Catching up on my recent work elsewhere:

• Friday’s Klawchat.
• A new boardgame review for Paste, this time on the new Days of Wonder game Relic Runners.
• My analysis of the Trumbo-Skaggs-Eaton trade.
• My analysis of the Brett Anderson trade.
• My thoughts on the two Mariners’ moves from Wednesday.
• My analysis of the Bartolo Colon signing.
• A quick note on the two Pirates’ moves.
• And my thoughts on why Roy Halladay isn’t a slam-dunk Hall of Famer.

I traveled home from Orlando on Thursday, was catching up on life on Friday (although I did at least watch this show), and then spent Saturday being a dad, from getting the Christmas tree to going to see Frozen with my wife and daughter. Je ne regrette rien … but I’m a little sorry this post is late.

* Quickfire: Chef Hubert Keller is there … in a challenge involving Dunkin Donuts coffee, which I’m hoping these chefs think and realize is total shit. Does Keller really drink this garbage? He should be furious that they brought him in to watch the chefs cook with coffee I wouldn’t feed to a goat. The winner gets immunity and $10K, while Stephie Downer gets all mopey about owning “old, broken, sad-looking stuff.” That girl could see death in a double rainbow.

* So the actual challenge involves using that brown swill as a key ingredient in a dish, with the implication that it would be better to go savory, although that didn’t matter in the judging.

* Nick is pairing sockeye salmon with a coffee cardamom sauce, emphasizing the balance between the fatty fish and the sharp coffee (and cardamom) flavors. Balance will be irrelevant when Chef Sensitive Ponytail chokes to death on a pinbone.

* Brian is making a risotto with coffee and andouille sausage, alluding to the Top Chef risotto curse. I’m surprised he doesn’t mention redeye gravy, which is a Southern comfort-food staple where you make a white sausage gravy and add coffee to it. I’ve never had it because what kind of lunatic puts coffee in sausage gravy? Also, maybe there’s a better way to describe taking a risk than saying you want your balls out there swinging. It’s just not a great visual.

* Interesting side note: Nina predicts that Nick will reach the finale. Granted, that’s not huge news at this point, but we don’t generally hear a lot of praise like that on Top Chef.

* The food: Travis also serves sockeye, this one with a coffee ponzu sauce, coffee roasted mushrooms, and hazelnut oil; Carrie does a coffee custard with candied coffee beans and cocoa nibs; Brian serves that risotto with sugar snap peas; Carlos makes a coffee macadamia sponge cake (in just thirty minutes) with a coffee/mascarpone sauce and peaches; Nick makes a roasted sockeye with a hazelnut-coffee-caramel-white chocolate whatever and hon shimeji mushrooms, earning funny looks from the judges and a “there’s a lot of coffee in here” non-compliment from Padma.

* Shirley serves a coffee-crusted tenderloin with a double-blanched garlic puree that symbolizes the cream to the steak rub’s coffee; Stephanie, who got all woe-is-me again during the cooking, does a sweet potato and goat cheese coffee crepe with ham and bacon coffee jam. I don’t think we saw Nina or Justin in this.

* The bottom two were Brian, whose risotto didn’t have much coffee flavor, and Nick, whose coffee-white chocolate paste had an unpleasant texture. Ho hum. The top three were Shirley, Carrie, and Stephanie, with Stephanie and Shirley both getting “surprising” from Keller. The winner, the chef who showed the most creativity was … Shirley? Steak rubbed with coffee is more creative than coffee crepes with sweet potato and goat cheese and bacon-coffee jam? Did we miss something in the dish descriptions? Shirley’s dish may have been delicious, but anyone in America who’s grilled meat with a dry rub on it (worded to avoid a #phrasing tag) has tried coffee in the rub, right?
* Elimination challenge: The guest judge is actor Anthony Mackie, whom I’ve never heard of and don’t recognize. He was in 8 Mile, which I’ve seen, and in two Best Picture winners that I haven’t seen; he also narrated an ESPN 30 for 30 doc, “The Best That Never Was,” on the disappointing career of high school football star Marcus Dupree. Anyway, Mackie is a New Orleans native, and the challenge is for the chefs “to make a dish inspired by what you crave when you go home.” Oh, and they’re serving Leah Chase and some of her family at Dookie Chase. No big deal.
* Justin’s dish is inspired by squirrel he and his brothers used to hunt, but I guess he couldn’t get organic squirrel at Whole Foods.

* Carrie talks about going asparagus hunting with her mom. I didn’t realize asparagus was that hard to catch.

* Nick is making his daughter’s favorite dish, ricotta gnocchi, which appears to be on his menu at Laurel now.

* Carlos is making cochinita pibil in the pressure cooker, as the dish typically takes about six hours. I thought it was generally roasted in a banana leaf, although now I realize I don’t know if that’s to add flavor or just as a vessel to allow it to retain heat.

* Shirley is kneading dough and dicing meat with a cleaver, shaking the entire table. Stephanie is silently plotting to murder Shirley in her sleep that night.

* Travis is making biscuits without buttermilk, which surprises Tom. I’m with Travis for once; I don’t like the flavor of cultured buttermilk, and usually use baking powder instead of baking soda, or use cream of tartar (an acid found on the inside of wine casks) to balance the base of baking soda.

* Brian’s personal story is a legitimate downer: his dad suffered three major strokes a few years ago which left him not talking much. Some of these chefs cry at the drop of a hat; Brian’s dad’s fate is something we all fear for our parents and for ourselves.

* Back at the house, there’s a loose discussion of what three items you’d choose if you had to eat just those things for the rest of your life, which leads Justin to act like a clubhouse lawyer again. There’s an inability to take responsibility with him that grates on me, probably because I was like that when I was younger. Anyway, pizza, ice cream, waffles, bacon, nectarines, bread … don’t make me stop at three.
* Nick gets choked up talking about missing formative years with his kids because he’s always at work. This is why I think people who ask me why I would choose the media over a team job, or assume I’m lying when I say that’s my choice, are stupid. If you choose to prioritize work over family, I won’t judge you, but don’t judge me for going the other way. I’ve been at just about every birthday, holiday, school event, and extracurricular event I needed to be at. I take my daughter to school almost every day when I’m home, I pick her up almost every day when I’m home, we cook together, we read together, and we do all kinds of things together. I know I’m not the perfect father, but I will never have to look at a camera like Nick did and say that I regret spending too little time with my daughter.

* There’s no open grill at Dookie Chase, so Brian has to use the grill pan instead and rely on the marinade (he’s making Korean-marinaded New York strip steaks) for flavor.

* Travis is staring at his biscuits as they’re in the oven, saying how he’s only got one shot, do not miss your chance … sorry. They look good but are close to raw inside. I assumed he cut the butter in too much, although later it emerges that the kitchen was so warm that the butter got too soft before hitting the oven. He ends up splitting the biscuits and pouring gravy over them to try to hide the error, because that trick always works.

* And we’re plating … Carlos’ cochinita pibil comes with black beans and an orange pico de gallo; Brian does the steak and potatoes Korean-style, a NY strip with a potato salad; Travis’ biscuits come with a homemade maple-sage sausage gravy and sour plum jam.

* Everyone notices that the biscuit is raw, so we can already put Travis in the bottom three. They all love the gravy and Mackie likes the gravy and jam together. I could see that – a sour/sweet note with the salty/sweet sausage. Carlos’ is a big hit right down to the fresh corn tortillas. Brian’s has no charcoal flavor and might be a touch too sweet.

* We see Nick losing focus in the kitchen, worrying he won’t plate everything, crying over the sink because … he misses his family? Right then, five minutes before serving? I’m calling BS on this one. That had to be shown out of sequence, right?

* Nick’s dish is ricotta gnudi with crispy pancetta, peas, lemon, and “a lot of” Parmiggiano-Reggiano; Shirley serves Bejing hand-cut noodles, fermented bean and pork sauce, and pickled radishes; Stephanie serves focaccia and mussels with spicy pickled peppers and tomatoes.

* They adore Nick’s pasta, and the pancetta is “nice and crispy.” Anthony says, “I wish I was his daughter!” All righty then. Emeril likes Shirley’s noodles after he added the vinegar from radishes to the pasta itself. Stephanie’s mussels surprise everyone – they usually come with a lot of garlic (Leah pointed this out), while Tom says he’s never had pickled peppers with mussels but loves the combination.

* Justin serves Louisiana rice and chicken thigh gravy, pickled mirliton, and jalapeñ Carrie serves creamed asparagus over (homemade) toast with a poached egg; Nina does, of course, a curried chicken with fried bakes, a very basic fried-dough concoction from Trinidad that uses flour, water, salt, and baking powder.

* Leah’s son says he could “go to town on” Carrie’s dish. Nina’s is good, but Padma and Leah want rice rather than avocado – I don’t think fried bread and curry is a great combination, as you’re putting heavy with heavy. Justin’s is a touch dry but otherwise good. Leah’s daughter says of all nine dishes that they had “nothing outrageously negative to say about anything.”

* Judges’ table: The stories were great and the food was delicious. Tom singles out Carlos and Nina. Padma cites Stephanie, who gets big props for serving pickled peppers with mussels. Anthony enjoyed Carrie’s. Brian gets points for the jus on his steak, Nicholas for his gnocchi/gnudi, and Shirley for her noodles. And that’s all the chefs get before they’re called in.

* Top three: Nick, Stephanie, and Carlos. Padma is telegraphing it as they walk in, as she can barely contain her smile. Nick’s dish, from the sound of it, was perfect; the gnocchi were soft and light, the peas were perfectly cooked, and the pancetta was crispy. Everyone loved Stephanie’s choice to put pickled peppers and tomatoes with mussels as something new and different. Emeril said the mussels were “perfectly, perfectly cooked,” which I’d mock except I use the term “plus-plus” all the time. She also says she smelled every mussel to make sure it was fresh, which is kind of why I don’t usually eat mussels – one bad one can spoil a batch and a weekend. Anthony says Carlos’ was so good he wanted to savor every last bite and held the last bit of tortilla till the last bite off the plate. Nick wins. Anthony says the dish “made me happy as a little girl!”

* Big cheers for Nick when he returns to the stew room, especially from Shirley and Nina. Ladies love a devoted father. Also, have I mentioned lately how important my daughter is to me?

* Bottom three: Travis, Brian, and Justin. It’s not Justin – that’s obvious – and at this point I’d be shocked if it wasn’t Travis going home. Padma admits “we had to move down to the finer nuances of the dishes” to make their decisions. Brian admits he improvised, knowing he was missing an essential element without the flavor of the grill. Tom says nothing was wrong, but it didn’t have the flavor you’re looking for in a grilled steak. Travis says he knew it was too warm in the kitchen to cut the butter into the biscuits but the dish “was close to home.” That’s the one time I could see the judges giving someone a pass on a bad decision – Travis was sticking to the guidelines for the challenge. Justin is getting defensive yet again when questioned about the lack of gravy on the rice. He shouldn’t go home for this, given what we’ve seen, but it would be nice to hear him say, “yes, Chef, I made a mistake,” and then maybe learn from it next time around.

* Tom says that for biscuits, the butter needs to be ice-cold and still in chunks. Anthony says he’s surprised Travis sent them out, so perhaps he’s a fan of the show too.

* Travis goes home. Padma makes her sad face. He was the only one who made a real mistake – there were nine chefs, and eight dishes that were executed correctly. On his way out, he says in the confessional that he can be totally open about who he is now. Good for him. There’s no reason on earth he should have to hide an essential part of his identity.

* Last Chance Kitchen: Louis wins. I found this one of the least interesting episodes of LCK so far.

* Rankings: Nick, Shirley, Carrie, Nina, Justin, Carlos, Stephanie, Brian. I feel strongly about the top three at this point – Nina’s churning out the same kind of food again and again, Justin can’t make in-game adjustments, and Carlos has been stronger lately but uneven overall. Brian seems like the only one who has zero chance (or close to it) to reach the finals.

If you’re here, allow me to plug my updated guide to gifts for cooks. Also, I held an hourlong Klawchat today.

We get a glimpse of the inside of the chefs’ house’s fridge, which is full of Philly cream cheese, probably because no one with any kind of taste wants to eat that crap.

* Padma is wearing … a kimono? I’m not even sure what that is. I approve, though.

* No Quickfire this episode because it’s Restaurant Wars (woot). The guest judge is David Chang, who says chefs should “plan on everything that can go wrong,” making it clear that he at least has watched the show before. There will also be a table of Chase Sapphire cardmembers, whom they’re calling VIPs even though it’s likely these people are just as excited that Olive Garden is going to start serving hamburgers. They’ll be sitting with Danny Meyer, though, who knows a thing or two about opening restaurants – and about good hamburgers.

* Nicholas says his team, which includes Travis, Carrie, Stephanie, and Brian, is like “the Bad News Bears,” compared to the Green team, which has more challenge wins under its belt with Nina, Shirley, Justin, Sara, and Carlos. We’ll see about that.

* The Green team has an eclectic bunch of styles, which would be fine if any of them was willing to listen to anyone else on the team. Sara is making financiers and is handed front-of-house duties by acclamation. Justin volunteers to be executive chef, then congratulates himself on his courage for doing so. The team seems far more focused on things like flatware and decor than on its menu, though.

* The Purple team (the Bad News Bears) actually discusses its menu, unlike the Green team, with a seafood focus. Nicholas takes executive duties. Travis offers to do front-of-house duties, saying “gays belong in the front of the house. Duh!” Okay then.

* The Green team is still discussing décor. If the food sucks, decor won’t save you. Has anyone ever survived just on look and feel? Or lost Restaurant Wars because of it? The car can be beautiful but if the brakes fail, you’re still gonna die.

* Meanwhile, Carlos points out that, you know, this being Top Chef and not Top Design (which was an actual show, and not a good one), they should maybe talk about the food, at which point Justin shuts him down in front of everyone. If Carlos had stood up in front of Justin and called him out on it, he would have been right – and Justin probably would have backed down. That was bully-like behavior and it was chickenshit. Carlos made an actual point, that you can’t pick your dishes if you don’t know what you’re cooking – this is known as “foreshadowing,” kids – but Justin pulled non-existent rank on him.

* The teams split up to go to Restaurant Depot and Whole Foods. Sara wanted ring molds from Restaurant Depot but her teammates say there weren’t any. I’ve been in a Restaurant Depot once and I am pretty sure I know where ring molds and things like that were. Sara’s wondering if her team didn’t look hard enough … and she’s probably right.

* Justin pulls the same stunt again when Sara questions whether a 12-cup coffeemaker will be enough for 120 diners, saying that she should just “be positive.” Hard to say this might just be editing – his tone and body language are both terrible here.

* Brian got xanthan gum instead of agar agar. I may have missed when he picked that up, but I know Bob’s Red Mill makes xanthan gum and it’s sold at Whole Foods – and the bag says “XANTHAN GUM” in hard-to-miss lettering. The right move here would be to make something different, no?

* We see Travis and Sara training the wait staff, and it was interesting to see the contrast between this and the results. Sara seemed to command attention more, to be specific in what she wanted, to keep her posture up and project her voice, and so on. Travis was kind of goofy, swinging his arms, joking about how the restaurant wasn’t set up yet … but he ended up with a much more disciplined and organized service than Sara did. He did lead by example on the floor far more than Sara did, which could have been a major factor.

* Shocker: Justin doesn’t have the bowls he wanted and is yelling at Shirley about it. Carlos is wearing his best “I told you so” face in the background.

* Danny Meyer is sitting with the Sapphire people. I wonder if they realize what a big deal this is. This is the man who brought the world Shake Shack; he’s an icon.

* David Chang on order in the kitchen: “You can’t run it like a democracy. It needs to be a totalitarian state back there.” What’s the kitchen equivalent to a prison labor camp? Chopping onions?

* The food starts to come out to the judges on the Purple side … Brian made a scallop crudo with purple corn gel and a corn and squash relish. Chang says the gel is “too snotty.” Well that was an evocative description.

* Steph, in the confessional, offers maybe the highest praise I’ve ever seen a contestant offer a competitor: “Nick has such a handle on expediting. However he’s doing it should never ever change for the rest of his life.”

* Meanwhile, on the Green team’s side, it’s a hot mess, first figuratively then literally. The Sapphire table (with Meyer) didn’t get menus. The waitstaff is turning in tickets that look nothing like the format Justin described. Food is going to the wrong tables. They’re not just going down in flames. This is Krakatau.

* More food – Stephanie made a linguini with oyster cream, caviar, and fennel. Everyone loves how she cooked the pasta and Gail loves the salty/briny kick from the caviar.

* Carrie does a sauteed gulf shrimp with chickpea puree, lemon, oregano, and shrimp butter. Her shrimp were overcooked and the butter sauce may have separted, leaving an oil slick on the plate.

* Nick’s dish was a roasted black drum (a large, bottom-feeding fish found along the east/southeast coast) with king trumpet mushrooms, oxtail ragu, and a kale and hibiscus reduction. Chang loves the flavors. Gail praises him for using a local fish and pairing a meaty fish with a bold sauce. I’m just wondering what a kale and hibiscus reduction would taste like.

* Travis’ dessert is an olive oil cake with greek yogurt, pistachios, and cherry coulis. His gel turns out way better than Brian’s, but I don’t think they told us what he used to create the gel. Other than the cake perhaps not being moist enough, this gets high marks too.

* Meanwhile, the Green team’s runners are confused, Sara is busing tables, and when she greets the judges she looks like she just went a few rounds with Laila Ali. The Sapphire table is actually still eating there, having just gotten their entrees at the time they were supposed to be leaving to go to the Purple team’s restaurant.

* Padma asks Sara for their first courses, never a good sign. Sara never wrote out their tickets, calling them out to Justin et al instead. This would be more foreshadowing.

* Sara serves the starters without explaining the dishes! Has she never seen the show before?

* Carlos’s starter is a red snapper crudo with avocado mousse, pickled baby carrots, and fried platanos. The fish is cut poorly, which kind of ruins the whole thing.

* Justin’s agnolotti with roasted parsnip, mississippi rabbit, and collard green broth is awful (per Tom) and was served on a flat plate when it should have been a narrow bowl (who saw that coming?).

* Shirley made an olive oil-poached cobia (a firm-textured, warm-water fish also called black salmon), blanched ong choy (water spinach) fried in shrimp paste, and salsa verde. David says it’s delicious and that the star of the show is the shrimp paste. Tom agrees. So she ain’t going home.

* Nina made a pork tenderloin with sunchokes and trumpet royale mushrooms. Really nice, nicely cooked, crispy pancetta on the outside, yata yata, we knew she wasn’t going home either.

* The literal hot mess occurs when Sara’s mascarpone emulsion broke in the heat of the kitchen. I don’t get this: One, don’t you keep any dairy emulsion cool, such as by sitting it in a larger bowl of cool water or a towel soaked in cold water? And two, can’t you restart the emulsion by whisking it bit by bit into a bit of cool water?

* Sara’s dessert is, predictably, a disaster: a nectarine brown butter cake with moscato nectarine salsa. Gail calls it a “weird greasy cookie.” The five-spice mascarpone was on the menu, so Padma asks for it, and Sara has to admit she botched it.

* The stew room fakeout was just cruel. Padma says, “Both teams got psyched out by restaurant wars.” Come on. If the Purple team screwed up anything major, we didn’t see it.

* So the Purple team was the winning restaurant, of course. Tom praises Travis, and Padma says his was the best front-of-house ever on Top Chef. You’d think chefs considering going on this show in the future would save this episode and rewatch it a few hundred times. He didn’t do anything (on camera, at least) that couldn’t be replicated. Yet someone next season will pull a Sara and forget to describe the dishes (except her own!) to the judges.

* Pretty much all praise here except on Brian’s purple corn gel, where he had a chance to admit the ingredient error and instead clams up. I’m not a big fan of that – it was a simple mistake, and a potential learning experience, so just own up to it. He clearly wasn’t going home anyway since the team won.

* Nick wins the overall challenge as the executive chef and author of a dish the judges loved; it was clearly him or Travis, whose dish the judges also liked. I would imagine the judges, especially Tom, were impressed by how tightly the team worked with each other. Nick’s leadership ruled the day. And I don’t think he ever yelled at or bullied anyone.

* Then the Green team comes in and Sara is just floundering in front of the judges, denying that anything went that wrong and apologizing as her pat, disinterested answer to every criticism. She and Justin start sparring over the systemic breakdown in the tickets; her verbal fire of the judges’ orders seems to be what sinks her here. Justin is going to skate on all of his own errors here, clearly, even though his dish was also a mess. He and Sara agree that one of them has to be the eliminated chef.

* Padma says “that was pretty illuminating” after the Green team leaves, to which Gail adds, accurately, that it was “depressing, actually.” Did bad service cause the kitchen breakdown? Gail says the food was bad either way. I don’t know how you could sort any of this out if you were at that judges’ table.

* Sara is eliminated, of course. She says she focused too much on everything but the “culinary side” … but she didn’t do any of that non-culinary stuff well either.

* LCK: Louis against Sara in an amusing if very silly challenge: They had to use mascarpone in a savory preparation, but for the middle third of their thirty-minute cooking time, they had to turn over the cooking to a sous chef from the peanut gallery and give orders while blindfolded. Louis seemed to win handily by using the mascarpone in an unusual way – he poached fish in it and used it to bind a vegetable side – while Sara just put it in polenta, which can be delicious but isn’t creative at all.

* The rankings, one through nine: Nick, Shirley, Nina, Carrie, Justin, Brian, Stephanie, Carlos, Travis. Nick moves up to the top spot on a strong week and a general upward trend over the last few weeks. Carlos takes the biggest tumble; his execution is a consistent issue, and the fact that he has no formal culinary training may be hurting him in a competition that so frequently asks chefs to show breadth of ability as well as depth.

I analyzed the Kinsler-Fielder trade for Insiders last night, and answered some questions on that and lots of other subjects in today’s Klawchat.

The stew-room discussion after elimination brings up an interesting note – Patty has only been cooking for three years, yet managed to get almost halfway through the competition. That’s pretty damn impressive.

We also get this exchange between Sara and Shirley:

Sara: I’m starting to think im a gooch
Shirley: What’s that? What’s “a gooch” mean?

Which reminded me that this guy was supposed to be pretty good.

* Quickfire: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame guitarist Dr. John the Night Tripper is in the house, aged 73 and looking about 20 years older than that, with an outfit that … well, I guess I just don’t get Louisiana fashion. The chefs have to make their own hot sauce in 45 minutes. Dr. John says it needs that flavor “and a hip tang to it,” and, “if it has flavor nicety of the highest order and it has tang nicety that mixes in, killer sauce.” Is that even English?

* Brian refers to the habanero as “ha-ba-NYER-o.” There’s no ~ there, Brian. Stop it. Carlos, who of course says it correctly, is only husing habanero hin ‘is sauce.

* Nicholas had his “first” ulcer at 20, implying there have been more, and says he was very nervous in his 20s, so he’s not a fan of very spicy food. I can relate, although I do like spicy food even though I can’t eat too much of it.

* Dr. John’s least favorites include Nicholas’ sauce with smoked apricots, cider vinegar, and coffee, which was too sweet overall; Carrie’s habanero and green mango sauce inspired by her Trinidadian mother-in-law’s recipe, which was “Trinideadly” hot (okay, Dr. John, that was a good one); and Nina’s “head-slammin’ over-the-top hot” sauce of habanero, ginger, and apple cider, which even Padma, who snorts powdered ghost chilies off a mirror in the pantry between takes, found too hot.

* The leaders were Brian’s green jalapeno/serrano sauce with lime and yuzu juices, which was “verily hip;” Justin’s sauce of half-roasted and half-raw peppers with fermented anchovies for an umami kick, which “clipped mah wings, slick idea;” and Carlos’ habenero, mango, and passion fruit, which “maneuver hit a lot o’ corners for me.” Brian is the winner because his “hit me the hardest,” according to the good doctor, giving Brian immunity for the second episode in a row.

* Padma looks very different during this Quickfire. I can’t figure out why. Still smokin’, just different.

* Elimination challenge: A whole pig comes in on a gurney. It’s boucherie time, with chef and restaurateur Donald Link of Cochon and artist/sculptor Toby Rodriguez, who hosted a boucherie on Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations two years ago. So we’re going snout-to-tail here, with each chef responsible for his/her own dish and the overall requirement that they use the whole animal. I’m not sure they actually did that, as the resulting dishes didn’t include the tail (fatty, but very tender meat if you can get to it) and I only heard pig ears once as a garnish.

* The effort involved in breaking down a whole animal like this is enormous, and they’re doing it with regular chef’s knives. I’ve never seen a whole hog butchered – wouldn’t you use different tools for this? Perhaps a saw?

* Meanwhile Sara is the backseat butcher here, yipping at Nicholas and the others who are breaking it down and seem to have a plan. I don’t have a lot of rules in my kitchen, but “don’t shout at the man with the knife” is one of them.

* Nicholas and Nina split the pig’s head. Nina wants to braise it for a ragu … but doesn’t that waste it? Head cheese, or testina, is a delicacy, emphasis on “delicate.” I don’t understand obliterating all that texture and flavor in a sauce.

* The editors faked me out with a red herring – we see Travis buying prefab dried ramen noodles at Whole Foods, which felt a hell of a lot like foreshadowing to me … but he skates on something that nearly always gets a chef sent home. It’s a competition. Make your own damn pasta.

* That night, the chefs return to their house to find Rodriguez and Link’s chefs cooking an indoor boucherie for them. I have no idea how maybe twenty people could consume that much food. I’m watching them, thinking I might be done after two items, only to see them putting away six or more plates apiece. A meal like that might give me stretch marks.

* Next morning, the chefs are drinking Dunkin’ Donuts coffee from a Keurig machine. I think I can speak for both Hugh Acheson and myself when I say that I am thoroughly disgusted by this disregard for the glorious Coffea arabica. You’re telling me none of these chefs brings a pour-over setup on the road? Come on. Step up your caffeine game, kids.

* And some drama out in the campground where the chefs are to cook: Justin finds a wood-burning grill, so he sets it up himself, lights the flame and gets it to his temperature, after which other chefs start to try to grab grill space, which he doesn’t want to share. He probably could have expressed that better – at least, based on what we saw on camera – but Nina’s response is “suck a dick, man.” Was that really necessary? Then again, she’s from St. Lucia, where it is actually illegal for a man to be gay, so maybe that’s perfectly acceptable to say in her worldview. Just not in mine.

* Alligator sighting. You gotta catch that and use the tail in your dish, Stephanie. It’s part of the challenge.

* Shirley says the boucherie reminds her of a shā zhū, an annual pig roast her family in northern China would hold every Chinese New Year. I have no comment on this other than that northern China just became far more interesting to me.

* Nina’s dish is “underwhelming” when she tastes it, so she adds adding cayenne at the last minute. That’s what I usually do – this dish is bland, let’s dump a bunch of heat into it so no one notices!

* Hugh’s back! And wearing a white shirt. Rookie move, Hugh.

* The dishes: Brian serves a porchetta (rolled pork loin, terrible for you but so very good) with oyster and shiitake mushrooms; Sara does a pork dim sum with crab and shrimp har gow; Justin serves tacos with wood roasted pork breast, pork liver, and salsa verde, earning some immediate comments that the meat is a little dry, probably from when his entire grill caught fire; Carlos makes his mother’s posole verde with fried chorizo tacos; and Shirley makes a “day-after Chinese New Year’s” jiaozi with pork shoulder, topped with grilled kidney and cracklins.

* Padma is giddy because the food is all so good. The shift in her character over the last five or six seasons has been enormous. When I jumped into Top Chef in the Vegas season, she was stark and often seemed rude. Now she’s at the other end of the spectrum, empathetic with ousted chefs and just generally enjoying one of the greatest jobs in the world.

* Back to the food: Louis does a pork leg with shiitake mushrooms and popcorn, of all things; Stephanie made a cured, grilled, braised pork belly, served in a pork brodo she made in the pressure cooker, topped with a summer vegetable pickle; Travis’ pork bone ramen with collard greens gets all over Hugh’s shirt; Carrie serves crispy pig trotters (feet) with snap peas and pickled onions, possibly with pickled skin too; Nicholas makes a “tête de cochon” (head cheese) rillette style, with lemon grass vinaigrette, wheat berries, and vegetables; Nina uses her pig’s head to make a ragout with mustard greens, crispy ears, and sweet corn spaetzle. I still don’t understand how you could taste the head, especially the cheek meat, in something that heavy.

* Judges table: Tom says it was the most enjoyable food he’s ever had in eleven seasons of the show. While I’m sure some of that is just how incredible high-quality pig meat and offal can be, the chefs obviously (from the judges’ comments) did a great job. Shirley, Nina, Brian, and Carlos all get some praise here, especially Shirley, whose dumpling alone might have put her in the top three. Justin’s meat was dry, and seemed to get drier as the party went on. Louis’ corn was too sweet and had texture issues. Travis’ ramen had good flavor, but the judges ding him for not making his own. Stephanie’s dish didn’t have much flavor.

* Justin is barking at the TV as they watch the comments. Hey Justin, I know you’re mad, but they can’t hear you.

* The top three are Nina, Shirley, and Carlos; Nina’s food must just taste really good, because I don’t know that she’s ever made anything that looked or sounded so good that she’d consistently be in the top three. Shirley talks about traveling three days on a train to her grandma’s house in northern China, to which Tom says, “I would travel three days for those dumplings.” Carlos’ mother made this pozole every Thursday; Hugh is gushing over it, saying the “structure was so perfect.” Tom says if Nina’s pork ragout isn’t a national dish of somewhere, it should be, maybe “Ninastan.” And the winner “by a very slim narrow margin” is … Carlos! Gooooooal!

* The bottom three are Justin, Louis, and Stephanie; I’m disappointed and somewhat annoyed that Travis could buy dried, packaged noodles and not even end up in the bottom group just for sheer laziness. Justin is defensive, but Padma says the pork was bland and two of the four judges said theirs was dry. Tom and Padma go out of their way to say that none of the dishes were bad – these were just the worst of a good lot. Stephanie reveals that she cured her pork an hour, grilled it, braised it, then glazed it, and grilled again to finish. Did she consider shooting it too, just to make sure it was dead? Louis felt like his “meat cookery” was good, channeling Dr. John there for a moment, but Link says the popcorn was unnecessary and Tom said the corn kernels’ skin was too thick. Hugh says it took away from the core idea of “treasuring that pig.” You slaughter a pig, you better be prepared to treasure it properly.

* Justin’s dish even looked dry on TV. I don’t love the lean cuts of pork, like the loin, for this very reason – we have bred the fat out of most commercial pork in this country, even the good stuff.

* Louis goes home. The ladies seem disappointed Louis is going. Stephanie also seemed on the cusp of elimination here; she seems unable to craft a plan up front that she can execute in the allotted time without losing her mind along the way.

* LCK: The two chefs to go French Market, but when they get back Tom cuts them back to just three ingredients. Louis wins despite a gritty, overthickened sauce. Was Janine’s dish too simple or boring? I’ll miss her accent more than her looks, to be honest. I’ll predict, boldly, that Louis isn’t running the table – and won’t be around for that much longer.

* Top three: Shirley, Nina, Nicholas, followed by Justin, Carrie, Carlos, Brian, Stephanie, Sara, and Travis at the bottom. I think Shirley’s far more likely to bust out something crazy in the finals than Nina is.

* Next episode: Restaurant Wars!

Today’s Klawchat transcript is MVP-heavy but I tried to take a fair number of prospect questions, and I posted my hypothetical MVP and Cy Young ballots for Insiders on Thursday.

This was in the preview from last week’s episode of Top Chef, but we see Nicholas talking to a doctor and learning he has strep throat (“step thrope,” as my daughter used to call it, not to be confused with “the cold”), so he has to skip the Quickfire and will have to forfeit if he can’t cook in the elimination challenge. Tough break, although there’s not much the producers can do about it.

* Quickfire: There is an actual human being named Kermit Ruffins. He lives in New Orleans in a magical tree and holds the keys to the Land of Pretend. Also, he plays trumpet, sings, and cooks barbecue at his shows every Thursday. The chefs must “improvise” for him, starting at one station but then moving around the kitchen to another station (with its partially-finished dish) whenever Kermie plays the horn. This is all very, very silly.

* I think my favorite part was watching Justin try to roast quail in a toaster oven. I’m sure it can be done; I just wouldn’t want to be the one to have to do it.

* The way it works out, every chef starts at one station, moves to at another, then goes back to his/her original station, and then moves one more time to a new one. I’m not sure what this proves about any of the chefs; it’s great that you can improvise, I guess, but it’s also, well, kind of like judging a hitter by his RBI total: It’s more about what the people before you did.

* Those pants. My God, Kermit’s pants.

* I’m skipping ahead a little because this just wasn’t that interesting – Brian ends up winning immunity with the dish that Sara started, a duck/mussels combo with “Asian flavors.” Isn’t that Beverly’s shtick? I was more interested in Louis’ rosemary okra with rendered pork, confit potato, and frog legs. He seems to be keen on getting the most out of his vegetables.

* Elimination challenge: Now we cook – the chefs split into three teams and must create a potluck meal, after which someone has to explain “potluck” to Patty. The teams: Shirley, Louis, Justin, and Sara; Patty, Brian, Travis, and Nicholas if he returns (which he does); Nina, Steph, Carlos, and Carrie. My money would be on the third team to win and probably the middle team to lose, since at the time we didn’t know if Nicholas was returning and both Patty and Travis are near the bottom of the remaining twelve.

* Louis says he’s doing a dish with charred broccolini and pickled radishes because making vegetables taste good is hard, as opposed to some of the easier items you’d normally find at a potluck dinner. He also mentions that he worked for Thomas Keller, which floored me as he doesn’t carry himself like that.

* Nicholas is cleared to cook. Modern medicine is great. Vaccinate your children.

* Stephanie mocks him for cooking while on PEDs, saying she’ll “call bullshit” on him and won’t put him on her Hall of Fame ballot in ten years. Has she seen his backne?

* Carrie’s hair is getting shorter with each episode. I do not support this trend.

* We see Patty’s team talking about finding chili threads for their watermelon salad. This, kids, is what we refer to as “foreshadowing.”

* Guest judge: Sue Zemanick, executive chef at Gautreau’s, whom I had never heard of previously but who also appears in a Chase Sapphire commercial.

* To the food … Justin serves hominy grits with brown shrimp, roasted okra, fava beans, and smoked bacon. Louis serves his grilled and pickled vegetables with cripsy sunflower seeds and a mustard vinaigrette. Shirley and Sara collaborated on a glazed beef with charred onions, melon pickles, and a pickled ginger vinaigrette on top.

* The grits are very buttery, which is good because grits on their own have all the flavor and nuance of Elmer’s Glue, but the judges seem to feel it’s lacking that certain something. Louis’ grilled vegetables are really good. Shirley and Sara’s beef wasn’t consistently cooked and many portions were dry, although one diner says he “ate it all” anyway.

* Nicholas notices that his barramundi (fish) is sliced so thinly it’s cooking too quickly. This is also known as “foreshadowing.”

* Patty forgot the chili threads. I tried to tell you this was going to happen.

* More dishes: Brian and Travis served a togarashi fried chicken with clover bee pollen, honey, and ponzu sauce, where I assume the togarashi refers to the shichimi spice blend rather than just plain chili powder; Nicholas’ barramundi came over a summer vegetable fricasee with truffle and yuzukosho, another Japanese spice blend, this time using fermented chili peppers and yuzu peel; Patty’s watermelon salad with tomatoes, goat cheese espuma, and Szechuan pepper; and Travis and Nicholas collaborated on caramel-glazed barbecued ribs with dehydrated potatoes and peanut gremolata.

* We don’t hear much on the fried chicken other than that it was very crunchy; that sounded sickly-sweet from the list of ingredients. The barramundi was bland and, shocker, a little dry and overcooked. The rib rub was overcooked, possibly burnt. And everyone kills Patty’s salad for sloppy cuts and lack of spice or heat. You can see this elimination coming a mile away.

* The final team leads with Stephanie’s crispy fried (I should hope they’d be crispy) baby artichokes with preserved lemon and anchovy aioli (which is now just marketing for “mayonnaise”); followed by Nina’s semolina gnocchetti with fresh sausage, and Carrie and Carlos’ summer “tiramisu” with nectarines but, as it turns out, no coffee in it, which is enough to cause the Italian government to collapse.

* The artichokes were nicely cooked, the gnocchetti were nicely cooked, everything was nicely cooked. Just once I want to hear Tom get fired up and say, “They fucking NAILED that dish.” Not going to happen, I guess. The tiramisu was not nicely cooked, however, and was more like an English trifle than tiramisu.

* The interlude has the chefs talking about ambrosia salad, which I have never had and will never have, ever. It doesn’t even qualify as food. Patty, who is Puerto Rican, can only say, “You Americans.”

* Judges’ table – the consensus is that the food was overall pretty good. The green team’s artichokes were beautiful, and the gnocchi was perfectly made, but the tiramisu “really brings everything else down” for Sue. They rehash most of what we already knew here.

* Padma comes into the stew room and calls … the gray team, Patty, Travis, Nicholas, and Brian. She’s flat-out solemn as she asks for them.

* In front of the judges, the chefs say the food was a collaborative effort. The fried chicken was delicious and nothing else was good, unfortunately. The watermelon comes in for the most abuse here – it wasn’t dressed enough and had no spice. Patty said there was a lot of szechuan pepper in the dish – I believe she said she “doused” the salad – but no judge tasted it, and of course, she forgot the chili threads.

* The green team was the overall winner despite the tiramisu. Food nicely seasoned, beautifully cooked. Steph everyone liked artichokes, aioli delicious, fried capers too. Tom asks Nina taught her to make gnocchi, but she seems to say she’s self-taught. I’d like it if somewhere here Nina or Tom or anyone said, “the key is (insert key here.” Don’t work the dough too much? Don’t add too much flour? Chill before rolling? Give me a clue here, folks.

* The tiramisu flop was really a trifle in disguise. Carlos made a pistachio sponge cake, which was good, Sue says the dish needed more layers. Tom says tiramisu needs coffee (and rum, Tom, rum!), and that he would have been fine with the nectarines and the coffee together. And rum. He forgot to mention the rum, but I know he meant it.

* Winner: Stephanie, for the fried artichokes. She looks like she can’t believe it and says she hasn’t won anything at all since high school. I’m more stunned that the winning dish is actually something a little innovative. I’ve never seen crispy fried artichokes, and serving them with preserved lemons and fried capers put twists on two of the most common accompaniments to our favorite thistle.

* Patty is indeed eliminated. No one in stew room seemed surprised either, although there’s a ton of emotional support, with Carlos saying, “we’re all so proud of you.” This is an uncommonly nice group of contestants this year, which might be why the season feels less dramatic. The bad apples were auf’d early, and now the remaining chefs are mostly getting along.

* LCK: An onion challenge: Break down a tub of onions, then do all your prep work before you begin cooking. Janine doesn’t sear pork enough, but her apple rolls with goat cheese, bacon, and caramelized onions carry the day over Patty’s seared pork loin with onions and fried/confit potatoes, because those potatoes were way too salty.

* Projected top three: Nicholas, Nina, and Justin, followed by Shirley, Carrie, and Stephanie. I still think Stephanie is a dark horse here because she has more vision than some of the chefs who execute better than she does, but this was only the second episode where she really nailed a dish. Bottom three: My bottom-ranked chef has been eliminated in the last two weeks, so this is getting trickier, but I’ll go with Carlos, Travis, and Sara.

The offseason buyer’s guides are rolling along now, with middle infielders going up this morning and starting pitchers going up yesterday. Outfielders go up on Friday. Also, the new Behind the Dish podcast is up, with interviews with Scott Boras and Buster Olney, talking free agency. The show is going on hiatus until early December, but we’ll do at least one show a month over the winter.

To New Orleans…

The waterworks are really picking up now, so you know the sleep deprivation is starting to kick in, even though we’re not even halfway home.

* Right after last episode’s elimination, we see Nina calling Michael a “dick” and a “douche.” She seems really broken up that he’s gone. I’m surprised she didn’t take his chair by the fire, too.

* John Besh comes in and the ladies swoon. Padma introduces him as the “lovely” John Besh. Steph: “Good hair, great restaurants, James Beard awards … I’m intimidated.” Huh? Great hair? He’s got that dead floppy thing over his forehead. It looks like his barber forgot to finish the job.

* The quickfire involves an overnight trip so the show can plug the Toyota RAV4. I have owned three Toyotas in the past and don’t plan to buy one again. The alternators died on all three, all earlier than they should have, and the cars are too expensive for that to be acceptable.

* They end up on this gorgeous farm that Besh says services 50 top restaurants in New Orleans, including his eight. The key ingredient here is Creole tomatoes, which only grow in that part of the country. They have a thin skin and high acidity, but are also meatier with less of the mucilaginous goop in the center that chefs often scoop or mill out. For the Quickfire, the chefs have 20 minutes to make a dish that highlights it, with the winner getting immunity.

* Brian says he has the “great beginning of a conceptualized idea.” Heavy stuff, man.

* Travis is wilting in the heat, and says he knows he’s not making the tomato the star of the dish. How does that happen? Was he thinking that in real time and went ahead with the dish anyway? Have these people never watched the show before?

* Steph says she draws a blank when trying to come up with a dish, and eventually decides to do a basic tomato/watermelon salad with feta and avocado. That’s so generic she has no shot to win, and her constant psychouts are such a huge contrast to Kristen’s Zen approach from last season. I can’t see Steph getting much farther at this rate even though she seems to be a pretty talented cook.

* Bene supremes his tomato, which I’ve never seen before. Also seems like a great way to sever your thumb, if you were looking for a more efficient method.

* Nina knows how to properly chill something: In a larger bowl full of ice. Not by dumping ice into your soup or broth. I learned that from Good Eats about ten years ago. It’s not. That. Hard.

* The bottom three: Patty’s roasted and marinated tomatoes are just a mess, which she blamed on the heat; Steph’s was too simple; and Travis’ steak dish didn’t elevate the tomato and the steak was a little underdone.

* Top three: Nina’s chilled soup had deep flavor and was actually chilled; Carlos’ poached tomato was elevated by the salad on top of red onions, cilantro, basil, jalapeño, and flowers marinated in tomato water; Louis’ tomato-seed bouillon with marinated tomato had big flavors without killing the tomato. Nina wins again, earning immunity, for what seemed like a well-executed but not very imaginative dish.

* Elimination challenge: Cook in the La Provence kitchen for the executive chefs from Besh’ eight restaurants. Each dish must incorporate … Philadelphia cream cheese? I don’t like American cream cheese to begin with, but a generic mass-market brand? How about some local farmer’s cheese? Chefs aren’t allowed any dairy but that gunk, milk, or cream, so no butter, but they will get local produce in the kitchen. They’re divided into appetizers, entrees, and desserts, with the winner getting $10 grand.

* Also, cream cheese is gross. Keep it away from my brownies and my carrot cake or I will cut you with a santoku.

* Nicholas talks about opening his own place – it opened last night here in Philly. The menu is small but looks promising, although I’m not sure if I could bring my daughter there on one of our date nights because the menu is so narrow.

* The pantry is limited to seasonal ingredients, but then we’re treated to the chefs mauling each other to try to grab the ones they want, which doesn’t have a lot to do with cooking ability.

* Nicholas wanted to do New Orleans-style beignets but can’t find yeast in the kitchen, so he has to do a “Jersey shore” funnel cake instead. I don’t think those two doughs have much in common; funnel cake is best made with choux paste.

* Sara is trying to stuff lamb loin, but can’t get the puree out of the piping bag. I have no comment on this.

* Gail says she’s excited to see what the chefs do with the local “PRAH-duss,” rhyming it with “epiglottis.” Nothing like making up your accent as you go along.

* Travis hacks up the lamb while trying to remove the fat cap, saying the knife is “too sharp” when dullness is the typical problem when the knife goes where it shouldn’t. He’s kind of got an excuse for everything, doesn’t he? He may have been right about the central Vietnamese tomato dishes, but since then it’s been a steady stream of “it’s not my fault” lines, like he’s seven.

* To the appetizers: Patty serves a snapper crudo with cream cheese vinaigrette; Brian serves a summer squash tagiatelle over poached oysters and a sauce of emulsified cream cheese; Carlos presents poached beets, pickled carrots, and a peach habanero (no “ñ,” thank you) cream cheese sauce; Nina offers crispy zucchini blossoms stuffed with eggplant-cream cheese purée. Besh loves Carlos’ depth of flavor and complexity. Patty’s is too simple and didn’t have enough sauce. Brian’s oyster was too salty. Sara’s was their least favorite, undercooked to the point of rawness. Nina’s stayed really crispy … but is that anything more than a typical Italian dish, fried squash blossoms stuffed with a flavored soft cheese like ricotta?

* The entrees: Bene serves a roasted chicken breast filled with caramelized onions and a tarragon cream cheese dressing; Carrie does a vinegar-braised chicken with cream cheese sauce and chilled cucumbers; Justin has a roasted duck breast with eggplant vinaigrette, corn cream (with the cream cheese), and chanterelles; Travis does a seared lamb with Moroccan succotash and a roasted tomato-cream cheese aioli. Travis’ looks so undercooked on camera; I know lamb should be rare to medium rare, but I’m pretty sure that same sheep will be on “Homelamb” next week. Carrie’s braise gets some praise but her cukes lost their crunch in sauce. Bene’s getting killed on the eggplant having no flavor or texture. Besh loves Travis’ dish, but the lamb was not evenly cooked plate to plate, and Tom didn’t like it. Justin’s hid the cream cheese too much but it was the best overall dish. Any dish that hides its cream cheese is going to get more points from me.

* And desserts: Louis serves a graham cracker and cream cheese bar cookie with poached berries and white peach; Nicholas’ funnel cake comes with a carrot cake-spiced cream cheese mousse; Shirley serves a steamed egg custard with olive oil- and black pepper-macerated blueberries; Steph, whose cream cheese separated when she tried to beat it into her whipped cream, serves it as a cream cheese, peach, and cherry mousse with a cream cheese short dough (I assume a shortbread cookie). Steph’s is a disaster, a broken custard, prompting Tom to say “there’s a story behind this, has to be.” Nicholas showed off the cream cheese the best. Shirley’s custard is a little overdone, needed a touch of sweetness. Louis’ bar was very soggy and chewy. I couldn’t make out what he called it – a sous brique? A soggy brick? Whatever it was, the diners did not approve.

* Judges’ table: The judges are all surprised the chefs didn’t do better with the fresh produce. Nicholas’ really stood out, far and beyond the others. Nina had immunity but hers was also awesome. Again, hers may have been the best executed, but the history of this show has been one of rewarding ambition and creativity. Gail liked Justin’s duck, and Tom agrees that it was by far the best entree. Travis didn’t cook the vegetables properly and made “raggedy cuts,” to which he says that he “wanted it that way.” Sure you did, Trav. Tom says Travis’ and Bene’s were bad family meal dishes. Sara’s lacked a balance of flavors, but more importantly, the lamb was raw. Steph’s seemed like something went wrong and she had to throw something together at last second, which is exactly what happened. I thought at this point she was gone like a broken custard.

* Top three: Nina, Nicholas, and Justin, which could easily be a final top-three preview. Nina’s eggplant cream cheese filling was “so silky smooth.” Nicholas says he saw peaches and carrots first, and had done desserts at his last restaurant because they didn’t have a dedicated pastry chef. Gail says Justin’s dish was “so composed and thoughtful.”

* And the winner is … Nina? What? Did they whack us with editing? Everything pointed to Nicholas winning, and his dish was more out of the box than Nina’s – as was Justin’s, for that matter. She keeps winning, but isn’t it always for immaculate execution rather than for her concept or vision?

* Bottom: Bene, Sara, and Travis. Steph and Louis have to be relieved at this point. Sara said she thought her concept was good, but concedes her execution was lousy start to finish, especially around time management. Bene admits he put a lid on the steaming vegetables and ended up discoloring them while also robbing them of flavor. Is that about the lid, or about steaming them too long? Serious question there as I usually lid anything I’m steaming but keep the process short and move fast when my timer goes off. Maybe I’m doing it wrong. Travis’ plate was sloppy and the judges are all over him for the vegetables. He doesn’t want to hear it. There’s a “talk to the hand, Tom” moment coming soon.

* So, Sara’s lamb was blue. Travis’ vegetables were “miserable.” Padma can’t even remember what he did and says it was a Travis-ty. I probably can’t criticize after my Renteria joke yesterday. Bene served “cafeteria” food. His chicken was kind of dried out. Tom says to Sara, “I don’t know what’s going on in your head.” I don’t know what’s going on on her head.

* Bene is eliminated. They could have sent any of these three or Steph home from what we saw after editing.

* Top three: Carrie, Nina, Nicholas, followed by Shirley and Justin. Steph can’t get out of her own way. Nicholas comes down with strep in the next episode, though, so we’ll see what that means for him. I’d had Bene at the bottom for a while now; with him finally gone, my new bottom three is Patty, Louis, and Travis.

* LCK: Frozen/canned vegetables. Janine’s scallop with corn/pea puree and crispy pancetta beats Bene’s swordfish two ways with asparagus/pea puree and browned artichoke. Tom admits he uses frozen vegetables at home, and Janine picks the two vegetables I nearly always have in my freezer. Corn freezes beautifully and fresh peas are in season such a short time that using frozen peas is nearly always the better option. (When you do get fresh English peas in their pods, though, grab them. You’ll be amazed how sweet and vibrant they taste.) The sear on Janine’s scallops looked incredible. High heat, lots of fat, wide pan, move fast. It sounds easy, but apparently it’s not.

Yesterday’s Klawchat transcript is up. Top 50 free agents ranking goes up Tuesday.

Before the cooking starts, we get a little up close and personal with Travis, who is in a deep blue funk his brush with elimination on a Vietnamese food challenge because his boyfriend is Vietnamese. We find out that Travis’ mom knows he’s gay, but his dad doesn’t, and he’ll have to tell his father before the show airs. It’s 2013. If your dad can’t handle that you’re gay, that is 100% his problem. Tell him without remorse or apology and move on with your life.

* Quickfire: The stupid Reynolds wrap challenge again. This time, they wrapped the cookware and tools as well as the ingredients. I hope they recycled all that wasted aluminum since God ain’t makin’ any more of it.

* The second twist is that the chefs don’t get to shop for ingredients; they’re divided into two teams and must use all the ingredients chosen by Padma’s and Gail’s moms. Was anyone else shocked to see that Padma’s mom is little? The winning team gets ten grand. Shirley, who appears to have no filter between her brain and her mouth, says it would “suck really bad” if her mom was doing the shopping for this challenge because she’s too slow. In a related story, Shirley is awesome.

* Not factored into the thirty minutes: All the time the chefs have to waste unwrapping the ingredients and hardware. So it’s more like a 20-25 minute challenge.

* Carrie is trying to make a sabayon without a whisk. I can’t even think of a good alternative or makeshift whisk; even if you could fashion one out of foil, it would be too malleable to hold its shape. She probably woke up with enormous biceps on her right arm the next morning. (Sabayon, similar to the Italian dessert zabaglione, is made by whisking egg yolks, often over barely simmering water, until they foam up to the ribbon stage. Sabayon is a savory French sauce, while zabaglione is typically flavored with sugar and the sweet fortified wine Marsala dolce. In the technical jargon of the industry, it is good shit.)

* The results were actually kind of boring, which I think is the result of the chefs having virtually no input into their ingredients other than divvying up the spoils within their team. Team Simmons makes a lamb with a sharp cheesy fonduta, red snapper en papillote, and a compressed burrata with pickled apples, avocadoes, and a balsamic sabayon. Team Lakshmi makes clams poached in fish sauce and served with coconut cream, snapper and branzino en papillote with a mustard vinaigrette, and a kitchen-sink soup with beans, carrots, chilies, fried okra, and a cherry/strawberry chutney.

* Justin, on team Simmons, is shown saying he thinks they have it “in the bag,” so of course team Lakshmi wins. If Top Chef never does a Reynolds wrap challenge again, it would be fine with me.

* Elimination challenge: Guest judge and “superfan” Lea Michele is here. Don’t bother to dress up, Lea. The chefs must split into teams of two and cater a costume party for her. She’s a vegetarian, often vegan but loves cheese (so, not vegan, then). She’s not huge on dessert, likes pasta, pizza, and fried foods, and doesn’t like beets. Nina rolls her eyes so hard at the vegan talk she detaches a retina. “I think that God put animals on this earth to eat.” Well, if He didn’t, it was an awfully convenient coincidence for us.

* Michael says he dressed up as a pregant nun once and “got laid.” I couldn’t hate a human being more than I hated him the moment those words left his mouth. It’s like he felt like we needed to fill the show’s douchebag quote with Jason gone.

* Justin is making beet pasta, even though Lea hates beets. Two thoughts: Does she hate beets, or just bad beets? My wife claims she hates beets, but what she really hates is canned beets or overcooked beets. Fresh roasted beets with goat cheese, or with avocado slices and a citrus vinaigrette? Come on. You can’t beet that.

* We have three arancini (balls of risotto rolled in bread crumbs and fried) dishes going, so you know whoever makes the worst of the trio will be on the bottom – unless you’ve never seen the show before, which clearly some of these chefs haven’t, since risotto is one of the great Top Chef contestant killers.

* Meanwhile, Nick, who has seen the show before, changes his gnocchi to cannoli when he sees Nina also doing gnocchi. This little bit of strategy just lost Mike Matheny.

* Have they always had a wood fired oven in the kitchen? If that’s a permanent fixture, we need some two-day bread-baking challenges.

* Brian and Bene are doing “spooky spa cuisine,” making two salads, even though Lea wants luxurious, “party in your mouth” food. I don’t even understand how Bene is still here at this point. He’s been overmatched nearly every week. And what would a spooky spa entail? Zombie masseurs?

* Nina and Michael spar over who gets to use which cooler. Michael calls her sweetheart and boo-boo and if I were Nina I’d probably clock him with a cast-iron skillet Rapunzel-style.

* Hugh is Prince Charming. Tom Orville is apparently supposed to be Jay Gatsby but really looks like Orville Redenbacher. Padma is a witch doctor, I think. No one came in a food-related costume? Hugh as Julia Child would have been pretty good.

* The dishes: Carrie and Steph serve a charred chicory puree with black garlic mushrooms, and a leek ash “grave” with cauliflower and cheese fonduta. I think we heard the least about this team’s dishes of anyone and I don’t really know if it was good or just okay.

* Patty and Nick went for autumn colors but skipped the spooky bit, with Nick’s butternut squash cannoli with ricotta salata and black garlic reduction (so at least he had the right colors) and Patty’s lemon arancini with smoked mozzarella.

* Brian and Bene’s spastic spa items are a crispy quinoa salad with mushroom espuma and a tomato salad with kale something and I stopped paying attention there. It’s a tomato salad. You barely even have to turn a burner on.

* Nina and Michael serve her ricotta gnocchetti with kale pesto and his yellow arancini with saffron, the latter designed to look a little like eyeballs. His arancini get immediate negative reactions from Lea (who is quite specific with many of her comments) and Tom.

* Travis and Carlos serve Travis’ vegetable “ceviche” with frozen lime segments, creating a little fake-smoke over the dish when he crumbles them on top, and Carlos’ goat cheese fondue with fried zucchini and a lot of chipotles.

* Louis and Shirley serve his “severed thumb,” made of braised quinoa with onions wrapped in phyllo dough, and her “worm salad,” hand cut noodles with daikon radish. They at least win for putting the most thought into the Halloween aspect of the party (which, by the way, was probably filmed in August or so).

* Justin and Sara serve his “blood” pasta with beets and fire roasted green tomatoes and Sara’s “evil eye” arancini with Moroccan tomato chutney. Sara defends her arancini by pointing out that she used non-traditional flavors. Lea moderately approves of Justin’s pasta. I’m guessing they tasted as much like beets as spinach pasta tastes like spinach, which is to say not at all.

* The judging: Patti and Nick were among the best teams, particularly Nick’s dish for incorporating Halloween colors. Sara and Justin fared well for the the flavors of his pasta. Carlos and Travis went spicy and scored highly with Lea and Padma; Travis’ ceviche was good as was Carlos’ fondue, which Tom says is a tricky dish to keep smooth and avoid having it thicken up.

* Nina’s gnocchetti were great, but Michael’s arancini weren’t, a conflict that was pretty much set up from the start of the show. (And is it really a coincidence that those two were paired up, when it’s the only known conflict among two chefs still on the program?) Brian and Bene’s entire plan is called into question – why serve two salads, and why serve salads at all when Lea wanted something more rich or decadent?

* A throwaway thought: When Lea said she’s not big on dessert, that could also mean she’s not big on sweet – but dessert doesn’t have to be sweet, or it can bring a better balance of sweet-salty-sour. I’ve had salted caramel desserts, and black pepper ice cream, to name just two. I know Italian cuisine includes many desserts involving cheese, which might have hit the mark. Dessert can be about texture or flavor contrast rather than just sugar. No one was willing to take that risk.

* Top two teams are Carlos/Travis and Nick/Patty. Padma asks Patty what it’s like to “be on the other side,” a not-subtle reminder that, hey, Patty, you’ve kind of been on the bottom a lot! Carlos and Travis are the joint winners.

* The bottom, unsurprisingly, includes Michael and Nina plus Brian and Bene.

* Travis, back in the stew room, argues that the judges can’t send home someone (Nina) after she made a great dish. He seems to forget that the judges can do whatever they want, even if we don’t think it’s fair. They sent Kristen home in season 10 when no one thought it was fair. They can and will do what they choose. We can’t do much but blog about it.

* Brian and Bene did the opposite of what Lea wanted and showed no ambition, per Tom. Michael’s arancini didn’t pack a wallop in flavor, they were too dry, and the sauce was too sweet. Padma lights into Nina for not tasting his food when they were supposed to be a team. I get that… but I don’t. She can’t tell him to make it better, or differently, if he’s not listening to her (or constantly dismissing her by calling her “sweet cheeks” or whatever). So, should she taste it, try to correct him, and then let him hang himself, just so she has a clear conscience at judges’ table?

* Nina’s dish was great. Michael’s had a lot of problems. Infantile spookiness thing with the stick through the black olive eye. (Hugh) salad boys whiffed. Watery tomato salad underseasoned and overdressed, neither was wow.

* Tom, to Bene: “We’ve seen tomato salad over and over again you’re not going to win anything with that.” I can’t accurately capture the breadth of the disdain in his delivery of that line. If he could have ended it with “… dumbass” he would have.

* Michael’s out. Good riddance to chauvinistic rubbish. Plus he was never on top of any challenges.

* LCK: Make a risotto. At least they get 40 minutes instead of 30, since risotto in 30 would be impossible, I think. Janine flies through the kitchen, gets what she needs, and makes a mixed mushroom risotto with a stock made from soaking dried porcini in chicken stock to rehydrate them and add flavor to the stock. Michael shows zero urgency in the pantry, and his dilatory style bites him when he ends up furiously boiling the risotto to cook it in time, which he claims is how he learned to make it _{(coughbullshitcough)}. He also said he couldn’t find any butter in the fridge, even though Janine says there was plenty in there. He’s an excuse-maker as well as a pig, which almost makes it a shame that he’s gone because we could use a villain on the show. Or not. Janine wins in a rout.

* Top three: Carrie, Shirley, Nina, followed by Justin, Stephanie, and Sara. Bottom three is getting more interesting; Bene is still clearly the worst for me, but Patty and Louis both had good showings this week. I’ll stick with those three at the bottom, as none of the other chefs in the middle tier took a step back other than the previously-solid Brian.

Today’s Klawchat transcript is up, as is my joint ranking of the top 30 prospects for the 2014 draft, done with Chris Crawford. Enjoy.

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This week’s guest judge is Eddie Huang, author of Fresh Off the Boat and a fast-rising star in the culinary world who only opened his first restaurant, BaoHaus, in 2009. Huang was born in the United States and is of Hunanese descent, but the challenge in this episode revolves around Vietnamese cuisine, celebrating the major contributions of Vietnamese immigrants to New Orleans and the surrounding region, notably to its shrimp industry.

* No quickfire this week – just an elimination challenge where three teams of five chefs apiece must create a Vietnamese menu, with at least one dish highlighting shrimp, and serve it to local Vietnamese diners.

* Travis is talking a big game about his knowledge of Vietnamese food, as he’s spent a lot of time there and his boyfriend is Vietnamese. All of this footage this early in the show means he’s going to end up with pho all over his phace.

* Carlos is extremely nervous and says he’s never eaten Vietnamese food, something he has in common with several other chefs in the house. I have no idea how that is even possible: Vietnamese food isn’t unusual or exotic, and any chef in any major city in the United States has access to dozens of Vietnamese restaurants, serving pho (the signature Vietnamese soup), bun (grilled meats over thin rice noodles), or banh mi (pressed sandwiches on crusty French bread). You’d have to go out of your way to avoid eating Vietnamese food. Wouldn’t any chef, especially a young one, want to explore new cuisines, just to extend his/her palate? Is this some residual anger over the fall of Saigon that I’m not aware of? Jane Fonda won’t be waiting on your table, I promise.

* Emeril and Eddie are taking the chefs on a three-stop “crash course” in Vietnamese cuisine, which Travis says he should be giving. I’m now imagining him drowning in a giant bowl of steamed rice noodles.

* First stop: Dong Phuong, the “best bakery in town,” per Michael. Eddie says it’s the best banh mi in New Orleans, with French bread so good restaurants order from the bakery. We see dumplings, meat turnovers (their versions of Cornish pasties or empanadas?), and xá xíu, the Vietnamese version of the Chinese barbecued pork dish char siu. The bakery is located east of downtown New Orleans, so it’s in the opposite direction from where I’m usually headed (such as to Baton Rouge).

* Nina thinks Michael has no talent is “faker than Pamela Anderson’s breasts.” Dated reference aside – when was the last time Anderson was culturally relevant – was I the only one surprised to see Nina dropping some trash talk?

* Second stop: The shrimp docks. Shirley immediately starts grilling (pun intended) the shrimpers’ wives on their favorite recipes, and they’re all talking about using butter. Either that’s the French colonial influence or these women have adapted very quickly to American modes of cooking (fry it or drown it in butter).

* Janine volunteered on an elephant reserve in Thailand because she wants to prove that not only is she prettier than everyone else, she’s also a better person.

* Ho Travis is pushing a tomato-based sauce he claims is common in central Vietnam; Janine says she’s never seen a tomato-based sauce in Vietnamese food, and for what it’s worth, I found a few articles on central Vietnamese cuisine and none mentioned tomatoes at all. Why wouldn’t he push something clearly authentic that still had a wow factor, like the crispy pancakes called bánh xèo, which are folded and stuffed with pork and shrimp like glorious Vietnamese tacos of goodness?

* Last stop: Kim Anh’s noodle house in Harahan, Louisiana. Owner of a 96% rating on Urbanspoon – whatever you think of Urbanspoon’s users, 96% means it hasn’t had a lot of angry trolls trying to slash its rating – Kim Anh is just west of downtown and south of Metairie, a strip-mall noodle shop known for its noodles, pho, and banh mi, the holy trinity of Vietnamese cuisine (or at least of Vietnamese cuisine as it exists here in the U.S.).

* Brian is Korean, cooks Peruvian, and doesn’t know Vietnamese that well. I seem to recall a controversy a few years ago about one chef who only cooked “Asian”…

* Sara is also not impressed by Ho Travis’s knowledge of Vietnamese cuisine. This becomes important at the grocery store, when she starts rearranging the team’s ingredient purchases, putting a bunch of items back and swapping them out for other items that will work better … but possibly leaving one key ingredient behind: lemongrass, an essential flavor in Vietnamese (and Thai) cuisine. So, if Sara took it out, no one noticed? Were all four other team members checking Twitter while she overhauled the shopping list? Five people were responsible for that cart and no one realized it was gone. You all fail.

* Meanwhile, Justin realizes he bought way too much lemongrass, but the green team never asks if anyone else has extra. Ho Travis then tells Eddie that they don’t have lemongrass, which, as Sara correctly forecasts, is all the judges are going to notice when they eat the green team’s food. Meanwhile, Travis says Eddie is “kind of a douchebag” for mocking him for deprecating the importance of lemongrass in Vietnamese dishes.

* Steph’s allergic to shrimp, which is kind of relevant in this challenge. She ends up cooking a dessert, but no one seems to point out that she can’t taste most of the dishes going out of this kitchen, so cooking any item containing shrimp or other shellfish-derived ingredients (like oyster sauce) is out of the question for her. No one seems terribly concerned about this, and the judges are either unaware of it or forgot about it when looking at her dish.

* Justin totally hacks up a Napoleon quote, claiming the little guy said, “Brilliance is winning, but also not telling your opponent when they’re losing.” The diminutive dictator’s actual line was the much more concise and forceful, “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.” Brevity … wit.

* To the food … the orange team serves Nicholas’ black pepper squid with cabbage and peanuts (which the judges said was bland), Brian’s gulf shrimp and pork belly spring roll, Carlos’ fish head soup with pineapple and tomato (which was also bland and lacked acid), Louis’ beef broth pho with raw eye round and oxtail (also bland, lacking aromatics and herbs). So orange is the new bland. Tom cracked that the meal made him want to go out and have actual Vietnamese food. I think Tom’s snark increases when he has a partner in crime in the house, like Huang, who appears to hold nothing back.

* The red team offers Nina and Carrie’s raw beef salad with pickled vegetables, which looked like cat food with slaw on the screen; Shirley’s Vietnamese take on BBQ shrimp, with creole butter and lots of it; Justin’s beef pho with rice noodles and beef belly; and Carrie’s lemon custard with caramelized banh mi (which looks like it’s just the bread). Shirley emphasizes that Patty helped with every dish, although no specific dish was hers. Justin and Shirley come out on top here, while no one liked the texture of the raw beef plate, and Carrie’s dessert flops on presentation. Mostly this was Justin’s broth versus Shirley’s giant pool of butter. I know where my money is.

* The green team starts with Ho Travis’ grilled pork sausage wraps with pineapple and shrimp paste, Sara and Stephanie’s oxtail rice wrap and pork shrimp rice wrap; Bene and Janine’s fried gulf shrimp with a Vietnamese tomato-ginger sauce; and Stephanie’s coconut macaroon with Vietnamese coffee-caramel. Travis’ sausage gets good marks, but the sauce has no balance and “smacks you in the face,” which leads to Padma saying she’s “happy to be smacked in the face by something” and Gail saying what probably everyone was thinking but really only the other woman at the table had any right to say. The shrimp is a disaster, soggy from being sauced before serving, while the tomato sauce is too reduced and reminds everyone of an Italian tomato sauce. The rice with the shrimp is “atrocious” as well, which we saw briefly in the kitchen but probably could have used more attention in the editing room. (It sounds like the rice cooker didn’t work correctly, but we barely got any of that footage.) The dessert was the best course, although there’s an element of “by default” in those comments.

* The chefs have a plank-off in the stew room. I really have nothing for this.

* Eddie’s comments on the stew room monitor, where he says “a few people did get it right,” imply that most of them didn’t. The main praise goes to Justin for nailing the flavors in his two-hour pho and Shirley for the flavors of her shrimp, and for butter. The green team disappointed across the board except for the macaroon, and even that didn’t blow Tom away. Their shrimp was “hammered.” The rice was “shattered,” like baby food. These are not words you want to hear in descriptions of your food.

* The red team is on top, and Shirley wins. Beyond just, well, butter, she may also have earned points for incorporating Creole elements into a Vietnamese dish (or perhaps Vietnamese elements into a Creole dish), and also because she had the dish that highlighted the episode’s central ingredient. Brian hugs Shirley in the stew room and picks her up, saying, “My Asian sister.” But if he’s Korean, and she’s Chinese … forget it, I’m only digging my own grave here.

* The green team is on the bottom, of course. Sara starts crying straight off in front of the judges. Tom breaks out the flamethrower to go after the tomato sauce, and he’s clearly hunting for big blame. Ho Travis takes responsibility and says he’s “had it three times” in central Vietnam, but Tom just lights into him more with a McDonald’s analogy that should have left Travis a smoldering pile of ashes. Eddie makes the more salient point – even if it’s authentic, is that the dish or the flavor you want to highlight? Then Tom turns the flame on the shrimp, and Janine owns up to frying it twice and then saucing it before service. And then the questions on the rice start, but when Sara tries to take responsibility, Janine jumps in to acknowledge that she had a hand in it, and Tom just withers the team with a “Why serve it?” Eddie says the macaroon is akin to “janky ratchet Asian desserts.” Then, after the chefs leave, Emeril calls the tomato sauce like something from “Mama Baloney’s.” I’m getting the sense here that they didn’t like the green team’s food.

* Janine’s eliminated, but doesn’t seem shocked, saying, “Any fry cook at Hooters can cook shrimp,” although it sounded better when she said it. She can console herself with her upcoming restaurant in New York City. Meanwhile …

* LCK: Janine squares off against Jason, Aaron, Ramon, and Bret in the first episode of Last Chance Kitchen, where the chefs have 30 minutes to make whatever they want. Unsurprisingly, Aaron, Ramon, and Bret all fall short, and Tom chooses between Janine’s fried oyster (which photographed beautifully) and Jason’s raw fish with white chocolate and other stuff but what the hell is the white chocolate doing on a fish dish? I don’t like white chocolate that much to begin with, but Jason covered the plate like he was grating pecorino romano or something. Janine wins. Jason seems awfully slow to exit the kitchen. Don’t stare directly at an angry Tom, Jason. He’s better with a knife than you are.

* Top three prediction: Carrie, Shirley, Justin, followed by Stephanie, Brian, and Sara. Bottom three are Bene, Louis, and Patty.

Klawchat today at 1 pm EDT.

* We start in the stew room just after Jason’s elimination. Bret starts making excuses, and Nicholas shuts him down quickly. Seemed to me like Bret was trying to convince himself, not anyone else.

* Louis talks about having a family as if it’s not very compatible with chef life. The few chefs I know well have all said that it’s hard to find work/life balance when work is so all-consuming – six or seven days a week, often twelve-hour (or more) days, and that’s just running one successful restaurant.

* This week’s Quickfire is an elimination challenge. Dana Cowan, the Editor-in-Chief of Food and Wine, is the guest judge and may have created the challenge. We get way too much of her on this show. The magazine isn’t that great – it has always seemed dated to me, like it’s still geared toward the dinner-party era of the 1970s, and there’s too little emphasis on cooking (as opposed to dining out) in it. I far prefer Fine Cooking and Bon Appetit in that same genre. Anyway, the challenge is to reinvent a popular food trend that Dana believes is, like heroin, so passé: eggs over everything, bacon, smoked foods, and kale. She says kale only appears as kale salad or kale chips. I ate a kale salad last night at Barbuzzo. It was really fucking good. Also, the best salad I’ve ever had was at Caulfield’s in Beverly Hills and had kale, hard-boiled egg, and applewood-smoked bacon, for the superfecta. So, you know, shut it, Dana.

* Janine wants to smoke scallops, but they get ripped out of the fridge before she can grab them. Scallops would make my list of foods that are overused on Top Chef – and I’d include bacon there, as well as anything truffle, and foie. That’d be a much more interesting challenge: Make a dish that excludes all of those items (and maybe one or two more.) Janine goes for bone-in pork loin instead, but hot-smoking that fully would take an hour or more, not the 30 minutes they have for this challenge.

* Michael goes all Uncle Gus on his oysters. We’re about to see Padma eating a smoked oyster plate, with third-degree burns.

* Odd choices: Stephanie is making a pasta dish with candied bacon, using the bacon fat to coat the pasta. That’s delicious, but not inventive at all. It’s at least been part of northern and central Italian cuisine for a century or more. … Bret is a bad listener and gets a timeout for making a kale salad after Dana specifically said not to make a kale salad. … Aaron deep-fries the kale, which is going to produce something very much like a kale chip. He then overseasons it, which has to be among the top three reasons Top Chef contestants get eliminated (along with under/overcooking a protein and failing to follow explicit directions).

* With about six minutes left, we see Janine panicking because, shocker, the pork isn’t cooked. I assumed at the time she’d sear it off, both to finish cooking it (it can stay rare or medium-rare in the center) and to get some color and flavor on the outside, but we don’t see that step.

* Carrie’s dish looked the best on the screen – soft-boiled egg, hand chopped and mixed into a dressing with chili flakes and lemon zest, served over green beans. It looked and sounded amazing, and I could see putting that dressing on asparagus or even tossing it with wilted bitter greens. Still waiting for the recipe on that one.

* The judges’ favorites: Nina (Scotch quail egg, confit potatoes, leek and potato puré) Shirley (rice congee with a “perfect” shirred egg, sesame oil, and soy sauce), and the visibly nervous Stephanie (fresh pasta with candied bacon and flash-fried sweet potatoes). Winner: Shirley, who I believe called it her “get of the jail free card,” which is a delightful expression and not exactly inaccurate given the history of Top Chef immunity.

* Their least favorites: Bret, for not listening. Aaron, whose kale was totally overdressed and too salty. Louis, in whose dish the judges could barely taste the smokiness of the trout. Aaron is eliminated, saying “one mistake will send you home.” It is maybe the most common mistake of all, though: Season lightly, taste, season again. He seasoned heavily, then tasted, and couldn’t hit Undo. Bret knows he “dodged a bit of a bullet” but doesn’t seem to realize there is a bazooka aimed at his face at this point.

* Elimination challenge: Recreate one of four classic items from the menu at Commander’s Palace, located in New Orleans’ Garden District. It’s legendary for its food and for its history of churning out great chefs, including Emeril and Paul Prud’homme, both of whom will be at the dinner table along with Executive Chef Tory McPhail. No pressure here, just replicate a dish and serve it to the guy who invented it.

* Did Shirley whisper “Commander’s Palace” right before Padma announced it? Was that some kind of subliminal move? Creepy.

* The dishes: Shrimp and tasso Henican (recipe, if you’re curious). Black skillet seared (what we’d call “blackened” outside of Louisiana) trout, a Paul Prud’homme dish. Emeril’s veal chop Tchoupitoulas, with red potatoes, and Brussels sprouts. And a strawberry trio – a petite shortcake, a strawberry blood and sand cocktail, and a strawberry beignet. The cocktail is a variation on a dated but classic drink from the 1920s that included Scotch, blood orange juice, vermouth, and a Danish liqueur called Cherry Heering.

* The first thing I noticed when the chefs entered the kitchen: it’s huge. Usually we see the chefs fighting for square footage or dealing with old equipment, but this is big, spacious, and looks state of the art. I look forward to inevitable complaints about space anyway.

* Give Louis points for at least saying he read up online on Cajun and Creole foods, although given what comes next, it sounds like he might not have retained what he read.

* Stephanie, the Queen of Self-Psychouts, says she’s struggling with the biscuits. She knows it’s a 3:2:1 flour:liquid:fat ratio, but she doesn’t really understand how it works. Really, Steph? Don’t they teach basic pastry dough techniques in culinary school? Can I send you a copy of Ruhlman’s Ratio? It’s on me.

* Bret doesn’t want to fight for grill space, so he decides to grill his chops to order, after the others have vacated the grill. This feels like elimination foreshadowing.

* Mini-drama in the kitchen: First, Nina grabbed Michael’s plates by mistake, even though they had the chefs’ names on them. Michael reclaims his plates but throws her okra on the cooking table. I’m actually shocked that Nina didn’t blow up at him in the kitchen; Michael Voltaggio would have torn the guy’s head off, dumped habanero juice down his throat, and put his head back on backwards, just to make a point.

* The shrimp and tasso dishes come out first. Commander’s Palace’s current head chef Jason is also cooking each of the dishes so the judges can compare. Hugh says Michael overcooked his shrimp, while Travis didn’t cook it enough. Nina whiffed on presentation (although we know why), yet her shrimp was impeccably cooked. Bene’s sauce and Michael’s presentation were the best in those areas.

* Bret, grilling to order, is in the way as the chefs assigned the trout are plating. I don’t know if he’s just a fish out of water after some time outside of a restaurant kitchen, or editing made him look that way, but they are setting him up for a fall.

* The trout comes out and everything is underseasoned, for reasons to be fully explained later. Janine’s was the best according to Hugh, which generates moderate agreement around the table, even from the diners who don’t know what she looks like. Nicholas’ was bland and unevenly cooked. Louis’ was overcooked and dried with no taste because of no salt. Tom says they’re so paranoid about getting it right that they’re getting it wrong. Were they also panicked after seeing Aaron go home for oversalting his kale?

* More drama: Shirley’s yellow beets are gone. Thank God she has immunity or she might lose her mind. Turns out Patty took them by accident and everything’s copacetic. Pea purée this isn’t.

* Bret’s pork chops don’t have grill marks, so the meat looks boiled or steamed. Brian’s is close but his Brussels sprouts are raw. Patty’s plate has the best presentation and her veal is nicely cooked; this was a big episode for her after two down weeks to start the season. Most of Shirley’s pork chops are overcooked. Bret’s sauce is closest to the real thing, but with no sear on the meat and a messy plate, Emeril says his dishes have “no love.” Hugh starts baiting Emeril, trying to get him to go back to the kitchen with him to show them how it’s supposed to be done. This is why we love Hugh.

* The dessert course turned out to be the best of the four, with only Sara falling short of the mark as her beignet wasn’t good and her shortcake tops fell apart.” Carrie nailed the biscuit (shortcake is just a biscuit with cream as the liquid) and her cocktail. Justin’s was very good across the board; Lally Brennan, of the family that owns Commander’s Palace, says, “I’m thinkin that boy might’ve made a beignet before.” Steph’s cocktail and biscuit were good; Hugh says it’s a better biscuit than the original, which flusters Chef McPhail slightly. Everyone says the chefs nailed this course, which is nice to hear so early in the season when the emphasis is (justifiably) on mistakes.

* Dana says she is a “whipped cream whore.” Moving right along…

* Tom’s summary of the worst dishes: The chefs made “basic cooking mistakes.” Justin nailed the beignet. Steph’s beignets weren’t great, but the biscuits were “awesome” (Hugh). The shrimp dishes where largely too acidic for a plate that demanded balance across sweet, sour, salty, and savory. The biggest strugglers: Bret, whose pork was overcooked without grill marks and who served sloppy plates; Louis’ underseasoned trout; and Carlos’ overblackened, underseasoned trout.

* Top three: Justin, Stephanie, and Nina, so two from the dessert course and just one from the three mains. Justin wins, probably for having the fewest mistakes? The camera shows Stephanie smiling for him, but Nina on the edge of a scowl. I’m hoping the win gets Stephanie a boost of confidence, as her pedigree should make her one of the best chefs on the show, but she just comes off as a chronic worrier.

* Bottom three: Louis, Carlos, and Bret. Louis made the spice mix for the whole group, then didn’t retaste his own food. But didn’t anyone in the group taste their food and notice it had no salt? You can’t miss that. Carlos knows he had the skillet too hot but had no recourse. Bret didn’t get the meat on the grill early enough and, to his credit, acknowledging all of his mistakes here. He sounds like a man who knows it’s time.

* Bret is indeed eliminated. Louis’ mistake this time might have been bigger, but Bret’s errors had been compounding over three episodes. Tom said there were “too many mistakes on that plate” and Emeril says he showed “poor time management.” Bret goes into the stew room, says they made the right call and he understands why. I can’t snark a guy who goes out with dignity like that.

Sorry this is so delayed, but I had no free time in Arizona to watch the show and write it up. Anyway, I posted two more Fall League columns, players who exceeded expectations and players who fell short. I also have a column up explaining my disdain for the term “clutch”, and I had Dirk Hayhurst as a guest on this week’s Behind the Dish podcast.

On to the show…

* The show starts with a Quickfire that begins right after Ramon’s elimination: Prepare a gumbo, based on your heritage, and begin that same night at the house using a slow cooker. The chefs get 15 minutes the following day to finish, and the winner gets immunity. The judge is Leah Chase, the 90-year-old “Queen of Creole Cuisine” and owner of Dooky Chase restaurant in New Orleans, which has been open since 1941.

* Michael, one of the two local chefs on the show, says in New Orleans, “if you don’t have gumbo on your menu you’re going out of business.” I believe that, but I’ve also had some very mediocre gumbo down there, so it’s important to have it on the menu but not as important that it be good.

* Aaron asks another chef, “is gumbo like a velouté base?” It’s not – velout´, one of the five mother sauces in French cuisine, involves a very light roux, while gumbo requires a dark roux for its characteristic flavor. I don’t know how a professional, US-born chef could be ignorant of this. It’s not an obscure dish.

* I clearly couldn’t host the Top Chef contestants in my house because there aren’t enough outlets.

* Carrie is going for an Iowa/Trinidad blend, reflecting her mixed roots, but the result looks more like broccoli soup. Jason, who lost his Polish-born mother when he was just three years old (and yeah, now I feel bad for the guy), makes one with cabbage, pork shanks, beets, and potatoes as the thickener.

* Michael hates his gumbo so he dumps it out and starts over. Pretty ballsy to do that even though the lost cooking time is significant. It’s a sunk cost, though – you can’t get that time back, so continuing with a crappy dish just because you’ve spent a lot of time on it is a bad strategy.

* At judging, Aaron misses the opportunity of a lifetime when Padma picks up a shrimp from his dish and says, “Did you want me to put the whole head in my mouth?” The correct response was, “No, Padma, just the tip.”

* The bottom three dishes belonged to Jason, primarily for the dried beets; Michael, whose revised drunken-chicken with dirty rice didn’t seem to be gumbo at all; and Patty, whose mofongo-style dish with plantains aslo seemed to be not-gumbo. Then we get Jason calling it “bullshit” in the confessional and I’m reminded of why I didn’t like the guy in the first place. I knew it wasn’t just the douchey hair.

* The top three were Carrie’s green gumbo (coconut, green mango, and buttery corn crumble), Aaron’s shrimp heads, and Shirley’s with braised pork belly. Carrie wins, despite her concerns about the color, when Leah says it reminds her of the gumbo z’herbes she makes for Holy Thursday. Carrie gets immunity from cruci … er, elimination.

* Elimination challenge: Food trucks! Susan Spicer of Bayona restaurant is the guest judge. I don’t know who she is and her pants look ridiculous. Other than that, great to have you here, Susan. She can’t measure up to Leah, who says “the Pope quit” but after Katrina “I had to keep going.” I’m surprised the chefs didn’t fight over who got to take her home. Anyway, the chefs are cooking for Habitat for Humanity volunteers who appear to be working in the Lower Ninth Ward, which was the hardest-hit area during Katrina, probably because the whole area is four feet below sea level (and the levees didn’t hold).

* Padma splits the chefs up into five teams. The yellow team does a taco truck with ceviche and some kind of fried food, all very smart and traditional for a truck. The blue team does a “surf truck” and Jason is talking some health-food nonsense about giving the volunteers “sustained energy throughout the course of the day” as if what they really want is a Clif Bar and a Red Bull. The green team is going Mediterranean; the three women all volunteer Louis for service duty because of his smile, which I guess is dreamy or something. The red team is going for a Miami-Caribbean theme and four of the chefs are completely ignoring Bene.

* Patty recalls when Hurricane George hit Puerto Rico in 1997 and she didn’t have electricity for six months. If you thought the response in Louisana was slow, think about the second-class status of a U.S. commonwealth or territory.

* Bene has been relegated to sous chef and it’s not clear why the others chefs have no respect for him at all. I don’t know if it’s because he’s goofy (he is) or if he said something off camera that convinced them that he’s not that good, but he has to stand up for himself and make sure there’s an item that he can claim as his own.

* Carrie wants to make empanadas but can’t find a rolling pin at Whole Foods, so she buys a giant bottle of wine and chills it for a makeshift, very cold rolling pin that will keep the fat in the dough from melting while she’s working with it. That’s pretty clever.

* Nicholas and Jason are trying to make sure that Patty/Bret don’t “overthink the dishes.” I’m just going to say that they should have spent more time thinking about their own dishes instead, as Jason’s salmon rolls, which he rolls up ahead of time so he can spend more time chatting up the volunteers, are going to get very soggy as they sit.

* To the food … The yellow team serves a dorado (mahi-mahi) and shrimp ceviche with tomato from Travis and Brian, a beef and pork curry empanada with mangos from Carrie and Aaron, and tilapia tacos with chipotle aioli and cabbage from Carlos and Aaron. Everything seems to be a hit, including the volunteer’s comment “whatever this yellow stuff is, it’s good,” which sounds far worse without context.

* We need to chip in and buy Tom a better hat.

* The blue team serves Jason’s salmon hand roll with quinoa and a honey mustard miso; Nick’s spiced shrimp with a watermelon/tomato sauce; Bret’s coconut ceviche with snapper and scallop as well as hot plantain chips; and Patty’s tuna slider with crispy pancetta, avocado, and tomato. The negatives start early here – Jason’s rolls are soggy and soft, Bret’s plantains are way too hot and the dish isn’t well seasoned, Patty’s tuna isn’t well-seasoned and the tomatoes were somehow off.

* Janine, in response to a question about doing construction work: “I’m pretty good with my hands.” Is this whole season just going to be “male chefs giggling at anything Janine says that might have a double meaning?”

* The red team serves Janine’s cold gazpacho with pickled shrimp; Justin’s lobster and crab fritter with corn puree and bacon jam, which Tom comps to a funnel cake and is the item I most wanted to reach into my television and grab; Nina and Bene’s jerk chicken sandwich with mango and crispy plantains; and Michael’s ricotta with burnt honey, stone fruit, and toasted coconut. The judges seem mixed on Janine using ginger in the gazpacho. Michael’s dessert gets raves, and it was the only dessert anyone served, which is often a plus for the chef.

* The green team offers Steph’s crispy chickpeas (falafel) with watercress and radish salad, Sara’s tuna burger with watermelon rind pickles, Shirley’s spicy grilled lamb salad, and Louis’ “amuse” … which was just a rectangular block of watermelon on a lemongrass stick? Is that really all he did? I mean, I don’t want Louis to strain himself or anything, but that seems a little basic.

* Judges’ table: The yellow team wins, and blue is on the bottom, no surprise either way. Green team was the runner-up. The judges describe the red and blue teams’ plates as “strange choices” that weren’t “as well thought-through.” That doesn’t line up with the comments we saw about the red team, though; the only real criticism was directed against the blue team and it seemed like the guests and judges liked several red team plates.

* It’s clear right away the the empanadas were the winning dish, although the judges liked everything the yellow team offered. Making the dough on the truck was the key to the dish and to impressing the judges, so Carrie completes the sweep of the episode. Maybe Jason should have put his salmon roll in a Pop-Tart instead.

* Speaking of Jason, he’s in a good emotional frame of mind for Judges’ Table: “if they’re constructive, I’ll be nice. If they’re rude, I’ll be rude back.”

* When Bret says he thought they were in good shape because they had leftovers – which means that diners didn’t come back for seconds – Padma looks at Bret like he’s the dimmest bulb in the chandelier. It’s like when you put together something from IKEA and you have a few unused screws when you think you’re done. Those aren’t bonus pieces.

* Three of the dishes were real duds. Bret’s ceviche wasn’t cold enough to begin with, wasn’t seasoned correctly, and the tostones were too hot to pick up (they’re the utensils with which you eat the fish). The tomato on Patty’s tuna slider was apparently awful and Tom was so pissed off about it that, if he were still wearing that hat at judges’ table, it might have caught fire. (Which wouldn’t have been a bad outcome from a fashion perspective.) Jason admits that rolling up his salmon early was a mistake, but says he didn’t realize it at the time he was doing it. Even Nicholas’ dish fell short due to the wasabi peas. Tom says “details” are where they went wrong, but these weren’t minor details – if I got warm ceviche in a restaurant, I’d send it back.

* Jason is eliminated. I’m shocked – he certainly wasn’t the worst chef in the room, based on what we’ve seen, and I thought the questions about Bret’s ceviche, from high temperature to insufficient acidity, would have bounced him. Jason says he’s “bitter and angry” and in this one case I can’t blame him, even though he comes off so badly on TV.

* Am I alone in thinking we haven’t seen a strong favorite or two? Paul and Kristen had already separated themselves somewhat by this point in their seasons, but I don’t see anyone like that yet. Carrie is the easy choice for now, based on these wins and what I’d call moderate ambition with her cooking, but what she’s made so far hasn’t been wildly inventive like Paul’s dishes or immaculately intricate like Kristen’s. After Carrie, I’ll go with Carlos (gut feel pick) and Stephanie for the top three, with Shirley also a consideration, and Brian and Travis both in the “haven’t seen enough” bucket. Bottom three: Patty, Bret, and Bene.

* Can’t wait till tonight’s episode, which I believe marks the return of Hugh Acheson. Plus, yellow beets are the new pea purée.

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.