Watch What We Say: Top Chef

By Jason Lee

January 16, 2009

We knew she was in trouble when Kathie Lee Gifford liked her.

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Carla sits in the car to go to the store between Jaime and Stefan. No one is talking and no one actually knows what they're gonna be cooking. I think it's pretty obvious that the Lamb and Chicken teams are in the most trouble.

As they drive, Fabio realizes that they're traveling much farther than the Whole Foods...the cars finally end up at Stone Farm, which is a local farm where a lot of NYC chefs get their ingredients. SURPRISE! So not only do the chefs get a firsthand look at where their food is grown and raised, but they can only use ingredients that are available at the farm.

Immediately, all the teams start to tinker with their menu. Jeff wants to make a fried green tomato dish as there are some beautiful ones growing on the farm. Fabio must change his sauce for the pasta because there are no cherry tomatoes to be found – he'll make pesto instead.

The chefs enter the kitchen with baskets of all the produce they were able to collect and find huge sheet trays of their protein, just ready to be butchered and broken down. Everyone gets to work. Drama, as always ensues.

Radhika was going to do a fig bread pudding for her team's dessert but there are no figs so she has to do a salad instead. She also takes a long time to grill corn, which irks Fabio. Ariane doesn't know how to cook baby lamb and is worried. On top of that, she doesn't know how to tie lamb to roast it in the oven and so Leah has to help her. Jaime is worried, after looking at the other team's food, that their menu is too simplistic.

I think that at this point, I'm really worried that either Radhika or Ariane will go home. Radhika just seems lost...sort of like the little orphan step-child who doesn't know what to do at a wedding. Ariane seems completely out-of-her-league in cooking this lamb, which is surprising since she's got tons of restaurant experience and has done very well in the past couple of challenges.




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But it's time to eat. The lamb team presents a duo of lamb, roasted potatoes and a heirloom tomato salad. The chicken team is doing chicken cutlets, roasted corn with a tomato salad and a chicken ravioli soup with swiss chard. The pork team is doing a sausage, zucchini, eggplant ravioli with pesto, fried green tomatoes and seared pork loin with a corn salad. There's a lot of corn and a lot of tomatoes here.

It sounds like the chicken team is a hit, with good food and nice flavors. The only quibble is the fact that on a hot day, it makes no sense to have a soup (stupid Stefan!!).

The lamb team is a mess and gets ripped apart by the judges. The protein is butchered unforgivably badly, is overcooked and has been overly dressed with pesto.

"This is lamb dressed as mutton," concludes Toby.

"This isn't honoring the protein at all," says Tom.

Oh boy. I've been rooting for Ariane since the second episode...she's been my favorite little underdog and now it really sounds like she'll be going home.


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