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Friday, September 28, 2012
12:29 pm
17 Comments
Critics comments: Awesome. Sweet and sharp, delicious, short rib is dry.
Curtis thanks them for an incredible meal.
Thanks boys. And thanks to MisRed for inflating my ego week after week
As the Chefs go back to the kitchen, Chris believes he blew it. He thinks he went too simple. (And it’s killing me- this waiting. At this point I posted on Facebook that if Chris doesn’t win this thing I’m throwing my TV out the window. My husband’s (MrRed) response: “That’s a great excuse to get a new TV.” So yeah, he’s clearly, completely, invested in this.)
As Chris and Kerry sit in the Whine Room, they talk about how they feel it went. Kerry notes that they are apples and oranges. Comparing them will be tough. Chris knows that cooking Offal is risky, but he can’t bend who he is to suit this competition.
The Critics debate the two presentations. Kerry is “happy coma” and Chris is “daring bravado.”
I read Curtis Stone’s blog this morning and he says it as well as I could have, he wrote “Imagine standing up and being judged on your soul? Two extraordinarily talented chefs with wildly different cooking styles put all they had into the last Elimination Challenge. I loved this final challenge because being a chef is more than just understanding flavor profiles and acidity. At its core, it’s about communication. With every plate, a chef’s vision is sent out onto the table for someone to literally consume. It’s one of the reasons being critiqued is so difficult. Sure chefs have egos—you need one to be so ballsy as to send your vision out to 200 diners on a Saturday night. But they also have imagination and heart, and the food expresses those in a pretty raw way. So to be judged poorly can feel intense, whether the criticism was about execution, technique or concept.”
Chefs are artists. The food is intensely personal. To cook in a hot kitchen, sweating, rushing, timing all elements to come together, each perfectly cooked at the same time, on the “canvas” is ART. They create something that physically goes into one’s body and nourishes them, it satisfies cravings and can make one sublimely happy or wretchedly ill. When you break it down, it’s a CRAZY profession. Chefs have to have an intense fire in their belly. To be working when other people are relaxing, to spend the bulk of your life over a stove or a cutting board- missing huge chunks of time with your children and family. Burning yourself, cutting yourself- all to give something to someone else to enjoy. It’s powerful. And these guys are doing this FOR CHARITY.
Coma vs Bravado
The boys are called into Critics’ Table. On the line, again, is $100,000 for the charity of their choice and the title Top Chef Master.
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17 Comments
YAY! And may I say YAYAYAYAYAYAY!
too bad the final wasn’t to cook for the posche fashion show. YEAH for chris, he seemed to me a very helpful competitor all season~i thought the problems with art were all on art. the TC MASTERS have another nice-guy winner to join bayleaf, mary sue, and floyd cardozo. marcus samuelson, not so nice but obviously a great chef. yeah takashi for fan favorite. an enjoyable season; thanks for the excellent recaps.
YAY Chris! And Yay Takashi.
I watched Watch What Happens Live afterwards. And Andy revealed that Fan Favorite was a tie between Takashi and Lorena at the beginning of the show and asked who would win. And Daddy Tom asked if it was sponsored by Taco Bell.
Mmmany thanks MisRed!!
And mmmucho congrats to Cosentino – a truly lovely human being inside and out (seriously – he and his food are scrumptious!!)
mmm
@sagittariuskim Really? Too funny LOL! I can’t imagine who was voting for Lorena!
Thank you for the recaps, MisRed! Loved all the food porn! J-Mo would have a field day!, like you had with Stone!
I’m so glad Chris won!
How smug did Kerry look in the Whine Room? Just me?
I feared Kerry would win, even though I came around to liking him. I think it was easy to paint him in a sullen light because he seems introverted and didn’t have a natural ally on the show, but he also seemed to hang with the original gang of four (Chris, Patricia, Thierry and Takashi) as their unofficial fifth.
The TC franchise tends to want to reward the risky chefs, and are willing to allow some minor imperfections from someone like Chris. Although if John Curtas’ dumbassery gets cut out it seemed a lot closer. Regardless I’m happy Chris and his funny little butcher’s apron won. He seems like such a lovely person.
And now that’s two winners in a row (Paul Qui on original recipe TC and Chris) who were just so damn likeable that they reminded me why this is my favorite reality show.
But I’m so glad for Chris
Congrats to Chris, he really earned it! And another big yay for takashi!
Lorena who?
Yayy!!
I was scared because of the way that the critics were talking about the food, but I’m glad that the right person won.
Also, if I get married, I hope my husband will like me as much as Chris likes his wife. He was seriously cute, going on about how awesome his wife was and then tearing up at the table about how he isn’t at home enough.
Kerry says that he likes his wife, but he gets side-eye from me for continuously mentioning showgirls and that crack about thinking Curtis’ suite was Dita von Teese’s. And frankly, I think his lack of emotion in this challenge was weird. This was supposed to be a personal challenge, and you can tell that he conceived his dishes and then tried to force them into the context of the challenge. If he had won, I would have had to smash everything I own.
Also super happy that Takashi won fan favorite.
Maybe Taco Bell threatened all their employees to make them vote for Lorena for fan favorite.
I refuse to believe that people could like her as much as they like the adorable Takashi-san.
And thank you for the recaps, MisRed!
It was especially awesome to get your insights and knowledge as a person who understands chef-y things.
Revolution should be pretty interesting. *moseys over*
It did seem that Kerry was just phoning it in – he even said that he picked four courses and figured out how they could fit in the challenge. Happy that Chris won.
I love Francis Lam, but watching him strain to be poetic over a plebian breakfast plate was painful.
.
Yes, I said “breakfast plate.” This was Top Chef Masters fer chrissakes, and your finale dish should show more skill and creativity than sausage and frickin’ eggs. (Your “perfectly cooked fried eggs for 24 people” analogy will have every fry cook in the land laughing with disdain.)
.
. And for what it’s worth, I’ll put my food chops up against a glorified fry cook like Bourdain anyday….but I do LOVE his show….and admire him for leaping to his wife’s defense when I called her out for her defamatory comments about Las Vegas. As a human being though, he’s a putz.
.
(BTW: Chris deserved to win, as his dishes were the strongest overall, but sausage, eggs and oysters….COME ON ALREADY! ;-} )
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And finally, thanks for the post. Very entertaining. It’s always fun to start a passionate debate with articulate, civilized people…unlike glorified fry cooks.
Mr. Curtas, I appreciate that you took the time to read my stupid little recap and made a comment.
Yes, any fry cook can cook an egg, but not the egg I saw. Have you cooked in a restaurant kitchen? I have. I also graduated first in my class from Culinary School. I, by no means, imply that I am in, remotely, the same league as these chefs or even as your average fry cooks, but I know that cooking and egg properly is not as simple as you make it sound. (An egg is much less forgiving than a hunk of steak.)
With all due respect, you are, obviously, a respected critic, but if you think all eggs are the same, you are wrong.
And it wasn’t Jimmy Dean brown-n-serve sausage- it was handmade sausage. That in itself is hugely difficult to do in 6 hours.
I can’t walk into any diner and get that dish and for you to imply that you can is laughable.
Love,
MisRed xo
MisRed-
As someone who has struggled to write three books with John, I can tell you his response is typical. He has a one-track mind when it comes to food. If it isn’t haute cuisine, he isn’t interested. (He also pretend to like obscure Asian food, but that’s just to impress our other co-author, Max Jacobson.) I’ve heard world-class chefs say that cooking a perfect egg is one of the most difficult challenges in cooking. But unless you add caviar to it a la Joel Robuchon, John isn’t impressed!
Al- Oh wow. I’ve only been exposed to him for a short period of time… you must be a saint. I don’t understand how someone who is so close-minded about food is a food critic!!
Well the old saying is true, I guess: those who can’t do- teach. and those who can’t teach- criticize.
Thank you for your comment!!
xox,
MisRed
I’m so happy that I randomly decided to check the comments on this.
The shade of it all.
And I’m glad I rejoined to enjoy a good LaTRICE Royale reference.
And to see that MisRed’s avatar is the divine Endora. Perfect.
Why do so many people equate simple with easy? Things that are simple are the easiest things to mess up. And I rather have a simple plate of eggs than a plate of pretentiousness. Sometimes simple is best. There’s a reason that all the dishes considered classics are simple.