandpa he was.

* Nick wins, gaining immunity, which turns out to really matter this week. Pépin said his and Shirley’s were neck and neck, but implies that the elements came together a little more thoroughly in Nick’s dish.

* Elimination challenge: Spanish cuisine vs. French cuisine. I’ll confess to limited familiarity with both, having been to Spain (Barcelona) once for just 48 hours, and tending to eat Italian when I’ve been in France because I don’t care what anyone says, Italian cuisine is the best in the world. But what I know of Spanish food, which varies widely within regions of Spain (much as the language does), I love. American tapas restaurants often use it as a springboard but layer more elements on top of the basics of Spanish cuisine, so you lose what makes it special. I’ve already exhausted my knowledge on this topic so I’ll stop talking now.

* The chefs are divided into two teams of three. It did not occur to me at the time, but in hindsight this is clearly a failure of process. With six chefs remaining, a team challenge in and of itself is somewhat unfair, but combining it with immunity makes an outcome like the one we saw more probable than it should be. If the goal is to identify the best chef, or something along those lines, immunity/team challenge/six chefs remaining is a bad combination of variables.

* The teams are led by Julian Serrano (Spain) and Dominique Crenn (France), who will serve as coaches. The meals will have five courses, built around five “quintessential” ingredients of both cultures: olives, almonds, mussels, chicken, and chocolate. Chicken? Really? Is that “quintessential” in any cuisine, or just something we eat a lot? How about wine, or vinegar? Any fish from the Mediterranean? Cheese? There were so many better choices for the fifth ingredient.

* Team Spain: Nina, Carlos, Brian. Team France: Shirley, Nick, Stephanie.

* Crenn is the dream coach, fostering conversation, taking feedback but pushing the chefs to be bold. Serrano seems to think these are his indentured servants and is bossing them around and even micromanaging things like vegetable cuts. I have to think that, post-shooting, the producers were doubting their choice on that one.

* Crenn has her team using corn silk, which I thought was inedible (or indigestible) to make a “nest” for the game hen. The silks in my house go right into the compost.

* Nina, making a potato salad for the Spanish team, says, “If I go home for this I’m going to kill myself.” I hate when they say stuff like that. That’s not the least bit funny, and if there’s even a smidgen of seriousness in it, then the speaker should be seeing a psychiatrist, not joking about suicide in a room full of knives.

* Shirley, playing with liquid nitrogen, would prefer not to be the first Top Chef contestant to lose part of an ear on the show. If she does, though, she’d better stay in that kitchen or the other chefs will say she’s not tough.

* The food … First courses: Shirley’s snapper ceviche with dehydrated olives and olive ice cream against Carlos’ ensaladilla rusa with green olives, gulf shrimp, and potatoes. Both pretty good. I think Nina had a hand in the salad too.

* Second course: Stephanie’s pickled and poached mussels with gelée of tomato against Nina’s ajo blanco with almonds, crab, and cherries. According to Teresa Barrenechea’s wonderful The Cuisines of Spain: Exploring Regional Home Cooking:

Also known as white gazpacho, ajo blanco is a perfect cold summer soup: easy to make, healthful, and distinctive. The Arabs who ruled Andalusia for almost eight hundred years introduced almonds to the Iberian Peninsula, and this dish probably originated with their reign. Though highly popular in Andalusia, it is little known in the rest of Spain and virtually unknown in the United States. I serve it garnished with grapes, but thin apple slices are also common.

Barrenechea’s recipe includes garlic, almonds, day-old bread soaked in water, sherry vinegar, and olive oil. Whatever Nina’s was like, the judges, especially Emeril, loved it.

* Third course: Stephanie’s chicken liver mousse along with Shirley’s consomme with roasted maitake mushrooms against Carlos’ mejillones (mussels) a la romesco with crispy leeks. Romesco sauce is Catalonian, made from dried red peppers, EVOO, and almonds and/or hazelnuts.

* Fourth course: Nick leaves the nest on the plate over the objections of Stephanie and Shirley, dismissing them pretty rudely in another bit of foreshadowing. His Cornish game hen with spiced chocolate and corn silk nest with eggs and duck fat goes up against Carlos’ “pollo con arroz.” Nick’s dish loses this battle as the judges hate the silk nest and the chocolate sauce overpowers the chicken.

* Julian Serrano is kind of an ass at the table, though – or perhaps just very childish. He won’t even touch the silk nest and complains that he doesn’t like “the new cooking.” Tom kills the corn silk, says it’s like what you pulled out of the drain in the shower.

* Fifth course: Brian’s flan de chocolate with strawberries against Nick’s almond flan with plums, cocoa nibs, and fresh licorice. Neither of these was well-received; Nick’s flan’s texture wasn’t good while Brian’s was too sweet.

* I can’t be the only one who started singing “Scenario” every time the judges referred to Nick’s “chocolate chicken,” right?

* The Spanish team wins, and Nina gets the top prize, again just for execution (here for executing someone else’s idea). What matters, however, is the French team: Of their five dishes, the two worst were both Nick’s responsibility, but he has immunity and can’t be sent home. That means that one of Shirley or Stephanie, neither of whom did anything remotely elimination-worthy, has to go … unless Nick takes Jacques Pépin’s suggestion and resigns.

That’s a hell of a moral quandary. Nick won immunity and has no obligation to resign; such are the rules of Top Chef, and he might argue that he was willing to take on riskier dishes because he had that immunity. Any question of resignation is a moral one – that it would be proper, or just, or fair to take the fall for his mistakes rather than allow one of his teammates to go home for something he did.

There is, however, a significant practical angle here that no one mentioned. Nick had a chance to be a hero, and chose instead to be the zero. Falling on his sword (in Tom’s words) would have earned Nick an enormous amount of praise, on the show, from competitors and judges, and among the audience. It wouldn’t have eliminated him entirely; he could have won two battles in Last Chance Kitchen and returned to the finale. But it would have granted him the kind of positive publicity that can’t be purchased. I think Nick made a split-second economic decision that overweighted his chances of winning the whole thing (probably between 25% and 30% at that point) and underweighted the financial benefits of resigning with honor. Many chefs who didn’t win Top Chef have managed to capitalize on their appearances on the show because they showed great skill and/or personality. I’m glad the judges didn’t force the issue further, but I think they were correct in broaching the idea to Nick.

* Stephanie says in confessional that she would have resigned in Nick’s situation. Shirley says the same, that she would have taken the fall and fought back in LCK. Of course, it’s easy to say those things when you are the victim rather than the perpetrator, but it sounds like Shirley at least understood the costs and benefits a little better than Nick did.

* The judges hammer Nicholas one more time, in an attempt to get him to fall on that sword, telling him, “you’re the reason why the team is here.” He doesn’t budge, and Stephanie is eliminated, reducing Shirley to tears. In the confessional, Stephanie breaks down too, saying, “I went home making a dish I was really proud of.” That has to be a bitter pill to swallow.

* LCK: Battle Beignets. I thought Stephanie’s looked far better on the screen, both her savory and sweet applications, as Louis’ savory one was too dark (and likely greasy) and looked like an expired beetle with dark fried legs coming off its torso. I also liked Stephanie’s flavor combinations more, but Louis’ appeared to have better texture and he took the win. Stephanie’s decision to try to create a yeast-raised beignet in a half an hour may have been what sank her. Would adding baking powder to the yeast dough have saved her, ensuring at least modest CO2 production?

* Rankings: Shirley, Louis, Nick, Nina, Brian, Carlos. As much as Nina keeps winning, it is still always on execution, not creativity or vision. Nick may end up sabotaging himself in the finale, as at least one of you suggested in a previous week. Louis has cooked like a different chef since he was eliminated; that could be about the format, but I’m inclined to think he’ll fare much better if he wins next week’s LCK battle and gets to re-enter the main house. Carlos is the clear bottom guy at this point, struggling with execution and showing a lack of range.

So we start by hearing how Stephanie met her boyfriend when she hired him at one of the restaurants where she works, then scheduled herself to work the line on Saturday nights so she’d always be working with him. She’s kind of a dork and I mean that in the nicest possible way.

* Nick is still pissed off at Carlos for telling the judges that Nick stole his oven, saying it’s “bush league, dude.” That, kids, is known as foreshadowing.

* Quickfire: The kitchen is overrun with giant cockroaches, but no one seems to notice because they’re all hypnotized by John Besh’s hair.

* The challenge is to make a version of crawfish (not cockroach, but close) étouffée, which is a thick stew served over rice. I’ve never had it, as my wife is allergic to all shellfish, and I don’t eat insects (yet).

* Stephanie is allergic to shellfish (crustaceans only, as it turns out), so while she’ll cook them she won’t even touch them, donning plastic gloves and using tongs to hold the critters in place. Carrie agreed to stab her in the thigh with an epi-pen if needed. Nick volunteers to taste for seasoning. I wish we’d seen more of Stephanie at work here just because it’s fascinating – how do you cook something you can’t touch or taste? She’s said before that she’s cooked crustaceans in her restaurants, but seeing how would have been instructive. And doesn’t the smell of them cooking bother her? I don’t even bring shellfish in the house any more for that very reason.

* Carlos doesn’t know what étouffée is. That’s a pretty specific bit of knowledge, though – you’d have to know or have studied Cajun/Creole cuisine. The word means “smothered,” but the Spanish equivalent, ahogado, isn’t a perfect cognate, and he doesn’t even seem to recognize the English term. I’m not defending the guy necessarily, but imagine being asked to cook something like bibimbap (a Korean dish, also with rice, served in a hot stone bowl) if you hadn’t heard of it.

* Nick appears to be using a lot of alcohol to deglaze his pan, and that’s all good with me. I may have used some Appleton Estate 4-year-aged rum to deglaze a pan of mushrooms last night.

* Brian is the only one we see talking about making stock from the crawfish shells, which seems a little obvious – crustacean shells are full of flavor, while their meat (at least the ones I’ve had) is mild and delicate. I was surprised he didn’t use a pressure cooker, though. In 45 minutes you’re not going to get all the flavor out of the shells.

* Shirley is the only person who actually cooked rice in a challenge involving a dish traditionally served over rice. She makes étouffée for her husband, often, and has tweaked her recipe often to suit his palate.

* Padma, believing she doesn’t look tall or leggy enough, is wearing vertical striped pants.

* Besh says the people who coaxed flavors from the shells did best, which we know will include Brian. Poor Stephanie’s dish was more like a bisque or soup. In addition to Brian’s dish, Besh liked Nina’s (she made fresh pasta again) and Shirley’s, a Singapore chili crab étouffée; with cucumber, egg, and scallions; she coated the rice with a “velvety” broth that had strong crawfish flavor. Shirley wins again – her third win in four quickfires.

* Elimination: Louisiana Seafood is having a party at Mardi Gras World, so chefs must create a dish highlighting at least two different types of seafood. Padma says it’s for one thousand guests … oh, she’s just kidding, it’s only two hundred. That was evil. Funny, but evil.

* Besh takes the seven chefs to his home to feed them. His home is on a bayou. I would have been walking around with a mosquito net over my entire body. He seems super nice but I still think he needs a haircut.

* Besh and his wife met in kindergarten! Is her name Topanga?

* The chefs go “shopping” in a seafood truck with tons of kinds. Nina grabs wahoo; everyone else goes to tuna and amberjack. Tuna is so overused in cuisine for me. I’m kinda over being told that seared tuna is something special. It’s too lean and dries out way too quickly at the slightest exposure of heat. Sushi, ceviche, confit all work, but even searing it just puts a dry coating on the fish.

* Carlos decides to do crudo again, even though he clearly doesn’t have the right knife (or knife skills) for it. You’re not good at that one preparation, so try something else. He asks Nick for Nick’s knife, then gets miffed when Nick doesn’t want to hand it over, completely oblivious to the part where he sandbagged Nick last challenge. Eventually, Nick caves, for what reason I have no idea. He doesn’t owe Carlos anything.

* Carrie has the only preparation that doesn’t require fresh fish, salt-curing her flounder and forming fritters by hand, which takes forever (and would be much faster with a basic disher, not to mention more even).

* Stephanie is making fried oysters (so she can eat mollusks), cooking them to order because she was afraid batch-frying would make them soggy as they sat waiting for diners to grab them. Sounds like someone actually watched Top Chef before coming on the show.

* To the dishes … Brian offers grilled swordfish marinated in yuzu koshu, shrimp and sweet onion puree, and some daikon on top. Nick does oysters three ways – oyster leek soup, an oyster/champagne emulsion, and oyster and green apple yogurt with cubed amberjack. Early returns are not favorable. Carrie does her flounder croquettes with an oyster emulsion and pickled cucumbers. Tom says she would have done great if this had been a cucumber challenge.

* Shirley makes a rather delicious-looking amberjack and tuna ceviche with aged soy, lime dressing, toasted pecans, crispy fried shallots, and cilantro. Hugh says “good food is cooked by happy people.” It makes you wonder how Anthony Bourdain ever cooked anything. Also, I want Shirley to come to my house and teach me how to cook like her.

* Nina does a marinated seared wahoo with salsa verde, tonnato (tuna) sauce, pickled veg. It’s great, yata yata yata, it’s the same food every week – Caribbean with an Italian twist. Yes, wahoo is different, but there is nothing on that plate you haven’t had a dozen times. She has a narrow niche and executes the shit out of it. I feel like she’s a lock to make the final three, but that I’d be very disappointed if she won.

* Carlos makes an amberjack ceviche with rustic peach and shrimp relish. Hugh says it needs fleur de sel on top – not salt, not kosher salt, not Himalayan pink salt, but fleur de sel. Also, Carlos massacred the fish again, this time cutting it too thinly. Stephanie made very crispy fried oysters with raw tuna and pickled beech (shimeji) mushrooms and fresnos.

* Nick finds the knife he loaned to Carlos tossed aside, still covered with (now dried) bits of raw fish. He’s pissed. Nina agrees. Carlos semi-apologizes but doesn’t seem to think it’s a huge deal. He seems like he has no concept of how other people perceive his actions.

* Stephanie with the quote of the week, telling Shirley that she’d love to walk up to Padma and say, “I love your shorts, great shoes, you have a hair out of place, please pack your brush and go.” We need her back as a guest judge in season 12. Or maybe as a color commentator. She’s on the short list of Top Chef contestants I’d most like to go drinking with.

* Judges’ table: Thank you, John Besh, for pointing out that the raw fish/ceviche thing is totally overplayed on Top Chef. I just thought it was too common, but he says it’s also safe because you didn’t run the risk of ruining the fish by cooking it. Either way, amen – and I say that as someone who loves a good crudo. The judges praise Nina, Shirley, Brian, and Stephanie, and they stomp all over Carlos (couldn’t taste the fish), Nick (just flat, lacked acidity), and Carrie (totally lost the fish in the fritter).

* Top three: Stephanie, Nina, and Brian. Everyone loved Stephanie’s salad, which made the dish lighter. It’s so funny – I could hear the judges killing her for making fried oysters in “the land of fried oysters,” except that she fried them so well that they ended up praising the dish. It’s a fine line. Brian’s sauce seems to be hte reason he’s here. Nina’s spice & cure really good, and she gets points for using wahoo and for “big flavors.”

* Stephanie wins, and says, “I’m gonna puke!” Just maybe not in front of John Besh, okay?

* Bottom three: Nick, Carrie, and Carlos. Carrie’s croquette was perfectly executed, but hid the fish. Tom is clearly mad she didn’t highlight it. It also feels like a waste – few people ever get access to fish that fresh, and she treated it like a Basque sailor preserving cod for the six-month voyage home. Carlos’ ratio of peach/shrimp salsa to fish was way too high. Nick’s dish was too complex; Hugh disliked its texture (too soft) and lack of acidity, while the amberjack appeared to be just thrown in (per Besh). I think Nick’s also suffering a little from the dwindling number of chefs, where earlier in the competition a dish that involved would have landed him in the middle.

* Carrie goes home. Tom seemed completely convinced she had to go, and I don’t think the other judges ever overrule him when he’s like that. Padma says, “I’m gonna miss her in the kitchen.” The show did get a lot less cute with her departure, but Carrie peaked early and couldn’t hold it.

* LCK: Louis versus Carrie in battle broccoli, a nod to Carrie’s flop from the previous episode’s elimination challenge. She does a roasted broccoli-filled ravioli that sounds amazing, but Louis does broccoli three ways and nails all three of them. He was even kind enough to tell me on Twitter what he did with the stalks. I’ve only roasted them in the oven till slightly soft and caramelized, then pureed them with a little vegetable stock to make a soup, finishing it with a little (I mean a little, maybe 1 Tbsp per batch) cream, some lime juice, a drizzle of EVOO and maybe some fresh herbs like dill. That’s good – it’s essence of broccoli – but a little one-note if you start making it often.

* The rankings: Shirley, Nick, Louis (LCK), Nina, Stephanie, Brian, Carlos. Stephanie’s making a late run and I love it – she has the creativity but needs the confidence to execute. I’m much more interested in what she’ll make next than I am in what Nina will make next.

It’s been a busy writing and podcasting week for me; here’s what I’ve spit out in the last three days:

• An omnibus post covering a bunch of trades and signings, including Ryan Doumit and the two Rockies’ deals.
• A Klawchat on Thursday, my last of 2013.
• A new Behind the Dish podcast featuring Texas GM Jon Daniels and AZCentral.com’s Nick Piecoro.
• A 30-minute appearance on the Productive Outs podcast.
• And here on the dish my rankings of my top 100 songs and top 13 albums of 2013.

We start with the usual stew room footage. Nina has some mouth on her. She might swear more than all the boys combined.

* ?uestlove in the house, hairpick included. He says he’d fly to any corner of the earth to try a new food. Fried drumsticks were part of a signature dish at Hybrid, his Manhattan restaurant that closed last month. The chefs have thirty minutes to prepare a dish with any of the various kinds of drumsticks on display. A drumline marches in with a giant cart of drumsticks from at least five different fowl. Winner gets immunity.

* There’s a ridiculous mad dash for the various proteins. Why not just draw knives? Instead we get drumsticks on the floor and bruised egos. Nick seems dismayed to get quail, but I’d love that – they cook fast, at least, although there’s not a lot of meat on one leg.

* Stephanie gets turkey legs and says, “I see a very specific stall at Disney world where people just mow down on them.” I have been one of those people. Meanwhile, Nina gets guinea hen, and is making grilled jerk chicken. She’s gone outside of Caribbean cuisine maybe twice all season, for gnocchi.

* Shirley’s duck legs fry too fast – you can see the meat has started to dry out even on TV.

* Stephanie: “nothing could be grosser than medium rare turkey.” Well, maybe rare turkey, but point taken.

* Carlos is trying to cut a goose leg bone with a chef’s knife, and keeps going despite a total lack of progress. Sisyphus told me he thought that looked frustrating.

* Carrie does squab legs marinated in thyme, cayenne, and cocoa powder with a fig mostarda. I’m not sure I’ve ever had a mostarda, and now I’m wondering why not as it sounds awesome – a sort of quick jam of dried fruit, sugar, dry mustard, and wine (or just essential oil of mustard). Anyway, I’m spoiling this a bit, but she ends up winning, and Nina gives her the stinkeye across the kitchen.

* For completeness – the least favorites were Nick’s oversalted quail, Justin’s boring/uncreative drumettes, and Carlos’ overcooked goose. Beside Carrie and Nina, Brian was in the favorites group for a soup that included cracklins.

* Elimination challenge: Feed 500 incoming freshmen at LSU in the school kitchen. Winner gets a RAV4. They stay in the dorms that night. I have enough bad dreams about being in college and forgetting to go to class, or choosing not to go to class again without telling anyone, or the usual “show up for the exams without going to class all semester” stuff. I don’t need to stay in a dorm and trigger more. Anyway, I do love going to LSU for baseball games – the atmosphere is incredible.

* Stephanie is my go-to girl for money quotes: “Every memory of living in the dorm is coming back to me.” Turns out she went to boarding school, which she implies is because her parents were wealthy (since she says it wasn’t about behavior). Meanwhile, Carrie doesn’t know how to make a bed. How is that possible? Okay, her husband does it – I do a lot of the laundry around here too – but she never learned as a kid?
* The mad-dash setup from the Quickfire is here too – there are eight stations and a pantry of ingredients, so chefs are calling dibs on stations and fighting for ingredients. Why not set up a draft: order them 1 to 8, pick stations in that order, then go 8 to 1 for proteins or other main ingredients? Any system would be better than this.

* Shirley claims the plancha (flat-top grill), then Carlos whines enough to convince her to give it up and take the wood-fired oven, which no one else wanted. This, kids, is known as foreshadowing…

* By the way: No one wants the wood-burning oven? Really? Hottest spot in the kitchen. You ever have a burger cooked at 1000 degrees Fahrenheit? It’s incredible. You can do stuff in that oven faster than in any gas or electric oven or on any other cooking surface.
* Nick is stirring a giant swimming pool of grits like he’s piloting a gondola through them. I’m pretty sure Homer Simpson had that dream once.

* Justin gives a rant about how he doesn’t “think it’s ever a good idea to cook down to people,” but then says that college students probably like chicken tenders and mac and cheese, so he’s talking down to them instead of cooking down to them. This is another example of foreshadowing.

* Carrie got the cold station and makes a cold broccoli salad with yogurt dressing. I like broccoli, but it looks like she barely cooked it. Why not do an elaborate salad if you want to go veg and have to keep everything cold and would maybe like to win a car?

* Nina is in the weeds, which is unusual for her, blaming part of her problem on the lack of an industrial blender. Maybe she could have taken that into consideration before deciding to do a giant corn puree.

* Carrie is getting virtually no takers, and says (half-jokingly), “it’s not my fault the kids are stupid and don’t eat their broccoli.” Well, they’re not stupid if they won’t eat that broccoli.

* Carlos is falling behind after claiming the plancha and now thinks he should also have the ovens. Pretty soon he’ll just claim the car and complain if the other chefs won’t give it to him.

* And the dishes … this is getting easier to write as the number of chefs dwindles: Shirley does roast beef with potato puree and fire-roasted tomato relish, making good use of the wood-fired oven; Nina does buttermilk once-fried chicken with sweet corn puree and pickled onions, but the breading keeps falling off and she can’t keep up with demand for the corn; Brian makes a shrimp cake with spinach on top and a chipotle aioli (using storebought mayo?) underneath. Shirley and Brian score well, but Nina’s fried chicken fares worse for the above reasons plus the corn puree making the breading soggy.

* Nick serves rosemary roasted pork with parmesan grits and a bacon brown sugar gravy; Carrie serves that marinated broccoli salad with herbed yogurt sauce; Justin does a marinated gulf shrimp with cauliflower, asparagus, and garlic puree. Justin’s apparently had less flavor than wallpaper paste and no one could identify the puree.

* Stephanie’s spicy tomato soup with pimento cheese sandwich is undone because she served the sandwiches already dipped in the soup, which made them soggy by the time they reached the table; Carlos’s seared tilapie with chile ancho and Mexican slaw plays second fiddle to his fifteen-minute delay and his claim to the judges that Nick stole his ovens. Nina is pissed off, and Nick refusees to believe it at first.

* In “the kill room” (thanks, Steph), everyone goes after Carlos for saying that to the judges. He apologizes, but it’s one of those “I’m sorry I got caught” apologies I get from daughter. He knew what he was saying.

* Judges’ table: Brian and Shirley get raves. Carlos’ flavors were great but service took too long. Justin and Nina get crushed, as does Carrie, who might have gone home had she not had immunity.

* Top three: Shirley, Brian, and Carlos. Brian’s was the most popular with the students, but Shirley wins the challenge, I think in part for looking at the pizza oven as (Tom’s words) “just an oven.” That’s a car and a $10,000 air conditioner for Shirley.

* Bottom: Stephanie, Nina, and Justin. Nina failed twice over – a lot of students didn’t get the corn, but it also made the fried chicken a little soggy. Stephanie used too much cottage cheese (Steph says it was feta) that made the sandwich’s texture inconsistent, plus it disintegrated in the soup. Justin tries to brag about going high-end (too “cheffy” per Gail), but he didn’t understand the audience and didn’t get enough flavor in the dish. I wonder if he still thinks as little of college students’ palates as he did when the show started.

* Nina does the false modesty act in the stew room, saying “it was a pleasure working with you all” as if she’s already been eliminated. She’s not quite the villain the producers want, but she might be the best they’ve got.

* Justin is eliminated, as Tom says it was the worst dish out of all eight, period. Hard to argue given what they said before – it had to be him or Stephanie, and I’m not sorry to see him go after his act in Restaurant Wars.

* LCK: I’ve been trying not to comment on Janine’s looks, but she was wearing a little pink sundress in this episode that was so short that at first she couldn’t sit on the high peanut gallery chairs. The challenge, meanwhile, was to cook with a basket of ingredients from the other chef’s current hometown, so Justin from NorCal, Louis from Louisiana. Justin does a grilled sardine with corn vinaigrette and fresh herbs, chooses not to use crab or grapes. Louis does a redfish almondine with corn puree and crawfish sauce, didn’t use peaches or rabbit. Justin slightly overcooked his sardine – it did catch on fire at one point – so Louis gets the W. His dish seemed more creative anyway.

* Rankings: Nick and Shirley remain the clear 1-2 for me. After that, I’d probably go Carrie, Louis (in response to one of your queries, it’s time to work in the current LCK leader), Nina, Brian, Carlos, Stephanie. I don’t think Nina has the breadth to hold on till the finale – it’s the same basic formula over and over – and the bottom three chefs all seem capable of some self-sabotage. Even Carrie feels like a soft pick at 3, as she coasted on her immunity this week.