Top Chef Recap
By David Mumpower
November 13, 2013
BoxOfficeProphets.com
New Orleans is host to innumerable legendary Halloween galas. The mid-summer celebration hosted by Ms. Michele will not be remembered as such. The guests clearly relished breaking out their costumes during beach season. Other than that, the meals were a total bust. Half a dozen chefs legitimately could have been eliminated for their cuisine.
The worst remaining chef, Michael, took the fall for all of them, which was a source of relief to his challenge partner, Nina. I suspect that Michael’s heart has been broken repeatedly this season as he has watched the snide remarks about his personality, many of them coming from Nina herself. Undeniably one of the best chefs this season, Nina almost allowed her dislike of Michael to torpedo her own candidacy. The judges strongly considered eliminating her for poor teamwork instead of (or possibly in addition to) Michael. They would have been justified to do so; however,the viewers are the winner due to the display of mercy by Tom and Padma. Nina can win this season, and the antipathy she felt toward Michael should not cost her that opportunity, even if it was decidedly immature.
At the start of this episode, Nina is unapologetic about her behavior. She confides to Stephanie that she said (at least in her imagination), “Michael, suck my dick.” I…did not know that about her(?). She adds during a confessional, “I’m sorry, Boo Boo. You’re a douche.” Even when Michael is gone (and he lost at Last Chance Kitchen as well), Nina is still assailing his character. I hope for his sake that his cable went out before the episode aired. Yes, he was annoying, but Nina is behaving like she is in act one of a romantic comedy. That’s right, Michael. I’m saying you’ve got a chance!
Carlos, one of my favorite players this season, takes this opportunity to recount some of his life history. When he immigrated to the United States, the Mexican native lacked the money required to enter a high profile culinary institution. In his own words, he needed money so he worked for free a lot. Get that man a financial advisor. Anyway, the strategy has worked because he is a bona fide stud in the kitchen. And Lea Michele seemed to find him studly in other ways as well.
Rockabilly hipster Sara is glum the morning after elimination. In her mind’s eye, the start of the season had played out much differently. Instead of being the dominant player from day one, she has struggled to differentiate herself from the rest of the pack. In fact, she is closer to the bottom of the group than the top thus far. She is also homesick for boyfriend/best friend, and she tears up mentioning his absence in her life.
Stephanie does not have a boyfriend to miss. She does have a sense of longing for today’s guest judge, though. John Besh, the most ordinary looking guy on the planet, arrives for the Quickfire challenge announcement. Stephanie eyes him like a 12-year-old at a One Direction concert. Oddly, this is the second straight time Besh has been the object of desire during a Top Chef appearance. I guess money and James Beard awards are intense aphrodisiacs in the cooking realm.
Just like in Stephanie’s fantasies, Besh announces that he is whisking her away. The catch is that he is taking the rest of the players as well. Their destination is Covey Rise Farms, a relatively new outfit whose Web site states that they provide produce to over 40 New Orleans restaurants while Besh claims 50 during the segment. Given that the place started in 2009, it is a very impressive level of clientele.
The challenge is straightforward yet simultaneously brutal. The chefs are given only 20 minutes to craft a dish highlighting “the coveted creole tomato”. I could not imagine creating a haute cuisine dish in 20 minutes yet Nicholas states that anybody who cannot do so is unworthy of a chef’s coat. Harsh, dude.
Bene is the prohibitive favorite in this challenge. Why? People call him “Bene Tomato”. Carlos goes so far as to call him the Tomato King. I think I fought that boss during Super Mario Bros 2. Of course, if you are paying attention to Top Chef editing, you know that everyone who has been perceived as the favorite in a challenge the last couple of years has emerged victorious. I still wince at the thought of Sheldon failing to impress his hero during an Alaskan challenge last season.
Amusingly, Bene goes first and after Besh has complimented the dish, Nicholas wryly asks, “Are we done? They’ve tasted Bene’s so it’s over?” Alas, Bene finishes in the middle. The bottom group begins with Patty, who had come a long way over the past three episodes after a shaky start. Her plate was a mess and Besh was correct to bust her on it. Travis was guilty of the worst mistake on Top Chef, lack of ambition. His dish “played it safe”. Nobody ever gets ahead doing that. Finally, Stephanie’s heart breaks when Besh chastises her for lack of imagination as well. She describes the whole situation as an awkward first date gone horribly awry. Since Besh didn’t even know he was on a date, Stephanie has come across as a creepy stalker chick for the second straight episode. You may recall that she wanted the attention from Lea Michele that Carlos received instead.
The top group is comprised of Nina, Carlos and Louis. Nina accomplished something quite impressive by delivering a cold soup on a blistering summer day. Carlos and Louis nailed the flavors of the tomato, elevating the product per the Quickfire instructions. In the end, Nina rebounds from last week’s near-elimination to win the challenge and immunity during the Elimination Challenge.
The Elimination challenge is another shill for the farm where the players are currently located. They will be required to build a dish using Philadelphia cream cheese. They can use no other dairy products save for milk and cream. The lack of butter immediately freaks out several chefs. As the winner, Nina is afforded the ability to choose the course for which she prepares a meal. She correctly chooses the appetizer. Meanwhile, Travis and Carrie are less fortunate at the announcement. They pull out knives that say entrée. Take a moment to consider the last main course you enjoyed that featured cream cheese. Exactly.
The chefs on the appetizer course are Sara, Patty, Carlos, Brian and (of course) Nina. The victims of the doomsday main course are Bene, Carrie, Travis and Justin. Dessert, in my estimation, the easiest draw of the three, is crafted by Nicholas, Louis, Shirley and Stephanie. And the meal preparation is again chaos incarnate. Since there are few ingredients available, the chefs jockey for position the instant they reach the kitchen. Travis aptly describes what transpires as “Black Friday in a very small walk-in." Personally, I would call it the running of the bulls sans bull horns.
Bene is victimized the most by this turn of events. I have noted his passive nature in previous recaps. During the ingredients phase of this challenge he fails to retrieve the protein he wanted. Bene is a nice guy in danger of finishing last each week because he is too polite. Don’t worry, Bene. There are faaaaaaaar worse personality flaws to have than too much respect for your fellow man.
Other chefs experience different issues. Justin is feeling tremendous pressure because several local chefs will be judging this meal. These are his local peers so he knows he needs to excel tonight to affirm his reputation in New Orleans. Shirley is trying to learn from past mistakes, specifically the Beets Meltdown during the Commander’s Palace challenge. Today, she burns her first dish. Rather than going into a downward spiral, she is proud to say that she shakes it off and moves on to another attempt. Finally, Nicholas cannot find yeast, which prevents him from making another beignet. Instead, he chooses funnel cake as his dish. The concern here is significant. He has never made one before. Uh oh.
For no apparent reason, Travis states that his mother has a crush on John Besh when the average looking dude enters the kitchen. There are better looking men at the DMV. What type of hypnosis has this dude mastered?
A pair of chefs struggle mightily. Even worse, the wounds are self-inflicted. Sara, who has been glum all episode, failed to manage her time wisely. She recognizes that the dish she envisioned will in no way resemble the one she plates. Her one star review of her own cooking is, “I’m sure it’s not disgusting.” Yum, let’s eat at her restaurant! Travis screws up in a more direct way. He is trying to carve a rack of lamb. The sharp knife he uses butchers the meat, and he sees no easy way to correct the matter across multiple plates. He does blame the knife itself. What is the axiom about the workman and his tools? Travis is the proverbial workman *and* the tool.
As has been the case for the past two episodes, the courses tonight merit lukewarm reception. I am a bit flabbergasted by the consistent mediocrity as the players this season seem like a topflight bunch. For whatever reason, their skill is not translating to the challenges, though. Dishes receive comments such as “gloopy and soupy,” “What are we doing here?” “Mine was evenly raw all the way through” and “I couldn’t tell you where the cream cheese was in that dish.” And one of those comments was for a dish that earned a chef a place in the TOP group. Yikes.
After the disappointing meal, the contestants all arrive at the stew room and await their execution. The judges are disappointed that these talented chefs were standing among endless rows of delicious produce yet failed to craft tasty cuisine. The worst part is that the mistakes were of the unforgivable variety rather than the “good but not great” critiques that ordinarily cause elimination.
The top group is announced. Nina, Nicholas and Justin have delivered the best dishes this week, which is no real accomplishment. We can rule out Justin because he received the “compliment” above about the lack of cream cheese. Tom also had announced during Justin’s course that John Besh wouldn’t hire the chef who crafted any of these meals. This is the moment where I point out the fact that nine (!) opponents performed worse than Justin. Realistically, the only delicious dish of the night was presented by the same person who won the Quickfire challenge, Nina. She is gradually differentiating herself from the rest of the cast, especially now that her (one-sided) conflict with Michael is finished. She is also $10,000 richer this week.
The bottom group could be comprised of almost anybody else. And that is why Travis, Sara and Bene should feel particularly terrible about their various dishes. Finishing in last this week is akin to losing a foot race with a turtle. To wit, Stephanie presented a dish so terrible that a diner noted that there must have been a story behind the totality of their failure. Stephanie was NOT in the bottom group. Think about that for a moment.
Obviously, any of these people could be eliminated tonight. Travis is, as always, ultra-defensive about his criticism. This is definitely not only my opinion. Shirley comments at one point during the episode that he lacks the immaturity to handle the honest evaluations of others.
After the judges attack the others, they dismiss the players, almost as if they cannot stand the sight of them at the moment. I do not believe that Travis will be eliminated because John Besh, the guest judge, liked his dish the best of the entrée meals. Gail seems to want him gone more than Besh wants to save him, though.
The person who is victimized the most during the course of the episode is not Sara despite her cheerless behavior during the episode. Instead, it is Bene. Tom made a face after biting his cuisine that was enough to make me believe Bene would be going home. During the judges table discussion, multiple people note that his vegetables lacked color. They are so alarmed by this aspect of the food that I think it tainted their opinion of the dish before they even sampled it. While the episode is produced in a way that leads me to believe that Sara will be going home tonight, there is still little surprise when Bene’s name is called. At the end of the day, Bene’s kind and thoughtful nature was a poor match with the ultra-competitive nature of Top Chef.