Top Chef: Seattle Recap
Jalapeno Business
By Kim Hollis and David Mumpower
January 2, 2013
It’s really tough for Emeril to be critical (he’s just so kind), but his least favorite dishes amongst the chefs come from Bart, who tried to combine champagne and oysters, which Emeril says is “very, very difficult.” The reduction of the cream and butter masked the oyster and lost the champagne. Next up is Josie, whose dish was pretty much a nightmarish mess. The sauce was broken and separated, which she knew was a problem near the end of the allotted cooking time. Finally, John’s preparation had no pop. John is surprised to be called out as one of the bottom three. He didn’t necessarily think he had produced a winning dish, but he thought it was good enough to keep him from the bottom. Maybe that’s the problem, though. The competition is narrowing and it’s starting to be time that your dish needs to be in the conversation as a winner every single time.
Now that the unpleasantness is over, Emeril can move on to happier things, like announcing the favorites in the Quickfire and awarding someone $5,000. His first pick is Lizzie, who used berries in her dish, which was risky but turned out to be quite delicious. Despite having a bit of shell in her dish, he also selects Brooke. Her salsa verde enhanced the oyster and really provided a taste that popped. Finally, Emeril is super excited about Micah’s crispy fried oysters with arugula salad, hot sauce and lemon, with spicy flavors that made him salivate for more. In fact, he’s so excited that Micah wins his first challenge of the season. Finally, Micah’s opinion of himself is justified in some way.
Today’s Elimination Challenge will have the contestants cooking for what Padma calls “one of the hottest sports teams in Seattle.” We know that the Supersonics are gone, and she surely can’t mean the Mariners. Maybe the Seahawks?
No. The “hot sports team” is the Rat City Rollergirls. Okay, we’ve seen Whip It. This might be sort of fun. Josie is all excited. She’s been “a professional athlete all her life,” she says. That might be a slight exaggeration, but she did play defensive line for the New York Sharks, a women’s tackle football team. At least she wasn’t the long snapper, we guess.
The chefs are told to divide themselves in teams of two, which leads to some comical awkwardness. John makes eye contact with Brooke and gives her no option other than to either cook with him or tell him no. She says that their personalities don’t really mesh, but that his comments generally roll right off her back so she doesn’t have a problem working with him. No one wants to go with Josie, which means that Bart ends up on her team by process of elimination. Her behavior with him is eerily similar to the time when Ralph Wiggum got a Valentine’s Day card from Lisa Simpson. “Bart choo choo chooses me!” she seems to be thinking. We hope that we will also be able to pinpoint the second where her heart breaks in half. (Fingers crossed!)
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