PLEASE READ BEFORE COMMENTING!!!
There's a lot of sneaky intel out there, especially this season, but I'm endeavoring to keep this blog a spoiler-free zone. This isn't just for the readers, but for me, too -- I don't want to know what happens! As such, anything that's already been broadcast or has been posted on the official Bravo site is fair game for discussion, but if you've heard rumors that one chef has been hosting a lot of dinner parties, or that another chef was spotted boarding a plane to an exotic locale, please keep them to yourself... thanks!
Questions about the cast aside, can we all agree that this might be the best season yet from a challenge standpoint?
Seriously, when the most controversial elimination of the last eight episodes is the Super Bowl challenge, I think that demonstrates just how few gimmicks we've seen this season. These chefs are being given every possible chance to succeed... which raises the question, naturally, of why they're so often responding in a largely uninspiring fashion. But we'll get to that in a moment.
Wylie Dufresne seems to have rubbed some folks the wrong way for reasons I don't understand. Maybe I just love the geek factor. And what's more geeky than an egg? Even setting aside all of the symbolism and potential for witty approaches, you have an ingredient that's so critical and so irreplaceable, with funky physical properties that no other foodstuff shares. It's the perfect ingredient for a playful techy geek like Dufresne. Unfortunately, as I mentioned last week, the contestants on this show always seem to forget that the guys who have become known for MG didn't get there without understanding that the food has to be good, not just interesting. The successful MG chefs are often savaged for being focused on wacky technique, but their critics fail to understand that the same love of flavor -- extracting every last bit of deliciousness out of their ingredients -- is precisely what drives them to seek out new ways of doing so. Sometimes they're successful, sometimes they're not, but their mission is the same even if their method is sometimes alien. In Dufresne's case, the fact that he knows what's really important showed in how he judged the challenge. With the possible exception of Leah, he chose for his winner the least funky and avant-garde of all of the dishes. He saw interesting, clever ideas on other plates and complimented the chefs for them, but in the end he pinned the ribbon on flavor, and that's why I think you have to respect the guy -- at least based on what we saw of him here. Really, my only complaint about the challenge is that I would have liked to know if getting a little avant-garde was a mandate or merely a suggestion. But, you know, minor quibbles.
Then, in a lovely bit of contrast, the pendulum swings the other way and we get to discuss simplicity in cookery. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. While I think a Top Chef winner has to do more than roast chicken and it's ilk to stand out, that doesn't mean that drop dead simple isn't entirely appropriate for some challenges, and that I don't respect what makes simple dishes so difficult. The thing is, when you're cooking a simple dish -- especially for an amazing panel like that -- your difficulty is compounded in two ways. First, it's incredibly difficult to stand out. Who hasn't had a roast chicken? Not only does your execution have to be flawless to make an impression, but that intangible something special has to be present or your dish will be forgotten before you even get to Judges' Table. Secondly, you're working without a net. Screw something up and there's nowhere to hide. Everything is under a microscope and small error are glaring. And you don't have that safety of being able to impress with your intentions. Make a mistake while doing something boldly creative and the judges might be inclined to give you a pass because they see where you were going and want to reward that creativity, even if you didn't quite pull it together. Make a mistake with a simple dish, however, and it's just a mistake. At any rate, I like that they made the traditional/creative question a judgment call for the contestants, and I liked that the judges -- regular and guest -- came prepared to accept the direction the chefs decided to take it and judge their dishes on their own merits, even for a dish so personal as your last meal (mine, incidentally, would be Rigatoni all'Amatriciana with a really, really good guanciale). And so, for their last challenge, we sidestep the question of whether it should be more of a technical or more of a creative challenge by allowing the chefs to decide where on that continuum they'd like to stake their claim. Elegant.
So we're off to the finals, and what can we expect from our top four chefs? I have absolutely no idea. Seriously! Have we ever had a season where you felt more unsure of what these guys are going to bring to the table? Contrast with last season, where you knew exactly what to expect from Blais, Stephanie and Antonia. Granted, Antonia drifted a little too far from her strengths, and Blais wasn't on his game, but we weren't surprised by what we saw. The only person who surprised us was Lisa, who had turned in clunker after clunker for weeks leading up to the finals, going on and on about how Asian food was her thing while completely avoiding those flavors in her work, and generally didn't give any indication whatsoever that she could put together a decent plate, much less a respectable meal in the finals. But a funny thing sometimes happens during that long break between the regular season and the finals. Chefs who have been pushed to the brink of exhaustion get a chance to sleep and refocus physically and mentally. After being subjected to endless surprises and tight restrictions, they suddenly know what to expect and have months to plan for it. And most importantly, they're finally given a blank canvas upon which to do their work with little to no interference. It is, to coin a phrase, a whole new ballgame. And in Lisa's case, it meant she suddenly busted out a very respectable meal that, even if it wasn't close to being a winner, was light years beyond what she'd made to get there. Last year, the Lisa Effect was the exception. This year, I can't help but wonder if it won't be the rule. I pretty much know what I expect to see from Stefan. I think I have a pretty good sense of what we'll see from Hosea, but I'm a little shaky. Carla and Fabio, though? Who the hell knows? We could effectively have two or three fresh faces this week, as chefs who have had trouble expressing themselves finally have a chance to get their footing. The question is, how did we get here?
A few weeks back, I believe when the Ariane controversy was at its peak, we all started to wonder if the judges were inadvertently stifling creativity by rewarding so many simple dishes. Then, in his Q&A this week, Fabio showed that perhaps we weren't overanalyzing for once:
"The problem is that for the whole season the judges are keep asking us to amaze them with incredible food. They have been telling us that playing safe is not going to get us anywhere and they prized poached eggs and roasted chicken. Lately who is winning the challanges has been doing panna cotta, seared scallops, mousse, and grits. With all due respect for those people, how amazing is a panna cotta or a plate of grits. They have to decide where they arestanding because this year it seems like that the more safe you play the further you go. I'm happy I do simple food and this is what is good for me but I dont know how amazing the food is till the end of the competition; all the chefs are playing very safe, and I dont think that he will laugh at me."
There they are. Our fears, perfectly summed up by one of this season's competing chefs. At least one chef seems to have noticed what types of dishes were winning and responded by pulling his punches, and you can bet there were others. But here's the question. Have the judges been sending mixed signals this season by asking for wow and rewarding simplicity, or have the contestants simply failed to rise to the challenge by coming up short when they extend themselves creatively? I have to say, while it would seem Fabio believes the former to be the case, my money is on the latter. It isn't as though Tom has had problems praising highly refined, wacky, creative dishes in the past. He may not have liked Jeff's particular brand of wonky, but that doesn't mean he's anti-wonky in general and I think he's proven otherwise. My sense is that early on this season, you had some high-profile creative failures and some high-profile ultrasimple winners, and everybody just got scared. If so, it's unfortunate. But the upshot is that it means we could be totally surprised by what we see in the finals. Here's hoping the remaining chefs push themselves creatively like they haven't to date. And more importantly, here's hoping the fallout from this phenomenon doesn't carry into next season. I think the casting department would do well to ensure that a couple of next season's stronger chefs are wildly creative, to set the pace and ensure the message doesn't get sent that the path to the finals is a timid one.
Anyway, power rankings. Here's how I feel about these guys going into the finals. But will the chefs who show up to the finals look anything like the chefs ranked below? Search me.
The power rankings are not purely a prediction of who is most likely to win, or an assessment of last episode's dishes, or a reflection of the contestants' historical performance, but rather a nebulous amalgam of all three, combined with a little bit of gut feeling, to provide a relative measure of current awesomeness.
| 1 |
Stefan |
|
Quickfires |
4 |
7 |
1 |
| Last Week: 1 |
|
Eliminations |
4 |
6 |
2 |
Losing Jamie last week wasn't enough. Stefan had to go and make us sweat a little bit, apparently. I don't think he was in any real danger for reasons we'll get into shortly, but that doesn't mean a finals lineup of Hosea, Carla, Fabio and Leah didn't flash before my eyes and cause a tingling sensation in my arm and a slight metallic taste in my mouth. Maybe it will serve as a wake-up call, we'll see. His quickfire looked nice. No recipe on the poached egg with béarnaise, but the mango filled panna cotta was a witty little number, mimicking an egg while inverting the components (yolks in the panna cotta "white", whites in the mango puree "yolk"). Sounds like it was a near miss. As for the elimination, some have expressed surprise that he didn't go home and feel that Tom just wasn't willing to let him go over Leah. This surprised me, actually, because I felt long before reading everybody's comments that -- jibblies aside -- it seemed pretty clear that Leah was the weaker of the two. But evidently that impression wasn't shared. The thing is, the judges found the two-way spinach a little puzzling, but nobody complained about its quality. And while the salmon was clearly a problem, almost everybody went out of their way to compliment the rest of the dish. Stefan is lucky that Leah botched her benedict. Usually, at this stage of the game, you don't have the benefit of a bigger mistake to save your bacon. Just ask Jamie. In any case, desserts aside, Stefan has been a little more conservative in the second half of the season than he was in the first, but I'm sure he'll step it up and I suspect he'll give us exactly what we expect. But he's the only one.
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|
| 2 |
Carla |
|
Quickfires |
1 |
4 |
2 |
| Last Week: 3 |
|
Eliminations |
2 |
5 |
3 |
What can I do? I can't keep Hootie down. Neither she nor Hosea strike me as the complete package, but Carla is definitely looking like the stronger of the two at the moment. Plus, as mentioned last week, a catering competition in New Orleans is something she should be able to rock up and down to earn a spot in the final challenge. Her eggs give me continued hope. Carla hasn't been outside the box much this season, but she's hit a couple of them recently and has me wondering if maybe she really can pull out the kind of creativity I think she'll need to win. Something like the squab with peas, no matter how wonderful it was, just doesn't strike me as the kind of dish I can see earning her the title. But a high concept (if a tired concept) dish where she blends spinach with egg whites, then sets them in a pan with quail yolks to mimic regular eggs, but green? A little more of that creativity and wit and she might just have a shot at this thing. In any case, though I'm still a bit of a skeptic when it comes to Carla, I'm glad she's still around. In terms of pure entertainment, she may be the best thing to happen to this season.
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|
| 3 |
Hosea |
|
Quickfires |
1 |
6 |
1 |
| Last Week: 2 |
|
Eliminations |
1 |
3 |
4 |
Hosea goes into the finals as the inverse Carla, doing the kind of funky, creative dishes that the judges love to reward with Top Chef titles. The problem is that while he isn't screwing them up, exactly, he doesn't seem to be making them terribly compelling either. He hasn't done much, especially recently, that's grabbed the judges' attention, and both of his dishes this week were perfect illustrations of this problem. Great idea, turning egg whites into a pancake and using it across a trio of Japanese-inspired bites. But at the risk of putting words in Dufresne's mouth, his reaction seemed to be more along the lines of, "Hey, neat idea, but... mmm... well... tastes okay, I suppose." Ditto the scampi (I refuse to say "shrimp scampi" on the grounds that it's FRICKING REDUNDANT), which reflected his creative touch but struck the judges as largely soulless. It's a shame we can't fuse Hosea's creativity and ambition with Carla's technique and focus on flavor. Between the two of them, they'd make a pretty good challenger for Stefan.
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|
| 4 |
Fabio |
|
Quickfires |
0 |
2 |
5 |
| Last Week: 5 |
|
Eliminations |
2 |
6 |
1 |
I'm glad to see Fabio going into the finals on a win. He pretty much backed his way up to the door, but at least he managed to get himself turned around and charge through. His dishes have just been miss after miss after miss (even if they're sometimes near misses), until he finally gets a fat one right across the heart of the plate. He said it himself. This one was gift wrapped for him. But I don't see how the ability to reproduce his nonna's knockout roasted chicken in any way makes up for weeks of history. That said, if any of the four finalists are going to suddenly bust out a level of sophistication we haven't yet seen, it's Fabio. He's shown flashes of creative signature dishes, and he all but said this week that he's been playing it very safe. We could see a whole new Fabio in the finals. But I still say he's the first out the door.
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|
| 5 |
Leah |
|
Quickfires |
3 |
4 |
4 |
| Last Week: 4 |
|
Eliminations |
0 |
3 |
3 |
No surprises here, though I remain disappointed that Leah won't be in the finals, given the impressive look of some of her successes. A popular theory seems to be that Tom was just done with her after she waved the white flag over her arctic char last week, and pushed for her elimination even though Stefan was more worthy. I don't see how that follows, though. Eggs benedict is a very touchy dish that's all about technique (an unlucky draw, BTW), and she missed on both of the primary components. With the egg and the hollandaise off, you're left with bacon and bread -- not much in the way of a safety net. So we bid Leah farewell, and I have to say, I was actually kind of impressed by her exit interview. Not only was she self-aware enough to note that her head just wasn't in the game, but she also displayed a surprising amount of humility, talking about how she isn't ready to have her own place -- that she has far too much to learn. Though she caught a lot of well-deserved flak for being the "walking shrug" (brilliant, BTW, whoever came up with that one), it was refreshing to see that she was aware of her shortcomings and ready to get back out there and keep learning. It was a surprisingly sweet coda to an otherwise inconsistent and troubled performance.
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EPISODE THIRTEEN SPOILERS AHEAD!
Of COURSE it's Emeril. People are already scratching out their eyeballs, and dumping on the bam man is de rigueur in food nerd circles, but I'm going to stick up for the guy a little bit. First, whatever you think of his shtick, the man can cook. He may be messy, he may be all about big flavor, but his restaurants reflect a distinct personal style and it's a compelling one. Second, while his live show was absolutely ridiculous, the early seasons of Essence of Emeril were really great. He hadn't yet gone to eleven, and the goofiness was still kind of charming. And unlike the live show, which was all about him, the Essence of Emeril was about the food -- both doing it well, and demystifying it. He tried to make cooking approachable and minimize his viewers' kitchen anxiety -- "This isn't rocket science... if you like X, add a little more X." -- without dumbing it down ala some other people whose names we won't mention but rhyme with Mandra Bee. Those who benefitted from his ratings surge may disagree, but speaking purely from a food nerd standpoint, the worst thing they could have done over at Food TV was give him a live audience. It took him away from what was, I think, a really enjoyable show and buried his better traits. Point being, he's capable of being more than the clown so many see him as, and I suspect he'll rise to the occasion and pleasantly surprise his detractors.
In any case, it looks like the contestants are catering a Mardi Gras ball, so the aforementioned Carla advantage should be in full swing. But preview videos seem to contradict one another... will there be a single or double elimination? Either way, we get the sense that Hosea's in trouble, which wouldn't surprise me. I'm betting Carla's safe, so if it's a double elimination that leaves Stefan and Fabio. We couldn't possibly end up with a Fabio/Carla final, could we? Could we? Naaaaaaaaaaaah.
(Could we?)
Discuss!
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