Top Chef Postmortem - Episode 4

Weeeeeeeeeoooooooooooooooooooo, that was a close one.

This is exactly why I hate these challenges. I don't mean to suggest Jamie would have had anybody to blame but herself, but still, we just came thisclose to losing one of the best contestants in the first quarter of the season.

On one level, okay, I understand. This is the era of the celebrity chef. Even if you're not seeking broader opportunities ('course, you'd have a hard time making that argument from the set of a reality show), you have to be prepared to handle them should they come looking for you. But still... c'mon.

Anyway, disaster averted. I would've liked to have seen more of Alex. I think he had a little more than we saw. But I didn't see him going deep, and his head clearly wasn't in the game.

Rankings Monday... really, this time!

(P.S. - Does this mean I have to watch the Today Show tomorrow? Oy.) ADDENDUM: So I just scanned three hours' worth of the Today Show, and the only cooking demo was done by Eric Ripert. I went back to check the Top Chef episode just to be sure. Padma couldn't have said any more clearly that she'd be on the the morning after the episode aired. Did Ariane get bumped? (Personally, I'd rather watch Eric Ripert than Ariane, but, you know... research and all.)

Comments

[Gilby]

Whew.

And you've got to think that the quickfire performance did figure into saving her just a bit, as it gave Rocco something to go on.

[=R=]

I think it was a bit disingenuous of Alex to claim after the fact that he was trying to distinguish himself by making a dessert when before the challenge he asserted that since desserts are rarely chosen, he was more likely to get through, even if he made a poor one. I wonder if the judges were able to see the tape of him making those comments. In any case, the fact that he chose a dish that could not actually be accomplished in the given time period was a pretty good indication that he was either not a "top" chef, seriously distracted or both.

As for the 3 favorites, how annoying it must have been for Jeff to have his fate in the hands of that complete ignoramus Kathy Lee Gifford. Still, someone had to win and Ariane proved that even a salad (which included some pretty lousy-looking tomatoes) can be a winning dish on Top Chef, when judged by the right group.

=R=

[Anne]

I don't think this week made your rankings job any easier!

[Jason]

Anne, you took the words out of my mouth. I still have no idea as to how to really judge what we've seen. My best guess...no #1 this week (again!)

[kit]

Being the Top Chef Junkie that I am, I checked out Tom's and Lee Anne's blogs, both of whom devote quite a bit of space to giving advice on how to have a successful TV demo. Although it seems a handful of the contestants had some experience with cooking for TV, it seemed like most of them had really little to no relevant experience, which makes me wonder how much of this bevy of tips and insight were passed along to the contestants in preparation for this challenge. If not that much, then it seems the challenge was really about whether you could grasp what this TV mumbojumbo was all about, rather than ok here are some broad strokes about what makes for good TV now figure out a dish and a presentation. It's like if the latest fad in nyc was to call amuse-bouche dishes "funyums" or something, and explaining the quickfire is to make a funyum breakfast, and only people who know what that means actually make 1-bite-ish dishes (then afterwards writing a blog explaining what the word means and pooh-poohing the fools who made gargantuan portions).

I have to say though, no amount of advice or tips probably would have stopped Danny from his over-the-top mugfest. I guess his presentation style is consistent with his choice in facial hair :)

[Vega]

Why are all the challenges so bad this season? This is upsetting me a great deal. An almost-direct copy of last season's opener, the catering challenge from hell, and this monstrosity. Oy.

[Adam]

Kit,

I have to say I disagree with this challenge being a trick of who knows the TV mumbojumbo. Frankly, if you've watched more than one or two cooking demos on TV (they're everywhere; they have them on Letterman) then you know the basic tricks. Sure, some of the chefs have actual TV experience and have a leg up (although that didn't help Jamie) but every contestant should have been able to figure out what was realistic for the time allotted.

I had never heard the term "swap-out" before yesterday, but I knew full well that most cooking demos end with the chef magically pulling out a finished product that had already been plated. Really, this isn't rocket science. Keep your dish relatively simple, keep cooking while you banter with the hosts, and have a finished dish ready. I think it was an appropriate challenge, although doing it with 13 chefs made for over-editing; I'd have put this challenge in 3 or 4 episodes down the line.

I don't think Arianne will be dropping any outright spoilers tomorrow, but her answers could be revealing. For instance, suppose someone says something about her early struggles. If she responds by saying "I just let my nerves get to me at first", or any other variant of placing the blame on herself, I think she lasts into restaurant wars or beyond. If she responds by saying "well, Top Chef challenges are very different than running a restaurant", or any other variant of placing the blame on the show, then I think she's gone in the next few weeks.

[canasian]

What I don't understand is why the chefs wh didn't finish on time rode the safe train while people like Jamie, who got the food on the plate before time ran out but undercooked it, nearly get sent home. Not that there wasn't a common sense solution for her problem, but I'd rather have a dish that was thisclose to being perfect that met the challenge than a dish that was okay, but didn't meet the only challenge requirement (Radhika, Carla).

[John Coctostan]

I'd hardly agree that all the challenges are "so bad." I found the first two to be very interesting - and that's half of them right there. I'd also disagree that the opening elimination was "an almost-direct copy" of last year. The only thing they had in common was the head-to-head judging, which had very little to do with the actual cooking challenge. The last two challenges I didn't really mind, either. They did a Thanksgiving challenge and put restrictions on the equipment. Okay, I see where people find that stupid and pointless, but I understand it because the only other significant way to raise the difficulty is to have the chefs "re-invent" Thanksgiving. This has been tried before, and no one really wants a Thanksgiving-that-isn't anyway. And this last challenge is a cooking demo. Big deal. Forget all the other dressings - live TV, two-and-a-half minutes, etc. - they were challenged to do a cooking demo. You'll notice that (of what we were shown) the bottom three were the ones with the most issues with *their food* - too spicy, raw egg, making a bad creme brulee. Yeah, Jamie got comments on her demeanor, but that's not what landed her in the bottom. I wonder if people's opinions (even Dominic's) would change if the bottom three were Melissa, Alex, and Daniel.

[babyarm]

So last week was their rendition of Hell's Kitchen.

This week was Next Food Network Star.

What's next week Kitchen Nightmares? Ace of Cakes? Throwdown?

The new production content this season is doing a good job of hiding the fact that the contestants are just plain boring. Looks like another primarily catering show next week.

[kit]

Adam -

For me, that so many of the chef's seemed to just bomb this EC is a sign that the challenge was ill-posed to them. One thing the first episode established was the judges thought they had a good crew this season (yes, Tom was disappointed in the second episode, but I think that was more about his vision of New American combined with alot of them "playing it safe"). Also, my impression of the life of a professional chef is weird, long hours and not much time to watch any TV (as an example, Grant Achatz in his interview in the blogs section), so I don't know if it's fair to award the TV-watchers an advantage over those who have been cooking all the time, traveling to experience food firsthand or to work in lots of restaurants to build up their skill set, etc. Even Lee Anne, who I think is generally viewed as having been one of the stronger chefs to come out of this show, said she was worried about setting the chefs up for failure and how she herself took a year of media training to figure out how to do demo's herself. She provides alot of advice in her blog, but points out only some subset of it made it to the contestants, and I worry that that subset was too small.

Yes, in general alot of the challenges are kooky and would never happen in real life, but the justification is often, well it's about being able to adapt your cooking and culinary vision to constraints. My argument here is the constraints were too nebulous for us to really get a sense of how well these chefs could do in this arena.

[anon man]

I don't think we were that close to losing Jamie. She got called out on the bottom, but at the end, the food was good if undercooked because of time. Even the eventual winner will get called out at some point. Remember Stephanie almost going home when Jen did with the ill-conceived orange cheese erotica mess.

As for the winner.... Yo, Arianne! (Sorry, I've been waiting for that.) And, I'll begin my campaign: Fabio for #1 spot!

[Rahul]

Have the early eliminations in the previous seasons ever been such a string of failures (food, not chefs - but I guess that's semantics)? From steamed bok choy to ostrich egg quiche to banana s'mores to almost-crème brûlée (I don't mean to leave out Melissa's habanero blunder, which seemed like the bigger mistake to me), I've been continually disappointed by dumb choices, low-level execution, and gross mismanagement of time and resources. Not that the front-runners are really impressing me either. Don't get me wrong, every season has had its set of befuddled/stupid contestants (there, I said it). But I feel like such people have always been in the minority. Until this season. I mean, am I supposed to twiddle my thumbs until the collective gets worn down to the bare minimum, hoping for the best? Maybe on a reality show that didn't test the individuals' actual abilities within a given field. I don't know, I probably expect a high level of quality programming from Bravo. And I shouldn't...

[Joanna]

Sigh, another challenge that rewarded simplicity. Don't get me wrong, simple can be good - it can be incredible - but I feel like the whole point of this show is supposed to be about making food that most people *can't* make in their own homes. Instead, this time they dumbed it down and encouraged easy-to-make food with easy-to-find ingredients.

I do think that Alex was the right person to go home, because even if the challenge had been completely different, he just misjudged the timing in a way that shows his head was not in the game. Also, I suspect he picked creme brulee because of the "cool" factor of using a blow torch in a live demo, which is only slightly better than Jill's ostrich egg.

With that said, I'm looking forward to next week's episode. It might be gimmicky, but it looks like Gail's shower is going to be a sit-down affair, with individual plated dishes. From the commercial, I couldn't get a sense of how the chefs were organized into teams, or if there's a theme to the food, but either way the main task of the challenge seems more in line with what I think of as the better TC challenges.

[Polybus]

I was also perplexed about the judging. I was absolutely certain that Carla and Radhika would be in the bottom. It seems elemental that those who could not finish the challenge should be the first up for elimination. If not, then to survive this challenge, all you had to do was to bail out and not finish your dish. Crazy! If Jamie had simply cooked that egg until it was finished, then she wouldn't have finished the challenge and would not have been on the bottom. It makes no sense.

[DaveP]

Wow, for a second, I had a bad flashback to Next Food Network Star or whatever that horrible show is called. That may have been the worst ep. of TC ever. Even worse than the Marcel head-shaving episode.

Ariane is rocking on with her simple-as-hell stuff and acting very vindicated. We'll see how she does with a more sophisticated challenge, but for now, her whining is reaching all new heights. I'll be happy to see her leave, which should be sooner than later.

I'm still not sold on Jamie, though she was in no real danger. She really reminds me of Antonia (tho, w/o the pretense) who does the simple stuff really well (soups!), but again, I wanna see her bust out some more complex dishes before I jump on her bandwagon.

I thought for sure Michelle was gone last night. I'd really have to question her palate and execution over Alex's tactical error, but I can't argue too much over Alex's being sent packing either.

Jeff's looking better and finally showing some cooking chops. Too bad he had to be judged by Kathy Lee, who evidently doesn't like Middle Eastern flavors very much. We've had now 3 spit-outs in 2 eps--that's gotta be a record.

I'm still very strong on Leah, though she completely folded on the EC, but her Amuse was excellent looking/sounding. I still have her and the Euro-duo making it to the finals with hopefully Jeff bringing up the rear.

--
Dave

[DaveP]

Edit above post--meant Melissa, not Michelle. Still can't keep some of the names straight.

--
Dave

[kit]

Personally I don't have anything against simplicity per se, but I'm not a fan of simple and also boring/trite/pedestrian, as opposed to simple and innovative/novel/surprising. Which is why I wish they could have explained the parameters of this challenge better to the contestants, so we wouldn't end up with a winner who was one of the few to understand to aim for simple, but did something simple but generic (as Tom says, there was nothing unique about Ariane's dish). This challenge could have been somewhat more fun if we had more contenders for the top spot, doing simple approachable stuff that is also really interesting and different.

I also immediately thought of Next Food Network Star, which I don't watch because I'm not terribly interested in seeing the next Rachael Ray or Semi-Homemade. I want to see the next Jean-Georges or Grant Achatz!

As for Jamie, I think her spot in the bottom was based not only on her uncooked egg but also the reaction she had to doing badly. I mean alot of contestants messed up badly it seemed, but we didn't see any other displays of such negativity (but that could just be editing...).

[Julie]

I didn't watch the Today show, but apparently, Ariane appeared in the 4th hour (yes, they have a 4th hour) with Kathie Lee and the other woman whose name I don't know.

They need to cut back on the number of chefs (as has been said by many). Or, this early in the season, they need to do more team challenges. All of these individual challenges, both QF and EC, leaves no time for us to see what happened. The editing is all over the place and too much happens that we don't see in the 42 minutes of actual air time.

[John Coctostan]

After reading Lee Anne's blog, I have to take back some of what I said about this challenge. If she's worried about setting up the contestants for failure (when she's defended other challenges before), then I must concede that this challenge was perhaps unnecessarily difficult. I was still interested in the challenge, though, because we got to see some of the contestants really thinking about the constraints of the challenge and some not. (After spending time with Hosea and Eugene at the seafood counter, I would have liked to see more of what they did for their demo.)

I also like Ariane just fine. I didn't in Ep2 when she seemed to not give a crap, but she seems okay now, if not a major contender. I don't recall seeing her whining in this episode, but I also watched it on tape and might have ff'd through some voice-over.

[Bill]

Looking at the plates I'm surprised Ariane won and I continue to be impressed with Ridhika.

[kit]

In case anyone's interested in the Today Show segment...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28018940/

(There's a link to a video clip of the segment on this page.)

Some things I noticed...
Ariane seemed a bit rushed and to have run out of time, as she barely gets to her second dish...
They did make time to relive Kathie Lee spitting out Jeff's food, which she described as "putrid." Poor Jeff!
I couldn't shake the feeling I would have much preferred to watch Fabio. If we're going for amazing TV personality, you cannot deny his charisma!

[Ben]

Honestly I can't agree with the outcome of this weeks episode.

Jamie did well in the quickfire and that is the main reason she was never in danger during the elimination even though she basically made the same mistake Alex did that got him sent home.

Alex on the other hand had a good presentation the best of the bottom 3 by far as stated by the judges. The issue was he choose a dish he couldn't complete in the appropriate amount of prep time. Thing is his still looked good for the camera and it certainly wasn't bad enough that anyone spit it out.

This leaves us with Melissa who made something completely inedible as well as completely inappropriate for the challenge and she had a bad presentation. What on earth kept her over Alex in the end? Has Tom EVER spit anything out in the past? Didn't every judge say that there was no way they could have eaten that dish?

I think the most important part of this challenge was simply the food if everything else was abysmal as long as the food was good you were safe and thats why those who didn't finish were not in the bottom.

As for the Today show... Kathie Lee seriously needs to learn some respect her actions were uncalled for and I frankly hope Top Chef never wastes time associating with her again. Its fine if she didn't like Jeff's dish but to take the time out to badmouth him like that seems completely unwarrented.

[redpoint]

Everytime I try to search a recipe in the recipe finder of the bravo website I get the message "You are currently performing a search. Please wait until your search is completed." How on earth do you find a complete list of recipes in the show? The only way I get to a recipe is through the hot links section, which mostly lists past seasons.
Thanks.

[Bill]

I think they made the right choice.
Jamie & Melissa = good idea, bad execution
Alex = bad idea, bad execution

[redpoint]

It would have been helpful if we heard the judges' opinion about Jeff's food. To let Kathie Lee have the last word on it wasn't fair to Jeff or the viewers.

[bonden]

I think that the challenges the last two weeks have been spot-on for a cooking competition. Somewhat ironically, I think that they have made poor TV.

Grant Achatz's discussion of the s'mores was the perfect summary.

Some challenges (mostly quickfires) are "skills" challenges - taste tests, knife skills, etc.

Most, however, are flavor/composition/technique challenges. Simply - who can make the best food?

The chefs who make the finale have what is, for all intents and purposes, unlimited time and resources. That's great, but it can't be done every week. Nor is it realistic. Real-world chefs have to deal with scarcity - scarcity of time, of money, of available ingredients.

The trick to getting around scarcity - and here is where Grant Achatz comes in - is understanding the essence of what you are trying to do. If you are making s'mores, understand the essence of s'mores. If you have an hour of prep time for a TV-friendly recipe, understand that - simple, time-friendly, accessible to an amateur.

And what about Jamie? Well, in addition to the essence of each challenge, there is the essence of the show - make good food. You can miss on the parameters of the challenge if your food is good. What you can't do, can't ever do, is serve bad food. Uncooked eggs are bad food. (Think of it this way - are you more likely to forgive the restaurant that was a little late in its service or the one that gave you salmonella.)

[canasian]

Okay, I finally read Jeff's recipe and you know what? B freaking S on KL spitting out his dish. A little bit of caraway, a little bit of cumin, a little pepper, and a bit of coriander and samac do not equal too spicy to eat. He would've won hands down if the judges had any say.

[anon man]

Bill,

Leann's blog seems to indicate that once Alex's custard set, it was pretty tasty. It had lavender notes in it. But, it didn't set in the hour they had, so what the judges at was soup. Agree it was a terrible idea, but the exectuion was fine but outside of the time parameters given. Not saying he shouldn't go for that, (I'm actually sort of indifferent between Melissa and Alex.) just that I think its a little too short to say his execution sucked.

[Dave]

Interesting comments. Here are couple/few things that spring to mind.

As far as Radhika and Carla not finishing the demo on time, I think it should be a consideration, but I didn't get the sense that the time was the end-all-be-all. Nevertheless, it tells me something about how disappointing the dishes by the bottom three must have been. Add to that, Carla's tortilla soup was acknowledged for having good flavor. Leah, on the other hand, has two weeks in a row of not giving a damn because she had immunity. I seem to recall someone with immunity being called to the judges' table in a previous season for presenting a crappy dish. Leah should have been called to the carpet and warned that immunity is not a pass to plate garbage or give a half-assed effort in the challenge. To Stefan's credit, he kept the pedal pressed to the floor in the season's first episode.

I noticed that only two people were named as being in the bottom in the Quickfire. It's puzzling, because there are usually three people. It appeared that Carla didn't finish her amuse-buche. With all the editing discussed, I wonder if she was in the bottom three and wasn't shown. A curious mind wants to know.

In spite of Melissa's three-alarm shrimp dish (what was the deal with the sauce in that dish?), Alex failed from the beginning by choosing to do a dish that he knew couldn't be completed in the time alloted for prep. That was just dumb. I don't want to hear all the excusifying (that's a word right?) about him being mentally distracted with his upcoming wedding. I'm sure a drunken prospective groom would know better than to try to make and serve a creme brule within an hour.

Does anyone else wonder whether the producers are teasing us, or cuing up an romp with Hosea and Leah? Even Carla chimed in by observing "sexual chemistry" between the two. That line was good for a chortle.

[Bill]

anon man,
This statement:

"Agree it was a terrible idea, but the exectuion was fine but outside of the time parameters given."

suggests to me the execution was not fine. If it was, it would have been within the parameters of the time. It's one thing to cut it close like Jamie, who could probably have gotten the timing down given another opportunity. Alex could have been given an infinite number of opportunities and never pulled that plan off.
I think it's a moot point anyway as I don't think Alex or Melissa had/have a chance of making it to the final three.

[Ben]

@Bill

I find your claim just wrong. Alex made a fine dish it just lacked enough time to set and if he had the additional time it would have set properly. Which is exactly the same thing you can say about Jamie.

Alex: had the bad idea to do something without the appropriate prep time. Both the taste and presentation were fine it simply wasn't what he said he was making. He was also smart enough to use a switchout unlike other chefs and was complimented as having the best presentation of the bottom group and finishing in time.

Jamie: Misjudged the amount of time she had to do the presentation. Had she precooked the egg and done a switch out she would have been fine. Instead she knew the egg wasn't done and served her dish anyway with it raw the same level of cooking mistake people have been asking to crucify others for and very similar to what Alex was sent home for. She also gave up on her presentation the moment she put the raw egg on the dish and completely failed the presentation as a result.

Melissa: Her dish was completely inedible we had Tom of all people spit the thing out which I don't believe has happened in 5 seasons. Every single judge said they couldn't eat it and her presentation was poor. She also claimed she tasted the food which reflects poorly on her pallet and states to me that no amount of time could have fixed that mistake.

So thats why in the end I felt Melissa is the one to go. She did NOTHING right at all. The only thing Alex did wrong was misjudge time if he could have let it set it would have been perfect and if Jamie had finished cooking her egg hers would have also been perfect. So explain to me what would have fixed the mistakes Melissa made because I'm pretty sure nothing could have saved that dish.

[Bill]

What would have fixed Melissa's dish was seasoning it correctly. Jamie & Melissa's dishes could have been done properly within the parameters of the challenge. Alex's could not. Time-wise what he attempted to do was impossible, he knew it was impossible and everyone else knew it was impossible.
So what does it say when you try something so far removed from the reality of the challenge?

[Trudy]

I enjoy this site and the insights. I found this review of Fabio's restaurant after it first opened in 2007. Thought you all would find it interesting. You may have to input the links "manually".

http://www.la.com/dining/Restaurant_Review_Cafe_Firenze.html

or this one that gives a better tip about the prices.

http://www.gayot.com/restaurantpages/info.php?tag=VCRES071201&code=VC

[Ben]

Except both Jamie and Alex knew where they went wrong and Alex clearly believed he could pull it off at the start based on his side interview.

Melissa on the other hand stated she tasted the dish and felt the seasoning was correct so its not like she made a mistake in the seasoning she felt the dish was complete and simply has a faulty pallet.

Also how long would Alex have needed for his dish to set perfectly? They indeed had only a hour to prep and make the dish but everyone's presentation took at least 3 minutes. Considering the number of chefs and depending on the order he had upto an extra 36 minutes from that alone.

If Melissa hadn't blatantly stated she tried the dish and she likes things hot and intended for it to come out as it had I wouldn't be so against her being kept in this situation but she stood by the seasoning in the end.

[Rabrab]

Melissa's palate isn't necessarily faulty. Her judgement is questionable, though.

It sounds like she made a classic Mexican dish, camarones la diabla -- The She-Devil's Shrimp. Properly made, it's fiery as all get-out, although which chiles are used varies greatly, with some recipes calling for one habanero or 2-3 serranos, and others using 8-10 guajillos; along with poblanos, anchos and/or chipotles.

Where she made her mistake is in making it for people without knowing their capsacin-tolerance. I love camarones la diabla, but I would -never- serve it to people who didn't know exactly what they were getting.

[Lon]

We need to remember that with so many contestants left, what the challenges are geared toward is versatility and ability to cope with curveballs. There is a reason why the later shows are better: i.e. the best chefs finally cook and there are few enough of them we can distinguish between them.

At this point, the show isn't even giving us samples of everyone's work, so how can we tell who the better performers are?

Looking back at season 1, for example, I remember Harold often saying, "that's not the kind of cook I am" or something similar. But he had enough natural talent to swim through the weird stuff and finally, when the chips were down, produce a winning meal.

[kit]

I've been thinking about how it really seems Alex didn't "have his head in the game" and the comments Melissa made at judges table. What I can't figure out is whether the judges, at that time, could tell that Alex was no longer invested in the competition. They have him saying he thinks Melissa was under-bus-throwing him, but the clip of judges table they showed didn't have her naming any names. I can't help but think that the judges would be swayed if they knew someone had really just given up or no longer wanted to be there, which also makes me wonder if that played a factor in his elimination (not that he didn't give them other reasons to eliminate him...). Any thoughts?

[Gilby]

Thing is, everybody who tried Melissa's dish found it impossible to eat. Read Leanne's blog. I really have to go with her on this one that the wrong person was sent home.

That said, does it matter all that much. If Alex hadn't gone this week, he'd be gone in the next few. The chaff is just about gone from this collection of chefs. Melissa and Danny are really the only two left that don't seem to measure up. We're going to be into that middle group of good-chefs-who-can-go-far-but-probably-not-win really soon. And that group is rather small, as I'd peg as many as six to ten as real contenders this time out, leaving only one to five in that chewy middle.

This group doesn't seem to have those one or two talents at the top that completely overshine the rest. Last season we talked about Richard as almost being a ringer, and if it hadn't been for him, we'd have been saying the same thing about Stephanie. Both had so much more experience to bring to the table than the rest. A couple of other contenders just behind them, and then a drop-off to that group of good-chefs-who-can-go-far-but-probably-not-win. So we had to get down to four before we saw real ones knocked out, ideally (though of course Lisa snuck in from that other group.)

Anyway, like I was saying, we don't have that massive gap between a top two and the rest this year. Or even a top four and the rest. Again, between six and ten seem really tough. Yeah, members of that group have made missteps, but so did Richard, Steph and others. These early shows have enough chaff to save the real contenders for when things get really interesting--this is when we see just how big that top group is.

[redpoint]

Call me crazy but perhaps everyone has been underestimating and overlooking Carla. Although she hasn't been in the top in the quick fires, every time the judges say very complimentary things about her dishes. My guess is her dishes are quite tasty and well thought out. She seems very sweet, also.

[Gilby]

Carla?

Maybe. She's certainly better than the excess material that has been shed so far, and will be shed in the next couple of weeks as Danny and Melissa are sent packing. But I wouldn't say she's a real contender. Nope, part of that middle group that can do some good things but not really be in any position to win.

[Ed T.]

"Where she [Melissa] made her mistake is in making it for people without knowing their capsacin-tolerance."

Actually, she committed a much more serious sin (or 2): she used an ingredient (habanero) which can cause injury if proper precautions are not taken (for this reason, it is inappropriate for a demo of a dish that home cooks can make themselves. Note that when TFN demos such an ingredient, they have all sorts of warnings.)

Second (maybe): she prepared such a spicy dish for the judges, risking destroying their palates and thus making it impossible to judge those cheftestants who served their dishes after her.

BTW, I agree with Lee Ann: http://blog.etee2k.net/index.php/etee/2008/12/top-chef-5-some-like-it-hot

~EdT.

[redpoint]

All the chefs should know by now that Tom does not like spicy food. Remember the challenge when Dale, Stephanie, and Lisa won for the fire-spicy shrimp with bacon. Tom even had a problem with that. Leave the spice for the quick fires. Winning the game very much relies on appealling to Tom's personal and fairly conventional tastes.

[B]

The main thing the responses to this season of Top Chef tells me is, the Top Chef producers can't catch a break! In previous seasons, people complained and complained about the number of team-based, catering-style elimination challenges. This season, there are more individual competitions...and people complain. Last season was full of drama, centering around "personalities" like Lisa, and people complained that they couldn't even watch Top Chef anymore because of the drama. So this season there don't seem to be any major drama queens among the cheftestants...and people complain that the chefs are boring. Ah well.

One tiny thing that really bugged me in this episode was judges describing Jamie's duck egg as "raw" and "uncooked." OK, it was undercooked, sure, but RAW? It's not like she just cracked an egg over the salad. I dunno, I just can't stand that kind of hyperbole.